Every new academic year holds a lot of potential -- not simply new teachers and new classes (and maybe even a new school, but also a clean slate. The report card is blank, study habits haven't been ingrained yet, and there's a chance -- particularly for college students -- to invest in something new. The start of a new school year holds in it a lot of promise.
This is the point at which our campus ministry is invited to greet new and returning students for the first time. Some of the students we greet will have been looking for a ministry, others will have had their parents encouraging them to find a ministry, and others will have stumbled upon us and surprised themselves in their interest in church. Our work as a campus ministry is to meet these students where they are, show them hospitality, and wonder with them if this is a community in which they want to grow in their relationship with God and with one another.
Many of the students we have tended to serve over the last few years have come to us from wildly different Christian traditions where they were hurt or manipulated or made to feel less-than for one reason or another. And many of them, in the freedom and agency of being away from home, pledged to take space from church for a season.
So much of our work looks like fellowship and answering questions -- we get coffee, we get donuts, we get pizza, and we field curiosities about what we (Episcopalians and Lutherans) believe, why we believe, how we got there, and what it means that other Christians believe similarly and differently. A lot of our early work with our students looks like making space for shock that churches like Christ Lutheran and Trinity and St. George's exist, that campus ministries like The House and the CCC exist and working together to figure out what to do with it.
Please pray for us as we get this school year off and cooking (as we will pray for you all teachers and students as well!). If you'd like to support our work of fellowship and care, you might consider signing up to bring a dinner to our Tuesday evening student gathering or making a purchase off of our Amazon wishlist to support our various ways of serving and gathering this fall, including a free school supplies booth on campus at the end of the first week of classes.
Thanks to you all always for your support and prayer, and we're looking forward to sharing more with you as the semester unfolds!
Faithfully,
Pastor Ethan
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