Hello fantastic fellows and poppin’ peeps! This is Abigail Hickman, the student campus minister at Virginia Tech, here to tell you about the exciting work the discernment team is doing together! We have begun talking about Wesley’s values, missions, and vision! It’s like the Holy Spirit is partying within us!
Wesley’s values are love, spiritual growth, grace, and community. Community was recently added as a core value last spring due to the unforeseen changes in this world making us more deeply realize, appreciate, and value the importance of each member of Wesley. There has to be community to have ministry, and the people of Wesley have been tirelessly, openly, and graciously loving out loud, despite the challenges presented. It is remarkable to see God working through each individual as we manage to continue to adapt and grow together. In this way, the discernment team recognized the importance of keeping and cultivating these values of love, spiritual growth, grace, and community in years to come.
Wesley exists with the intentional mission to “Love Out Loud.” We love God in the ways that we love others and ourselves throughout the year, whether its praying, doing mission work, engaging with others in fellowship, advocating for social justice, or taking time to de-stress by playing with the Wesley dog, Groot! We had to name and confirm “Love Out Loud” as our mission to not only know what we do within Wesley, but emphasize and understand the why behind the activities and intentional connections of our ministries. Understanding this purpose enables us to better love others, ourselves, and God as we live into our values and God’s vision for Wesley.
Wesley’s vision is “to be a grace filled community where all people feel safe and supported in their journey to explore and grow in their faith and their relationships with each other without judgement or preconceived notions. We strive to develop and send out all people as peacemakers and disciples in the world rooted in faith and the relationships they build in our community.” The discernment team kept last year’s vision statement as we intentionally strive for an inclusive, open, affirming, and vulnerable community to cultivate our values of spiritual growth, love, community, and grace.
I am so excited to see God working through this team as we continue to discuss context, the ministry areas, and more! If you have any questions or want to learn more, don’t hesitate to reach out to any of the discernment team members (emails are in my roomie Sky’s blog posts!)
Happy, Hopeful Holidays to All!