Disciple: Mission Endowment Spotlight: Answered Prayers in the Mission Field
A fledgling ministry at Winston-Salem State University spreads its wings
By Summerlee Walter
The Rev. James Franklin had been praying hard for a little help.
Franklin, who is the Winston-Salem young adult missioner responsible for ministry at Wake Forest University and Divinity School, Salem University and the surrounding areas, needed someone to help him establish a campus ministry at Winston-Salem State University, a historically black university that had been without a ministerial presence for more than 15 years. And he needed someone willing to volunteer for the task since he had program funding from a 2016 Mission Endowment Grant but had been unable to secure any salary support grants. Making one final attempt to find help, Franklin emailed a field placement supervisor at Wake Forest Divinity School and asked if anyone in the program might be interested in campus ministry. As it happened, she had been ready to call Franklin seeking help placing someone when she received his email.
AN ANSWERED PRAYER
That’s when the Holy Spirit intervened and Franklin met Latricia Giles. Giles, in her second year of divinity school, was a graduate of WSSU and had relationships with people in the administration. She secured permission to set up a prayer station in the student union on Wednesdays during the fall semester. The prayer station started out as a white board with a dry erase marker, but forgotten supplies led Giles to improvise one week. She offered snacks and sticky notes, a chance for students to rest a moment, talk and record their prayers on the corporate prayer board without erasing or crowding anyone else’s pleas. Like much else in the WSSU ministry, her improvisation led to a spiritual opportunity. By the end of the semester, Giles had accumulated a tower of sticky note prayers.
“It’s something special to me to actually have the prayers in my hand when I’m praying,” Giles shared. “I literally carry the prayers with me as I pray for the students. It’s a constant reminder what I do is important, even on the days when I don’t have a lot of participation.”
The prayer station served as a good introduction to campus, a way to build relationships and trust while demonstrating to a wary administration an Episcopal presence would help care for students’ well-being, not disrupt campus life.
Steering a nascent ministry is not without its challenges. For one, there are not a lot of Episcopal resources dedicated to campus ministry best practices.
“There’s absolutely no manual for how to start a campus ministry,” Franklin explained. “How many books are there about how to plant a church or do congregational development? There’s volumes of stuff that’s out there. There’s like one book for campus ministry, and it’s way outdated.”
Giles and Franklin also face some challenges specific to their context at WSSU. There’s no administrative support for student religious life in the form of a chaplain’s office or structure for denominational campus ministers. Recently, though, the university appointed an administrative position for student wellness, which includes spiritual health. A high percentage of the school’s 5,100 students commutes, which also poses challenges for extracurricular activities like campus ministry. Then there’s the general lack of awareness about The Episcopal Church.
“Students who haven’t heard of [the Episcopal Church] want to know if we’re Christian, and do we love Jesus,” Giles explained. “And I tell them we love God, God loves them and I love them.”
WHO’S NOT AT THE TABLE?
Despite the challenges, however, it is clear to both campus ministers WSSU is ripe for mission work.
“It was obvious that someone was not at the table in campus ministries around here, and that is a historically black university. That’s a problem, and that has to change. If we’re going to be a ministry that looks like the Kingdom, then everyone is a part of that,” Franklin emphasized. In the fall 2016 cycle grant application, Franklin, Giles and the board of advisors for campus ministry in Winston-Salem wrote: “This is envisioned as an incarnational, Galilee ministry for and with but not limited to: the religiously unaffiliated, millennials, the ‘nones,’ self-identified Episcopal students, the marginalized, the LGBTQ community, the interfaith community, faculty, staff, those who love Jesus and seek his Church, and those who know or don’t know Jesus and have been hurt by the Church.”
“Something needs to happen that’s different,” Giles said. “Kids are crying out, and there’s no one there. People need to know people can be there for them, and not just on Wednesday with a snack.”
While it seems clear from Giles’ initial experiences ministering to students at WSSU she and Franklin were right about the need on campus, Franklin acknowledges that, without the support from Mission Endowment grants, the practicalities of Latricia’s work would be much more difficult.
“It’s nice to have that instead of sending someone out and saying, ‘Well, get creative,’” he joked. More seriously, though, “there’s a freedom of creativity that comes with [having program funding].”
During the fall semester, Giles partnered with a religion professor who hosts a Bible study for students enrolled in one of his classes. The experience gave her a chance to learn more about leading a Bible study in preparation for launching her own — this one not required for course credit — in the spring. She plans to get creative, both with the content and promotion of her Bible study: “Drake Theology,” after the Grammy-winning artist, will explore theology in popular music, and, because only school-sanctioned campus organizations can advertise events on campus, she plans to enlist her sorority sisters to help spread the word.
Franklin and Giles also hope to take students who have connected with the fledgling ministry on retreat, expanding the invitation to the wider community of campus ministries in Winston-Salem — and perhaps across the Diocese of North Carolina — for a second retreat during the fall semester. They plan to finance the retreats using leftover funds from the Mission Endowment Grant so they will be available to students for little to no cost. In addition, they are interested in sponsoring cross-campus events for students at WSSU, Salem College, Wake Forest University and the North Carolina University School of the Arts.
Franklin is unsure what the future will hold for the nascent ministry. He is hopeful, however, because God has already interceded once.
“I count it as a Spirit thing that God put it on our hearts, and then it happened the way it happened with Latricia and the Divinity School. God was listening.”
Summerlee Walter is the communications coordinator for the Diocese of North Carolina. The next Mission Endowment Grant application deadline is April 16.
Tags: North Carolina Disciple
