Meet a Campus Missionary Volunteer

CMV Bart Loos talks about his campus ministry experiences

I will start off writing about my experience of the first year of college:

I attended Binghamton University, a relatively large public university, my freshman year of college. In my first semester, my time filled up with school and with college soccer. There was no attempt to find a Christian fellowship on campus by me prior to attending, and consequently, I spent most of my semester not being a part of one. I realize that this is my fault, and by the time I tried to find a Christian fellowship, I could not — and I was limited in the time and effort I could devote to finding one.

I was the only Christian in my dorm suite, and one of the very few on the soccer team. Therefore, my living situation and even my time on the team provided no fellowship with brothers or sisters in the faith. This all was a very difficult struggle for me. It was not until my second semester that I became part of a Christian fellowship on campus, although not a Lutheran campus fellowship.

I am currently serving at the University Lutheran Chapel here at UCLA, a public university like Binghamton (but much larger). The chapel is in a beautiful place where it can reach out to students on campus. We have been given the opportunity to reach out to them and make ourselves accessible by searching them out. As I learned from my own experience, Christian students may be lost and longing for a fellowship but be so caught up in school and other obligations that they do not expend great effort to search us out. So, I believe the chapel and this Lutheran campus ministry (and every Lutheran campus ministry across the country) has been charged with the responsibility to go and seek out these students.

Furthermore, University Lutheran Chapel is located on “Frat Row,” and serves as a beacon of light for the Church as a whole in a place that is perhaps greatly opposed to it. The chapel offers a place for fellowship to hear and receive the Word and sacraments purely—so it offers more than just fellowship; it offers fellowship focused in the Word and sacraments.

Bart Loos, a graduate of Concordia University Chicago, serves University Lutheran Chapel at UCLA as a Campus Missionary Volunteer.

Here at UCLA, we have also been called to reach those who are lost or seeking with the Good News that Christ has brought us back into a right relationship with God by His death on the cross, and with the assurance we have of eternal life in Christ’s resurrection. We provide fellowship and reach the Christian students, take care of them, preach the Word and administer the Sacraments. However, we are not the end, but rather means—so we encourage and equip the students and members of the chapel to go out and reach the student body by sharing and living out the love of God.

After Binghamton University, I attended Concordia University—Chicago, and although Concordia was a Christian university and different from Binghamton, the campus ministry there was certainly a needed ministry as well as a blessing to be a part of. Whether the school is secular or Christian, a campus ministry is essential—both to help Christian students grow in faith and to share God’s love, His message, and His call to those who have not yet come to know Him.

Bart Loos graduated in 2011 from Concordia University—Chicago in River Forest, Ill. with a degree in biblical languages. A goalkeeper on the CUC men’s soccer team, Bart was named second team All Northern Athletic Conference for the 2010 season. As the Campus Missionary Volunteer at University Lutheran Chapel (UCLA), he works with Pastor Mark Jasa in a variety of ministry roles.

Want to learn more about LCMS Campus Ministry’s Campus Missionary Volunteer program? Visit the CMV page on our website!

Pray for President’s Think Tank on Campus Ministry Jan. 3-4

Please join us in praying for the LCMS President’s Think Tank on Campus Ministry, scheduled for Jan. 3-4. Campus ministry leaders, student leaders, and mission leaders will gather at the LCMS International Center in St. Louis for a strategic summit concerning ministry in campus communities across the country. Ask God to lead and guide the discussions and to enlighten and energize the fellowship among the participants in this event.

National LCMS Youth Gathering needs Media Correspondents and Event Emcees

The National LCMS Youth Gathering is looking for young adults to serve as Media Correspondents and Event Emcees for the 2013 Gathering, July 1-5, 2013 (plus some extra days for these roles) in San Antonio! Interested? Download the application packet: http://bit.ly/obHgRD. We just got this info and the deadline is approaching fast–but there’s still time! Check it out.

Texas Underground: widen the circle (Part 3)

We owe thanks to several people who kindly contributed their own insights about Texas Underground during the writing of the “Widen the Circle” article. We have used excerpts and adaptations from some of the quotes in the article, but here are the quotes in their entirety—including some contributions we were not able to use in the article itself.

Thanks so much to everyone who participated in Texas Underground 2011—and thanks especially to those who shared their thoughts with us!

“Texas Underground was a phenomenal experience! Some days were challenging, but that is what made the rewards from God even better. I was blessed to meet some life-changing people and work with awesome leaders who helped me significantly keep a smile on my face! If I had a choice—I would be down there every week helping out the people of San Antonio. Biggest hearts I have met, and I know that I will be their friend even though we have parted for now (because I know I will be back again!). I can’t thank the people of Texas Underground enough for what they have given me; compassion, faith, joy and most of all—a bond of friendship that can withstand thousands of miles!”

Paige, Western Michigan University

“Texas Underground was a powerful servant event for everyone in our group from Western Michigan University. We came down to San Antonio, thinking that we would be doing painting and light construction. However, we found out once we got there that God has something else in store. We spent the week at several Senior Day care centers, interacting and listening to the people at the Senior Centers. They were truly the ‘least of these’ in society. These people where men and women with some type of disability, homeless, or forgotten by their families. As we spent time listening and talking with them, we learned the joy of serving others. They impacted us as much as we impacted them.

In the afternoon, we spent time with the youth in the community at the park/community center just down the street from the church. To see the college students bring joy and happiness to the faces of these kids was wonderful to see. Jesus tells us to let our light so shine before others that they may see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven. All of the college students that were participants in Texas Underground were a light that shined brightly with the love of God and their impact on both the seniors and youth in the community we served is still being felt today.”

Pastor Mark Couch
Campus Pastor, Western Michigan University

“Here are some observations and things that we learned:

• Each day included 3 opportunities for Scripture study and prayer time. This discipline is an important place to start the process of sharing Christ with others.
• Building relationships with people outside the church is the best way to begin the process of witnessing the love of Christ!
• Being willing to listen, and letting people know that you care, brings about change in people’s lives!
• Trusting in God, and in the work of the Holy Spirit, produces better outcomes than things that we try and control on our own!
• Doing the work and telling the story is all that we need to focus on!
• Being open to things outside of our own “comfort zone” can bring about results that we had not expected!
• Seeing Christ in everyone we talk to gives us purpose, as we go about the work Christ has given us to do!

Don L. Bader, Coordinator
Living H2O Lutheran Campus Ministry
University of Nebraska—Omaha

“Texas Underground was an awesome experience. We experienced the reality that not only is there great joy in being blessed but also in being a blessing. Many of us have grown up in church hearing the message about how there’s joy in not living for yourself but for God and others. On this Mission Trip we got to see that this is not just some abstract theory but something that works practically in reality. Now we’re believing God that the love shown to the people in San Antonio will be made complete in them.”

Vicar Devin Kimball
Serving the LCMS Campus Ministry at Drake University

“The Texas Underground mission trip was not at all what I expected—it was so much more than that. I have come away from that experience with knowledge and understanding that has changed my life already. The difference with this mission trip is that I know the knowledge and understanding I have gained will continue to affect me for the rest of my life.

I made so many new friends on the Texas Underground mission trip! These relationships are even stronger because they were formed with a bond of the Holy Spirit. Both fellow Christians working together to show God’s love and all of the amazing people I met out in the community hold a place in my heart forever.

People say they trust in God. We are supposed to entrust to God our entire lives, but I have never been able to completely let go before this trip. The experience of learning how to truly put your life into God’s hands, and how to let the Holy Spirit guide everything you do was a priceless gift, and I thank God for it. All of us grew spiritually down in Texas.”

Jessica, University of Nebraska—Omaha

Please stand together with us and…

Ask God to continue to bless our partners in ministry, Lutheran Student Fellowship and International Student Ministry, Inc. Pray for opportunities to work in ever-closer partnership!

Join us in prayer to…

Ask God to bless our planning and development of the Campus Ministry Volunteer concept. Pray for the young adults who respond to the call to spend a year supporting local campus ministries.

As you pray…

Praise God for young adults who bring their questions and concerns to Christian friends and campus ministry leaders. Pray for openness and the Holy Spirit’s guidance in responding to them.

Include in your prayers…

Give God thanks for a safe and successful Texas Underground winter servant gathering! Ask God to continue to bless our hosts at Mision Evangelica Luterana, event participants, and all our new friends in the surrounding San Antonio community.

Texas Underground: widen the circle (Part 2)

Sonia

Pastor Randy Wilken, our facilitator at Texas Underground, tells the story of Sonia.

“We went to the Careplex adult day care center to ask if anyone on the staff or among the participants needed repair help. Mary, the director, introduced us to a staff member named Sonia. She is a single mom with five children. She has made some poor choices in her life and as a result has not had an easy go of it.

“We came to Sonia’s house and asked her what we could do to help her. She led us through her house out into the back yard, and just asked if we could just fix the door to her shed, because a neighbor keeps breaking into it and stealing her stuff. We looked at the shed, and we asked, ‘What else?’ She looked at us and said ‘I don’t deserve to have you come here and help me; that would be enough.’ And we looked back at her and asked again, ‘What else?’ So she showed us some holes in her walls that needed to be fixed; kitchen cabinets that were falling off the walls; doors that needed to be replaced; walls that needed painting; and in a garage she has converted to a bedroom for her three boys, vents that go directly outside that let cold in during the winter and heat in the summer. She was in desperate need—but it was her humility, not her need, that struck us.

“Sonia came and joined our circle at the church one night. These sessions can run long, and I wondered how she felt as she sat there. But Sonia stayed, and as we told our stories and shared what they were coming to mean for us, she cried. She was overwhelmed. After our circle time, she looked at us and said ‘this is so different than my church, than any church that I have ever been to. Can I come to this church?’

“What was different? Could it be peace—the kind that passes all understanding? Could it be that she experienced the love that each of us had for one another, and that there was no arguing or bickering? That is what she was after—the peace, the love, the joy, the kindness. I have learned that since we left she has returned to Mision Evangelica Luterana to worship, meet the congregation, and experience more of what she discovered when we widened our circle one night to include her.”

Adult Centers

Groups of Undergrounders visited the Sonia’s Careplex facility and another adult day care center every day, leading music, putting on skits with the centers’ participants, and just spending time getting to know them. Pastor Mark Couch, who brought a group from Western Michigan University to Texas Underground, writes:

“We came down to San Antonio thinking that we would be doing painting and light construction.  We found out that God had something else in store. We spent a lot of the week interacting with and listening to people who could truly be considered the ‘least of these’ in society: men and women with some type of disability, homeless, or forgotten by their families. As we spent time listening and talking with them, we learned the joy of serving others. They impacted us as much as we impacted them.”

Don Bader, leader of a student group from the University of Nebraska—Omaha adds, “Seeing Christ in everyone we talked to and being open to things outside of our own ‘comfort zone’ brought about results that we had not expected!”

Can the circle be widened to include people outside our “comfort zone”? Just ask an Undergrounder.

Unlooked-for Blessings

In fact, our comfort zones were at risk the moment we stepped into the Texas Underground experience. When Pastor Randy leads an event like this, he prefers to make rough plans, then canvass the surrounding community for specific needs, and then trust the Holy Spirit to guide which tasks are to be done and on what time line. The typically strict “servant event” itinerary many of us have been accustomed to was the first thing we learned we would have to sacrifice. Yet by our last night together, where there had been skeptics, there were now believers.

“People say they trust in God,” says Jessica, a member of the Nebraska—Omaha “Living H2O” group. “We are supposed to entrust to God our entire lives, but I have never been able to completely let go before this trip. The experience of learning how to truly put your life into God’s hands, and how to let the Holy Spirit guide everything you do was a priceless gift, and I thank God for it.”

Paige, who came with Pastor Mark’s Western Michigan “Solid Ground” ministry group, writes, “Some days were challenging, but that is what made the rewards from God even better. I was blessed to meet some life-changing people and work with awesome leaders.”

Next

When a mission service trip ends, one thing we must—must—do is ask “Now what?” It’s hardly fair to reach out to a community in the name of Jesus for four days and simply leave it behind on the fifth. The ministry deserves to be sustained. Praise God for providing able servants—Pastor  Julio Flamenco and his wife, Deaconess Maricela, along with Vicar Aaron Goeke from nearby Boerne—to embrace the challenges for new ministry in the community with joy and determination. (They’re even keeping the Ga-ga ball pit.)

Pastor Randy and LCMS Campus Ministry have now designated Mision Evangelica Luterana to be a venue for one of three Spring Break Underground servant gatherings in 2011 (March 13-18). Pastor Randy is in fact planning to return on a periodic basis. It’s likely there will be more Undergrounds here.

And the Undergrounders who were the catalysts in the process?

“Gotta have a Facebook group,” they demanded on our last night together. Thanks to wireless Internet service, that task was done almost before they finished the sentence. They’re out there now. They’re clicking “Like” when Vicar Aaron posts that Pastor Julio was saddened by how clean—and empty—the fellowship hall is these days, and Pastor Randy responds, “Time to come back and make another mess; who’s with me?”

Some will do more than “Like” an invitation such as that. They will be back, to widen the circle some more and help spread the church—person to person, heart to heart, family to family, “underground,” the way the early church spread.

Greg Koenig is a Lutheran communications professional and serves as national co-facilitator for Lutheran Student Fellowship; he attended Texas Underground 2011 on behalf of LSF and LCMS Campus Ministry.

We did not use Jake’s real name. No other names were changed. For information about LCMS Campus Ministry, visit http://lcmscampusministry.org. For information about Pastor Randy Wilken and his St. Louis-based Acts 1:8 Mission Society, visit www.acts18stl.org. Thanks to Pat Fick, director of our valued partner, Austin-based Can-Do Missions (http://can-do.concordia.edu). Thanks also to all who contributed to this article.

Texas Underground: widen the circle (Part 1)

Every morning for about an hour, and every night for at least an hour, we gathered in a circle to talk about the day’s events; to talk about what in the world we were doing at this thing we were calling Texas Underground; to talk about eternity. As the week progressed, the circle became the metaphor for our experience here.

It was a good-sized circle to begin with. There were at least thirty of us—students and campus ministry leaders from five universities, as well as staff members from three partner organizations—and we pretty much filled the room of the fellowship hall in which we gathered. But there were often even more of us—our host congregation’s pastor and deaconess; a vicar from a local congregation; a high schooler with whom some of us made friends on a playground; neighborhood kids—and whenever we did, our response was the same: widen the circle.

Texas Underground was the inaugural event in the Underground series of servant gatherings introduced by LCMS Campus Ministry in 2011 for college and university students. It was held January 2-7 at Mision Evangelica Luterana, a Lutheran mission in San Antonio. The name Underground is intended to recall the energy and character of the early Christian church—which often operated “underground,” spreading from person to person, heart to heart, family to family.

When Jesus revealed His plan for the church, He commanded the apostles to be His witnesses “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8)—describing His church as something which would spread in ever-widening circles. Peter took some convincing that this was indeed to include non-Jews. After Paul encountered the risen Christ on the Damascus road, he never looked back. Both embraced the mission: widen the circle further, to Antioch, and Ephesus and Athens, to Rome…and perhaps beyond.

Our mission at Texas Underground was same: widen the circle—and include neighborhood kids, their families, and those who are struggling or suffering throughout the surrounding community. Here are some glimpses into how the mission unfolded:

Jake

Some of our Undergrounders found Jake shooting hoops on a nearby playground and joined him. He plays for a local Christian high school and, after spending some time with our students, invited all of us to a game his team would be playing the next night. The morning before the game, Jake’s father visited us and, although he had come to relay the sad news that Jake’s game had been called off, he made the time to express his appreciation for what we were doing, as well to share his own deep and abiding faith in God.

We widened the circle when Jake and his father returned that night and joined us in our debriefing and devotion time. Jake shared a candid appraisal of the impact our Underground group was making:

“This isn’t the roughest part of San Antonio … but it’s rough,” he said. “There are a lot of teen pregnancies, a lot of drugs, a lot of violence and abuse. What you’re doing is helping children and families feel like they matter; you’re caring enough to listen; you’re bringing out the good in the people of this neighborhood.”

We would always close our circle sessions by standing, clasping hands, and taking turns offering prayers. On our final night, when it was Jake’s turn and his prayer revealed he was wrestling with some weighty spiritual issues, our circle closed tightly around him and we prayed fervently for the Holy Spirit’s power in his life.

Ga-ga Ball

It wasn’t a circle, exactly. It was an octagonal enclosure made of two-foot-tall sections of plywood and held together with door hinges. A previous servant group had brought it and left it to be painted and maybe to be used to reach out to neighborhood kids.

It worked. Our crew painted it a shade of peach and toted it down to the park where they had met Jake, and some curious kids showed up. “Know what this is?” our Undergrounders asked.

“Sure,” they said. “Ga-ga ball; this is the pit.” None of us had ever played this below-the-knees variety of dodge ball called Ga-ga ball where we came from, but it became a preoccupation for both our Undergrounders and larger and larger numbers of neighborhood children. On our last night with the kids, the Ga-ga ball pit was transformed—first into Noah’s Ark for a skit, then into a unique devotional circle. The Undergrounders stood for prayer and widened the circle for any of the neighborhood kids who wanted to be part of it. After the students started the prayer off, one neighborhood girl after another in the circle volunteered to pray.

The boys were less ready to participate, but one brave boy stepped up. “I want to pray, too,” he whispered. “How do I do it? What do I say?”

“Whatever’s in your heart to say to God, just say it; talk to Him just like you’re talking to me now,” said Matt, one of our students.

“Jesus, thank You for all of us being here, and I love You,” the boy prayed. He looked up. “How was that?”

“Best prayer I ever heard,” Matt smiled.