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Please join us
for this hog roast and worship event on September 21, 2008 @ 5:30 P.M. Bring
your high school Juniors and Seniors with you to Collegiate UMC/Wesley
Foundation for faithspring worship*. Also be sure to tell your current Iowa State
students to meet you there.
You'll hear a powerful sermon by guest preacher
Janet Wolfe, then enjoy a fantastic HOG ROAST (with vegetarian options, of
course).
Just drop your college students a note (via mail
or email) and tell them you'll meet them at the church. An easy meeting
place is our new Student Lounge which faces Lincoln Way (2nd floor, main building @ 2622 W. Lincoln Way). We'll
have greeters to show you to faithspring. We want to be sure there's enough
food, so please let us know if you're coming and how many will be joining you
if at all possible (and as early as possible). If you are unable to RSVP,
please feel free to simply show up or add guests at the last minute!
Worship starts @ 5:30 P.M. in our Annex @ 130 S.
Sheldon. The hog roast is on our new Terrace (patio in front of our main
building facing Lincoln Way)
beginning @ 6:30 P.M.
Please remember to RSVP with
the number of people you're planning to bring. RSVP to Jim
Shirbroun (jim_shirbroun@qwestoffice.net).
* faithspring is our alternative worship experience,planned with, by, and for
students, which meets most every Sunday night and features a live band, 3 big
screens (for lyrics, graphics and movie clips), VERY casual seating (around
tables or on couches) and a café (for refreshments during worship).
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Greetings,
This Wesley Foundation Update will give you a look into what is going on at the Wesley Foundation's in Iowa right now.
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Drake University
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September
21 is the United Nations' International Day of Peace and it
marks a global holiday when individuals, communities, nations and governments
highlight efforts to end conflict and promote peace. The Peace Movement has
been alive and well on college campuses for many decades. "Young women and men
entering college embark on a season of intense self-discovery. Working for
peace is a natural outlet for students who have a youthful idealism and an
emerging sense of their own power to change the world" said Ted Lyddon Hatten,
director of the Drake Wesley Foundation.
The
Wesley Foundation hopes to give those students a chance to find some peace of
their own by sponsoring a weekly prayer service. Beginning October 8th,
Lyddon Hatten will lead a contemplative, interfaith service intended to
cultivate peace. "Peace is one of the few
things nearly every religion affirms and seeks to spread, Lyddon Hatten says.
"The sad irony is that many religions, Christianity especially, have a long
history of doing just the opposite. It sounds grandiose but I think the world
would be a different place if the major religions used their considerable
resources to promote peace. The problems facing our planet will not be solved
by the efforts of one religion or one government. The fact that we have to work
together is not a new idea but there are few opportunities for practice. My
hope for this service is that it would be a chance for people, irrespective of
faith tradition, to come together to find a peace they can spread across campus
and across the world."
The
weekly service will be held in Drake's Scott chapel near Medbury Hall. The
intimate, circular space seats twenty and seems to invite silence. Of the
service, Lyddon Hatten said, "there will be lots of silence. Like peace, silence
is something every religion practices. We live in a very noisy world and deep
silence is not easy to find. It can be so rare that some people are frightened
by it. That may be a healthy response but one that is important to work
through. There is a cleansing and a clarity that comes only from silence. For
thousands of years human beings have found a connection to the Divine through
silence."
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University of Iowa
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 Emmaus Spiritual Retreat at the
Wesley Foundation at the University of Iowa
The Tradition Continues October 3-5, 2008
Each semester, a team of students with staff support prepare and lead a weekend spiritual retreat for other students.
This
experience at the Wesley Foundation at the University of Iowa is simply
called "Emmaus:" named after the story in Luke when Jesus walks with a
couple of companions along the road after the resurrection, and the
sharing on that journey opens their eyes that Jesus is indeed alive and
present in the world.
The Emmaus Retreat offers students a chance be
in a natural setting, to relax and to join a spiritual conversation.
Students who attend the Emmaus weekend retreat learn from one another.
They gather with ice breakers, spend time walking the paths of Pictured
Rocks United Methodist Camp, eat together, laugh, sing, sometimes nap
and at the heart of it all share their spiritual stories and insights.
One
student, Trevor Senn, summarized his experience of Emmaus: "I think the
coolest part of the weekend was the small groups. I feel I know the
friends I made in my small group better than I know some of the people
I've had class with for the past seven months. Behold the power of real
conversation! Needless to say, the doubts I had about the Emmaus
retreat were obliterated. I'm so glad I went!"
At the heart of
Emmaus is students leading the spiritual conversation with other
students. Clergy staff help a leadership team gain confidence in
articulating their faith and planning the event.
The student
leadership team for Emmaus work hard to prepare and offer the retreat
to other students. The team of leaders meet each week for an hour of
preparation where one student will share the talk they are preparing to
give at the retreat. The rest of the team responds with "praises,
probes and polishes," seeking to give feedback and support to the one
offering a talk. The team also meets in smaller covenant groups for an
additional hour each week to get to know one another and to prepare
their hearts and spirits to lead the retreat.
The Wesley Foundation
subsidizes the retreat every semester but seeks a minimal fee from the
students to help cover the costs. Thank you for your support of this
ministry through your apportionment and through the support of your
students at the University of Iowa.
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Iowa State University
What an Amazing Difference a Year Makes!
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In
August of 2007, as Iowa State students began pouring into Ames (either
for the first time or returning), we welcomed them, as usual, to
Collegiate United Methodist Church/Wesley Foundation with our sincere
smiles, solid programs, dedicated staff, passionate worship...and a few
chairs and a television set crammed into one end of a storage room.
Due to asbestos abatement and renovation throughout our existing
building and construction of a wonderful new addition*, THAT was our
Student Lounge last year... site of Bible studies, discussion groups,
fellowship activities, planning meetings and more!
Dust, noise,
frequently-changing access to already-limited spaces, lack of offices,
computers and phones and other construction by-products were on-going
frustrations to trying to present a warm, welcoming facility and put
forth our best ministry. We did a LOT of "just wait until NEXT year".
"Next
year" has arrived! We can welcome everyone into beautiful, comfortably
furnished, completely accessible new spaces. We can now invite
students to come over and study, or talk, or watch tv anytime between 8
a.m. and midnight. Instead of apologizing we can celebrate...instead
of moaning we can rejoice!
The transformation in our facilities
and what it means for ministry was so clearly capsulized, for me, in a
few experiences in this first 10 days of this new semester, Fall 2008.
One student, sitting on our new terrace during our "Welcome Back to
Wesley" picnic asked, "Where would we be sitting right now without the
Terrace? Where did these events happen before?" The answer is the
back yard which, as beautiful as it is, isn't visible and welcoming.
The
second experience occurred the next night at a meal welcoming students,
new and returning, to the Wesley Foundation. The Terrace and Gathering
Space provided a tremendous setting on a beautiful summer night. About
75 people moved inside and out, mostly sitting at our "umbrella
tables".
They talked and talked and talked, some catching up
on existing friendships, some beginning new ones...relationships which
could last a lifetime. The setting was SUCH an improvement over recent
years with people standing rather awkwardly around, no place to sit or
put their food. A few folks learned the low wall along the front of the
Terrace makes a GREAT table, enabling one to stand, eat and watch the
world go by.
Periodically we would invite people walking along
Lincoln Way to come up and get some food...and periodically they did!
Two young men (who'd just been passing by) asked, around BIG bites of
sub sandwiches, when our worship times are. Without the Terrace, we
might never have connected with them, never introduced them to the
place and people of our congregation and campus ministries.
Already
thrilled with the facility, the visibility and the crowd, I went into
the Gathering Space to check out our lists inviting students to sign-up
for our various activities. Three young women, all new to our faith
community, were getting ready to leave. One said, "I probably
shouldn't tell you this, because I'm United Methodist, but we DID drive
around looking at other churches." Then, spreading her arms wide she
said, "But this one, more than any other, shouted out to us and said,
'You should come in here'!"
Just last night I saw a student
studying in our new Student Lounge. I soon found out the first week
had been a struggle of home-sickness and study woes. The wide windows
of the Student Lounge helped this student discover a place to relax, to
connect, to find some hope and to talk, briefly, about life.
What
a great joy to have this tremendous addition to our main facility. The
sacrifices and struggles were worth it! It all works together, along
with those of us who call Collegiate/Wesley our home, to shout loudly
to those who might be looking for a family of faith, "You should come
in here".
*The asbestos abatement, renovation and new
construction @ Collegiate/Wesley were completely funded by generous
donations from the CUMC/WF congregation. No apportionment dollars were
spent. This is just one example of this congregation's gifts to the
Iowa Annual Conference through campus ministry.
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University of Northern Iowa
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The next time you are in Cedar Falls, walk on College Street
in front our Wesley Foundation building.
We have a dramatic new banner/sign.
It will be a large doorway with light radiating outwardly and the words
"OPEN HEARTS, MINDS, SPIRITS, DOORS" on the top and "All are welcome here" at
the bottom.
Earlier this fall we prayed these words in a prayer in our
worship on Wednesdays. "Openus God. Open our hearts to your unexpected saving
word. Open our minds to encounter your
sure wisdom. Open our spirits to follow
your call. Open us God."
We chose this powerful visual image to proclaim one of our
values. It is our belief and desired
practice to offer radically welcoming hospitality. Jesus welcomed people and welcomed people
into his circle of friends based on his love for them. The message he lived and which we seek to
proclaim is a grace filled love inspired welcome.
That is challenging sometimes. When people have different customs that we
do, when they have study habits, when they love differently than we do, when
they speak a different language than we do it can be challenging to welcome
all. We adopted an Inclusive Statement a
year ago. Now we affirm that by seeking
to live the values expressed. (See statement at end of this article.)
This year at our activities you'll find folks from Manly and
Wilton and other Iowa towns, Utah, Illinois, Hong Kong, Kunming, Beijing,
Indonesia and Sichuan province. You'll
find folks who will vote for Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin and Ron Paul and
Ralph Nader and who won't vote. You'll
find folks who will graduate with honors and those who won't graduate and those
who struggle to just get by. You'll find
glbt and straight friends and those who haven't even thought about that. You'll find folks who are graceful and
athletic and those who stumble on dust bunnies.
A community like that is often noisy, sometimes contentious,
frequently messy, occasionally in complete agreement, but always open to God's
nudging and your presence.
So, if you are looking for a community with which to explore
issues of faith and life, vocation, call to ministry, relationships, spiritual
growth, other Bears fans, volunteer opportunities, worship, Chinese language
and culture or about anything else, come to the campus ministry with big open
doors on the front.
All are welcome and love is felt and Jesus is followed.
Inclusive Statement
The Wesley Foundation at the
University of Northern Iowa is dedicated to building an open community grounded
in the love and teachings of Jesus Christ.
Responding to John Wesley's
belief that "the world is our parish", we are committed to opening our minds,
hearts, doors and spirits to all people regardless of age, race, nationality,
ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, social or economic status, physical or
mental condition, political affiliation or other cultural/spiritual beliefs.
Our organization embraces
the diversity and uniqueness among individuals, knowing every person brings
gifts and talents that unite us as a group.
We pride ourselves on a
mentality of openness and acceptance to foster a world committed to the pursuit
of spirituality and the creation of heaven on Earth.
All are welcome.
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Commentary: Campus Ministry: Joyfully and Passionately Claiming God's Call
By Jen Heald* Good campus ministers ask the best questions of
anyone I know. And I know a lot of people; just count my friends on
Facebook.
The campus ministers I encountered during my
undergraduate years have discovered one of the secrets of communicating
effectively with college students: we want to discover, we want to
encounter, we want to be taken out of our boxes and told to stretch.
The act of asking empowers us to seek with the expectation that there
is something to be found, to engage the questions because then the
answers are more a part of us. Lately, I've felt like the act of
seeking might sometimes be the answer itself, but that's another story.
It would be easy to make up a statistic right now about the number
of senses the "average church member" uses to experience God. I will,
however, take a page out of the Wise Campus Minister book and
substitute some questions instead. Do you hear passion in your worship
services? When was the last time you used finger paint to create
something blobby and beautifully imperfect that reminds you of your
favorite psalm? Have you recently danced with the uninhibited joy
warranted by the realization that Christ claims us? Have you sat in
Elijah's silence and felt the still small voice somewhere in the
expanse of soul inside you? Does the smell of a potluck meal mean warm
and inviting community to you?
Perhaps these things give you an
inkling of what it might be like to be a student in a Wesley
Foundation. If they don't, just think about what it means to experience
good church and you'll get there. There are Wesley Foundations and
United Methodist student groups all across the country that do creative
and Spirit-led ministry every day; hardworking missionaries and
travelers on the front lines of a culture and population that so badly
need to see Jesus' relevance to the world today. I've only personally
experienced the joy of the campus ministry at the University of
Maryland, but through my work with the National United Methodist
Student Movement (UMSM), I've heard the inspiring stories of young
adults leading their communities to be the dynamic, energetic,
front-line-of-hope that the church is called to be.
Over Memorial
Day weekend, almost 400 students of the UMSM met at American University
in Washington, D.C., for Student Forum 2008. Our theme, "Be the
change", resonated through the event in joyful worship services,
thoughtful Bible studies, and 11 General Board of Church and
Society-assisted topical social justice immersion trips. As a member of
the National Steering Committee, I had been part of planning this event
since September. It was so affirming and exciting to see students'
commitment to authentic ministry and honest dialogue as they
participated in the full schedule of events. Perhaps it would not
surprise you to hear that we asked some challenging questions that we
derived from our mission and identity as a Student Movement: What does
it mean to be transformation? To drive change? To inspire hope? To
embody shalom? In short, to be a movement?
The conversation
cultivated from these questions will define the direction of the UMSM
in years to come. Resourcing a movement that stubbornly refuses to be
anything less than transformative is quite a task, but it's one that we
welcome. Rest assured that these are the things on the hearts and minds
of college students in the UMC today.
On the subjects of questions
and movements and churches, it seems to me that God has given us some
fairly loaded questions in Scripture. "Whom shall I send?" comes to
mind. When honestly answered by those who have encountered Jesus,
that's one of the most transformative questions I know. It must be
answered in a way worthy of the empowerment embodied in the question -
with the humble, faithful, and oh-so-vulnerable "Here I am. Send me."
Claiming the calling that God places in each heart is something
happening in campus ministries, and it's what I have come to understand
is the essence of ministry.
I am a joyful product of campus
ministry, a passionate engager of questions, a soon-to-be student in
Emory University's Law and Religion program, and the new chairperson
for the 2008-2009 United Methodist Student Movement Steering Committee.
Yes. That's what I want my business cards to say. Either that or "child
of Creation, sinner redeemed by radical love, and soul sustained by the
breath of the Spirit." Both are equally true. I suppose a third option
would be simply "I am called." But then again, so are you.
Brothers
and sisters, the church is perpetually at the intersection of the past
and the future. The grace of the present prepares the way for the
reconciliation, relationships, movements, and ministry that will define
what the church becomes. It is this grace that is recognized,
celebrated, and realized on the nation's campuses. Ask us about it. We
welcome your questions.
* Heald is chair of the United Methodist Student Movement Steering Committee.
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