Campus Ministry Report

We presented a number of events for the campus community during 2008. Twenty-two of them were promoted as events on Facebook. Many of them were social in nature, presenting opportunities for students, staff and neighbors to get to know one another, employing the campus ministry W.I.S.E model: Welcome, Invite, Send, and Engage. 

One of the highlights of the musically focused events was the Concert Celebrating Black History Month. The concert featured Spirituals, Gospel, and Poetry from beloved African-American authors like Langston Hughes, Maria Mootry, and Maya Angelou, and an amazing young musician and Penn Graduate Student, Chenere Pierce Ramsey, contralto, the UniLu choir, and other local artists.

Service to others was part of several events. Twice in 2008 our student group prepared dinner for the guests of Feast Incarnate. We also collected food donations and cash for the Souperbowl of Caring, sending groceries to the food bank at Grace Lutheran Church. We worked with another of our neighboring parishes, Immanuel Lutheran at 57^th and Christian Sts, repainting one of their Sunday School rooms. Students also worked with artist Michelle Eckert to produce the 2008 Pascal Candle.

We also supported the Arts program at Drexel, inviting Meghan Hull, Drexel ’07, to talk about her photographic work which was shown in the lounge through March, and featured several UniLu members as subjects, along with their thoughts on life after death.

Many of our gatherings centered on food, with a Luau, a BBQ, and an opportunity to meet the pastoral candidate. In the fall, we began a series of off-campus Sunday Suppers, and on Halloween, we held a progressive dinner party, consuming a different course at each home as we worked our way closer to UniLu. Many, many people helped with these meals: the Lindermans, Carl Ostermann, Charlie Horn, the Dowlings, the Szewczyks; the McCulloughs, and I have to thank my spouse, Gary, for all the times we have hosted students in our home over the past year.

We must also thank Carl Ostermann for the numerous occasions when he has included our students and campus ministry staff on trips on his boat, The Elizabeth. These trips are always exciting and community building. There is nothing to compare to the Philadelphia skyline from the river at sunset to appreciate the awesomeness of humankind working n concert with creation (and sometime, highlighting how we work against it).

Often our gatherings had a visual element: The Faith and Film Series continued with “Deus É Brasileiro”, “Reality Bites”, “There Will be Blood”, and “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” and “The Matrix”. Conversations after the movies have been lively and animated as we compare our opinions of what ways God was portrayed as working though people in each film.  We’ve also viewed a movie at International House: “The Amulet of Ogom” as part of our Hangin’ in the Hood series. Other HitH events took us to the Rotunda for an unforgettable night of Experimental Music, and to the Institute of Contemporary Art as well as visited local restaurants.

Since the end of the Spring semester, we have not had a Peer Minister serving the campus. We did send two of our previous Peer ministers out into the world beyond academia last May: both Kristen Meyer and Kara Yokley completed graduate degrees at Penn. Another former Peer Minister, Brad Kirkegaard and his growing family returned to Philadelphia briefly as he received his PhD in Religious Studies. Peer Ministry has a cyclical history at UniLu-but virtually all who have served in this capacity have gone on to do great things. (Think Eli Baum and Steve Szewczyk)

Because most of the recently active students in our ministry are graduate students, and consequently they tend to be older, we have been promoting our gatherings as student/young adult activities to great success. Since Pastor Wiesner’s arrival they have been increasing numbers of recent graduates participating in many aspects of the life of the parish.

I was grateful for the opportunity the congregation and National Lutheran Campus Ministry afforded me for the first time by allowing me to attend the National Staff Gathering in Nashville, TN. I returned full of ideas and energy, and look forward to continued participation in these gatherings.

Lastly, I would like to thank the congregation for their support and prayers, for their hospitality to a stream of new faces, and for their faith in God and in this community of faith called University Lutheran Church of the Incarnation.

Fred Wolfe
Coordinator for Campus Ministry