The Wesley Journal

Photo by Csomós János, a seminarian and winner of the Student Council's Spring Photo Competition. I started my journey at Wesley in Fall 2016. This journey began with lots of questions like, “Why am I here?” or “What was I thinking going back to school?” I didn’t know where to start or how to get adjusted to so many life changes happening so fast. I remember halfway through my first semester having doubts of whether I had made the right choice or if this was really where I felt led to. I decided to continue trying and see why I felt that I had to be at Wesley at a time like this. One of the reasons that I decided to come to Wesley was because of the Community Engagement Fellows. My second semester as a fellow, I was invited to be part of a non-profit and work with a community in Gaithersburg. When I started my internship, I realized that this was something different, a type of ministry that I had never done before. I realized that there were many things in this field that...

I suspect that for many students, who are scrambling trying to fit in classes and course preparation between some set of other tasks – jobs, church work, families, and so on – the work of the Student Council is largely invisible. Yes, if you stand in front of an electronic sign board long enough, you will see some upcoming event sponsored or coordinated by the Council, but if you are mostly running from one obligation to the next, you may never find time to attend one of those events. And you are likely not even to realize all the other things for which the Student Council has responsibility. Its official job description says “Wesley's Student Council seeks to promote the common welfare of the student body by acting as the voice of the student body through providing an open forum in which concerns can be raised, sponsoring various student organizations, and working with the administration, faculty, staff, and the community to ensure a supportive academic climate.” Concretely, t...

The cherry trees have blossomed, spring semester classes have come to a close, and graduating students have sent out invitations to friends and family. As we come to the close of our 2018-19 academic year, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on my first year as dean at Wesley Seminary. We live in challenging times. We live in a nation and a world with polarizing forces. We can see this in our society and in our churches. While it was once believed that the world wide web would flatten the playing field and give us access to the world’s diversity, just the opposite has occurred. The internet has allowed us to receive the information that fits our narrow worldview and confirm previously held beliefs. Rather than exposing us to divergent positions and facts that would challenge our assumptions, it feeds us filtered data curated to reinforce our views. This allows us, as a nation and a world, to become siloed and isolated from those who believe and act differently than us. It is pr...

Congratulations to us for finishing another year in our academic careers! The end of a semester can bring many emotions as some of us are saying goodbye to this community for a while, some of us are starting internships, some of us are taking a long-awaited rest, and some of us are continuing life as usual through the summer. As we continue through this season of new beginnings, may we all be reminded of how lucky we are to be on this journey together at Wesley. In preparing for next year, the 2019-20 Student Council Executive Board has done some dreaming about our plans for next year. First we want to express our gratitude for this year’s student council for all of their hard work. By revising our constitution, they helped current and future Wesley students. We appreciate you! Next year, we want to continue this legacy of leadership by finding ways to better the Wesley community for us as current students and for the future students of Wesley Theological Seminary. As the St...

Wesley Community, it has been an honor serving as your President of Student Council for 2018-19. Thank you for allowing me to lead and learn with you. Through the course of this year, we have together been able to cultivate enthusiasm and build collaboration among all members and organizations within the Wesley community. We have done this through engaging activities, fun and fellowship, and courageous conversations. Events sponsored by Student Council, like Free Hugs, Prayer and Brownies, the Civil Dialogue workshop, Implicit Bias workshops, the Book Donations Drive, Thanksgiving and Easter dinners, and the Spring Outing and Cherry Blossoms Photo Contest are a few examples. Student Council also partnered with and supported other organizations to help provide our community with well-rounded programs and activities. Plumbline spurred us toward love and justice with the United to Love Rally and Motivational Mondays. The Association of Black Seminarians embraced community with W...

There were many communities to be found at the Special General Conference of the United Methodist Church held this past February in St. Louis, some of them consolidated while others were in conflict. We entered The Dome as United Methodists and left feeling a deep division. I was in the thick of this broken community as an observer. After the final plenary vote approving the Traditional Plan was announced, protests erupted around the room. Opponents began to chant and sing portions of “Blessed Assurance.” In response, proponents sang “On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand.” These two hymns which espouse key tenets of our faith were being flung like fiery darts at one another and piercing the heart of our community, setting it all ablaze. This was not a gentle warming akin to what John Wesley described; this was an inferno fed by years of tension and lack of understanding between parties. The inferno continued, eating up all of the oxygen in the room. I found it hard to breathe as I ...

Dear Friends, It was Jesus who said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35) We must admit that leading up to the Special Session of General Conference and during most of it we, as United Methodists, have not always demonstrated the kind of love that marks us as true followers of Christ. Yet, through the grace of God, we must continue to hold on to our belief that the Church can still give evidence of faithful discipleship, capable of transforming the world in Jesus’ name and spirit. On February 26th, the Special Session of the General Conference approved the Traditional Plan, maintaining and, in some instances, tightening the language about sexuality currently present in the Book of Discipline. As we have seen in the weeks after the decision, members of our denomination have experienced a flurry of emotions. The Council of Bishops and I recognize these emotions and understand that for some members of the UMC, the church no lon...