Seed Life Planted Here--Wesley Foundation E-letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Dear Friends,

 

Hope all is doing well!  Isn’t it beautiful outside?  It is so good to just sit in the sunshine.  Let’s all agree we’ll take a moment to let the sun shine on us today!  I’m in! 

 

Hopefully you are having a good week.  Remember to bring your CANNED GOODS to the Wesley Foundation to participate in the campus wide food drive sponsored by CSF to help restore the food levels at our local help missions.  This is such an important ministry.  Also, tonight is FREE FOOD, and our program.  Tonight we finish up with our study of the parable of the soils.  We will really look at what it means to be fruitful.  You also may want to come by and look at the Chapel.  It got painted as a part of our work day last weekend, and it looks really good!  Who knew that “butternut” was such an amazing color?

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

On the window seal in our bathroom at home sit a couple of terra cotta pots.  They measure about two inches high, an inch and half wide.  And growing within them are several tiny shamrock sprouts.  While I was gone on spring break I arranged for my boys to have little gifts to open everyday, so they wouldn’t feel so far away from me.  I picked up the little pots at Target, complete with dehydrated soil, a seed pack, and instructions.  A couple of weeks ago the boys and I carefully added water to the dehydrated soil pellet, mixed it into each pot, separated out the recommended number of seeds, and placed them in the reconstituted soil, with a light blanket of dirt on top.  Every day we go to window seal to see how our “potted plants” are doing.

 

It’s quite amazing really.  Since I only paid a dollar each for them, I wasn’t expecting much.  But it has been pretty cool to see little green clovers poking their way through the dirt, seeking the sunlight, drinking in the water that little boys slosh all over them.  I am reminded of Christ’s words about faith as a grain of mustard seed.  Even though it is the smallest of all the seeds, it grows into some more shrub!  I believe clover seed is smaller still.  How cool is it that something so tiny could have so much life in it?  And that its life could spring up so quickly given the right conditions?

 

It makes me ponder once again the mystery and majesty of Easter.  Jesus also said of seeds that it is only when they die to their seed life, and are buried, that they can experience the true life they were created for in the beginning.  Of course He was referring to Himself, and trying to help His disciples understand that He too must die so that something greater could be born.  They couldn’t see past their limited perspective that dying to His earthly life was actually a wonderful, marvelous thing.  And tougher still was their understanding when He suggested that they also had to die to life as they knew it for His life to take root in them.  It’s crazy, but true.  We have to let go of the penny we hold tightly in our hands so that we can receive the vast treasure He holds in His.  But we will never have enough room in our hearts for His gifts if we cling stubbornly to what is already within our grasp.

 

Have you ever wondered what life is like for a seed?  It grows within the bloom of the plant that produces it, it is harvested, packaged, and then sits around dormant.  For months.  For years.  Maybe forever.  It is almost unbearable to consider that it was created for more, and yet the more that it was made for has to be delayed indefinitely, because packaging takes precedence over dirt.  I wonder how many of us are like the seeds that get relegated to indefinite packaging instead of dying to the seed life and finding the life we were made for?  I mean, I can understand the objections.  Dying to a self-directed life is kind of scary.  We are definitely trading the known for the unknown.  And for all the control freaks out there this is utmost in unbearable.  Of course it sucks when our lives are no longer neatly packaged and predictable.  Of course it is way neater, less messy, to have pretty flower pictures on our package, than to actually have to get dirty and grow real ones.  But holy cow, where is the fun in that?  Where is the adventure?  Where is the amazing fragrance and beauty that makes others stop and look and appreciate God’s handiwork?  I would much rather spend my days being a reckless, unpredictable, living work of grace than a lifeless picture of what might have been. 

 

Yeah.  That’s really how I feel. 

 

So as we draw closer to Easter, let us remember once again the journey that Jesus made to the cross.  Let us also remember that the cross has a claim on us too.  Just as He gave His life to us, we are invited to give our lives to Him, to let Him direct their course and flow.  I know He is so gentle in His invitation, and so generous in the love and understanding that champions every step forward we take to dying to the seed life within us so that REAL LIFE can be born.  I know He cheers for us when we get up, disregarding our clumsy attempts that make us fall.  He really only wants our best, and is fully equipped to give it to us if we let Him.  Let’s let Him.

 

This is me trusting,

 

Sami

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

The Best Things In Life Can't Be Ruined By the Economy--Wesley Foundation Eletter (Methodist Campus Minsitry)

Hello everyone!  Hope you had a great weekend!  This week as we gather together, lets remember to bring some canned goods for local food banks.  This is a small way we can impact people’s lives with God’s grace.  Thanks to CSF for organizing it!  They rock!

 

As we look ahead we have some cool stuff coming up.  Next Monday night at 6:30pm in Garret room 301 there will be a prayer gathering for the Veritas event coming up on April 9^th.  This will be an opportunity to gather with folks from other campus ministries to pray for and with each other, and especially about this joint effort to share Jesus with our campus.  On April 9^th we will be hosting Dr. Fritz Schaefer, chemistry professor from the University of Georgia.  He will be speaking on the topic of “The Big Bang, Stephen Hawking, and God.”  The whole aim of this event is to engage people on our campus in a way that shows how faith in God and a love for science can coexist.  There is a meeting on Thursday at 4pm at CSF to involve students in the planning and implementation of this event. If you are interested in attending on behalf of the Wesley Foundation, please let me know.

 

Again we have a great week planned, filled with worship Tuesday night at 6:30pm and free food and a program at 6:30 on Thursday.  Our theme for worship on Tuesday is the shield of faith, how exercising our faith is so important in our lives, how to have it and how to use it.  Thursday night we will continue to look at the parable of the soil and learn how to get rid of those pesky weeds and thorns.  See you soon!

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

A few years back Nicholas Cage starred in a movie called “The Family Man.”  It is the story of a man who lives life in the fast lane, has everything imaginable that he could possibly want, is wealthy beyond his dreams, and is thoroughly miserable.  Even while surrounded by opulence that only copious amounts of money can provide, he is haunted by memories of his first love and what might have been if he had chosen love over the ladder of success.  As the movie progresses he has an encounter with a mysterious individual who grants him a glimpse of what could have been if he had chosen love.  This glimpse reveals a life far different from the one he lives, filled with a humble house, mini-vans, penny pinching, and sparse living.  But at the same time he discovers the joy of belonging, a wife who loves him unconditionally, children who bring laughter, and the kind of happiness he had been longing for all along.

 

If you haven’t seen this movie, I would recommend it, especially at a time like this.  I believe that the gospel, or good news, can be wrapped in a video box.  Because this movie comes with a message that the things in life most precious to us can never be bought in a store.  I am reminded of Tim’s and my first two years of marriage.  I was a full-time seminary student in Lexington, Kentucky.  I was a part-time youth minister at a small church.  He was in graduate school at UK working on a masters, also working part-time.  We had a crazy-high rent that we paid for a tiny apartment on campus at the seminary; it made a dorm room look spacious.  I believe the only reason we ate was because Tim’s parents fed us every weekend, and then sent food home with us to nourish us during the week.  I’ve tried to add it up in my head; I don’t know how we made it.

 

But as financially strapped as we were, I have very fond memories of that time.  We would take long walks together down-town.  One of our favorite dates was to walk to the public library and check out books.  Sometimes we would stop at a Mexican food stand on the sidewalk and get these amazing chimichangas, cheap.  Our big night out was to splurge and go to Fazzoli’s.  In those lean times we learned how to love each other well when times are tough and it doesn’t come easy.  And that love has sustained us for almost thirteen years.  It’s kind of funny now that both of us would love to take leisurely walks hand in hand.  We could for about five seconds.  And then reality would hit and we would both be chasing little boys, trying to keep up.

 

All this is to say that the life God promises does not come with a price tag attached.  It is available in any economy, and it survives any stock market crash.  In the gospel of Luke, Jesus sent out his disciples two by two, and said, “Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals.”  Just a couple of paragraphs later it says, “The seventy returned with joy.”  Did you see that?  I never noticed it before today.  It is almost as if Jesus is proving Himself to them by asking them to rely totally on His provision, leaving behind their own efforts of self-sufficiency.  And He indeed provided!  We don’t know how, or through whom, or in what measure, but undoubtedly they returned to him not needing to complain.  There was no room for complaint because His joy had filled them up.

 

The point is that we can trust God.  God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  Governments may change, stocks come crashing down, politicians and elected officials can disappoint us.  Even education, church, and family cannot provide the stability we long for.  We are really hungry only for Him.  And only He can satisfy.  We can even be surrounded by the stability that worldly success can provide and still be devastatingly empty.  So in this crunch time, let Jesus be it for you, your all in all.  He is able out of the storehouses of His love and provision to meet your every need, teach you to be wise, and fill you with unmistakable joy, regardless of what wall street says.  I believe our country’s current financial crisis is, at its heart, another opportunity for God to show off.

 

This is me trusting,

 

Sami

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

Somebody fed me on our Mission Trip--How Cool! Wesley Foundation E-letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Hellooooooo!  I hope each of you had an amazing spring break!  It is good to be back in town.  I can’t wait to swap stories of our crazy adventures!  Can anyone say Chevy Chase and National Lampoon’s Vacation?

 

Anyway, this week we are back to our regular schedule.  Worship tonight at 6:30pm.  And Thursday we will have a free meal and program.  Justine Pile will also be there to discuss specifics of Relay for Life.  There is much to do as we prepare!  Also, we are participating in a campus wide food drive.  Our brothers and sisters from CSF are implementing it as a way to rebuild food pantries after the terrible ice storms this winter.  So bring non-perishable items to worship or free meal night.  We will do this each week until the end of the semester.  This is an easy way to share God’s love with someone else!

 

Also we will have small groups this week too!

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

It is good to be back home in Bowling Green.  Like many others I spent Spring Break on the road. And traveling can be such a weary business.  However, one of the truths that became evident while we were away was that being on a journey is as exhilarating as it is exhausting.  All of us who were on our Spring Break mission trip could testify that we were blessed in the going.  How thankful I am for the experience. 

 

This morning in my quiet time I discovered the following quote from a journal article: 

 

Perhaps Jesus’ knowledge of road lessons compelled him to send the twelve disciples on a journey through villages (Luke 9:1-6, NRSV).  He “gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.”  Although given “power and authority,” they needed something more; the needed to rely upon hospitality and its possibilities. . . .  Being dependent and vulnerable is how disciples come to experience God’s sustenance through community. . . .  He insisted that they rely upon the communities that awaited them.  They needed to give hospitality a chance to flourish (Weavings:  The Road.  “At Home on the Road,” by Luther E. Smith, Jr.  p.10).

 

Luther Smith must really dig mission trips with college students!  Or else he has an insight into the nature to stepping out in faith to serve God in places far removed from “home.”  What he describes is just what we experienced.  The whole way we found ourselves drifting between two extremes of a paradox.  On the one had we had left the comfort of home to serve, to share Jesus with those whose paths we intersected.  On the other hand we were served by the hands and feet of Christ who provided the comforts of home in order to enable our service for Him.  As much as we were a face of compassion for others as we went out, each day we were bathed in the compassion of hospitality that attended generously to our needs.

 

We never know which we will be called upon to give, yet both kinds of service are interwoven into the fabric of the Kingdom of Heaven.  At each church we stayed at we were received with joy.  We received home cooked breakfasts, lunches to sustain us on the road, and company eager to hear the stories of our adventures when we returned.  Each day we ventured out to share the love of Jesus with people we didn’t know, in all kinds of ways.  Sometimes it meant knocking on doors and offering prayer to strangers; sometimes it meant holding a baby or playing with a special needs toddler; sometimes it meant hanging dry wall and offering prayers of encouragement for a family we will never meet, and sometimes it meant giving food to a homeless person and seeing them as a child of God instead of a stranger to be avoided.  Each day God offered us an opportunity to experience giving away His love in a new way.  And each night God surrounded us with the body of Christ, ministering to our weary bodies so that the next day we would be refreshed and able to serve again.

 

When I hear Jesus say in the gospels, “Behold, the Kingdom of God is at hand,” I believe this is what He was talking about.  Every moment is a chance to leave the ordinary self-seclusion of safety and step into the adventure of love that is ready to participate in God redeeming the whole world.  And every moment God invites us to participate in redeeming our corner of it.  Extraordinary love looks quite ordinary.  In fact, making beds, serving lunches, offering smiles and encouragements are things we do everyday.  It’s just that we do these things for ourselves and those we are comfortable with.  What makes love extraordinary is when we offer it to folks we don’t normally do such things for, even those we see everyday and we’d rather not do them for.  I believe the miracle of transforming the world is not that amazing things happen as much as God enables amazing generosity in us human beings who are so conditioned to just take care of our own.

 

Driving to work this morning I saw the following bumper sticker:  “Welcome to America.  Now speak English or leave.”  Something in my heart broke when I read that.  I could never imagine Jesus saying that to one of His children that He painstakingly knit together in its mother’s womb.  I am so thankful that our hosts last week did not say things like that to me.  So often we will encounter people who don’t have what it takes to live up to someone else’s expectations.  And we are faced with a choice:  will we love and enter into a redeeming relationship with them through the power of God’s love, or will we demand they be like us and throw them away when they aren’t?  Will we have the courage to allow Jesus to shape our response?  Will we become a community where hospitality has a chance to flourish?

 

This is me trusting,

 

Sami

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

The Difference Between Tutors and Tooties--Wesley Foundation E-letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Dear friends,

 

Hope all is well with you this week!  This week begins the season of Lent, the 40 days (not including Sunday’s) leading up to Easter.  Lent has traditionally been a time to focus on turning our whole attention to Christ, to actively create space in our lives where this is possible (especially where it has not been before), and to listen intently to what He would say to us as we prepare for the celebration of Easter, Christ’s death on the cross and His resurrection.  This week we will be offering an opportunity to offer yourself to God in a new way, to consecrate more of who you are to more of who He is.  I hope you will join in this journey of preparation.  It will be a total blessing!

 

With that in mind here are the activities this week:

 

Tuesday Worship—6:30pm, we will look at the Belt of Truth, especially how it relates to Jesus’ time of temptation in the desert. 

 

Wednesday, Special Ash Wednesday Service—Noon in our chapel!  Come and receive the imposition of ashes.  We will prepare our hearts together  for this time of consecration!

 

Thursday Free Meal & Program—6:30pm, we will look at how life can so easily become like the soil on the path, as well as what to do when that happens!

 

Ladies Groups:  Wed. 1:30pm / Thurs. 3pm

Men’s Group:  Thurs. 5:30pm

 

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

I live in a testosterone zone.  I am married to a wonderful man and also have two small sons.  Clearly I am outnumbered three to one.  The thing about being around boys all the time (and college students by the way) is that humor can often be very earthy, especially when it comes to bodily functions.  Passing gas is very much a moment of triumph and humor at my house, especially for my two year old.  We will be sitting in a room, hear a tell-tale noise, smell the tell-tale smell, and know that somebody “tooted.”  Isaiah will often say, with much enthusiasm, “I did it!”

 

One afternoon I was picking my boys up at their grandmother’s house.  I had just arrived and walked into the kitchen where my 12 year old niece was explaining that she had spent the afternoon helping one of her schoolmates with his work.  It was a proud moment when she explained to Nanny that she had been his tutor.  Isaiah was in the same room as well, and every time she said the word tutor, he would bust out laughing.  It took us a little while, but I finally figured out that he thought she was talking about passing gas.  He thought it was hysterical!

 

I can’t help wondering how many times we are trying to share with someone about our faith or trying to tell an unbeliever about Jesus and the results turn out the same?  We are trying to be helpful, like a tutor, seeking to share the knowledge that brings God’s life and goodness to those who need it, and instead they respond as if we are smelly, like a tootie, which is really all about hot air.  There were many times when I was a teenager that a friend would try to convince me I needed to be “saved” (apparently they thought infant baptism didn’t count), and I came away feeling less like I had received good news and more like I never wanted to speak with that person again.  Which also created quite a dilemma when I too felt led to share my faith with someone else:  I really didn’t want to stink up the place and turn them off instead of turning them on to a relationship with Christ.

 

What I have learned since then is that good news only has its source in the only One who is truly good.  Consider the following scene as it unfolded for the first people to really share God’s good news:

 

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.  And suddenly from heaven there came a sound lik the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.  Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.  Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.  And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.  Amazed and astonished they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?  And how is it that we hear each of us, in our own native language?  . . . .  in  our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power” (Acts 2:1-13).

 

The Holy Spirit, which is God’s power and presence with us, gave them everything they needed to speak the word of truth to those who needed to hear it, and who were also vastly different from them.  So what I have learned, and what I have witnessed in my own life, is that the Spirit of God makes the message of God clear in a language the hearer can understand.  On that day it had a lot to do with literal languages.  I think that is still true, but I also believe that today it has as much to do with different generations, different cultures, different experiences, different everything.  Each one of us hears differently, for all kinds of reasons.  It takes the wisdom and power of God to translate His good news into truly good news for all of us.  We each hear differently; we need God to translate His Holy Word into our difference.  We may still not accept it, but at least then we can understand it. 

 

So this Lent, it is my prayer that God will fill us with the power of His Holy Spirit, just like Jesus came out of the wilderness filled with the power of the Spirit, so that we can truly convey the good news of Christ’s death and resurrection to people who need to experience it so badly.  If we try to do it without Him, even though our intentions might be good, our results will smell.  And who wants to be smelly when we can be the aroma of Christ?  May God’s grace and goodness help us to become tutors of His Holy Word.  And may we receive all the help we can get, especially in all the ways we try to give it.

 

This is me hoping,

 

Sami

 

 

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

You're Beautiful! Wesley Foundation E-Letter (United Methodist Campus Ministry)

Dear Friends,

 

Hope all of you are doing well!  I look forward to getting to see you this week.  We are back on our regular schedule this week:

 

Worship Tonight @ 6:30pm at Wesley

 

Thursday night free meal & program @ 6:30pm at Wesley

 

Ladies Groups:

 

Wednesday @ 1:30pm

Thursday @ 3pm

 

We begin a new series of messages tonight based on Ephesians 6, being clothed in the armor of God.  Come and experience God’s grace in giving you everything you need to meet the challenges of your everyday life.  And Thursday we will experience “Spontaneous Melodrama.”  I am so excited!  It’s going to be great!

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

Last night after giving baths my boys and I sat down to color.  I told them that if they were good while they took their baths I would teach them how to draw butterflies.  We had great fun, and I re-discovered a part of me that has been neglected for awhile:  the artist inside.  I like making things.  I like to draw and color.  I like to sew.  I like to give expression to the pictures I see in my head, and then see them take shape as something pretty to hold in my hands.  I love seeing that vision come to life.

 

I think this is how God is, the One who spoke all of creation into being.  One of my very favorite scriptures is from Psalm 139: 

 

For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.  My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth (vs 13-15).

 

I can imagine God at the beginning of every life, watching it unfold, working through the process of growth even while a child is in its momma’s belly, choosing how the genes will fit together and express themselves, shaping and forming every part, seeing the totality of the life within His grasp, present and future, personality and body, spirit and mind, all coming together as a tangible expression of His creative love.  How cool is it that God is intimately and intricately involved in every part of our coming to life?  I can’t imagine God looking at any human being alive without a deep sense of joy and longing; joy because the vision of that person has become tangible, longing because each one of us has free will and may or may not choose to be in relationship with the One who made us.  Of course He longs for us.

 

I can’t help thinking about this creative labor of love that God gives whenever I reflect on the visitor who stood on the steps of DUC last week.  I’m not quite sure I can name his purpose for being there.  I suppose he felt called to expose and name the sin that enfolds many college campuses.  He argued forcefully with many who stopped to listen to his rampage, having their comments rebuffed with his determinations about their spiritual status.  Many came away feeling condemned by this man.  I hope and pray they didn’t come away feeling condemned by God.  “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17).  I just feel in my heart that this man did not communicate the longing that God feels in His heart for His children who are not connected to Him, whose lives are somehow missing the fulfillment, the fullness, that He wanted to bring forth when He created them in the first place.  I just know that when God looks at us, He sees His labor of love.  Certainly it pains Him to see us living in brokenness and sin.  But He also understands why we are broken, how we got that way, and especially the tender mercy of Jesus Christ that heals us so that we can choose well, so that we can choose Him.  Jesus took all that condemnation to the cross so we would bear it no more.  It is His gift to us.  He has removed everything from us that could separate us from the God who created us.  When God looks at each one of us He sees the child He made and loves.  And even before we see it ourselves, He sees the magnificent being, mature and complete, that He created us to be.

 

Thursday night after experiencing an amazing day of sharing God’s love through warm fuzzies (200 feet down from the guy with fuzzy purposes) and an amazing night of prayer, I had a dream.  In my dream people were lining up to receive a revelation from God, but the person sharing it said they must be spanked to learn a lesson in submission.  As I stood looking at these persons standing in line to be beaten, something within me broke and began to say passionately to the pastor, “You can’t do this!  You don’t understand, these persons have been abused!”  I knew that they would connect the abuse of their past to this “lesson in submission.”  I knew it had to be stopped.  That’s all I remember from that dream, but it’s message is clear.  Coming to know the God who made you is not a fearful and degrading thing; it is a joyful and life-giving thing.  God does not sanction any abuse, including religious:  “They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord” (Isaiah 65:25).  Even His judgment is filled with love, always wanting to redeem and fulfill that initial creative impulse that made your birth His tangible expression of Divine Love.

 

So I don’t care if your life is filled with sin, you are still beautiful to me because you are a child of God.  Where I see you hurting I hurt.  Where poor judgments keep your heart and life broken, I weep for and with you.  But God’s Love always sees you through the redemptive power of Jesus Christ.  When God looks at you He sees the Love that gave you life in the first place, and the promise and possibility of Christ’s love fulfilling that life within you.  You are precious to me and especially to Him.

 

This is me hoping,

 

Sami

 

 

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

Chili Prayers--Wesley Foundation E-letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Dear Friends,

 

I hope you are staying warm in all of this cold weather!  If you want a ride to the Wesley Foundation just call 270-842-2880 thirty minutes before we meet and someone will come and pick you up!  Also, this should warm your insides:  We were able to give $94.11 from our student offerings to help people who are still suffering from the winter storm.  I know many of your families remain without power.  We pray God’s protection and help for them.

 

Tonight is our FREE MEAL and program.  It will be lots of fun.  The food is always good.  So join us at 6:30pm.  Next week we will be in DUC for our Valentine’s outreach to campus giving away warm fuzzies.  Come and find out how you can be a blessing!

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

Last Sunday night we had our annual Superbowl party at the Wesley.  We also had some special guests join us (hi Justin and Beth!).  It was a wonderful time of fellowship and fun.  And the game was so exciting even I got into it!  Like most events in life, it took some preparation.  And as I began that afternoon to brown the beef for our chili feast, my heart began to think fondly of those who would be consuming the very thing I was in the midst of cooking. 

 

I think all things in life can be holy when offered to the Lord, because the Lord is always near.  On a plaque at a retreat house I often visited in Florida were these words:  “Bidden or un-bidden, God is present.”  How true.  There isn’t anywhere He is not.  Psalm 139 puts it this way: 

 

Where can I go from your spirit?  Or where can I flee from your presence?  If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.  If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.  (Psalm 139: 7-10)

 

And even when we exert all kinds of energy to go to places He is not, even then our efforts are wasted because He is still there.  How much better then to give up running and simply welcome the inevitable; let Him join us where we are, even as we are. 

 

I think one of the biggest reasons people run from God is because they expect Him to try and squash them.  Kind of like the new reality show called  “Wipe Out,” they think God is just waiting for an opportunity to wipe them out and knock them off of their feet for all the ways they haven’t been able to live up to what they think are His expectations.  I remember in high school English having to read a sermon by Jonathan Edwards called “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”  In high school I think I believed it.  But since then, as I have gotten to know the Lord in a very personal way, I have discovered Him to be nothing like that at all.  I have found that God is funny and gentle, tender and wise, mischievous and good, constant and persistent, steadfast and patient, creative and comforting, new and challenging, unrelenting and stubborn, consistent and expectant, hopeful and helpful, generous and courteous, everywhere and intimate, knowledge giving and mysterious, loving and leading, inviting and welcoming, sending and commissioning, quiet and consuming.

 

So I stood at my stove top making chili, thinking fondly of those who were about to eat it, thinking fondly of the Lord, and I began to pray that all who eat would be fed with God’s love, even as they would be fed with ground beef, tomatoes, beans, and spices.  And just as that chili would give nutrients to sustain, I prayed that the Love of God would make its way all through their lives giving strength and guidance where it is needed most.  God is as present to us as chili in our stomachs.  And the pervasive love of God works its way into our lives in ways we are totally unconscious of, making ripples of impact the way the co-centric circles of water ripple forth from a stone’s throw.  Often we only hear the stone drop and think the event is over.  We rarely are patient enough to see water lapping gently against the shore. 

 

And so here is to chili prayers and a Superbowl party, a holy event in the life of our ministry.  Jesus chose a party to perform His first miracle.  And those who received it were barely conscious of the grace that had just changed their lives forever.  In the same way our precious Lord still shows up at parties.  And He still transforms ordinary things into miracles of grace.  May His chili blessings be with you always.  (Just not the indigestion!)  And may you know that you never have to run from God’s love.  His love is everything your are trying to run to.

 

This is me hoping,

 

Sami

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

Welcome Back to WKU: String Bikini's and It's great to be you!-- Wesley Foundation E-letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Dear Friends,

 

It is awesome to be back on the hill, and yes, we are back on schedule for our regular times this week (weather permitting of course).  Tomorrow night we will have WORSHIP at 6:30pm.  The praise team from Christ UMC led by Marco Ballesteros, Jr. will be leading us.  Our service will also center around praying for the semester and the year, consecrating it wholly to Him and asking His blessing upon it.  Come and be filled with His love!!!!!!!

 

Also on THURSDAY night we will have our free meal and program beginning at 6:30pm.  It should be a wonderful time because Todd Misenor from WKU’s health and fitness lab will be sharing with us about how faith and fitness fit together, as well as what opportunities are available at WKU’s Preston Center.  Todd attends Broadway UMC with his family.

 

Of course if there is an ice storm and it is dangerous to get around, don’t!  But I will send out a notice if we officially cancel any events.

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

As a girl, I have struggled during my life with many things that girls struggle with.  The desire to be pretty has always been one of those things.  At least when I was younger, before babies, and certainly before becoming an old married woman.  Now Tim is the only one who I really, really want to impress.  As long as I am presentable, I could care less for ooh’s and ahh’s from anyone else.  But it didn’t used to be this way.

 

I remember one day when I was thirteen years old.  I was walking down the road from our home in the country toward our neighbor’s house.  The property our house was situated on backed up to Old Hickery Lake in Lebanon, TN.  Most of our neighbors were retired and spent their time fishing during the week.  During the summers we would gather at one of their houses, eat fried fish and hushpuppies, and enjoy the many outdoor activities that go along with lake living.  This particular neighbor had a swimming pool in their yard.  My brothers, sister, and I spent many afternoons there swimming, having dog paddling races, and playing “Marco Polo.”  On this particular day I could see that our neighbor had a guest.  I was so far away that I couldn’t tell who it was, but I did see that is was some girl in a string bikini, sun bathing on the pool deck.  I wanted so badly to be able wear one of those myself.  And in the stillness of my heart I prayed a prayer that only a thirteen year old girl could come up with, “God, I want to look like that.”

 

Eventually my walk brought me closer to the swimming pool.  It was with dismay that I finally recognized who the sunbather was.  Why it wasn’t a girl at all.  It was a middle aged woman.  And furthermore that was definitely NOT the body I thought I wanted.  Up close it really began to lose its appeal.  It lacked tone; it sagged; it bulged in all the wrong places.  From a distance it looked great.  Up close I decided really quickly that I was more than pleased with my own.  So have you ever heard of back pedaling prayers?  “Uhm, God?  You know that prayer I prayed just a minute ago?  Can I take it back?  I mean really, PLEASE don’t answer it!  I am very happy with what I have.  PLEASE don’t give me a string bikini filled with THAT!”

 

So what do string bikini’s have to do with Jesus?  Well, let me explain.  I spent a lot of my younger life wanting to be someone else.  As a pre-teen and teenager I felt awkward and shy.  I never really felt like I fit in.  I looked with longing at the lives of other girls in my Jr. High and High School, wondering what it would be like to be them.  I even envied the lives of other girls in my youth group.  I never felt pretty enough, popular enough, smart enough, talented enough, good enough.  Nothing in me seemed to be enough.  But the mercy of the passage of time is that it clarifies so many things.  I believe this is one of the great gifts of Facebook.  I have gotten to see many of the folks I went to highshool with.  And while it is so nice to see them again, it has revealed something of great worth to me:  I am glad to be who I am.  The realization came when I was reflecting on the Facebook reunions.  It was as if God asked me, “Now would you like to be any of them?”  And the answer that came back was no, I am glad to be exactly who I am.  Not that the lives they are living are bad.  They’re just not mine.  And God has filled mine with all the things that give me the most joy of all.

 

The gift of new beginnings is that we once again have a new opportunity for God to reveal how He lovingly made us for a single purpose, how who we are fulfills something that no one else can, how we are a labor of His love in design and destiny, and how we fit perfectly into His plan.  This is a time to step back and offer all that we are to a God who loves us so passionately, who crafted us so intentionally, and who guides us so specifically.  There are so many good reasons for why He made us the way He did.  And He alone can turn our regrets and what might have been’s into reasons for praise and celebration, because He uses even those to reveal His goodness and glory.  I just know that His story in your life is one that is worth knowing.  It is one worth sharing.  It is one worth celebrating.  So join me Tuesday night as we consecrate who we are and all that remains as yet unlived into His hands.  Join me in inviting His touch into our lives and let’s celebrate together the One who has the power to redeem it all.  Here’s to not having that prayer answered all those years ago.

 

This is me hoping,

 

Sami

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

Lightning McQeen and Christmas--Wesley E-letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Hello Friends!  Hope finals are going well.  We have one more day of FREE LUNCH!  Come by tomorrow from 11am till 1pm (or after).  We will be having lasagna and ziti.  And we have a fantastic road trip on Friday. 

 

Be sure and show up on Friday at 4pm at the Wesley for our annual Opryland Road Trip.  We will go to Opry Mills to shop and eat.  And then about 7:30pm or 8pm we will walk over to see the lights at Opryland Hotel.  After we finish there we will head over to the Cheesecake Factory for desert.  Yay!

 

Now For “Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus”

 

One of the movies we watch at my house pretty constantly is “Cars.”  It is the story of a hotshot race car that gets lost in a small town and learns the value of slowing down and appreciating life, as well as those around him.  In the beginning of the movie through an unfortunate series of events “Lightning McQueen” finds himself in the courtroom of Radiator Springs.  He has just demolished the only road in town and the locals are angry.  The town attorney makes an impassioned plea to the judge to make Lightning fix the road “because we are a town worth fixing!” she says. 

 

I heard that line just recently.  (“Cars” was on, again.  Isaiah has to watch it at least once a day.)  Something about it hit me in a fresh way.  Like the affirmations of faith we recited in church when I was a child, the words sounded almost holy:  definitely an affirmation, definitely words of faith. “We are a town worth fixing.”  It made me think of the words from John 3:16:  “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten son, so that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”  God’s attitude towards the world is that we are world worth saving.  Our lives are worth redeeming.  Our heartache is worth healing.  Our emptiness is worth filling.  Our human-ness is worth loving.  We are people worth loving.

 

That thought just fills me up.  It staggers me that this is what God thinks of all of us, that we are worth loving, no matter the cost, no matter the inconvenience, no matter the difficulty that such a labor demands.  It is worth it to Him to love us, and to show that love in no uncertain terms.  Kind of like the ad that says, “when you care enough to send the very best.”  That’s who God is.  That’s what God does.  God sends us Jesus.

 

A few years ago someone recorded a Christmas song called “A Strange Way to Save the World.”  Well yeah.  Sending a baby, the most vulnerable and helpless living being alive, as the hero is completely strange.  We expect our saviors to be tough, powerful, and larger than life.  And yet God sends us a hero that everyone can relate to. . . . a baby.  And it is this baby who grows up to be a simple man who changes the world, not by being tough, powerful, and larger than life, but by being humble, a servant, and Life itself.  Jesus is so completely approachable and so totally honest.  He reveals us to ourselves with clarity that is hard to face sometimes.  And yet the truth that He reveals about us does not send Him away.  He still loves us.  He still desires to save us, redeem us, heal us, fill us, love us.  Nothing could make Him not love us or want to be in our lives.  Wow. 

 

I believe that in love God is constantly looking for ways to reveal His presence to us.  This morning as I drove to the Wesley Foundation I found myself behind a yellow school bus.  There were children in the back waving excitedly to the cars behind them.  I saw them and waved back.  They were so excited!  It was as if something wonderful had happened for them in that moment.  Really I was thinking something wonderful had happened to me.  I had just been thinking of how God is so good and always looking for ways to show up in our lives.  It was as if He chose that moment to catch my attention through the exuberance of childhood and say, “See, I am here.  This is me waving at you.”  And something deep within me echoed a holy affirmation, “we are a world worth saving; I am a woman worth loving.”

 

I hope you see God wave at you today.  I hope you have holy moments of pondering a line from your favorite movie and experience it as God’s grace speaking to your heart.  I hope the baby Jesus becomes so real to you this Christmas season that you experience the power of God’s love reaching out to you in strange and wonderful ways.  No matter who you are or where you are, God is crazy about you.  You are loved.  Merry Christmas!

 

This is me trusting,

 

Sami

 

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

Telling the Story--Wesley Foundation E-Letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Hey Everyone!

 

Here’s what’s going on: 

 

Cocoa and Christmas Clips—This Thursday we will be on South Lawn from 3-5pm giving away hot chocolate.  At 5pm we will project “Rudolf” and “A Charlie Brown Christmas” onto Academic Complex.  Come and be blessed!

 

Thursday Night Free Meal & Christmas Party-- Afterwards, we will come back to the Wesley Foundation for Chinese food, we will have a Blind Santa gift exchange, and we will celebrate the season together.  Bring a $5-7 gift.  Anything you want.  And please be there, I have a special gift I want to share with you.  It’s not much, but I am so excited about it.

 

Free Lunch During Finals—Next week we will be serving lunch at the Wesley Foundation Monday through Thursday from 11am till 1pm.  Come and be fed.  Bring friends!  And let me know if you are planning to show up so I can have plenty of food.

 

Road Trip to Opryland—Also next Friday is our road trip to Nashville. We will go to Opry Mills for dinner and shopping, then see the lights at Opryland Hotel, and finally go for desert at the Cheesecake Factory.  Let me know if you are interested!

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

I love stories.  It was my favorite thing about my Silly Papa.  My Grandfather could tell the best stories.  In fact, it is a part of my heritage on my mother’s side of the family.  And it’s not that we stretch the truth, it’s just that we remember big.  No matter who is telling the story, it is filled with laughter and timing and love.  And all of those things are the best gifts I have received from my Harrison heritage. 

 

The thing about Harrison stories is that there is always a lot of drama and emotion.  It is always a big thing.  And even if it isn’t a big thing, we know how to make it a big thing.  Like in the retelling of the story from this past Thanksgiving when my two young sons played “tattoo parlor” while the other cousins played outside.  Let’s just say that when mommy went shopping my youngest got painted . . . all over.  He spent the rest of the day pulling up his shirt to show everyone his belly.  Five days later he still has magic marker stains on his stomach.

 

Yet one of the things I have learned about life and the way God moves in it, is that often times God’s big stories are very different from ours.  God will often take His time in telling it, or letting it unfold.  And often it is hidden in the mundane and ordinary.  In fact, sometimes we miss the most Holy thing because we are too impatient wait for God’s ending to unfold or our eyes refuse to recognize the small tender movements of love.  But God’s story is very much alive in our own stories.  We just need to know how to look.

 

Take for instance the story of my fishing pole.  My Silly Papa loved to fish.  There is a wonderful picture of him leaning against his fishing boat hanging on my Grandma’s fridge.  But more than fishing for fish, my Grandpa loved to fish for people.  The last Thanksgiving I got to be with him his memory was quite diminished from Alzheimers.  He didn’t recognize most of our family.  And we all got tickled when he began coaching my cousin Shae about how to lead my brother Dan to the Lord.  He kept saying to her, “Now you could be the one.” And with expert fishing skills he shared with her that she had to be patient and take it slow, not to rush.  Just like fishing, leading someone to Jesus is a labor of love.

 

Two months before my Silly Papa died I had a dream.  In it he said to me, “I’m going to have to give you my rod and reel.”  I thought he meant he was going to give my husband his fishing tackle (I’m slow sometimes).  After I woke up, the Lord impressed upon me that he was leaving me his ministry of fishing for people.  Two months later I was at his funeral saying goodbye.  And of course there were wonderful stories.  We laughed and cried, and we remembered him big.  Time passed and the next year my family visited my Grandma.  While we were there sitting around telling stories, my aunt Mary asked me to tell the story of my dream.  As I did my uncle disappeared from the room.  When he came back in he was carrying a hand-built wooden case with a glass front that held a fishing pole inside.  My Grandmother had found one of Grandpa’s poles and was giving it to me.  Needless to say, I was overwhelmed.  And yes, I cried. 

 

Of course the case wasn’t quite finished.  It needed to be stained and some finishing touches.  So I gave my pole back to allow it to be finished.  You know God is like that sometimes.  He gives you a glimpse of the thing He wants to do in your life, but then you have to wait for it to be completed.  Paul says it this way:  “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).  Sometimes that day seems a long time away, but we can trust Jesus to do that good work.  He is so faithful.  It’s funny, while I was waiting for my fishing pole to be ready, Jesus has been doing a work in me so that I would be ready to use it.

 

We just got back from Texas last Saturday night.  During our visit there, in the quiet of an empty bedroom in the lake house my aunt and uncle brought out a large box housing a bubble wrapped wooden box with a glass front, holding a simple fishing pole.  It was a simple moment.  There wasn’t a lot of fanfare.  No drum rolls, no ooh’s and ah’s.  Most of the family missed it.  I don’t even know if those precious persons who gave me that incredible gift know the significance of what transpired.  I just know that the story of my fishing pole was complete.  Or at least the first chapter.  Because somehow I feel the timing is perfect, and God is saying it’s time to fish.

 

I share this story as a way of reflecting on the biggest God story we can ever know.  On a quiet night, in a cramped city, God sent forth His Son, Jesus.  Jesus was born in a stable, 400 years after the last prophet had spoken.  The world had been waiting so long for a messiah they had given up hope.  It seemed like the story would go uncompleted.  And while a choir of angels announced His arrival, it was in the middle of nowhere to a few shepherds.  Most of the people in Bethlehem slept through the most significant moment in history.  And while the circumstances were kind of weird, a baby being born to poor people in humble surroundings happens everyday.  It is quite ordinary.  Kind of like fishing poles.

 

I want to encourage you to listen for your own fishing pole story this Christmas season.  Christmas is all about the incarnation, that wonderful moment when the God who created everything becomes flesh, and dwells amoung us.  It is the coming of Immanuel, which literally means “God with us.”  Where is God with you, now, in the ordinary circumstances of your life?  Where are you surrounded by God’s holiness and may not even know it?  Where is God telling His story of hope and salvation through you?  Jesus came to us as a babe 2000 years ago.  Through his Holy Spirit He comes to us now every moment.  May God grant us the eyes to recognized His coming.

 

This is me trusting,

 

Sami

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu