Greetings,

As we are adjusting to daylight savings time, consider the adjustments that students make when they go from high school to college. There are several ways to help them with the transition. Conversing with them about the future is an important way to help them transition. Another way to help them is to take your youth groups to visit the Wesley Foundations and the United Methodist Colleges. Having an introduction to campus ministry with peers while in high school makes it a lot easier for college students to check out campus ministry on their own when they are in college. If you would like helping connecting with one of the Wesley Foundations or United Methodist Colleges contact Lisa at lisa@cwames.org.

Iowa State University

Many thanks to the more than 40 college students who participated in our "Students in Worship Leadership Emphasis Month". They served as liturgists and ushers, shared during the Time with Children, greeted and assisted with communion.

This is in addition to the college students who are regularly involved with vocal and bell choirs on Sunday mornings and the many who help plan, evaluate and lead faithspring worship (including the faithspring planning team, liturgists, communion servers, faithspring band, tech team, guest speakers and others).  faithspring is the alternative worship service which is at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday evenings at 130 S. Sheldon in Ames, IA when Iowa State University is in session. 

 

 

University of Iowa

 

I'm Bill McDonald, a Liberal Arts undergrad student at UI (then SUI, class of '63) from 1961-63. (Yes, that's 50 years ago!)

 

One summary is to say that I was very active in Wesley, held officer positions, and was even president of the Iowa Methodist Student Movement. Those were the years of the great Student Christian Movement conferences all over the country, and I was a part of it all. I'd transferred from UNI (then ISTC) in Cedar Falls, where I was also active at their Wesley. My first year in Iowa City I met and courted my wife Nancy in your common room, and the second year we were married and lived (downstairs) in the Market Street side - I was the one to close things up every night.

 But a more important summary. While at USI I realized a call to the ministry (thanks to my Wesley experience there). I knew I wanted the most secular school I could find before entering the 'spiritual cloister' of seminary - and UI was the place. Prof Joseph Baker's Humanities program became the center of my intellectual life, while the Wesley Foundation became the center of my spiritual and social life.

 My life has always had the character of being in a 'place' for awhile, being well fed in that place and giving of myself in return, and then moving on. And in many ways never looking back. I briefly visited Wesley at UI a couple years ago, realizing I'd never set foot in your building since leaving in 1963. And yes, that pattern has prevailed through the years. (I left Drew in 1977, and also have never set foot there again.) My Iowa City years (I do return often because I have a brother living there), helped in the formation of that itinerancy that has blessed my life ever since.

 

University of Northern Iowa of

I recently read a blog entry from the former Episcopal Campus Minister at Northern Arizona University Canterbury House that has stuck with me. The Episcopal bishop of that area shared it with his network. Somehow it came into my network. I commend it to you and welcome the chance to discuss it further. The address is: http://owlrainfeathers.blogspot.com/2010/11/ah-church.html.

 

I resonate with several of them, but want to comment on #18- Put some time and care and energy into creating a beautiful space for worship and being-together. But shy away from building campaigns, parking lot expansions, and what-have-you.

Perhaps it's because we've just come off a two-year process of recovering from a weather disaster that damaged our facility. We spent quite a bit of time considering whether we needed to rebuild or would be better off "just doing ministry on campus like some of the other campus ministries". That comment is shared often, especially around funding time each year.

While I don't think just pouring a lot of money into an old building will guarantee meaningful ministry, our experience this year has indicated that our "creating a beautiful space for worship and being together" has been well worth it. Our worship attendance has been a consistent 30ish all semester. Those 30 have not been the same 30 any two consecutive weeks either.

It's not just worship either. One observer recently spent most of a day hanging out at Wesley and noticed how many different people pass through the building over the course of the day and how many different student groups are using the building. The Retired Senior Volunteer Program Conversation partner program with some of the International students is there on Wednesday afternoon. The Salsa Night was a cooperative project with the Hispanic Latino Student Association each month. A student dance team saw the facility during a Black Student Union game night at Wesley. The Green Iowa AmeriCorps Volunteers recently held a Weatherization Workshop for the College Hill Neighborhood.

Best of all, one student summed up the consistent refrain, "I feel so affirmed and important that you would make this place so nice for us. Sometimes it seems like people think we only want worn out shabby chic furniture. That's mostly because that's all we can afford! Thank you for caring about us this much."

Thank you for your support. We are approaching the half way goal of our fundraising project to pay for the work. If you would like more information or to participate, refer to our website at: www.uniwesley.com.

 

Drake University

     Drake's campus is quiet this week. Students have scattered searching for a break from the routine. They are not alone. Tragedy and crisis in the news has become routine. New Zealand, Japan, Wisconsin, the Middle East. These stories have sent us searching for a different ending to the suffering around us. The ending is ours to write. Consider this an invitation. Below is a photograph I took a few weeks ago. It is a disturbing image that asks haunting questions about innocence, loss, and layered brokenness. It is an image whose story begs for a different ending. If you have one, write it down. Send it to me at lyddonhatten@drake.edu. I'll share it with students, faculty, staff, and anyone else who is looking for a break in the routine of brokenness.  

 

     Peace,

     tlh

 

 

 

"Two-Minute Leadership" of

By Jon Powers
Chaplain, Ohio Wesleyan University

Leaders communicate a lot, for leaders must find many and varied ways to keep the vision before the people. I have learned that I am reasonably good at communicative leadership, but now I know that less can often mean more when it comes to communicating.

 I attended a university luncheon for all departmental heads on campus. Before the program began, the president asked me, "Would you be willing to give a two-minute summary of your chaplaincy programs so far this semester?"

 I said, "Sure," as I gulped. I then sat down and began making a long, detailed list of all the programs and events accomplished since the beginning of the semester.

 After lunch, the program began. First the president and then each of the five vice presidents gave 10-15 minute presentations updating us on their semester programs, each with charts, graphs, and statistics - all relevant, vital, and substantive. The program was to be over by 1:30 p.m., and it was 1:28 p.m. as I was finally called to the podium for my presentation.

 Some people had already left; others were sitting with eyes glazed over. I remembered that the president had said to me, "Two minutes." So I left my long list of notes at my table, walked to the podium, and spoke from my heart without notes:

 Some twenty years ago, as the scud missiles hit the streets of Tel Aviv, the Muslim students at Ohio Wesleyan University (OWU) went to the rooms of the Jewish students of Ohio Wesleyan. They knocked on their doors, and said to them, "Do you have family in Tel Aviv? We want to be with you tonight, just to sit with you and to pray with you." The next day, an Orthodox Rabbi in Columbus called me and said, "I heard about what happened last night. Do you realize that if the streets of Tehran and Tel Aviv were at Ohio Wesleyan, there would have been no war?!"

 At Sundown last September 9 (2010), I sent a message to everyone at OWU. It said in part:Beloved OWU Community:

 As I write, millions of people around the globe have entered into an unusual juxtaposition of sacred time: the overlay of the beginning of Rosh HaShannah with the end of Ramadan and the subsequent celebration of Eid. We in the OWU community who are neither Jewish nor Muslim need to take heed that this is an unusually special moment for many sisters and brothers on campus.

 As faculty, staff, and students all, I bid your sensitive awareness to these sacred hours in the lives of many of our community. Especially given the current tumult of social and political discourse regarding Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations in our nation, I bid your mindful, even prayerful, attention to these sacred days. If we are ever to be, as President Rock Jones has called us to become at Ohio Wesleyan, a "tight knit community," such awareness, sensitivity, and support would be a good measure of such a vision.

 Blessed be each of you, Chaplain Jon Powers

 Soon I had a phone message from the president of Tauheed (the Muslim Student Association at OWU): "Chaplain, I shared your words with my roommates, and we are sitting here together, quite stunned, actually. My roommates are a Hindu, a Jew, and a Catholic, and I am a Muslim. You have described us! After I read your words to them, we sat looking at each other for a moment, in silence, kind of smiling at each other. It was as if we just realized that WE are OWU! Wow, chaplain, wow. Thanks."

In the midst of a crazy world where Islamic-phobia is rampant, the talks in the Middle East are fragile, and Christian groups are encouraged to hate and mistrust each other in the name of Jesus Christ, I submit that Ohio Wesleyan University is a counter balance. This is how and why we are a rather special place. It is reflected in myriad ways throughout the year as Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, and Baha'i students study and serve together to explore their differences and discover their commonalities.

 None of this happens at OWU by accident. This is who we are at our deepest and best selves. And this is who we have been since 1842. This is what makes everything we do worthwhile. This is what makes my work worthwhile.

 When I sat down, it was 1:30 p.m. I had spoken for exactly two minutes.

 The next day, the president said to me, "You captured in two minutes what we were all trying to say."