The Wesley Journal

The next edition of the Wesley Journal will be published in March and we'll be focusing on community. Wesley is a complicated place. We have students who live on campus and those who travel in from hours away. We have student pastors, pastors who are continuing their education, future pastors, and those who don't want to be pastors at all. Some of us work full-time and some part-time, but many of us will end up balancing an internship with our coursework and our responsibilities to our finances as well as our families, friends, and other significant people in our lives. No matter how we come to this complicated place, we all need support. That's why the Journal wants to hear from you. Where do you find community and support at Wesley? What stops you from feeling in community or supported or cared for? What changes do you want to see at Wesley? What do you want to see grow? No matter where you're at in your seminary journey, we want to hear from you! Interested? ...

For some of us, the beginning of a new semester is a familiar routine. We register for the classes we want to or have to have, we struggle to remember where exactly the booklists are posted, we wait for the syllabi to be uploaded to blackboard, and then we pull out battered calendars and dig out highlighters that have been derelict for months to write down assignments and deadlines. Or, maybe we find ourselves getting that first email from that one on-top-of-things professor that begins, "In preparation for our class tonight..." and realize that we do, in fact, have class tonight. Still, regardless of how we start the semester, we make it to the end all the same.  But for some of us, the new semester really is new. If this is your first week on campus, welcome! The Course Reserves shelf is behind the front desk in the library and has many of the books you've been assigned, in case you leave yours at home or want to save some money. Also, the gummies in the vendin...

GLSA is one of Wesley's newest student organizations, working to promote cultural awareness and provide a community within the larger Wesley community for Latinx students. As we look forward to the semester ahead, our prayer is that you find your community here at Wesley and let it fill your time with the vibrancy of life lived together.  GLSA members meet schol ar Justo González . 

Congratulations on making it to the Spring Semester. Some of you are journeying into the second half of the academic year, while others are new to our Wesley family. In either event, welcome and welcome back. This graduate program is not easy. It is probably harder than most other graduate degrees because the real person you are studying is yourself. These classes are designed to teach you about the history, foundation, fundamentals, and even the extremes Christianity can take. What ends up happening is your beliefs and spiritual foundation gets attacked and you are suddenly on defense. You end up gaining/losing weight, losing sleep, speaking in worldly tongues to the theologians, and even thinking about quitting.  This struggle is not for nothing. If you persevere through this very difficult terrain, you will come out knowing yourself better, learn how to discern a real word of God, make new friends, and best of all you cultivate a deeper relationship with a God that ...

Wesley Fellowship is a student-run organization that works together to come up with, plan, and carry out events designed to gather the Wesley community together in fellowship. This community includes both on-campus and off-campus students, commuter students, and faculty and staff. Previous events that Wesley Fellowship has organized include game nights for prospective students, apple picking, a group outing to Zoolights, a scavenger hunt for a gift card, and a short, weekly prayer service. We also partner with other student organizations in order to put on events like cookouts, snack events, and stress relief events. Currently, Wesley Fellowship is planning a Welcome Back Game Night on January 25th. Our first meeting will be held on January 31st at 12:15 pm in the refectory - please feel free to join us! We are always looking for new ideas for events, help planning, or even just help to spread the word about events. Wesley Fellowship plans to continue the Weekly Prayer Servic...

More and more as I scroll through news articles, listen to the news and watch the responses on social media, I feel helpless and unsure how to help mend this broken system. As I listen to classmates and friends I hear more about who said what to whom and how this system is bringing the worse out of people. I hear about the terrible atrocities that are happening to what seems like everybody. Children are dying in preventable and senseless killings and gun violence took center stage last year. People are losing their jobs because of an unstable political administration and Lady Justice has her eyes wide open as this country continues to watch unfair housing, policing, education and wages. Racism is an unending issue for people of color. I seem to be in a continuous state of uproar because there is nothing good or positive to be seen on our TV and timelines. As a student of justice and as a Christian, the only thing I knew to do was to turn to my bible. In Mark 12:28-34, we find Je...

On a recent phone call with a friend, Wesley alum and current pastor, I asked them about how their life in a local congregation was treating them. They didn’t take too long to say, “You know, they don’t teach you what you really need to know in seminary! I learned a lot about leading worship services, but not about how to lead worship when you need to call 911 to take care of a parishioner who has just fainted in the service!” My friend hit on something important. The classes we take prepare us personally and professionally for the hard work of ministry in various settings…to a point. No matter how many biblical studies, theology, leadership or preaching courses we take, so many lessons evade our understanding until we experience them for ourselves. This message has lingered with me since starting at Wesley in 2016. As I’ve gotten closer to graduation, I keep realizing how much I still have to learn and how much I’ve learned beyond the classroom through practical ministry experience....