Tuesday, March 25, 2008

WKU Wesley Foundation Leadership Scholarship for New and Returning Students

Dear Friends,

 

I am happy to share that the Board of Directors recently voted to establish the WKU Wesley Foundation Leadership Scholarship Fund through the College Heights Foundation.  The scholarship will be administered by WKU’s College Heights Foundation, and recipients will be chosen by the scholarship committee which is made up of the Wesley Foundation’s Board of Directors. 

 

This scholarship is designed for students who are intent on developing their character and skills as a Christian leader through the ministry of the WKU Wesley Foundation while in school.  Selected recipients will be awarded $500 through a Wesley Foundation donor.  The student’s home church will be invited to match that amount bringing the total to $1000 a year, for a total of four years.  The awards are renewable, but recipients must reapply.  The application deadline is April 15th.  To apply candidates must:

 

  • Have a high school GPA of 3.2 or college GPA of 3.0

 

  • Complete WKU’s scholarship application at www.wku.edu/finaid/faforms.htm (or see attachments), and send it in to the College Heights Foundation by April 15th, labeled WKU Wesley Foundation Leadership Scholarship at the top

 

  • Write a one page essay describing how he or she envisions themselves contributing to the leadership of the Wesley Foundation’s campus ministry.

 

  • Include a letter of reference from a clergy person, youth minister, or Sunday School teacher explaining why he or she believes the applicant will be an asset to the leadership of the Wesley Foundation’s campus ministry.

 

Essays and reference letters may be sent to the WKU Wesley Foundation at 1355 College St., Bowling Green, KY, 42101.  For more information please contact Rev. Sami Wilson at 270-842-2880, or through e-mail at sami.wilson@wku.edu.

 

 

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

 

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Hoping you dance--Wesley Foundation E-letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Dear Friends,

 

Hello!!!!  I am so anxious to see you and hear about Spring Break!  It was a truly blessed time here at the Wesley.  While our plans got changed around a bit because of the snow and ice (crazy, huh?), we were still able to have our fasting retreat.  It was amazing; GOD SO SHOWED UP!!!!  Praise Him!  Tomorrow night we will settle on a weekend in April to finish our journey with Beth Moore; this will offer those of you who couldn’t join us an opportunity to experience God’s amazing grace with us as well.

 

TOMORROW we will be on South Lawn with a portable prayer labyrinth.  This is an awesome opportunity to pray and reflect on your journey with God.  Come by DUC South Lawn in the afternoon (roughly between noon and 5pm).  Walk the Labyrinth and be blessed.

 

Tomorrow night we will have special time of worship as we focus on the road leading up to the cross.  Remember food is at 6:30pm and it’s FREE!

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

I have spent some of my quiet time this morning reflecting on the words of Henri Nouwen.  In an interview he gave during his lifetime, he had this to say about his own experience of suffering: 

 

“I started to slowly realize that maybe the experience of loneliness and the experience of separation might not be a negative thing. . . .  If I would not run away from it, but feel it through all the way, it might become fruitful.  Then suddenly I had this idea that loneliness which is pain, when you do not run away from it but feel it through and stand up in it and look it right in the face, that there is something there that can be a source of hope, that in the middle of the pain there is some hidden gift.  I, more and more in my life, have discovered that the gifts of life are often hidden in the places that hurt most” (Nouwen Then, pg. 134).

 

He touches on something that has been stirring in me all week.  As we draw closer to celebrating the resurrection of Easter, we also draw closer to that which is the portal to Christ’s most glorious moment:  His crucifixion.  His suffering stirs so deeply in me.  It is so human.  It is as if His earth story which is so different by virtue of His divinity takes an astonishing turn and holds an unflinching mirror up to my own suffering.  I cannot escape my own suffering because He refused to escape His.  I cannot pretend my own heartaches don’t exist, didn’t happen, or aren’t real because His heartache playing itself out on the cross was extremely real.  The deep anguish and ugliness of His trial and execution demand my attention; when I look at them, I can’t help but remember my own moments of anguish and ugliness, AND I can’t help but see the human story of anguish and ugliness that touches others lives every day. They are so intimately connected, His hurt and ours.  How true it is that “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  The Word entered our human story and lived it to its fullest.  Yet at the very moment we touch the depth of this suffering it begins transforming into something else.

 

They are so intimately connected, His death and new Life.  As the story goes, Jesus died on a cross on a hill called Golgotha.  His body was removed to the grave.  After three days He rose again.  I can’t help thinking that the same story is true for us.  How often do we invite Jesus into our story of heartache and allow Him access to direct it as He will?  As we invite the Holy Spirit to stir in our life’s disappointments, disillusionments, and disasters the promise is that we will see the power of the Holy Spirit transform our trials into triumphs, our struggles into victories.  The poignancy of a transformed story is that every moment of suffering, when not denied but instead surrendered, becomes a story of praise:  “I once was lost, but now I’m found.  I once was blind but now I see.”  It is like Marlee Matlin, who is “profoundly deaf” hearing the music of her own soul and dancing before America.  Is she still deaf?  Yes.  But her inability to hear cannot keep her from dancing.  How powerful a witness she is to us, that she has to courage to allow a “No, you cannot do this,” to be transformed into a huge “YES!”

 

Psalm 30: 11-12 says this:  “You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.  O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.”  The power of the cross is that by entering into our very human suffering, Jesus has turned our mourning into dancing.  Weeping may indeed linger for the night, but His absolute promise is joy in the morning (Psalm 30:5).  I want to say very honestly that this is His promise writing itself into my own story.  The hurts of my own life have been many.  Those who know me know this.  But heartache has not had the last word.  For every anguish and ugliness I’ve seen, He has turned it into reason for praise.  My own resurrection story is that where there once was a vast wasteland in my soul, there is now beauty revealed by the tenderness of His touch, and my own soul dances gladly in His presence.  I don’t know what lies ahead on a daily basis, but I know He handles it all with resurrection power pulsing through His fingertips.

 

So dear friends, live this week of walking to the cross with humble gratitude.  Have the courage to see His story living in yours.  I pray you will be encouraged in the most wonderful ways.  Always . . .

 

Hoping,

 

Sami

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Holy Hospitality--WKU Wesley Foundation E-Letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Hello Friends, Romans, and Countrymen!  Lend me your ears!  Or maybe just your eyes for a few moments-- :O)!  Tomorrow night is our big event with Courtney Hale from Asbury Theological Seminary.  We will have a time of worship that really focuses on the whole concept of vocation.  Is God calling you to seminary?  What does that mean?  What does it mean if He isn’t?  Can He still have a valid call upon your life even if seminary and ordained ministry aren’t in your future?  Come and find out!

 

This weekend we will travel to Elkton, KY to help with Petrie Memorial’s Disciple Now weekend.  This will be an awesome time to grow closer to Jesus while encouraging youth in their walks as well.  It should be great.  And then next weekend, Saturday March 15th through Sunday March 16th we will have our Spiritual Life Retreat and Lock-in.  We will meet at Ryan’s at 9am for breakfast and then head back to the Wesley Foundation to begin our time together at 11am.  The theme of our overnight retreat is the Beth Moore study Believing God.  This weekend will challenge us and show us how to believe: 1) God is who He says He is, 2) God can do what He says He can do, 3) I am who God says I am, 4) I can do all things through Christ, 5) God’s word is alive and active in me.  The purpose of this retreat is to really go deep with Jesus and discern how He is working in our lives as individuals and as a ministry.  Participants will have the option of fasting during our time together after breakfast on Saturday until after church on Sunday morning as a way of intentionally focusing on God’s message of the weekend.  We will end by attending church together at Broadway UMC at the 9:30am service and then eating together afterwards.  Come and join us.  It will be awesome.

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

Last night my family had some friends over for dinner, and it was such a joy for me.  I got to do one of my favorite things ever:  feed people.  I absolutely love it.  Not because I’m a great cook.  Not because I’m even much of a hostess.  I guess it is because I find such a connection between feeding the body and feeding the soul, and when I am afforded the opportunity to feed a body it becomes for me a gift to that person’s soul as well.  For me it is a tangible expression of real love. 

 

I am reminded of another meal that is a tangible expression of Real Love; it is holy communion, celebrated by followers of Christ all over the world.  It is that sacrament that is the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, namely that in simple gifts of bread and cup we find the real presence of Jesus Christ, His body broken for us and His blood poured out.  That simple meal makes tangibly real the gift of Himself that He gave on the cross, that we experience anew each time we partake and re-member it into our very own bodies.  It is an example of extreme hospitality.  We are so welcome in Christ’s presence that He gives us Himself again and again, as often as we will come to Him.

 

And so it was with great surprise that I read these words from scripture:  “Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home” (Luke 10:38).    I have read these words dozens of times before, but I had not experienced them so deeply before.  Martha welcomed Jesus, not just to town, not just in conversation, not just to say hi as He was passing through, but she welcomed Him into the most personal space of her entire world, her home.  To welcome someone into one’s home is such a personal gesture.  It entails a transparency and generosity that supersedes the routine “Hi, how ya doin, but please don’t really answer because I’m not really asking.”  And so I am caught by the juxtaposition of Lent, a season of repentance and spiritual reflection, with an invitation of hospitality that speaks of abundance and spiritual refreshment.  The two extremes seem to be an impossible match.  Yet the paradox speaks volumes. 

 

In Holy Communion we are greeted with utmost welcome.  It is the sign of the extreme hospitality offered by the cross:  This bread is His body broken for us; this cup is His blood poured out.  It is there at the cross that a common criminal asks for, and is granted, a place in paradise.  It is as if the Holy Son of God has opened up His arms to let the whole world in to His heart.  And look what it costs Him.  It costs Him His life.  It is the proof we need that nothing we can do can make Him love us less.  We cannot cause Him such hurt that He will turn away.  We cannot sin so badly that He will not forgive us.  We cannot fail or disappoint or dismay or disregard in such a way that we are excluded from the gift of Himself that He gave.  Get this:  On that “Old Rugged Cross” we trashed Him with our worst, and in response He gave us His best.  And so at the heavenly banquet we, whose sins had broken Him, are served His brokenness and through it are made whole.  We are nourished, we are cleansed, we are transformed.   We are set free. 

 

My sins have no hold on me.  Wow! 

 

And so we have to ask ourselves, what is our response to His lavish response to us?  Good news teller Luke continues with the story:  “She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying” (Luke 10:39).  I think Jesus was absolutely tickled to be welcomed into Martha’s home, but I believe that what he was searching for more than a hot meal was a warm heart.  Something in the warmth with which Mary listened to Him stirred Him deeply.  And even when her listening interfered with a “proper” welcome, the welcome she gave was exactly what He was looking for.  It is exactly what He is still looking for.  How willing are we to draw near?  How willing are we to accept the welcome He gives us?  That very welcome that we thought we were first giving Him, but He then turns around and offers back?  We think we welcome Jesus into our hearts, but how willing are we to be welcomed into His?  I believe that the response He is looking for from us this Lenten season is not so much that we do “Jesus” things, but that we enter Jesus’ heart and allow it to shape us.  We are no judge of what that shape will take or look like.  But He is.  And the whole point of Lent is relinquishing ourselves so that He can be lifted up within us.  He simply wants us to sit at His feet and listen to what He says.  It can’t get easier than that.  Or harder.  But the results are so worth it.  So with you I am always

 

Hoping,

 

Sami

 

 

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu