A place to question, discover, grow

By Deborah Lilly

Each fall 600 freshmen leave the watchful eyes of parents and move onto the Anderson University campus with nearly 2,000 of their peers. Finally after 18 years of curfews and eating vegetables, they can stay up as late as they want, eat pizza at every meal and wear the same pair of dirty jeans for weeks on end.

They also have the freedom to make some even bigger decisions about who they are, what they will be and what role God will play in their lives.

“At AU our student body is really spiritually diverse, and that’s a good thing,” says Brent Baker BA ’85, vice president for student life and dean of students. “It’s easy to get complacent on Christian campuses, particularly ones where everyone already believes a lot of the same things.”

Recognizing that not everyone on campus is a Christian (although Baker adds a majority are), they can never assume a non-believer doesn’t belong at AU. “Maybe the Lord has them here for a reason,” Baker explains. “If you could fast-forward and see this person’s life — maybe even before they leave AU — maybe they’ve accepted Christ or they’ve begun to make some different lifestyle choices or they’ve just begun to really value their faith walk with the Lord.”

At the other extreme, the Department of Student Life staff is prepared to provide growth opportunities for those students who have matured in their faith and are ready to put it into practice. “The challenge is giving them what they need without closing the door to other students,” Baker says. “I like to think that we work from a mixed model that disciples students who arrive here with strong faith and engages students who arrive with no or little faith orientation to consider the Good News.”

It’s normal for college students to ask questions about their spirituality. “They’re young, they’re away from their families and home churches, and they’re around a thousand other people who grew up differently than they did,” says Chad Rowe, resident director of Dunn Hall.

From resident directors to the campus pastor, the staff in the Department of Student Life is serious about being spiritual mentors and role models to students at AU. It’s not just about making them go to chapel twice a week or punishing them for indiscretions. It’s about meeting each one of them where they are spiritually and providing opportunities for them to grow during the next four years.

The Spiritual Life Office (formerly the Campus Ministries Office) has always been the hub of spiritual programming on campus. The Spiritual Life staff plans chapels, Bible studies and retreats, and oversees student-ministry programs in the community. For years, one person directed those programs, served as spiritual counselor to the entire student body and taught in the Religious Studies Department.

Two years ago, Stuart Erny came to AU as the director of campus ministries. This fall Kimberly Majeski MDiv ’03 joined him in the Spiritual Life Office as campus pastor. They both serve as spiritual counselors to students, and beginning next semester they will each teach a class in the Religious Studies Department. Other than that, they fill very different roles on campus.

Erny is responsible for 12 different student-ministry opportunities — programs designed for students to go out on campus and lead reading groups or discipleship groups, or out into the community and share their faith.

“I feel like a lot of times, we’re good at loving the Lord,” says Erny, “but we need to be more intentional about putting hands and feet to the gospel.”

Erny has his own experience in the mission field. A graduate of Asbury College and Asbury Theological Seminary, he worked as acting field director for Word Made Flesh ministries in Kathmandu, Nepal, before coming to AU.

“Keeping faith and works together is what the campus ministries program is about,” Erny explains. “We provide places in the greater community — and even on this campus — for students to serve other people in practical ways.”

First semester last year, 341 students were involved in campus ministries programs. They went outside their comfort zones to befriend residents in nursing homes, youth in detention centers, teens dealing with pregnancy and children in low-income housing areas. This year the theme for campus ministries is “God at Eye-Level.” Erny explains, “The idea behind it is that we as the body of Christ are God at eye-level to those we minister to. We are Christ to them. But also when we’re in ministry, those we minister to are Christ to us.”

Sarah Haviza, a senior nursing major, has worked with the campus ministry Students Offering Unconditional Love, or S.O.U.L., for four years. Through S.O.U.L. female students from AU become S.O.U.L. sisters to pregnant teens and teen mothers in the Anderson community. As the student coordinator, Haviza works with agencies in Anderson, such as New Horizon Maternity Home and Healthy Families of Madison County, to find teens to pair up with AU students.

It’s a ministry that requires a lot of patience, Haviza admits. “Sometimes it’s difficult just keeping in contact with these girls,” she says of the teens. Their phone numbers change or are disconnected, or they move. “The AU volunteers are asked to touch base with their S.O.U.L. sister at least once a week, whether it’s writing them a letter, offering to baby-sit or just hanging out with them,” Haviza explains. “Sometimes [the teens] just need someone to hang out with so they don’t feel so isolated.” The AU volunteers also offer tutoring services, helping them with their high-school classes or to prepare for the GED. The ultimate goal is for each volunteer to build a lifelong friendship with her S.O.U.L. sister.

For Steve Southards, a senior, participating in campus ministries is preparing him for a career. He coordinates the prison ministry program. Once a week, AU students visit teens in the Madison County’s Secure Detention Unit to lead a Bible study, build relationships with the kids and share hope.

As someone training for ministry, Southards has learned that a minister’s greatest asset isn’t always the ability to speak well. It’s being able to recognize your own brokenness and own sinful nature. “I’ve learned not to go in with an attitude. It’s not my responsibility to convict them of what they’ve done. It’s my job to teach them about Christ and to show them Christ’s love,” says Southards.

To address the spiritual needs on campus, Discipleship Groups are offered for the seasoned Christians while Fresh Faith Groups support new Christians. Fresh Faith invites students to ask basic questions about Christianity, discussing everything from prayer to the Holy Spirit. Erny and his student team rely on resident directors and resident assistants to identify new Christians in their dorms and encourage them to attend Fresh Faith.

“We need to be aware of the diversity of our community, and we need to try to address the diversity,” Erny says. “But we also need to avoid falling into the other extreme — trying to please everyone. We want to stay true to who we’re called to be and to the things that define us as an institution and as Christians.”

While Erny leads the campus ministry programs, Majeski truly expects her job at AU to be a pastorate. “I won’t fit in if it’s not,” she says. “I feel called and gifted to pastor, to preach God’s word to God’s people and to pastor God’s people. That’s who I am all day long, so I hope this position affords me a pastoral relationship with students.” She is also responsible for the chapel program. Baker hopes that as campus pastor, Majeski will also be visible on campus, preaching in chapel as often as once a month.

Seven years ago, Majeski never dreamed she would be where she is today. A Tennessee native, she grew up in Hermitage Church of God, a congregation with a rich history of supporting and encouraging women in ministry. But as a young girl, Majeski had other desires for her life.

“From the sixth grade on, I knew I wanted to practice law and go into public service,” Majeski explains. She was probably one of the few 12-year-old girls in her neighborhood to scour neighborhood yard sales for state and local government books. Her idea of a good television show was a political convention. So it was no surprise that in 1996 she graduated from Cumberland University with a degree in political science and began a new job in the Tennessee Statehouse.

But then the unexpected happened. She felt God calling her into ministry. The pastors at Trinity Church of God welcomed her as a colleague. During evenings and weekends, she served in youth, young adults and women’s ministries, and she traveled the state filling pulpits in country churches as needed. “God opened one door after another,” she says. “I just loved it. It gave me great experience.”

Majeski has a heart for working with young adults, and she remembers what a confusing time college can be for many students.

“I feel like my time in college is where I lost my way, and there wasn’t anyone pointing me toward truth or reminding me who I was or where I had come from,” says Majeski.

Majeski’s first challenge will be letting students know she’s on campus to serve as their pastor — someone who wants to walk with them, mentor them, encourage them, listen to them, teach them and comfort them. Besides being visible in the front of a classroom or at the pulpit in chapel, she plans to become an active participant of the campus community — joining with them in the marketplace for lunch, leading devotions at a social club meeting or praying with the football team before a game.

“If I could just help one student know Christ better, then I’ll feel good about what I’m doing here,” she says.

But Majeski and Erny aren’t the only two people on campus helping students find their faith, claim it and then live it out. Last year Student Programs underwent a revitalization that included providing a space for students to ask questions about faith. Still the brains behind fun social events — such as disco and doughnuts, trips to NFL football games, and intramural sports — the staff welcomed the responsibility of overseeing the Morrison Institute. A three-tier program, the Morrison Institute includes discussion groups, leadership programs and a one-year fellowship for students to deeply examine their spiritual lives and leadership gifts within a small-group setting.

The first and most developed part of the Morrison Institute thus far is Crossroads. During the year, Crossroads invites any student on campus to participate in book discussions called Reading Circles, film discussions called Film Series and group discussions called Grassroots. Last year it was Laura Markle’s job to initiate Grassroots, a bi-weekly discussion group about issues of faith.

“There was a great need on campus for people to have a place to talk openly about [faith], a place where it isn’t just assumed you have it all figured out,” Markle, a junior, explains.

Fifty students attended the first discussion to contrast different philosophical views of God and Christianity. In following weeks, they wondered how specific God’s will is in an individual’s life, pondered the issue of truth, and, during the conflict with Iraq, discussed war.

“The ultimate goal of Crossroads is to give people a space to ask themselves why they believe what they do or why they do what they do,” says Markle.

Markle admits that these have been important and challenging questions for herself. She grew up in the Church of God, where her father serves as a pastor. “Without being forced to look at why I believe something, it’s not really faith. It’s blindly following,” she says.

Tim Winn, a junior, is attracted to Grassroots because it challenges his faith. “I want to grow. I don’t like to be comfortable in my walk,” he says. “Grassroots always makes me think.”

But to him, Grassroots doesn’t just create individual benefits. “I think at the core of Grassroots it’s not just about asking questions but about bringing the campus together. There are so many people to learn from.”

Dean Branson is the new director of Student Programs. He joined the Department of Student Life in July. He grew up in the Church of God and graduated from Warner Southern, where his father taught Bible. After college he earned his masters of divinity degree from Asbury and spent five years as a resident director at LeTourneau University in Longview, Texas. During those five years, he also filled other positions on campus as needed, such as director of housing, associate dean, assistant director of career development, and instructor.

In his new role, he embraces the challenge of bringing activities to the student body that endorse fun but also activities that encourage spiritual growth. “How do you build community? You have shared experiences,” says Branson. Whatever programs a student participates in — or even if they’re just stopping by the office to say hello — Branson says, “I want this to be a safe place where people can be real. They don’t have to be perfect. This can be a place where any one is seeking the Lord.”

As a resident director, Chad Rowe is a disciplinarian, a relationship counselor, an academic advisor, a friend and, by virtue of living with 180 college guys, a spiritual mentor.

Rowe came to AU in 2001, and he’s found that the best way for him to minister to his 180 residents is to simply be available. He plays Frisbee, darts and ping-pong with them. He joins them for meals at the cafeteria, or he and his wife, Tessie, invite them to dinner in their apartment. And late at night — prime time for college students — he’ll walk through the hallways at Dunn and pop his head into open doors. Four months may pass before he’s invited into a serious conversation with one of the guys about faith. Then there may be two weeks when he’s in a deep discussion every other night. “But it wouldn’t happen at all if I weren’t available and willing to spend time with them,” Rowe says.

If Rowe could teach his residents one thing before they leave Dunn, it would be this: the importance of human relationships in a person’s walk with God. “It’s easy to leave relationships behind and go start a new life.” But Rowe has experienced for himself the value of building lasting friendships during the college years while also strengthening a relationship with God. These friendships, says Rowe, “will last the rest of your life. It can keep you growing, hold you accountable, teach you and perpetuate your faith for as long as you want to be in those relationships.”

Rowe believes college can be an easy place for young adults to become stagnant. “They know they need to grow, they want to grow, but they don’t know how to grow,” he explains. They are also living in a world that can easily become all about them — their classes, their degree, their future career. But each year he believes AU improves opportunities for students to explore faith and to become involved in ministry.

Baker adds, “For me it’s exciting to think about the opportunity to be involved in students’ lives during a really formative stage in their spiritual development — that time when they own their faith and wrestle with those questions for the first time.”