Blog – Page 5 – 3rd Way Collective

June 23, 2016

May 2016 Review

Each month we hope to give an update on the 3^rd Way Collective experience at Penn State! Follow this blog to learn more about how we’ve been creating spaces for peace, justice, and faith at Penn State.

The arrival of May brings the arrival of the week of finals, and graduation celebration.

This year we said good-bye to three of our student officers who have led our organization over this past year. We wish them well as they head out beyond the Penn State campus and shape the world with their efforts for faith-based peace and social justice.

I (campus pastor Ben) was invited and able to participate in an overnight event with some fellow campus ministers as a resourcing and peer support time away from campus. This was held in the nearby Penn Stater hotel and conference center and was a wonderful way to end the school year.

We held our first summer event in May – a home cooked meal which drew 18 people and ended up being one of our largest gatherings of its kind! This was a surprise given State College’s reputation for being completely quiet and empty during the summer months. We are hopeful that continuing to offer ways to connect will allow a sense of belonging to build for students who may have been only loosely connected with our organization. On this occasion, we enjoyed a great backyard barbecue at our hosts home, and had great conversation about what the summer held for people.

The summer months offer opportunities to connect with students who have stayed in the area for the summer, to reflect on the past year, and to plan and dream for the coming year. I have been able to use some vacation and compensation time to do projects around the house and take a short camping trip with my family – things that are much harder to do when the school year is in full swing!

If you would like to support the work of 3rd Way Collective, head on over to our giving page!

May 10, 2016

April 2016 Review

April was a wonderful final month of the school year. It included meaningful chances to connect with students one more time before they headed home or away for the summer break. Highlights included our final home cooked meal and grad student pub night for the semester, as well as a collaborative event with Receiving with Thanksgiving and the LGBTQ Student Resource Center to talk about religious liberty state laws being created across our country.

As the school year comes to an end, I’m appreciating that this has been a meaningful school year at Penn State. I (Campus Pastor Ben) felt much more prepared as the fall began, this being my second chance to experience many of the seasons and rhythms at Penn State. 3rd Way Collective had a much larger student network, and a much bigger group of supporters and allies in the local community. Our student officers were more active and engaged, and our presence on campus was enhanced by the vision and dreams of students who connected in some way. Students have begun to recognize 3rd Way Collective as a safe space of support and connection. It has been touching to have students reach out to me for pastoral care, prayer, or just simply for conversation.

This year 3rd Way Collective created or partnered to create 138 events on campus focused on peace, justice, and faith. These involved more than 1600 participants including students, staff, and community members. These numbers almost doubled our first year programmatic impact – last year we were involved in 68 events with just over 800 participants. Despite these numbers, many of our most meaningful connecting points remain as small gatherings of 5 students or less. As our new team of officers and advisory team plan for the fall, we are considering again the balance between programmatic and relational ministry, and whether one requires the other.

Our most meaningful experiences are when we have partnered with others – whether that be other campus ministry organizations for our service and learning trips, or community advocacy groups, our work is enhanced and multiplied when we collaborate rather than trying to always create something brand new.

We are drawing in students who are interested in faith-based peace and justice from a wide swath of religious traditions.

Our new 3rd Way Collective house will provide a physical center for our community building endeavors, and will offer a space to create new visions for connections with students. The students who have committed to this house, and the students who will make up our new officer team, seem excited for the fall to arrive!

I continue to feel blessed and supported by our incredible Advisory Committee. It isn’t easy creating something from scratch – especially when we do not have a blueprint or an Anabaptist example to build from.

I have recently been tapped as a regular blogger for The Mennonite Magazine. These reflections are posted with other bloggers right here – https://themennonite.org/the-latest/blog/. We encourage you to visit this for another perspective.

We are grateful for your prayers and support.

April 13, 2016

March 2016 Review

The month of March was a busy one for 3rd Way Collective!

We began the month by traveling with three other campus ministries to Miami, Florida to participate in an alternative spring break trip to do service and learning with DOOR Miami. This trip was a meaningful one for all involved as we explored the urban experience looking at issues like immigration, homelessness, mental health, and so much more. We enjoyed good food and great weather, and made some new friends as these four groups connected with each other. You can hear reflections from our trip through the Peace Signs Podcast Spring Break episodes.

Arriving back on campus to its busy rhythms and routines was interesting for me (Campus Pastor Ben). I thoroughly enjoyed the Miami trip and being back in State College made me long for more local opportunities to practically engage and experience faith, peace, and justice with a large group.

One of the most significant moments in the month was the inaugural Palm Sunday Peace Walk. More than 100 people from our local congregations joined together to march for peace and celebrate where peace is being created in our community. It was a great reminder that many people in our community care deeply about issues of peace, and are willing to join together beyond their walls to participate in an event like this.

We joined with the same three groups from our Miami trip to offer students an interfaith Seder Meal in the Jewish tradition. It was helpful for our Christian students to reflect on this sacred Jewish tradition and experience the movement and rhythm of a meal such as this one.

As a representative for 3rd Way Collective, I also participated in a very moving State of the Story event sharing about transformation through grief and loss. I continue to be reminded that we all need spaces like these that allow us to share openly and honestly about our own stories.

March continued our weekly event schedule from the fall. This means that every week we offer Pause for Peace (a mid-week event offering a short interfaith reflection on peace, 15 minutes of silence and candle-lighting, and a short reflection time), our Peace & Justice Bible Study, and 3^rdWay Conversations (a Thursday night conversation group featuring guest voices from the State College and Penn State community).

Pause for Peace continues to attract a small group of students who are interested in a moment in their week to pause and breathe deeply. I find this space a helpful way to center my own sense of call, and presence on campus. We were fortunate this month to have several different student voices lead this time and space.
Our Peace & Justice Bible Study has become a space for biblical engagement with one or two students each week. We are using Shane Claiborne’s Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, and every time we experience a special conversation around scripture and life.
3^rd Way Conversations this month again provided unique opportunities to hear from people in our community. One night without a speaker resulted in an impromptu dinner at a local restaurant. It ended up being a meaningful time without any agenda or conversation!

The month ended with a break as I traveled to Ontario, Canada to spend a long weekend with my family and rest from the busy pace of the past several weeks. There is only one more month left of the school year!

March 14, 2016

February 2016 Review

February began in a difficult way. At the end of January, I (Campus Pastor Ben) received notification that a student whom I had been working with on campus had taken their own life . This student helped to create Receiving with Thanksgiving – Penn State’s LGBTQ Christian Network. Their family was kind enough to ask me to speak at the memorial service, and I was honored to be involved in that way.

It is strange to articulate this, but in the face of such a heavy tragedy, I felt fully alive and affirmed in my role as a campus minister. I was able to offer some comfort and support not only to the Roe family as they mourned their loss, but also to a broad network of students and community members who had known Eli. I was invited on to a local radio station to talk about grieving and loss, and connected with many new people who were touched by my words at the memorial service. One faculty member said that my words gave them hope for the future of LGBTQ people in the church.

Yet in all of these incredibly moving spaces, there was a present reality that a life had been lost – the life of a student and person with whom I had connected early on in my time at Penn State. It was difficult and challenging to continue in my role with that reality present in my life and experience.

February included two large campus events – the first being THON, the annual philanthropic dance marathon that raises millions of dollars; and the second being TEDxPSU, a small and localized version of the incredibly popular TED Talk conference format.

THON was a reminder again of how our campus can mobilize around a cause, but also that those who don’t resonate with the event can feel ostracized by the popularity of this massive event. Articles like this one, which say nothing but glowing reviews of the THON experience, do little to curb the sentiment that if you don’t like THON, you don’t belong. TEDxPSU was an incredible conference, free of charge, and covering a wide range of subjects and issues, yet the event was not packed out the way I assume something of this quality should be at a large institution like Penn State. I’m left wondering why students don’t show up for engaging events like this one in bigger numbers, and wonder how an organization like 3rd Way Collective will ever make its mark with a lesser known branding than TEDx. Both events provided me with opportunities to connect to a broader slice of the Penn State community.

In February we continued our weekly event schedule from the fall. This means that every week we offer Pause for Peace (a mid-week event offering a short interfaith reflection on peace, 15 minutes of silence and candle-lighting, and a short reflection time), our Peace & Justice Bible Study, and 3^rd Way Conversations (a Thursday night conversation group featuring guest voices from the State College and Penn State community).

Pause for Peace continues to attract a small group of students who are interested in a moment in their week to pause and breathe deeply. I find this space a helpful way to center my own sense of call, and presence on campus. We were fortunate this month to have several different student voices lead this time and space.
Our Peace & Justice Bible Study has become a space for biblical engagement with one or two students each week. We are using Shane Claiborne’s Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, and every time we experience a special conversation around scripture and life.
3^rd Way Conversations this month again provided unique opportunities to hear from people in our community. Two guest speakers that stand out in my memory are students from Students for Justice in Palestine and WORDS. The former shared honestly about the vulnerable space that Palestinian students occupy on our campus, and the other shared about the power of sharing stories in public spaces. Both were extremely moving and meaningful!

The month ended with final preparations for our alternative spring break trip in which we partnered with three other campus ministries to travel to Miami, Florida to serve with the DOOR Miami program. I will have more to share about that experience next month!

February 8, 2016February 26, 2016

January 2016 Review

This January, I (Campus Pastor Ben) began the new year by traveling to San Antonio to participate in the Bethany Initiative, a brand new initiative from the National Campus Ministry Association. Launched this year, this initiative is designed to create mentoring and reflection sp ace for new campus pastors. All who were selected to be in the pilot program have fewer than three years of experience as campus ministers. We exist in very different contexts – some are college chaplains who are employed by institutions to run the spiritual life of a campus, others like myself, are part of affiliate organizations attempting to be present on a campus that may or may not be receptive to the work they are doing. It was incredible to hear the joys and struggles of this new group of peers, and to spend some time in retreat reflecting on my own sense of call.

Arriving back in State College brought me back to reality. Week one began with the spring Involvement Fair, an event that offers clubs and organizations like ours a chance to connect with students who are looking for ways to become more involved. 3WC is still new enough that many students do not know who we are, nor do we have the name recognition to pull them in to our info table. Still, I had a good experience talking with a small group of students who connected with our table during the day. At the involvement fair I was reminded again that we are appealing to a very specific kind of student – one who is interested in peace and social justice issues, but also still see the value in a faith tradition. We are not like other faith groups – we don’t offer a communal worship space, or safe Christian bubble – but we also are unlike other social justice groups.

Campus ministry happens in many different ways. Some of them are formal – events and activities – others are informal, such as simply being present with students who are in need. I’ve been reminded time and time again that there is real value in connecting with students in one-on-one ways. Some of these are scheduled or organized, such as connecting for coffee, while others are simply due to paths crossing during daily activities.

This month I found simple connections and conversations while connecting with other events on campus. These included experiences that happened around the MLK celebrations at Penn State this month including the main banquet as well as the keynote speech given by Trayvon Martin’s mother.

Some of 3WC’s most meaningful events are those centered around table fellowship. Our monthly grad student pub night and our monthly home cooked meal both provide spaces for students to gather around a table and reflect on what is happening in their lives. Each month we see some students who return to these spaces, and we also see new students drawn in by the experience of food and conversations.

In January we continued our weekly event schedule from the fall. This means that every week we offer Pause for Peace (a mid-week event offering a short interfaith reflection on peace, 15 minutes of silence and candle-lighting, and a short reflection time), our Peace & Justice Bible Study, and 3^rd Way Conversations (a Thursday night conversation group featuring guest voices from the State College and Penn State community).

Pause for Peace continues to attract a very small group of students who are interested in a moment in their week to pause and breathe deeply. I find this space a helpful way to center my own sense of call, and presence on campus. It has been a challenge to find other voices to lead the short reflection on peace. I led all of these gatherings in January and focused on peace at Penn State, MLK Jr.’s peace legacy, as well as the importance of silence in our busy lives.
Our Peace & Justice Bible Study continues to look for students who are interested in understanding the Biblical narrative from a peace and justice perspective. We are using Shane Claiborne’s Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, and we look forward to trying to build meaningful conversation in this challenging context.
3^rd Way Conversations has felt like our keystone event since 3^rd Way Collective began a year and a half ago. Each week we invite a different guest from the Penn State campus or surrounding community. On one of these occasions this month we joined with Westminster Presbyterian Fellowship to share in their Thursday night gathering. My desire to do so was through a connection with their campus minister as a person from their group who had a meaningful experience in Japan learning about nuclear warfare and peace. While there were only four students who came from 3WC, they came ready to engage in a space that was unfamiliar from their usual one. I enjoyed watching the two groups interact, and was thrilled about the information that was in the conversation and presentation.

The month ended with another great opportunity for personal retreat and reflection as I traveled to Orlando, Florida for a conference with Mennonite youth ministers and my fellow Mennonite Campus Pastors. While my time with this group always reminds me that contextually I’m in quite a different space than my peers who work with Mennonite institutions. I’m also aware that campus ministry is changing in every context right now, as more and more millennial students understand religion and spirituality in ways that are different than the previous generation.

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