Greetings,
With
August comes the beginning of the fall semester and the Wesley
Foundations are getting ready for that. Be sure to tell your college
students about the Wesley Foundations.
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Iowa State University
This year at Iowa State University the
Wesley Foundation we will be trying something new. Students and staff will be fixing
and serving FREE pancakes on the patio (2622 W. Lincoln Way) during the big new
student move-in days which are August 17 & 18. We will be serving pancakes
from 8:30 a.m. - 2 p.m. on those days. New students are invited to bring
parents, siblings, friends, or anyone that helped them move-in to the patio to have
some Free pancakes. If you know of any students moving in, be sure to tell them to
come and get some pancakes. Wednesday we will also have our last BBQ Bible study of
the semester. Anyone can bring
something to throw on the grill and we supply the rest of the food. Then after
we eat we have a short Bible Study together. The next Wesley Foundation Update
will include pictures from the Pancakes on the Patio and more information about our fall programming. We are looking forward to
the new semester. If you haven't already, please email the names of your
college students that will be attending Iowa State University this year to Lisa
at lisa@cwames.org so we can invite them to join us.
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Drake University
Seeing - Believing
This
month I will begin
teaching a course for Drake University called "Seeing - Believing." It
is a First-Year Seminar, and as such is intended to strengthen critical
thinking and writing skills for students who are just beginning to enter
the swift moving waters of academia. Students in my class will spend
the semester exploring the connections between seeing and believing. We
will be wrestling with questions like Is
seeing believing? Is our vision limited by what we believe? Are our
beliefs limited by what we can see? What do beliefs look like? Since
religion has a long history of both turning to the visual arts to
express its beliefs (iconophilia), and turning from representations of
the divine (iconoclasm), this
journey will lead us to the intersection of art and religion. We will
examine visual manifestations of belief through architecture, sculpture,
and painting. We will consider the distinction between sacred and
profane through writing assignments focused on space, objects, and time.
Our discussions will be shaped by the books: Religion, Art, &
Visual Culture, ed. by S. Brent Plate, The Object Stares Back: On the
Nature of Seeing by James Elkins, and Phantasmagoria: Spirit Visions,
Metaphors, and Media in the Twenty-first Century by Marina Warner.
I
am confident that ours will be an interesting journey. Feel free to
follow along by reading these books and wrestling with questions like
Where do you see your beliefs? What do they look like? How often do you
see them? Do you always believe what you see? Or do you see only the
things you believe?
I will occasionally use this space to post future reflections on our unfolding journey.
See you along the way,
Ted Lyddon Hatten
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Wesleyan Influence: Campus ministries nurture students
Mallory McCall
Katie
Newsome was on her way to the student center at Southern Methodist
University when she came across a display table for the Wesley
Foundation. She stopped to visit and was invited to a back-to-school
cookout later that week.
Now a junior, she is the president of SMU's Wesley Foundation,
sings in the worship band, serves on the discipleship division of the
leadership team and leads a women's small group.
"I was open to being a part of any Christian campus ministry,  but
I was especially drawn to the Wesley Foundation because it had the same
affiliation as my home church," she said.
But for Ms. Newsome to stumble across a group of students wearing
Wesley Foundation shirts at a United Methodist-affiliated school like
SMU is a bit of an anomaly. The idea behind the Wesley Foundation
ministry was to offer the church's presence on a secular college or
university campus.
While most United Methodist-affiliated institutions offer a
Wesleyan influence through chapel programs and classes, some United
Methodists might think that in an increasingly secular age, even
denominationally owned schools should have a Wesley Foundation of their
own.
And some grassroots efforts, while they may not be official
Wesley Foundations, have indeed helped provide a stronger spiritual
support for students at United Methodist colleges and universities.
Wesleyan ministries
Technically, the Wesley Foundation at SMU is called "United Methodist
Campus Ministry at SMU," said the Rev. Andy Roberts, the director of SMU
Wesley. "Several years ago, they started calling it the Wesley
Foundation because they thought the name might be more recognizable to
other students," he added.
The same is true at Wesleyan College in Macon, Ga., another United Methodist-affiliated school that has a Wesley Foundation.
Eight years ago, the Rev. Michael McCord, now director of campus
ministry resources and training for the denomination's General Board of
Higher Education and Ministry, started the Wesley Foundation of Macon to
serve three schools: Wesleyan College (an all-women's college), Mercer
College (a Baptist-affiliated school) and Macon State College (a
predominantly commuter college).
Wesleyan College already had a Wesleyan Christian Fellowship, and
United Methodist students didn't want to confuse anyone by naming their
ministry Wesley Fellowship. To distinguish between the two ministries
they created a Wesley Foundation.
Bishop James C. Baker founded the first Wesley Foundation at the
University of Illinois in 1913 as a place for worship, a school for
religious education, a home away from home, a laboratory for training
lay leaders in church activities, and a recruiting station for the
ministry, including missionary work at home and abroad.
The name Wesley Foundation honors John Wesley, the founder of
Methodism and the first campus minister at Oxford University, and
represents an open movement-an ecumenical movement available to all
students.
"The heart of campus ministry is to raise up leaders and to
provide an opportunity for students to encounter Christ's
transformational power," says Mr. McCord. "But how that looks and feels
on a campus is very different from campus to campus."
Similar ministries
At Hendrix College, a United Methodist-affiliated school in Conway,
Ark., students won't find a Wesley Foundation or any specific United
Methodist campus ministry.
While a Wesley Foundation represents the voice of United Methodist
students on a secular campus, at a United Methodist institution, the
school itself is the voice of the church, said the Rev. Wayne Clark,
chaplain at Hendrix College. The programs that the chaplain's office
offers to nurture religious life on campus are similar to-if not more
than-the things a Wesley Foundation does, he added.
"Wesley Foundation is such a brand name," said Mr. Clark. "We may
not have the name, but we certainly have all the components that make
up a Wesley Foundation."
Hendrix's Miller Center for Vocation, Ethics and Calling and the
chaplain's office organize, fund and oversee retreats, worship services,
mission trips, service projects and discussion groups that help shape
students theologically.
And while there is no specific United Methodist campus ministry
at Hendrix, there is an active group of United Methodist students.
The United Methodist Youth Fellowship (UMYF) Leadership Scholars
is a select group of about 50 students who provide significant
leadership in local church, district and conference youth ministries of
the United Methodist Church, and who demonstrate Christian leadership on
the Hendrix campus.
UMYF student teams visit United Methodist churches in Arkansas to
lead Sunday worship, perform dramatic presentations, share Christian
music and host special programs for children and youth.
Where'd they go?"There is a trend, I think, of many conferences realizing the need to be
present on campuses, but that's matched with the struggle of funding,"
says Mr. McCord. "How do you birth those things in the budget crisis we
have?"
American University, another United Methodist-affiliated school in
Washington, D.C., used to have both a university chaplain and a United
Methodist chaplain on its payroll. The Rev. Mark Schaefer, campus
minister, said there was no need for a Wesley Foundation because a
United Methodist chaplain offered students a Wesleyan perspective.
But in the late 1970s to early '80s, budget cuts eliminated the
United Methodist chaplain's position at AU, leaving the campus ministry
in the hands of the university chaplain and a pastoral intern from the
neighboring Wesley Seminary.
With the chaplain busy managing the university's overall
religious life and the intern only working part-time, the United
Methodist ministry fell through the cracks.
Dr. Schaefer speculates this trend was happening at other
institutions as well. Some even began to question if denominational
ministries on campus were necessary, since church-affiliated
institutions had active university chaplains and neighboring churches,
he said.
At AU, however, Dr. Schaefer took matters into his own hands. As
the pastoral intern in the chaplain's office, he was concerned that
there had not been a full-time United Methodist presence at AU for over
30 years. With the help and support of the university chaplain, he
lobbied the Baltimore-Washington Conference. In 2002, the conference
created a campus ministry at AU and appointed Dr. Schaefer to it.
"We were basically able to shame the church into putting one [a
UM ministry] here," he said. "We argued that if we [the United Methodist
Church] are paying for one in Maryland at a state school, why shouldn't
we have one at AU?"
Ecumenical partnerships
The Protestant campus ministry, headed by rotating part-time pastors,
was renamed the United Methodist Protestant Community. Attendance at the
full-time campus ministry has now doubled, and the leadership team has
tripled in size.
"I think we've also helped reassert the affiliation of the school,"
Dr. Schaefer said. "I think far more students know AU is United
Methodist, largely because of our presence and us reminding them every
opportunity we could."
At Syracuse University in New York, the United Methodist campus
ministry is wrapped into the Protestant Campus Ministry-an ecumenical
organization that includes United Methodist, American Baptist, United
Church of Christ and Presbyterian affiliates.
But most of its funding comes from the United Methodist Church,
says the Rev. Tiffany Steinwert, the dean of Hendricks Chapel at the
university. The Protestant Campus Ministry is the only United Methodist
campus ministry in the state, she says.
"A lot of times folks just think we are MYF [United Methodist
Youth Fellowship] for college kids, and we are so very much more than
that," said Dr. Schaefer.
"We are creating real, intentional community with these students
and then handing them out to the broader church. Then it becomes the
church's responsibility to actually allow them to lead and serve."
This story was originally published in the United Methodist Portal.
© 2008 General Board of Higher Education & Ministry
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