Merry Christmas from the Wesley Foundations in Iowa
Another year is almost over.  The Wesley Foundations would like to thank you for all of your support during the year.  Please keep Campus Ministry in your thoughts and prayers over the next year.  If you have a chance, be sure to take the time to check out the Wesley Foundations in Iowa.  Also try to talk to your college students about Campus Ministry.  Sometimes they need a specific invitation or someone to go with them to help them get connected.  Merry Christmas!
University of Iowa Hosts Art Show

Senior Sara Parker created "Pattern:  A Study of Peace and Conflict" for her Bachelor's of Fine Arts and Honors Show. The UI Wesley Foundation hosted Sara's show during the month of December just prior to her graduation. Sara's event brought together her art and her heart for campus ministry where she has belonged since coming to the University. Sara was a Wesley peer minister for two years and gave leadership to retreats, service trips and  "All Arts" worship experiences where she encouraged other students to share their creativity. It was at "All Arts" worship where Sara showed some of her art show pieces for the first time. The Wesley community enjoyed the beauty of Sara's show in this "home space" and enjoyed hosting the University community.  Sara's artist statement for her show follows.

 

Pattern: a Study of Peace and Conflict

 

By: Sara Parker

 

The nature of pattern is to create peace.  The regular, consistent arrangement makes for an ease in expectations.  It is predictable; past forms ensure future forms.  The symmetry harmonizes and equalizes.  There are no surprises in pattern.  It is simple, direct, and predictive.  Comfort is innate.

 

I cannot handle conflict; it makes me exceedingly uncomfortable.  I go to great lengths (perhaps compromising myself) in order to maintain peace.  Being a peacemaker is one of my greatest attributes as well as one of my greatest faults.  I wanted to explore how to change this.

 

For my honors project, I created paintings based on a log of multiple types of pattern -including textiles, wallpaper, wrappers, jewelry, etc.  My pulse matched the rhythm of the patterns as I replicated them.  They were peaceful.  Into this quiet I introduced conflict.  Sometimes I directly laced my work with a kink; other times I allowed the conflict to arise from the natural course of the works being made.  Whether the conflict was intended or discovered in the making, I enhanced it to create a state of apprehension for myself.  Through this process I was able to explore the natural dichotomy of harmony and conflict.

 

 In my explorations, I have found that resolving conflict takes time.  Sitting before my work, I didn't know whether I should change it and/or how to "fix" it.  I found that I have to sit with the conflict, enter into it, and explore it in order to understand.  In understanding the conflict, I was able to work with it to find a suitable solution.  I found that trying a multitude of solutions is sometimes necessary, requiring patience.  What is also required is the recognition of when things feel right and knowing that they may only feel that way for only a moment.  However all time and trials are worth that moment.  I found that I am truly happy when I haven't simply maintained my peace, but fought for it.  


 
Iowa State University

The Wesley Welcome Team is the official "Reaching and Receiving" crew of the Wesley Foundation at Iowa State University.   Their responsibilities include greeting students at the four weekly worship experiences which are part of the Collegiate UMC/Wesley Foundation family of faith and constantly planning more effective ways to invite, welcome, include and encourage students.

The Welcome Team gathers each Wednesday night at 5:30.  Naturally, they first share voluntary responses to John Wesley's classic question "How is it with your soul" (standard opening procedure for most happenings at the ISU Wesley Foundation).  After a prayer the group listens to a reflection to or watches a video focusing on welcoming people to our community of faith and discusses how the information pertains (or doesn't pertain) to our unique setting.

Next, "experiences in welcoming/greeting" from the previous week are shared.  This might include comparing notes on newcomers (names, college majors, hometowns, who they sat with, etc.), sharing insights on how to effectively greet first-time visitors, noting anyone we've not seen for a while, celebrating increased attendance and involvement, etc.  Before the group heads off to the all-church "Wednesday Night Soup Supper", assignments are made for follow-up contacts with first-time visitors.

At each Sunday worship experience (8:30 and 11 a.m. and faithspring @ 5:30 p.m.) Welcome Team members and other Wesley Students greet anyone whom they think might be a student.  Being equipped with (and sharing) the weekly campus ministry newsletter gives the greeters a reason to begin a conversation and invite first-timers or long-time worshippers to participate in one or more of the many activities and events sponsored by the Wesley Foundation each week.

The Wesley Welcome Team is just one of the ministries made possible through the support of our Wesley Foundations by the Iowa Annual Conference.  Through the Welcome Team, students already involved in our campus ministry are provided training, experience and opportunities for welcoming  other students.  Those they greet and encourage are then much more likely to become connected, find their path and share the journey of faith. 

 
Drake

The following words were spoken on the campus of Drake University at a service commemorating the anniversary of our war in Afghanistan.

 

I've never been to Afghanistan. So, I don't know the answer to this question: Is beauty is hard to find there? In a few months we'll be sending more than three thousand of our immediate neighbors and 30,000 additional U.S. troops to this troubled land.  These soldiers are also our teachers, our nurses, our friends. I can ask them when they get back. Is beauty hard to find in a war zone? Does beauty go into hiding when the structures of society are failing? Or does it become more pronounced, easier to spot when placed alongside eight years of violence. I picture sand, harsh mountains that are slowly crumbling into sand.

For eight ears we have been trying to stop violence with violence. Eight years is a long time. It is long enough for a deep-seated weariness to set in.

            It is not difficult for people of faith to say that war is not the answer - that violence is not a very good solution. It is an easy conclusion to reach, because our sacred stories are in harmony with one another. We turn to violence when we can't think of any other way to affect change. For eight years we have not been able to come up with any other way to bring shalom, to bring wholeness, salaam to this fragile part of the world. It's embarrassing, really. War is a sign of weakness. This protracted war says many things about us as a nation, not the least of which is our utter lack of imagination. That is a weakness. I'm not an expert in foreign policy. But there has to be another way - there has to be. We just haven't found it yet.

I suspect the answer lies in beauty. Violence is not working. What would happen if we took the budget for this war and spent that same money and resources inflicting beauty on this situation and these people? I know that sounds untenable, perhaps utopian, maybe crazy. But it is still worth a try. 

            I know there is beauty in Afghanistan because there are people there, and there is sand there. And I also know that beauty and peace are impossible to separate.


ted lyddon hatten

wesley house

drake university


 
EXPLORATION participants say campus ministry is vital

Vicki Brown

Kenneth Schoon (left), a senior at the University of Cincinnati, chats with the Rev. Brian William, associate pastor of First United Methodist Church in Birmingham, Mich., during EXPLORATION 2009 in Dallas, Texas, Nov. 13-15.

Kenneth Schoon, a senior at University of Cincinnati who attended EXPLORATION 2009, a national event sponsored by the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry for youth and young adults considering God's call to ordained ministry, said campus ministry has been "absolutely vital" to him.

"I wouldn't be in the church right now if I didn't have a campus ministry. At the point where I was spiritually when I started college, I needed to be reached out to, and provided with a spiritual home. I don't think I would have been motivated enough to search out a local church," Schoon said.

Bishop Hope Morgan Ward, episcopal leader of the Mississippi Annual Conference, believes the priority the conference places on campus ministry is one of the biggest reasons the conference has a higher percentage of young elders than other conferences. At a time when the number of young people entering ministry nationwide is not keep pace with clergy reaching retirement age, the conference had 41 provisional and ordained elders under the age of 35 in 2009, or 11.11 percent of 369 total.

Nationally, there are 906 United Methodist provisional and ordained elders under the age of 35, or 5.25 percent, according to the annual young clergy trends study by the Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary.
Mississippi has 27 campus ministry units across the state - one on every college campus, including community colleges - although some are part-time. All are Wesley Foundations, and Ward said many of the campus ministry boards and alumni are active in supporting those ministries - even raising money for new buildings.

"The Wesley Foundation at Mississippi State has more than 400 students, and Wesley at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College in Perkinston gathers hundreds students each week," Ward said.

The Rev. Bridgette Young, assistant general secretary for Campus Ministry and College Chaplaincy at the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, said the Mississippi Annual Conference clearly gets the connection between investing in campus ministry and "the yield of young leadership that is the present and future of our denomination."

"I'd love to see this same commitment lived out in every annual conference," Young said.

The Rev. Motoe Yamada, senior pastor at Japanese United Methodist Church in Sacramento, Calif., said during her sermon at EXPLORATION's closing worship that she got involved in The United Methodist Church through campus ministry. When she began to feel God was calling her to ordained ministry, she said her own pastor discouraged her.

But her campus minister, who told her "Jesus loves you just the way you are," was "My calling made flesh," Yamada said.

*Brown is associate editor and writer, Office of Interpretation, General Board of Higher Education and Ministry.
 © 2009 General Board of Higher Education & Ministry