Our new council recently had their first retreat together to plan for the coming semester. We are excited for 2024 with this new group of leaders!
Alec Creasy - Discipleship Coordinator
Delaney Reynolds - Missions Coordinator
Lacy Stroh - President
Mad Gardner - Outreach Coordinator
Gibby Beville - Fellowship Coordinator
Bradley Schwartz - Worship Coordinator
We had beautiful weather for our spring Golf Tournament! We appreciate all who played and our board, students and volunteers who helped make it happen! Congratulations to our winning team of Bobby George, Curt Tilton, Alan George and Steve Dix!
With a weekend full of activities, Wesley celebrated the ministry it has had for and with students for three quarters of a century. We had a great time playing games, eating (of course), enjoying a coffee house with acts from every recently former director and then closing out the weekend with worship on Sunday morning.
We have pictures to share and good memories. We also had accumulated a good bit of history. We are trying to get it as complete as possible, so if you would like to read it over and make suggestions you can do that here
Our new leadership team was affirmed at a recent worship service and has begun the process of planning for the year. They recently attended a council conference to learn more about each other, create a covenant which will guide the ministry for the coming year and scheduled events on our calendar. We are excited for the new year!
Student Ministry Residents are post-graduate students who commit to working with Wesley while also discerning their own call to ministry. This year, we have two!
Mollie June Miller comes to us from Long Valley, NJ by way of Johnson City, TN. We first met Mollie June while Wesley was working with ASP for Spring Break, where Mollie June was on staff. She says that she has loved getting to meet the students exactly where they are and remind them to take heart in the Lords promises.
Jonathan Stallings started at MTSU in the Fall of 2017 as a Music Theory and Composition Major. He found Wesley through his previous connections at the United Methodist Church, and became one of the Worship Coordinators in Spring of 2018. He continued to serve on the Wesley Student Council as Worship Coordinator for 5 more semesters, Outreach Coordinator for 1 semester, and Student President in 2021. He studied Audio Production with a minor in music for 2 years, and graduated in Fall 2021 with a B.S. in Integrated Studies with a minor in music. After graduating, Jonathan moved to Nashville to pursue a career in film music. He now serves as a Ministry Resident at the Wesley Foundation of Middle Tennessee, Adult Ministry Director at Fellowship UMC, and Media Specialist at St. Mark's UMC.
As we enter into a new year and head towards a new semester, we’d like to introduce our newest staff member, Baker Bachman! Baker is a Wesley alumnus and served as our Student Council President until his graduation in the Fall of 2018. He will be serving as our Director of Connection and Care. Baker, we are so excited for you to be here with us!
Between October 8th-12th, our students and students from Wesley of UT Southern traveled down to Panama City Beach for a weekend of relaxation, fellowship, and good food! We were so blessed to have been fed by two ministry partners of ours, Chandra Buckhout and the wonderful folks at First Methodist of Panama City.
After missing out on our annual beach retreat last year, it was so wonderful to offer students relaxing time at the beach, bask in God’s creation, and form new friendships!
Our beloved Associate Director and Campus Minister, Michelle Ozier Wallace, has been called to serve as the Director of the new Wesley Foundation at UT Southern in Pulaski, Tennessee. We are so thrilled and excited for her and the amazing service she will bring to Pulaski, but we will miss her so much here at MT!
We love you, Michelle, and we thank you for who you are and what you’ve done for our community! ❤️
Music: bensound.com
SHOW LESS
Wesley of Middle Tennessee took to the Murfreesboro Greenway on Thursday with gloves, masks and trash bags in hand to show some love to God’s creation.
The Middle Tennessee State University based campus ministry said their missional theme for September was “Caring for Creation”. As part of this missional effort, the group decided to walk a portion of the greenway and pick up as much trash as they could find. Camryn Shepard, one of the Missions Coordinators, explained, “God created us to be in his creation, and if we’re not taking care of it — in a way, we’re not really taking care of ourselves.”
The local mission was founded on Psalms 96:11-13, which poetically describes the whole of nature rejoicing before the Lord. While they wanted to honor the students’ time and the opportunity to pick up trash, Kaylee Skipper, also a Missions Coordinator, spoke to all the students gathered before they began, “We are called to love all of creation. To do that is to pick up trash but also to just be present with the trees and be grateful. This is a form of sabbath. It’s rejuvenating to be around nature, and I hope we can offer that to you guys for a little bit.”
Starting at the Old Fort Park trailhead, two groups of students – 15 in total – were sent in opposite directions on the trail covering a distance of over two miles. Soon after, a third group of students arrived hoping to help and were sent out as well. One group finished their trash pick-up at the Redoubt Brannan Trailhead, while the other two groups met up and finished at Cannonsburgh Village Trailhead together.
After only an hour of walking, the students had covered well over two miles and filled four 30-gallon trash bags with items found along their routes.
The students were rewarded with popsicles at the end, but many students say that was not why they came to the event. Daniel Phebus, a sophomore at MTSU, said, “I’ve picked up trash on trails and park paths many times and I continue to do it because giving back to the community, being in community, and faithfully stewarding the gifts we have received are what we, or at least I, really have in life.”
This group of MTSU students has made it abundantly clear that they not only have a heart for each other and for Christ but for creation care, as well.
Written by: Megan Young
Coronavirus has not deterred Tennessee Conference (TNUMC) leaders from helping young adults discern their calling. When on-site internships and jobs disappeared or moved online, they created an online program to support conference college students and young adults.
Russell Casteel, director of camp and retreat ministries in the Tennessee Conference; Sarah McCormick, director of leadership formation for Project Transformation; and John Weaver, director at Wesley of Middle Tennessee, joined with TNUMC’s Brad Fiscus, director of the conference’s Next Gen Ministries, to create the six-week series, Vocational Discernment Cohort Program for young adults.
Sarah McCormick described the program as, “a series of small groups, with the goal of providing space for young adults to connect, reflect, and seek resources in the discernment of their callings.” With virtual weekly meetings, over 65 college students and young adults across the Tennessee and Memphis conferences gather in these small groups (cohorts) to discuss callings and begin to discern theirs with each other and a facilitator.
The cohort program has covered many topics of discussion surrounding vocation, according to Russell Casteel. These discussions often are preceded by watching videos especially made for this program. Lay and clergy servant leaders discuss personal aspects of their calling and their perspectives or experiences in this series of videos. Featured in these video discussions were many leaders including Bishop Bill McAlilly, BHECM Chair Angella Current-Felder and Executive Director of Open Table Nashville Ingrid McIntyre.
Casteel said, “We have discussed how vocation is broader and more inclusive than just to ministry or pastor careers but includes living into our gifts and serving the world. We have talked about how we hear God’s voice, and how we interpret when others do or do not say that we are ‘called’. We have explored our gifts and how we could use them in an ever-changing world.”
The cohort program is making a difference not only in helping students discern their future but showing them how to live into God’s call now, according to one student participating in one of the cohorts. Daniel Phebus, a sophomore at Middle Tennessee State University, said he previously struggled with finding action steps to take despite feeling God calling him into ministry. Phebus went on to say, “The cohort has made me be more active in God’s call. Instead of taking being called as a granted, I am more consistently looking for ways to actively discern and live into God’s call through thinking ahead but perhaps more importantly seeing ways to live into God’s call in the present.”
When asked how they would carry this on in the future, many program participants agreed that their discernment process is far from over. Michelle Ozier-Wallace, a cohort facilitator, emphasized, “Discernment is never over. It’s a process not a destination.”
Members of the 2020 vocational discernment cohorts met in their small groups for six weeks over the summer, but it won’t necessarily stop there. John Weaver said, “I have also heard of some older adults and churches who want to use this as well.” The program leaders are excited that other groups want to use the program to help even more people in other settings.
A pandemic is certainly not enough to stop God’s work through others’, something that Weaver, McCormick and Casteel have shown through their work with the Vocational Discernment Cohort and young adults and college students have shown through their willingness to participate in a time when life can seem chaotic as it is.
For more information on the Vocational Discernment Cohort Program or to inquire about using the curriculum, contact John Weaver at john.l.weaver@gmail.com or Russell Casteel at russell.casteel@tnumc.com. Sarah McCormick, John Weaver and Russell Casteel have shown that even if what they say is the “lifeblood of discernment” (summer camps, PT, and campus ministries) can’t meet in their usual way, there is always a way for God to work in helping them deepen their call to discernment and grow their spiritual gifts.
Source: TNUMC.org
Written by: Megan Young
Faced with the options of either pausing their ministry indefinitely or adapting quickly in the face of the growing coronavirus pandemic, Wesley of Middle Tennessee did what many campus ministries chose to do.
They adapted as quickly as they could to provide online and virtual ministry for their students. Closing the ministry for the rest of the year was never an option, according to Wesley’s associate director, Michelle Ozier-Wallace.
Michelle explained, “To pause ministry would mean to cut short the love, care and development of our current students. We only get a few short years with our students and we don't want to miss any opportunity to pour into them and assist them as they grow into adults and as faithful followers of Christ.”
The transition to fully online was not too much of a challenge for the versatile group. With live-stream worship already happening and the university utilizing Zoom for classes, the transition was fairly smooth for most things. The biggest challenge, they said, was creating fellowship events and showing pastoral care virtually.
Finding ways to connect with people online has not slowed down the rapidly growing ministry. They have used this time to reach out beyond their walls and connect with people in Middle Tennessee who couldn’t be there in person, several of whom attended different universities before classes country-wide went online. According to the ministry directors, to be able to meet, minister and get to know these students has been one of the biggest blessings that has come with moving online.
They hope to continue their online presence even after this period of social distancing ends. Michelle went on to say, “We now know that we cannot ignore the online community.” The goal is to continue reaching out to that community using YouTube and Zoom after they are able to meet in-person once again.
As a student-led ministry, Michelle took a second to highlight the feats of Wesley’s student leaders, “Our students are the ones who have truly made the transition to virtual ministry a success. We could not do what we have done and continue to do without the skills and talents of our student leaders.”
They are now looking onward to their newest challenge, connecting with incoming students without being able to meet face to face. Nothing is going to slow down this ministry, though, as they continue to strive to create connection and spread love during a challenging time for everyone.
To learn more about Wesley of Middle Tennessee, check out their website or contact them here.
Written by: Megan Young
Join us on social media!