I'll Keep On

I'll keep on.  We listened to this song on our Wesley mission trip over spring break.  It spoke to us because were were exhausted from early mornings and long subway rides.  This evening the chorus of this song was helping me finish week 9 day 2 of this running program I'm trying hard to stick with.  The past two runs (well more like dragging myself) are 40 minutes.  That's a really long time for me to try to run with this tall girl body of mine.  The last six minutes seem to be the hardest part, and they seem to last at least twenty minutes longer than they should.  "I'll keep on....I'll keep on."  It popped into my head and helped me finish.

I'll keep on seems to be the theme of my environment these days.  For my students there are three weeks of school left.  Keeping on for them means finishing up projects, papers, and tests.  They're focused on summer jobs and securing internships.  At Wesley we are working on next years roster for leadership and already thinking ahead to what will happen in August when we have that exciting opportunity to start a new church (again and again).  

The Wesley House Board of Directors met yesterday.  We spend time sharing where God has been present in our lives.  I love that part, because so often we get caught up in the business part of things that we don't just celebrate God.  God is moving up here in this ministry.  Students are taking on new tasks, leaps of faith in sharing their gifts or stretching their comfort zones.  Even in these last few weeks we have had new students attend and "stick" with us.  I truly believe these are little sacred gifts in the midst of the weariness that comes from a 7-day/week ministry including two major mission trips for the last nine months.  I know it's the end of the year because I keep hearing my name being called even when nobody is there.  It's in my ears!  

When we start to really reflect on the facts from the last two years at the Wesley House we all come away with this deep understanding that God is up to something huge.  We are so challenged by the scarcity mentality of our WMI Conference that it's easy for me to get to a very negative space.  Everyone in conference leadership of this great denomination that I love and serve is so afraid, so focused on the numbers adding up that they're missing out on the power and might of what is happening with our college kids.  Where have most of the young clergy come from the last ten years?  Campus ministry.  And my treasurer challenges me with the question, "Do you believe that God will provide?"

In case you didn't know, our conference ministry shares pay for the salaries of our five WMI campus ministers.  I'm an expensive director because I'm an ordained elder and have to be on the conference insurance plan.  This year that will leave a couple thousand dollars for us to put toward the costs of running our buildings.  All of our programming expenses we are raising through covenant partnerships with local churches and people.  The problem is that in the next year our conference leadership is proposing a 40% reduction in funding.  Nothing says "we don't want you here" like cutting a ministry's funding by nearly half.  

In the meantime your Wesley Directors are being radically accountable to what we do.  We document nearly ever moment of time we spend with students.  We relay numbers of active participants in every single event.  We spend our time planning worship, offering pastoral care, searching for funding sources, connecting with local churches, drinking coffee and laughing with students, and crying out for someone in conference leadership to recognize that this is good and right and necessary for the very survival of our beloved UMC.  And then we are subtly told that it's not enough as our funding decreases and we are threatened though our "output" increases.  

My identity is wrapped up in this vocation.  Who I am is a United Methodist.  My theology is rooted in the principles of grace, mercy, and love.  I believe in what John Wesley was hoping to accomplish....a movement, not a religion.  And now I find myself in this heartbreaking place.  My colleagues and I are literally kicking the walls - not because of the lack of money - but because the very system that defines how we live out God's call on our lives is so broken, so angry, so passive-aggressive and short-sighted that we are choosing to perpetuate the broken power-hungry system rather than minister to the very generations that will carry our beloved UMC beyond the next 20 years.  

My soul has wrestled with this tension all year.  For the first time in my life I've questioned my loyalty to my church.  But here's the thing....in the midst of this nastiness I am overwhelmed with God's movement in the lives of my students.  In the midst of wondering if our doors will close we are stepping out to create a food pantry for the university.  In the midst of the scream of "not having enough" we receive a check in the mail.  Surrounded by the overwhelming frustration of trying to prove viability God gives us life, God gives us more students than we can handle, God gives us the ability to see beyond the now and into the future.  

So we keep on.  We keep sharing the stories, praying for new opportunities for ministry, embracing the young adults who are in the midst of figuring out faith, and life, and church.  I want my denomination to be a place like the Wesley House.  I want all pastors to have colleagues like I do, who are steeped in creative ministry ideas, who are silly and kind and brilliant.  Most of all I want to live out this call in a system that has integrity, faith, and hope. 

I wonder how many of your lives have been touched by a campus ministry.  I wonder what it would look like for all of us to get up on the floor of annual conference and share those stories.  I wonder what our denomination would be like if none of us had ever experienced the care of a campus pastor or young adult camp counselor.  I wonder....and I keep on.