I’m still trying to wrap my head around this weekend.

January 2024, Wesley Foundation campus ministers from the Tennessee Western Kentucky gathered at Cedar Crest Camp in Lyles, TN and talked about the various challenges that were set before us, our hopes for our ministries, and about our need for one another.

In the year and some change since that sleepy gathering on a cold weekend in the woods, we’ve grown closer in our relationships with each other, championed each other’s goals, celebrated each other’s successes, and comforted each other in the hard and heavy seasons of ministry. While this work is not for the faint of heart, it is made infinitely more doable by the Spirit gathering us close as more than colleagues but friends.

We dreamed in January 2024 of getting our students together in that very place. We could see it, but we didn’t know if or when it would happen. This past weekend, our dream came true.

Over thirty student leaders from across the conference came together to wrestle with, rest in, and be challenged by a question that is more than familiar in our denomination:

How is it with your soul?

We learned their souls are weary but that this truth does NOT, will NOT stop them from being the hands and feet, the mind and heart of God. They came into the space READY—ready to embrace the experience, ready to meet new friends, ready to be present and receive whatever it was God had for them as individuals and as the community that they so clearly are. Not even 24 hours together, and they were mixed and mingled, huddling close, laughing and encouraging one another. It still brings tears to my eyes.

My heart is on fire in the best way. They and God did that for me this weekend as I watched in awe and wonder at the Church that is our young adults. They won’t lead someday in arbitrary ways…they are leading NOW—with intentionality, thoughtfulness, passion and conviction, radical welcome, grace, and love.

I cannot wait for us to all be together again—next time with even MORE of our Wesley fam. Until then, do us campus ministers a favor, would ya?

Pray for our students. For their hearts, their health, for what God is doing in their lives, for their leadership in transforming the world just as Jesus called us to do.

There is yet another movement happening in the Church, folks—made up of young adults from all denominations (or lack thereof), varying identities and races and lived experiences. And let me tell you, I am not sure of much in this life, but I am CERTAIN they are leading the way in helping us be all that God intended and imagined we would be.

For the young adults—the revolutionaries, the activists, the critical thinkers, the radical welcome-ers—I lift my thanks and praise to the One who made them, knows them, leads them, celebrates, and loves them. May we all do the same!