Everyone Gets A Rose--Wesley Foundation E-Letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Dear Friends,

 

The end of the semester is upon us!  Important information following all these exclamation points!!!!!!!

 

Tonight is our Senior Worship service!  Come and help us pray and commission our seniors as we bless them and send them forth!  Dinner at 6:30pm.  Worship at 7:30pm.  Faith’s Praise Band coming!  Also we will be electing officers tonight!!!!

 

Next week Monday through Thursday:  Free Lunch at the Wesley!!!!! Come and eat your fill, bring a friend!!!!

 

Sunday 6:30pm Ladies Tea Party, my house—

 

Tuesday 6:30pm Men’s Cookout, my house—

 

Next Thursday, Senior Banquet!!!!  Come and roast our Seniors!  Free food, we’re having it catered.  Let me know if you plan on being there!

 

Okay, enough announcements.

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

Tuesday night I watched “The Bachelor.”  I don’t regularly watch the show because I hate the truth, or rather un-truth, that it represents.  It sets up a scenario where a person is sent one message one minute (i.e. you are a person of worth, I love you) and a totally different message the next (I’m sorry but you have to go, you are not the one I’m looking for).  The “bachelor” the other night had to make a choice between three women, only two could stay and continue on; one would have to go.  All the messages being sent to all three could very well indicate, “you are the girl for me.”  Even pet names of affection were given freely to all.  And yet one young woman was sent away.  His words to her were, “Everything I have ever said to you was true.”  And her response was cold and disbelieving.  Of course it was.  She had been set up to believe she was the one whom he was “falling for.”  She took a chance and opened up her heart, making herself emotionally vulnerable in a way that she rarely did with anyone.  (And don’t get me started on the way physical intimacy and vulnerability is treated on the show!)  And then she was rejected.  Of course she felt betrayed and lied to.  She was.  She was led to believe that something significant and enduring had passed between them. But really it had not.  She got sent home.

 

Now in all honesty, that’s just how the game is set up.  The bachelor was simply abiding by rules that all of them knew existed from the beginning.  I even felt a tiny bit sorry for him (but not much) when he said that he was losing someone he cared about.  I just hate the outcome; I hate the rules; and I hate how this is the way the world works.

 

Notice I said the world, not God.  God doesn’t work this way.  In God’s economy, everyone gets a rose.  No one is sent home.  No one is rejected and turned away.  Every person is a beloved child in His eyes.  Everyone is invited to be His bride, the Bride of Christ.  Everyone has a place in His heart and a place in His home.  Everyone has an opportunity to be a member of the Body of Christ.  Everyone gets a rose.

 

Compare if you would the relationships presented in pop culture with the relationships described in the following passage:

 

There are certain personal attitudes and feelings that contribute to creative relationships with others.  They include, for one thing, warm acceptance and understanding in stead of rejection or hostility.  Even when we disagree with or regret the action of another, we can emphasize “I still love you,” instead of “You really were a fool.”  When disagreement is called for, we can be honest and open instead of masked and hidden.  Instead of remaining silent, we can speak out when a different position needs to be expressed.  But such a reaction can be held within a framework of basic support for the other.  We can help others feel that we are still on their side when it comes to appreciating and encouraging them as persons.

 

                                                                                                                                    From Liberation of Life by Harvey and Lois Seifert

 

Now I have spent too much of my life trying to please others, figure out the “hidden rules” of the relationship games, and playing by those rules as a way to guarantee acceptance.  Thankfully, God has delivered me from so many of those bad relationship habits.  But there is still that thing in me that hates messing up, because it’s still afraid of what it might cost me.  (Thankfully this reaction no longer rules my actions and decisions).  Recently I became aware of a choice I made that might not have been the wisest in God’s eyes.  If I had been aware of what I was doing at the time, I never would have made the decision.  But some things we just have to learn the hard way.  As I was praying about it this morning, the Lord plopped this passage down in front of me.  It was like He was saying, “if this is how humans are supposed to behave with one another, don’t you think you can trust me to have at least this response to your mistakes, and then more?”

 

So consider this word of good news my friends.  God is all about having a creative and life-giving relationship with you.  With Him you WILL find warm acceptance and understanding, NOT rejection or hostility.  Even when He disagrees with us, or regrets our actions, He WILL emphasize “I still love you, instead of “you really were a fool.”  And when disagreement is called for, we can trust Him to be honest and open with us instead of masked and hidden.  He WILL reveal truth in a way we will get!  And instead of remaining silent, we can trust Him to speak out when a different position needs to be expressed.  But even when He has to disagree with us, or even discipline us, we can be sure that we are still held within a framework of basic support.  We can trust that He WILL help us FEEL that He is still ON OUR SIDE when it comes to appreciating us and encouraging us as persons.

 

How powerful and day transforming is that?!  I’m glad to have the Lord as my “bachelor” anytime.  Let Him be yours.  You will never be sorry.  Oh, and one more thing.  Remember I said that “The Bachelor” way of life is how the world works?  Well yes, it does.  But always remember, God is has overcome the world.  He rules it.  And He ultimately wins.  So it is with much love for each of you that I’m still . . .

 

Hoping,

 

Sami

 

 

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

Keep on keepin on! Wesley Foundation E-Letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Dear Friends,

 

Hey! Hey! Hey!  It’s Sami Wilson, the crazy campus minister in your life.  J  Hope you have had a chance to enjoy the good weather.  It’s been beautiful. 

 

Tonight is our big Guitar Hero extravaganza.  We are having it at the Wesley instead of South Lawn, because of impending rain.  But there will still be lots of food, lots of fun, and since we are having it here, more board games, Mr. Bucket, as well as Ping Pong.  Oh Yeah!  We will fire up the grill at 5pm and go until at least 10pm.

 

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!  Due to the One Campaign’s concert next Tuesday night, we will be having the Ladies Tea Party on Sunday, May 4^th, at 6:30pm at my house.  Ladies, you are all invited.  Please let me know if you plan on attending, and how many guests you want to bring so I can have enough food.

 

Guy’s Cookout is the Tuesday of Finals week at my house at 6:30pm.  Just so you don’t feel left out guys, I’m planning on making BBQ ribs as well as gourmet burgers.  Let me know if you are going to be there.

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

This morning the scripture my devotional book offered was this: 

 

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.  And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.  Romans 5:1-5

 

As I read this and pondered it, several people dear and close to my heart came to mind.  One of them is a student who has faced many adversities through the years, both inner turmoil and outer obstacles.  So many times this young person was tempted to give up and quit.  Yet this student is still here.  Another person is a dear family member who is in an unfair and frustrating situation, yet continues to give excellence back, refusing to compromise character in retaliation.  Another I can name is a young person who has not always made the best choices, but now, even while living with the consequences of past mistakes, has been consistently seeking wise counsel and prayer help, calling out first to the Lord.  I believe that each of these individuals are God’s boast in Jesus Christ, because in a world that continually sets an example of bailing out of tough situations, these have instead decided to hang tough with God.  They are the living testaments to this scripture.  The suffering that they are enduring is producing character within them that will produce the hope that reveals God’s glory.

 

Two things.  First, God is looking for people through whom He can reveal His glory to our broken world.  What makes this kind of complicated is that we live in a culture that is all about stealing glory.  (Some examples that come to mind:  being on the job and taking credit for someone else’s work;  athletes who resort to unnatural resources to increase their athletic skill and prowess; students that feel enormous pressure to succeed and are daily tempted to plagiarize or use someone else’s ideas as their own.)  The other thing that makes this kind of complicated is that God chooses to reveal His glory through human beings, who, as we have seen, face great temptations to make themselves look better than they are.  Unless these vessels have deep character, the story of God’s glory gets misplaced, and the story of hope that a broken world needs to hear is lost.  Second, God wants to be absolutely sure that the glory He wants to reveal is recognized by our broken world as glorious, a real beacon of undeniable hope.  Again, our culture is powerfully incredulous.  We are taught to question everything and believe nothing.  When God moves, He wants His powerful imprint to be obvious, for onlookers to really be moved closer to a saving relationship with Him instead of standing back with arms folded, dubious of whether anything significant has really happened.

 

I guess the reason that God uses suffering (please note that I did not say causes!) as a tool in revealing His glory is because people of every persuasion can relate to it, and none of us can easily recover from it.  So when God takes someone’s suffering and turns it around, everybody takes notice!  And when an individual chooses to allow suffering to transform their character, they build credibility with a skeptical world.

 

So what’s the “So What?”  Many of you reading this have big needs right now:  You are preparing to take finals.  You are struggling with difficulties at home and at work.  The 9 percent tuition hike that Western’s Board of Regents is approving today is less than good news.  You are deeply concerned and affected by relationships that are in trouble and seem to have no easy answers.  You are feeling overwhelmed, stressed out, and completely at a loss for how to deal with the stuff going on in your lives.  What you need is hope.  Real hope that things will get better, that you are not alone in dealing with your problems, and that you will be okay at the end of the day.  The good news is that God is real, and the hope He offers you is real too.  You are not alone.  And if you let Him have everything and follow the guidance He provides, things will get better.  And at the end of the day, you will be okay.  What’s more is that God will take your turmoil and turn it into a testimony that reveals His glory.  Not just the kind we can expect when we get to Heaven, but the kind that we get to see here in this lifetime.  The kind that is so undeniably glorious that even the biggest scoffers will have nothing to scoff about.

 

So be encouraged my friends, my dear ones.  Hang tough with God.  He will not leave you nor forsake you.  And when you give your everything to Him, He turns it into incredible sources of joy and celebration.  Just don’t give up.  Endure.  And let His good work in your difficulties transform you into a reflection of His goodness for all the world to see.  I’m still—

 

Hoping,

 

Sami

 

 

 

 

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

Chin up! Wesley Foundation E-Letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Hey there!

 

It’s gorgeous outside—Yay!!!!!!!!!  Tomorrow night we meet for free food at 6:30 and then we will have a mystery night!  It will be cool!  God is good!  Hope everyone got the message about Friday.  Free lunch at noon at the Wesley Foundation.  Come and share the way you see God moving in this ministry.  It will be fun!

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

Every now and then I discover buried treasure.  God seems to surprise me with words spoken for “just a time as this.”  This morning in my quiet time, such a thing happened.  I was in my office in that quiet, holy space, sensing the presence of the Lord, when I noticed a book on my shelf.  It is one that I have not even looked at in years, certainly not in the time since I have been campus minister here.  I opened it up and read a piece, certainly not impressed, but then by chance turned to the cover.  Inside its front page was a hand-written note to the previous owner:

 

8-30-75

 

Dear Lou Ann—

 

Paul said “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness . . .  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses . . . for when I am weak then I am strong.” (II Cor. 12:9,10)  That’s a Mystery that each of us discovers in his own way.  God grant you faith to experience the real meaning of strength during this time when you must feel overwhelmed with weakness.  Chin up!  God loves you!

 

Barbara

 

Now I have no idea what the context of the message to Lou Ann was.  In 1975 I was three years old.  But I love the message.  I love the chipper quality in which it is given:  “Chin up! God loves you!”  I can only guess at the weakness that the recipient was struggling to overcome, the circumstances that caused it.  But I love the response to that circumstance that God delivers.  It is full of hope.  Instead of crawling into the pit too and somberly wondering how it will all get better, this comforter brings a bit of joy and humor to her words of encouragement.  That indeed whatever lies within, and certainly what lies ahead, is nothing that is able to steal the joy that is our birthright in the Lord.  In fact, the message is that in the place of our most poignant weakness God is getting ready to do His biggest work.  Well that’ll preach.

 

I want to encourage you today, my dear ones.  God is getting ready to do His biggest work in your life.  Just watch and see.  Chin up!  So that your eyes may be facing Him, ready to see His hand revealed.  Not focused on the pit you are in, downward cast so as to miss His hand of might and mercy at work.  Chin up!  God loves you!  And I do too—

 

Hoping,

 

Sami

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

Be the Hope that you are!--Wesley Foundation E-Letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

 

Dear Friends,

 

Hope all is well with everyone.  It wasn’t until this morning that I realized last week’s e-letter did not go out.  My computer has been doing crazy stuff.  Sorry about that; you were supposed to get this last Thursday.

 

IMPORTANT!!!!  The deadline for turning in scholarship applications is tomorrow.  Remember to turn in the University Form to Potter, room 317, labeled Wesley Foundation Leadership Scholarship.  The essay and reference letter can be turned in to the Wesley Foundation. 

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

I am so proud to be a Hilltopper!  It thrills me that WKU won the ONE campaign!  It is a movement to raise awareness and fight poverty world wide.  Of all of those Universities in the country that participated, we won!!!!!  Oh Wow!!!!!  Can you tell I’m excited?  I remember talking to my friend Azurdee one day early in the semester and her telling me that she just jokingly made the comment to the ONE campaign students that they could make signs out of cardboard they found in the trash.  Well, they did it.  And with creativity and passion they began to spread the word that fighting poverty is really something everyone can take part in.  It’s not rocket science.  It’s doable.  It just takes some effort.  I have never been so proud to be a Hilltopper.  Those college students--who never backed down, never gave up, and never let their own lack of resources get to them—inspire me.

 

This past week I have been looking at my journals, walking back through time to those early days in our ministry when I felt so overwhelmed by the needs and so underwhelmed by my own ability to meet those needs.  I couldn’t see then how I could possibly be enough to take this ministry to the place it needed to go.  I kept begging God to give me a leader to follow.  And He kept answering my imploring with silence, as if to say, “You can beg Me all You want, but You won’t change my mind about the leader I want in this place.”  And so I had to suck it up and become the leader He wanted here.  I’m more confident now.  Not so much in my own abilities, but in the One who called me to this place and set a thunderous passion in my heart to reach college students with the love of Jesus.  Somehow, He made it happen.  I have never been more excited to be a part of this ministry.  Oh we are going to some exciting places.

 

And so I want to encourage each of you with the Hope of Jesus Christ.  Hear this:  He has set His hope on you!  You may be called to, invited to, set your hope on Him, but He has already set His hope on you.  You are the one He has called to perform those “good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life” (Ephesians 2:10).  You may be like I was, so down on yourself that you can’t see up, but that does not change His mind about who you are and what He has in mind for you to accomplish.  It is for you specifically, personally.  No one else can bring it to pass.  He has set His hope on you!  While you may be waiting on Him do something awesome, He in fact has already been waiting on you to step up and be the Hope He made you to be!  Wow!  We think we wait on Him, when in fact He really has been waiting on us!  It blows me away.  Especially when I see each of you up close and personal.  When I get to be a witness to your lives.  It’s like I can see the Hope of who you are super-imposed upon the life you are living now.  And it is the coolest thing when the two become one.  When you get it.  And you begin to live the hope you were always meant to be.  It just blows me away.

 

Let me leave you with a word from Scripture:  “So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.  So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith” (Galatians 6:9).  Thank you ONE kids, for being the inspiration that reminds me of how BIG my God is.  Thank you for showing me that all it takes is our willingness.  And thank you Wesley kids, for being the Hope of Christ to me, His Hope made flesh.  You inspire me to gratitude.  God is so good.  So this is me . . .

 

Hoping,

 

Sami

 

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

Vote for WKU students in ONE campaign

Dear Friends,

 

The WKU ONE chapter has done some amazing things to help stop world poverty.  It is quite a testament to what ordinary people can do when they have passion and vision, determination and commitment.  Because of their example, I am so proud to be a Western Alumni and a campus minister here.  It is awesome to see young people stepping up in such a powerful way.  Currently WKU is ranked fourth in the nation for their efforts.  Check out what these regular students have been doing to fight extreme poverty and then vote for them as a way to encourage their efforts.  You can help them to reach first place.  Simply go to the web-site http://www.one.org/projects/ to help these WKU students make an even bigger difference.  And be encouraged by their story.  Every single person has an important contribution to make.  See theirs and be inspired to make yours.

 

Blessings,

 

Sami

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

Daffadils--WKU Wesley Foundation E-Letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Dear Friends,

 

This week is so full of good things!  Namely, tomorrow we have free lunch at the Wesley Foundation.  I’m cooking 5 way Cincinnati Chilli.  Yay!!!!  You can look the event up on Facebook (Wednesday @ Wesley) and let me know if you plan to come or not.  Also this week on Thursday night we will introduce officer elections for the Wesley Foundation.  If you are interested in being a part of our leadership, you should definitely be there.  I also want to remind you that the deadline for applying for the Wesley Foundation Leadership Scholarship is coming up on April 15^th.  Remember, on Thursday we eat at 6:30, always free and really good.  And then we have our program at 7:30pm.  This week we will look at Paul’s strongest words of encouragement to young adults.  Yes, Paul was a campus minister.  Who knew?

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

The daffodils are blooming outside the Wesley Foundation.  These are the first flowers I ever noticed as a child.  I remember being in grade school and seeing other students bringing fistfuls of daffodils to the teacher.  The stems were always wrapped in wet paper towels and aluminum foil.  And yet they were still so pretty.  Later on in my life I recall the long line of daffodils making a pretty trail in our back yard all the way down to the water’s edge of the lake behind our house.  I marveled at how year after year those pretty little flowers would return without any kind of keeping.  They would just always show up heralding the onset of spring. 

 

It tickles me to see them growing at the Wesley Foundation.  A couple of years ago we had a work day and did some landscaping.  Because I wanted a clean look to the front yard, I told the guys who were weeding to go ahead and pull them out too.  My Board chair at the time looked at me like I was crazy (love you Woody!), but pulled them out anyway.  God really has a sense of humor, because here they are again, fully in bloom, and beautiful as ever. This to me is Easter.   

 

How powerfully the resurrection speaks to my own life, but how difficult it is to write about sometimes.  Last week I tried, and couldn’t.  I think it is because I received news that a child I had been praying for had died from Leukemia, just three years old.  I had been and continue to pray for this sweet boy’s mama.  And somehow I couldn’t find the words to articulate the hope of Easter while staring such heartache in the face.  I guess it’s because it touches so keenly my own heartache of seeing my little boy in a hospital room.  He is fine and healthy now, but the pain of that moment lingers.  And I cannot speak glibly of Easter when a mother has experienced the kind of loss that I shudder to consider.

 

But last week there were no daffodils.  Today there are.  And they remind me of the resiliency of hope, and the tenderness of God who brings it.  The ground of our lives may be bare, stripped of everything we associate with life, but that is no sign that our lives are barren.  Even when the unthinkable strips our hearts clean of joy and beauty, God is ever waiting to bring us back to life, back to joy, back to our own souls that are well watered and loved and tended with grace.  The ground of our lives is Him, and as we are rooted and grounded in Him, though everything on the surface can be taken from us, that which holds us fast cannot be touched.

 

I love the scripture that says, “I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love” (Ephesians 3:16-17).  Yes, as we are rooted and grounded in love, in the One who is Love, then we are safe from the storms that assail our hearts.  I know that so many of you face all kinds of storms, the kind that rob you of peace and joy.  I know there are struggles that demand your all, and on some days demand more than your all.  I know that there are situations you face that seem impervious to any solution.  But the message of Easter I would speak into your storm, your struggle, your hopeless situation is that God is holding you fast, and God is bigger than your storm, bigger than your struggle, and bigger than your situations.  Just the moment you think all hope is lost, God begins to do a new thing and a small sprout of new life pokes up its head.  In the miracle that is God something so tender is still so tenacious and cannot be denied, ever, at all.  This is the power of the cross and resurrection.  This is the promise of the empty grave and an ascended Savior.  Death has no hold on our King. 

 

For this young mother who has lost her precious child to death I would say that God’s love is watering the tender places of her heart with hope.  And with the gentleness of time, she will see the tender shoots of life spring up within her.  It will not deny or degrade her pain, but it will transform it into the fertile soil of God’s tender consolation and a place of sweet beauty.  Of course she will see her son again.  But in the meantime she will have the heart of Christ beating within her when her own heart is too battered to feel anything.  And she will have the tears of strangers watering her life as well:  those who are holding her in a place of love, beyond words, beyond cures, beyond easy answers, joining with the One Love that knows her by name and never lets her go.

 

I want to close with the words of William Wordsworth, a poem written in 1804:

 

"Daffodils"

I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretch'd in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

 

Happy Easter,

 

Sami

 

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

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 15^th.  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 15^th, 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

 

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

 

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 15^th through Sunday March 16^th 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

 

Being still and knowing--Wesley Foundation E-letter (Methodist Campus Minsitry)

Dear Friends,

 

It is another week closer to Spring Break—Yay!  We are meeting this Thursday.  Remember free food at 6:30.  Grab some food and go to the game, or stay and hang out and we’ll talk about Jesus!

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

In this season of Lent I want to challenge you with these words from the Lord:  “Be still and know that I am God!” (Psalm 46:10).  In a time of self-denial and repentance, these seem like strange words to ponder and live into.  And yet the challenge is stark on this day when so many things threaten to make our hearts gallop away from us, even while they are still in our bodies!

 

Be still the Lord says.  Be still and know Me.  Know Me more than you know fear.  Be still and instead of telling Me who I am, let Me tell you who I am.  In the midst of your trouble, in the midst of your heartache, in the midst of your anxious toil, be still and know Me.  What an outrageous concept that Jesus demands we wrap our heads, and especially our hearts, around.  It is outrageous precisely because of what we see around us and within us in any given hour of the day.  The fear that permeates our moment by moment lives is punctuated by events that defy explanation.  Within the past week there has been another college campus shooting spree; there is constant talk of recession, while numerous people live with the possibility of losing their jobs and even their homes; there looms the ugly reality of cuts to higher education in the state of Kentucky that will wipe out whole programs of academia on our campus.  And this doesn’t even begin to touch the personal fears and tragedies that keep us drowning out our sorrows with some kind of mindless oblivion.  Yet hear the Lord say, “Be still and know Me.”  Knowing Him in silence is such a quiet enterprise and yet so counter-cultural.  What we discover there is powerful enough to break off every burden we have.  We discover the One who made us.  He knows us.  Delights in us.  Weeps over us.  Pines for us.   And invites us to truly experience His heart bursting with love as He thinks of us.  To know Him and the power of His love is to know that which can truly set us free.

 

In considering God’s invitation to stillness, there are two extremes that one would be wise to avoid.  The first is to never be still at all, to be so enamored of distraction, so needful of noise for fear of what silence might reveal that one never allows any kind of quiet in one’s day.  How easily we become entrapped in the cacophony of sounds when we are surrounded by electronic devices that deliver the instant gratification of drowning out any real and useful look into one’s soul.  Information overload so saturates our senses that we can easily avoid our negative feelings, memories, and relational quandaries.  The real loss however is that it also prevents us from perceiving the ever-present holy and sacred in our lives.  Sometimes the most spiritual thing one can do in such an environment is to simply hit the off button, to silence the radio in the car, to remove the ear-buds and look around at the world one travels in.

 

The other extreme is to indeed seek out solitude and stillness out of a need to be “spiritual” while effectively keeping it significantly devoid of God.  Such quiet is still quite filled with stuff, and in fact isn’t really quiet at all.  It is the kind of silence where we impose our own agendas, looking to find the quick fix for the things we can’t solve, or merely another “feel good” panacea that medicates and insulates the soul from unpleasantness without providing any real and lasting deliverance.  I am reminded here of the words of Jesus:

 

When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but not finding any, it says, “I will return to my house from which I came.”  When it comes, it finds it swept and put in order.  Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first (Luke 11:24-26).

 

The lesson here is that it is impossible to draw near to the Lord if we are unwilling to do it on His terms.  We often want to make the Lord into our own image, to feel a closeness, that euphoric experience of happiness, which merely reinforces the fairytales we want to hear.  Perhaps that is why we are reluctant to be still in His presence.  Our Lord is the Truth:  the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  And His truth never compromises or bends to our wishes.  So in the stillness we are confronted with the ways that our lives do not conform to His Truth.  In the stillness that is His, we must hear the call to conversion that demands something of us, something we are not always willing to give even when the invitation offered is one of healing and hope.  This is illustrated in the movie “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” which  aptly describes Aslan the lion:  He is certainly good, but definitely not tame. 

 

So we come at last to an understanding of why seeking God, knowing Him on His terms, secluding ourselves in stillness so we have room to hear Him speak, is truly an outrageous thing.  We cannot control what He might say, and we cannot pretend that we are okay without His Lordship in our lives.  But I cannot leave without lifting up the word of hope:  Christ always comes to us with truth spoken in love.  His love is tender and gentle, yet unrelenting in its intention to fall abundantly into the aching holes of our hearts.  His love is extravagant, personal, and the word of Truth He brings is always good news.  And so with you, I too am--

 

Hoping,

 

Sami

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu