GOOD
SOIL
LUTHERAN VALUES AND COMMITMENTS IN MINISTRY
Building Community
Cultivate sustaining, trustworthy relationships in a diverse community - one
in which, whoever you are,
you belong.
Deepening
Faith
Integrate Christian wisdom into daily life, and find connection with the Holy and one another through study, prayer, and worship.
Expanding
Minds
Wrestle with the big questions of life and faith, discover new Christian expressions and voices, and challenge what you thought you knew.
Inspiring
Service
Explore your vocation as a child of God - grow confident to speak, advocate, and act in pursuit of justice for all God's beloved creation.
Building Community
Renowned theorist and activist bell hooks wrote, "Beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies that shape who we are and how we live in the world."
In the midst of a culture that champions independence, we insist on God's design for interdependence. All humans need a place to belong, to be safe, to receive and offer hospitality, wisdom, and solidarity; we need one another as we seek to become the community of love and justice to which Jesus calls us.
In Lutheran campus ministry, we affirm our human unity while acknowledging the ideal is far simpler than the practice. We celebrate our identity while exploring partnerships with other traditions, and welcome people from any faith background or no faith background at all. We commit to students of all ethnicities and race, nationalities, socioeconomic contexts, sexual and gender identities, and abilities.
Deepening Faith
Lutheran public theologian Nadia Bolz-Weber once wrote, "The movement in our relationship to God is always from God to us. Always. We can't, through our piety or goodness, move closer to God. God is always coming near to us."
We believe that the sacred texts and story of Christian faith offer profound wisdom, witness, and sacred teaching; there is connection with the divine and one another in prayer and worship. There are also painful and difficult lessons in deconstructing where human brokenness and sin have met with the power of the Christian institution - together with the beautiful gospel of Christ, we inherit the Church's complex legacy in the world.
Deepening faith does not mean eradicating doubt, nor does it mean denying the complexity and brokenness of our human story. Faith, in the Lutheran expression, is not what we "know," but how we trust; faithfulness is our response to the Spirit's movement in us and the transformative nature of God's grace. Through studying scripture, opening ourselves to new and old theological thinkers, learning to recognize and cultivate our prayer life, and watching for God in our neighbor, we deepen our trust that God moves in and ever nearer to us. Deep, authentic faith empowers bold action in love and service to the world.
Expanding Minds
Paul Tillich, an influential 20th-century Lutheran theologian wrote, "All things and all people, so to speak, call on us with small or loud voices. They want us to listen. They want us to understand their intrinsic claims, their justice of being. But we can give it to them only through the love that listens."
Perhaps the hardest and most beautiful thing about leaving home is the way that everything that came before stands or falls when tested in the world. The sheer volume of voices, perspectives, experiences, fears, hopes, and dreams come flooding in. It shakes everything up.
We are committed to holding brave space for this unraveling, exploring, and expanding. While such spaces may initially feel unsettling or even distressing, allowing for ambiguity and change is a crucial stance for loving in a complex world. With space for deconstruction, we also commit to provide resources and care as students begin to reconstruct their beliefs and values.
Inspiring Service
A core theological commitment for Lutherans is to the "priesthood of all believers" and the vocation(s) of the faithful in daily life. Our sacred vocations (or "callings") show up in relationship, in study, in paid and unpaid work, and in the civic sphere. No call is higher or holier than any other - to be ordained as a minister, to become a parent, to provide public transportation, or to keep schools clean and safe for the community's children.
From good soil, a life of love and solidarity can blossom. With it, we equip students to see what love and service looks like when their gifts meet the world's needs in any given moment - to recognize them even when they don't manifest in ways we're taught to see. Sometimes we serve by preparing food or washing dishes, and sometimes we are in a moment of disrupting injustice. Sometimes we buckle down to claim our education, and sometimes we stay up an extra hour with a friend who's overwhelmed and anxious.
We lift up service as a way of life, and inspire students to see the many ways they are called into the world.