A Day in Campus Ministry

Pastor Bre Roberts
UNM Campus Ministry, Albuquerque, NM


It started out like my typical Wednesday as a campus ministry practitioner at a large public university. Every week I drag my cart across campus, set up a display table, and prepare to greet a few hundred incoming freshman and their parents. At this so-called “Discovery Fair,” these young adults navigate through a maze of tables for everything from the student health center, the local credit union, nearby housing options, and even Religious Row, our small collection of mostly Christian student organizations. Luther House happens to be the only affirming and welcoming Christian ministry for LGBTQI2S (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning/Queer, Intersex, and Two-Spirit) folks. Since we are easy to pick out, students can easily and eagerly find us or avoid us like the plague. But this week, I managed to talk to a few young adults who claimed the identity of atheist or agnostic or both. I cheerfully handed them some Starburst and a flyer anyway and invited them to join us, because free dinner once with us could actually not be awful, and at worst they would have just gotten a free meal from some weird Christians. We shall see if any of them appear once the semester starts in August!



Then later that day, I went to a press conference at a neighboring congregation that the New Mexico Faith Coalition for Immigrant Justice organized. You see, Kadhim is an Iraqi husband and father who came to this country as a refugee and worked as a linguist for the US military. In 2017, Iraq agreed to take back a small number of its citizens in exchange for being removed from the list of countries named in the current administration’s Muslim travel ban. Kadhim went into sanctuary then after being followed by ICE so as to avoid being held in detention away from his family. He lived in the church building for two years. On Wednesday, we gathered, clergy, activists, church ladies, legal advocates, community leaders, camera folks, to hear the news that Kadhim was free to leave sanctuary, that his removal order had been vacated, and that his case would be heard. We celebrated with joy, even as we remembered others still in sanctuary, countless other held in detention or making their way across borders, and other members of our community who are still in the struggle for finding home.


My next stop after a quick pizza dinner with our Luther House community was only two doors down from our building at the UNM Aquinas Newman Center, the university parish for our Roman Catholic siblings. We went as guests to a special Mass of Healing that Archbishop John C. Wester celebrated. The reason for this event was tragic: last Sunday, a bus with youth and chaperones from this parish were headed home from a conference when their bus crashed north of Pueblo, Colorado. Two people, the bus driver and a seminarian, were killed in the collision and many were injured as well. I decided we needed to go almost literally next door to support our neighbors as they mourned the loss of so much and all the grief they face in the days ahead. We sat there in Mass, clearly not Catholic, but joined in the unity that Christ longs for in the whole church. With my pink hair, Chaco sandals, and two slightly noisy pastors’ kids in tow, it was a holy moment when Archbishop Wester mentioned our presence as Lutherans among the congregation and expressed his gratitude for us.


This was not an ordinary campus ministry day, but only because all those moments of meeting Christ in the face of a skeptical young adult, a liberated father and husband, and a grieving congregation happened to occur in one day on the calendar. Moments like these happen over and over, and frankly the best parts of my job are when I am interrupted in these holy and surprising moments. Whether these encounters with God are on campus, in the house, at a local congregation, or somewhere on the road, they are possible because campus ministry is valued and supported with time, energy, and financial resources by our synod, our supporting congregations, and every donor who mails a check or brings a meal. Thank you for allowing me to find these holy encounters.

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