I sit down with Jim Moore, an experienced Presbyterian pastor and current college chaplain at Westminster College, to discuss the profound impact of simply showing up in the lives of others. Jim shares insights from his journey in ministry, highlighting the unique challenges and opportunities of campus life. We focus on his article, "Just Show Up," and explore how genuine connection and presence are crucial for fostering community. Jim recounts impactful moments from his time at Westminster, emphasizing the importance of being there for students in times of crisis and joy alike. We also consider the evolving dynamics of campus ministry and the necessity of engaging with diverse student populations. This conversation invites listeners to reflect on the transformative power of presence in both faith and everyday life, encouraging a deeper appreciation for authentic connections.
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What I Learned from My Mother by Julia Kasdorf
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[0:07] Music.
[0:34] Hello, and welcome to Church in Maine, a podcast for people interested in seeing where faith, politics, and culture intersect. I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. Happy 2025. So, my guest today, and this is the first podcast for the new year, is Jim Moore. Moore is a Presbyterian pastor who is the college chaplain and director of church relations at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. Moore has been the chaplain at Westminster since 2003, and he describes his work as a chaplain as, quote-unquote, a wonderful experience. Ordained in the Presbyterian Church USA, Moore has served churches in St. Petersburg, Florida, Silver Creek, New York, and Butler, Pennsylvania. In this episode, we'll look at an article that he wrote back in October for Presbyterian Outlook called Just Show Up. And we talk about that simple act of showing up in each other's lives and what that means and what lessons that has for churches. So join me in this conversation with Jim Moore.
[1:46] Music.
[2:04] All right, Jim, thank you for joining us. And I'd actually like to start, we kind of, I've already been kind of starting into this, but what led you into campus ministry? Campus ministry, especially in mainline churches these days, it's I won't say it's not happening, but it's kind of uneven, and it's an important ministry, I believe. But what kind of got you into that from parish ministry? Yeah, great question, Dennis. I served in the parish for 17 years. First church was St. Petersburg, Florida, and then Silver Creek, New York. We went from what I'd called the Florida Suncoast to the Polar Ice Cap.
[2:47] In a place where we would get three or four feet of snow in a shot and the temp would drop rapidly and you know.
[2:56] It was just a big move. But while we were in Florida, I had an opportunity to connect with folks at Eckerd College. Eckerd is a Presbyterian church-related college. The chaplain there was a guy from my home church whose name is David Kozad. I did not know David at all. He's a bit older than I am. So it just was unique that, you know, here we are, and we're both from the same hometown and from the same church, but we didn't know each other. We meet in St. Petersburg, Florida. And so I learned a little bit about his ministry there in my first or second year of what now is 35 years of ministry as an ordained pastor. And so we moved from St. Pete to New York State, got connected with Fredonia State University and did some little things there, learning about what was happening as part of that ministry. And then we moved to Butler, Pennsylvania. And in Butler, we have the Butler County Community College, a great little community college near us, and then Westminster College, which is 35 miles away. And during my time there as a Presbyterian pastor, you have a lot of responsibilities beyond the local church. And Mine was connected with the Senate of the Trinity, which at that time was based out of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.
[4:21] And so, um, My work with that committee had me studying higher education in the Senate. And so we, at some point in our process, invited chaplains and people doing church relations work and students to Westminster College, this place where I now serve as the chaplain.
[4:43] And during our time here, we asked them to describe their ministry. And we asked them, if you could start your ministry over, what would you do? And so they talked about that. And again, I found that pretty interesting, but not overly, you know, not saying, oh, man, I've got a new sense of call here. But I was just intrigued by it. But the group of chaplains flipped our question on us and had us answer that same question by saying, you've learned a lot. If you were starting a campus ministry, what would it look like?
[5:17] So we talked, and apparently I said something that was interesting, of which I have no recollection, because three years later, Westminster College calls me and says, Reverend Moore, we'd like to talk to you about a vision of campus ministry. Could you meet with our committee? We're in the process of searching for a new chaplain. And I said, well, sure, I can go do that, come up and do that, thinking all along that I was a consultant. And so, you know, we're sitting in this room, we're talking about campus ministry, and, you know, you got to go back 21 years, maybe 22 years. We had one cell phone, uh, in our house and it was a little flip phone. And, um, so I had it with me and I called my wife on her home phone and said, I think that was a job interview. And we both chuckled at that. Cause I had no interest in changing jobs. I loved what I was doing. And, and, uh.
[6:15] A couple of weeks later, they called and said, we'd like you to come and do an official interview. And again, I laughed and tried to figure out how do I say no, I'm not going to do this. But I said yes, and sure, I'll do that. And then I got to thinking, I don't even know what a campus minister does. And so I reached out to our denomination, and they sent me a brochure, a mimeograph brochure. And Dennis, do you remember mimeograph brochures? Like they had this great smell about them? Yep. Yeah, yeah. So this mimeograph brochure comes and my daughters, who are both home from their summer gigs, one of them was working with the Center for Student Missions in Washington, D.C. And the other one was an AmeriCorps volunteer based out of Denver, Colorado. And they were both home and they came up with this strategy to go to a Coldplay concert. And they wanted me to drive them to Cleveland. Well, you know, I had no interest in going to the Coldplay concert. I do like their music, but I'm not going with a bunch of college kids.
[7:20] And I decided that I would go to watch the Cleveland Indians play. Now, for the life of me, I don't know why my wife didn't go. That's the strange part of all this. But that brochure came in the mail that day, and I took it with me to the baseball game. I sat in the outfield watching the baseball game, looking at this brochure, and I'm reading all about the different things, thinking, oh, this is kind of interesting, this is kind of interesting. And then I got to the point where it talked about what the average salary is or was for a college chaplain, and I closed it up, and I threw it on the ground because I thought, I've got two kids in college. I can't do this. And so I said, next time I talk to him, I got to say no. And so they call me again. And what do I say? Sure, let's do it.
[8:10] It's like, you know, my wife is laughing at me like, what are you doing, Jim? And so we went through the whole process. I kept trying to figure out how do I get out of this? How do I get out of this?
[8:21] And I come up for an on-campus interview with students and start to think, you know, this is an interesting opportunity. here. You know, God, are you calling me to something new? And I'm chuckling at myself, and my wife's giving me a hard time. President calls me and says, Jim, we'd like to invite you to be, no, we'd like to call you, good term, call you to be our next college chaplain. I think if he had said, we'd like to hire you, or if we'd like to invite you, I would have probably said, oh, no, I'm done. But he used the word call. And I had been having this conversation with God about callings and reading about callings, and I suddenly realize, darn, I think God's calling me to do this. And then he says to me something that most pastors never get asked, how much will it take to get you here? And I'm like, you're asking me that? And so I say, well, I frankly don't even know what my financial package is, but I'll send it to you because I thought this will be it. This is the game changer. You know, I'd been in my church for 10 years. It was a large church. You know, I get paid pretty well. I send it to him. He invites me to come up. We're sitting in his office and he says, I'll top it by 12%.
[9:40] And I'm like, darn, now I can't get out of this. And so I said, yes, God's calling me. And then he says to me, this is in September. I want you to realize we're willing to wait until the beginning of next academic year for you to start.
[9:58] And I'm like, no, if God's calling me, God's calling me now, not later. And my approach to ministry has always been make sure you've got everything prepared. If you were to have to leave tomorrow or if you were to die tomorrow, your church and its ministry could continue without you. And so I literally could close the door and not feel too guilty because I felt like they were in good hands. And so I came in November of that year. And I remember sitting in my first president's leadership cabinet meeting and looking out the window and thinking to myself, what the hell are you doing here? Because I just couldn't figure it out. And now we're here 21 years later. And I can't tell you how honored I am to serve in this capacity. I think it's the best job in the church, to be honest. You know every day you get to do ministry with students and you never know what the ministry is going to bring you don't know who it is that's coming through your door next.
[11:03] And there's not a lot of sitting around and waiting and so that's where my belief that if you're going to do this job and do it well you can't sit in your office and wait for people to come to you, i.e. What I would often do in the local church. I would sit and keep busy thinking, well, somebody's going to come in to see me, but I had to get out. And so I left my office and I would go out and start meeting the campus, getting to know the students. And.
[11:36] My office made me get a cell phone. It sounds funny, but because they needed to track me down at times and they never knew where i was on campus and so and they reach out and you know now we've got this good commitment going and um, We can communicate really well, and when there's an issue, we've got it. That's kind of how I got here. Not something I imagined in my call process. You know, like a lot of young pastors, my dream was being a big megachurch somewhere
[12:05] and being the head of staff and doing all the things you do with that. And I guess in my own way, that's what I do now, kind of a head of staff, but in a college setting.
[12:18] So, one of the things that, you know, kind of coming to the article that you wrote for Presbyterian Outlook, you actually start that talking about your expectations. And as you just kind of talked about was that in the parish setting, at least kind of your expectation was that people would come to you, and that early on, that wasn't what you were finding out in on-campus ministry, that people just didn't walk in. And so, it sounds like you did a lot of questioning and soul-searching about all of that. And you settled on a verse, a psalm, Psalm 1611. And it says here, You show me the path of life. In your presence there is faithfulness of joy. In your right hand are pleasures forevermore. And that kind of led you into this kind of whole concept of relational ministry, of showing up.
[13:20] What was it in that psalm that made you just really see things very differently? The word path. The path to my first office on campus was on the third floor of the administrative building of the college. There was no elevator at that time. So if you had any mobility issues, you weren't coming up where I am. If you didn't really want to be there, you weren't going to come up where I am. And I realized that I needed the path to not be up the mountain. It's kind of how I describe being on the third floor of a building you can't get to, down to where the people are. And somewhere in those early years, I participated in a perspectives class. Perspectives is a program that maybe Frontier Fellowship sponsors, but it's Perspectives in the World Christian Movement. And missionaries would come in and talk. And I decided to take an intensive perspectives class at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, where my daughter was a student at the time. We actually took it together.
[14:35] And one of the missionaries talked about doing ministry from the fringe and doing it from the middle. And I realized that the third floor of the administrative building that people can't get to is the fringe. You know, you're on the edge of campus and you're not going to get there if you don't want to be. I needed to move. And so they were doing some construction in our building and I petitioned to move from the third floor to the second floor. And my office was located right outside of the chapel. Seems like a great place to be, right? You know, you're right outside the chapel. That's your working environment right there. And I again realized that the only students I would see on a regular basis were the ones that walked past my office and, to go to the business office to pay a fine or to pay their bill. And I would often get them on the rebound. Like, you know, you just went and paid a $200 parking ticket. And now you got to figure out how I'm going to tell my mom that I just threw away $200.
[15:45] And I would see them walking down the hall and then I'd grab them and pull them in and we would talk. And then the college did some more building restructuring and a space opened up in the middle of campus, um, in the student center. And I had been, man, I can't remember where I was. I'd been on another college campus, um, maybe the university of Indianapolis and their campus ministry center was right in the middle of their student center. And I thought I need to get from the fringe to the student center. And so we were making some moving of offices and a space came open right smack in the middle of campus. And I decided I'm going to float my weather balloon right here. And so I went to the cabinet and said, I'd like you all to consider this, thinking this is never going to happen. This is going to be a long range ask. And within three minutes, they agreed to it. And boom, suddenly I was in the middle of campus and the path had changed. And so now the path includes 100% of our campus having the opportunity every week to walk past my office.
[17:02] But if I'm doing my job, the path is still not going to bring them into my office. I need to go out to them. And so I would go out and talk to students and faculty and staff as They wander by and develop relationships. I talk to every tour that comes through the campus these days. If I hear them in the hallway, I'll jump out there and tell the story. You know, if you're going to try to recruit, you always want to tell your story. You don't want someone else to tell it for you. And so, but the word path is what I continue to look at. You know, where's the path taking you? At some point, the path took me to doing football chapel. The football team, a coach had been here a while, and he would invite people to come in and speak to the team in the cafeteria each game day. And so he invited me to go to the cafeteria and be one of the speakers. And I don't remember what I said, but I remember what the guidelines were. You got seven minutes and you can talk about whatever you want. And I thought, this is a strange path to be taking. So what am I going to get out of this? So when I left that day, I thought, what is it about this group of student athletes that's different than everyone else? And I decided nothing.
[18:24] They play a sport, they're great athletes, but they still have needs, they still have wants. They still can be heartbroken. They still go through loss, just like everyone else. This group of students needs me as much as everyone else. And so that then led to development of a ministry to our athletes and going to where they are. And I preach that often, is you got to go along that path, wherever it takes you, and you never know what you're going to find when you get there. And so, yeah, I think the word path is what did it and got me involved in all this stuff.
[19:00] It's interesting your kind of ministry with student athletes. And in the article, you just have a lot of really cool stories about that and really how that even led to people within the student ministry in taking that on. Um, what are some of the stories and how has your ministry and the campus ministry been impacted in going and creating relationships with not just the athletes themselves, but with the coaches and other people in the athletic community? Yeah, good question. So we have, I think, 23 athletic teams here, and athletes live pretty much a sheltered life in that their coaches control just about everything that happens for them. They tell them when they're going to eat. They tell them when they're going to watch film. They tell them when they're going to be on the field or in the gym practicing. They just lay it all out for them. And I realized, because I'd been an athlete, if I want to get into their world, I needed to kind of go through the coaches.
[20:12] And so I just started developing relationships with them. And never did I assume that I had a pathway in. I always went in and developed a relationship and kind of offered, here's what I'd do if you'd like it. I'd be more than happy to meet with your teams. And almost all of them have taken me up on it over the years. And then once you've got that open pathway, you can do kind of whatever you want with it because none of them know what you could do. And so with our football team, we have a worship service on a Saturday that's in the chapel. You know, the guys dress up and come to chapel and the community folks love it. Like they can't believe that it's 8.30 on a Saturday morning and they'll see these guys coming in and they're dressed nice. And the ones that have a tie or a suit, maybe they wear a whole, I mean, they dress up and shine for each other. And we had one fella... Who passed away this year. He had been our former financial aid director.
[21:17] Who would come and park his red Jeep over in the church parking lot. The church is located across the street from the chapel. He would park there every Saturday morning and watch the guys come in and out. And, you know, I went over and talked with him multiple times, and I knew that his end of life was coming for him. But he found that what he would do is sit there and he would pray for every guy that came in and out of that chapel that day. It's the most amazing thing in the world. And no one ever knew it. And when his family, when he passed away and ever got with the family, we talked about him. And I said, did you all know that he did this? They didn't know.
[22:02] They then started, well, I've talked about worship, but I also go and pray with the women's volleyball team. We go in a conference room down at the field house before every one of their games, and I'll go in and we'll do a touch base with one another, make sure everybody's doing well, and then we'll pray for the game and for whatever's happening in their lives. They do prayer requests. And we just have this time to do that. And by connecting in all these areas, my pathway isn't only a go to them, it's a they come to me. And so, you know, volleyball students will show up and give gifts to our giving tree at Christmas, or, you know, they'll come in and say, hey, do you think we could do a walk for cancer? Because one of them's mom had passed away from cancer. And, you know, just that avenue out and in, that crossroads happens because I'm willing to go where they are. Now, that puts me in really cool places. You know, be in a smelly locker room with the football guys or the lacrosse guys. There's a period of time in their seasons when they share the same locker room. I think the smell doubles during that time period. It's a different type of smell. When you bring lacrosse gloves in, oh, man, they're wicked. But you go in there with these guys, and you know that.
[23:29] Uh, maybe, maybe half of them have a faith tradition. They practice. Maybe another quarter have a faith tradition that they came from, but aren't regularly practicing. But you got a handful of kids that are nuns. They, they don't have a faith tradition at all. They don't know what it's about. And so I'm real cautious to make sure that whatever we do is inclusive. If we say a prayer, um, everybody says it because it's on the board. So it doesn't matter if you're not you can see the lord's prayer and and pray it together you can just look up and there it is and um but you know i do that with the the males uh at student athletes but also with the women um favorite of mine is to be on the softball field with the the women uh and because they don't start until we pray together on the field and then they go and they line up on the on the third baseline usually. And, you know, they'll all bow down and do their own prayer and write something in the sand. And that's significant to them. And, you know, when there's a success, they come and celebrate with me. When there's something that doesn't go well, failure, loss, or whatever it might be for them, we share that as well.
[24:43] You know, one of the groups that I pray with, they don't have any space to pray. So I end up in, this isn't always an awkward one for me, Dennis, is in the women's lacrosse locker room. Okay. So not many guys get to go in there. And, and so I say to the coach every time, are you sure? Are you positive? You've double checked and I'll go in and they are all ready to pray. And, you know, then out on the field, they go and it's, it's developed into a really cool ministry that because I'm willing to show up where they are, they know they're valued. They know they're loved. They know they have somebody that they can come and talk to. We have a campus ministry fellow that we've just called to be part of our staff. She's a woman pastor, and it's great having her on our staff to be with us. And she is now doing some of the things I've been doing. You know, I want you to connect with our women students. What's a better way? Then have her in that locker room instead of me. Or have her down on the field with me as we pray. So, yeah, you know, it's become a cool, cool ministry because everywhere I go on campus, somebody knows who I am. Over half our students are student athletes.
[26:08] So, you know, you know you've had an impact on at least 52% of the kids.
[26:15] And, you know, the faculty members, I'm at faculty meetings, do opening devotions at faculty meetings. The faculty know who I am. And if they have a need, they know that I'll come to them or they can come to me. And so more than once they'll bop into my office and say, do you have time to talk about a particular person? Or, you know, can you talk with me or pray with me? You know, My mom's really sick or whatever it might be. And so, yeah, when I say I have the best job in the church, man, I'm not kidding. Yeah. There is a story that you share in that article dealing with the loss of someone on one of the teams that died at a young age. Yeah. And it was kind of very moving to see how the campus ministry came together, really, to be with the community. Would you be willing to share that story? Oh, sure, sure.
[27:16] You know, there are moments in your ministry that jump out because they are impactful not only for yourself but for others. And with loss comes the gift of the resurrection. And so we had a student last year on the first day of final exams in the fall who was in a car accident. He had been a varsity basketball player. He was going to medical school, had already been accepted in medical school, was focusing on that. So he decided not to play his senior year. And he was delivering food for DoorDash.
[28:04] And, you know, he had an accident and ends up in the hospital. Well, I mean, it's a tragic accident. You know, it is a bad accident that's probably not going to end well. And so we quickly reached out to the community to come together to pray for him. And so they all gather in the chapel. And as part of that night, we passed out prayer cards. And they wrote prayers for this student. And then I collected them and gave them to his mom, who, when I showed up at the hospital the next time, the nurses had taken care. Um, string and strung all those prayers around that room.
[28:56] And it was just a great, um, a great message of love and support that this, the Wilmington Westminster community had pulled together, but also the impact that it had upon the nurses in that hospital. Um, and so I, you know, to do that, I met with students who were, you know, really, really struggling. He had four roommates. He lived in a townhouse with three other guys and, you know, good friends. And we spent a lot of time trying to help them, you know, get through that, get him over to the hospital. He was in ICU, but they let them go in and see him. He really, really, you know, fought a good fight. So final exams finish. Students go home. And in their minds, no news is good news. You know, we didn't reach out and share that he had passed away. They come back to campus. And the day they arrive back on campus, he passes away.
[30:05] And so then we've got to put together a memorial service of some kind. And so the students gathered and we invited anyone who wanted to, to speak. And I mean, the chapel seats 570, and I think we probably had 500 people there. I mean, it was pretty full. And so for the community, that was the first thing, I think, since pre-COVID that would have really brought together the community, the students, the staff, you know, the faculty were there. And it's sad that it takes a death to do that, you know, because we all get busy and every academic world is filled with, you know, silos. You've got to do this, you've got to do that. And students are always, you know, struggling for time. But that brought us together. But probably as meaningful as anything was going to this.
[31:14] Guy's hometown, which was located up near the New York border, to help do the funeral for his family. And so that's a community that's gathered there. They don't know me at all. But I've known this young guy since his first day on campus. He was a basketball player, and I happened to be outside of my office in the middle of campus. And here comes this big dude named Gage.
[31:44] And Coach introduces me to Gage, and he's a big, humble dude. But he ends up being in my first-year inquiry class. So not only did I meet Gage, I got to know about Gage. I got to know his likes and his dislikes and his great sense of humor and how people just loved him for who he was. It wasn't like he was anything great. He just was that guy that people were comfortable with. And, you know, suddenly I'm up there in northern Pennsylvania and the basketball teams both come. And so it's a Friday night and they've got a Saturday game in West Virginia. And so they're going to drive two hours north to where we are, and it's a snowstorm. So their two hours took them three. We do the service. They get back in that bus, and they drive back to New Wilmington. The next day, they drive another hour south to West Virginia to play a basketball game.
[32:46] And that had to be incredibly difficult for them because they all were connected, and now they're experiencing loss in a way they've never felt before. So, yeah, very difficult time, but a time of resurrection for a campus community that maybe has been searching for a way for faith to come out and not be hit under the bushel.
[33:14] A while back, actually when we were kind of setting up this interview, view. We kind of talked about how this can be related to congregational ministries. And I think for me, especially leading a congregation, but also post-COVID, just a lot of challenges that congregations are facing, what can be learned about the concept of just showing up and finding a path? Oh, great question. I do a lot of work with young pastors. I love mentoring them. And I always find myself thinking back to being that young pastor who often sat in his office on a Friday afternoon and tried to plow through a sermon and try to figure out what to do next. And I realized that some of the great joys of ministry... Really are spent with other people. It's not spent alone trying to put together your sermon. Now, that's really important stuff. But man, those conversations you have over coffee or going to somebody's birthday party or just showing up in places that people don't always expect you to show up is what develops that relationship.
[34:36] Ministry is really about relationship building, in a relationship that you have with them and they have with you, they have with the church, and they have with Christ. And you get to be the facilitator of that by showing up in places, and being there when they need you, going to visit grandma who's not a member of your church, who's in the hospital, by offering to take somebody to the airport if they need to go, So, you know, those types of things that maybe aren't in your job description, but they're in your call description. And I think maybe there's a difference there. You know, my call description says, dude, you are called to share the glory of God in whatever way you can. My job description says, you know, it snowed three feet last night. It's not necessarily your job to go out and plow that driveway or that sidewalk around the church, but there's no one to do it. So you jump in and do it. And so I remember when we were in Butler, we had a snowfall on a Christmas and no one was there to run the snowblower. And the church block was, our church was three quarters of a city block.
[35:58] That sidewalk needed opened. So I just went and did it. And people said, well, why did you do that for? I said, I didn't see anyone else here. You know, at that moment, that's what I was needed to do. And I was willing to do it. So I never think that you, it's often we think, well, it's not my job to set up the tables. It's not my job to be down hanging out with the people in the kitchen that are cooking and offering to do the dishes. It's not my, well, it may not be your job, but it's part of your calling. And sometimes the calling doesn't make sense. And so you just do it. You just go where you need to go and be where you need to be. And God takes care of the rest of it. So I don't know if that's what you're looking for, but yeah, I think that's part of it. Gosh, you know, going to...
[36:51] Going to pray with sports teams. When I was in New York, the football coach asked me to come and pray with the team. Man, I was honored to get to do that. Today, you don't get to do that kind of thing very often because they don't want to get that conflict going. But some coaches are still doing it. But I remember feeling that sense of honor to get to go do that. And maybe that laid the groundwork for the things I do here. Maybe that conversation with David Cozad back in St. Pete led to the groundwork of what I do now. Maybe that opportunity to work with a deacon, Alice Anthony in Butler, who was the most incredible little lady I've ever seen, who would get out and visit every day. Maybe that laid the groundwork to who I am and what I'm about today and the ministry we're called to. So there's a book, Let Your Life Speak. I don't know if you're familiar with that book. Great book by Parker Palmer, I believe. He talks about the journey of life and ministry. And boy, he's right on. You know, the things that you do when you're young, just build on what you do when you're a little bit later in life. And so every gift just keeps compounding.
[38:08] What do you think that the message is, especially people who are in the pews, who are They'd be worried about their own congregation or things. We've talked about call, and I think obviously pastors are called to their ministry. But how do you help them live out their own call to find their path? Yeah. What advice would you have to give? Sure. College students are all about trying to learn what it is God wants me to do with my life. And so one of the one of my favorite things to do is to take students to Alaska.
[38:51] And so we're looking at vocational discernment and and spirituality and we're looking at environmental issues and various ministries urban ministries rural ministries and we're asking every day the question what is God calling you to do you know why you say you want to be a doctor, why? You say you want to be a teacher, why? And what comes with that? It's not to make a lot of money. It's to be a servant. What's it mean to be a servant? To be willing to go and be there for people, to be, talk with folks, to listen, to share the gospel when you can, but not in a straight in-your-face type of way, and allow the message of God's love to come through you to others. And so I would think if I'm working with a group of deacons, I want them to be able to be God's presence.
[39:49] So what's it mean to be God's presence? You got to be present. You can't be a presence without present, about being present. And so I think I would encourage elders, for example, in the life of a church called to be, in many ways, administrators of the functions of the life of the church. Well, what's it mean to be someone doing that? Well, gosh, you better be in touch with your folks. You've got to be the eyes and the ears and be a helper and being willing to go out and do the things that need to be done. And so if you model that as the church leader, it trickles down to others who are called to be leaders and then trickles down to your congregation.
[40:30] I'm working on a grant right now that we're trying to develop leadership in faith communities.
[40:39] And so if this grant process goes through, we've got a four-year plan for how to help students learn to grow in their sense of calling, be that to a vocation in ministry or a vocation as an educator or a vocation as somebody who's doing church music and so on. But if your calling is not to be in a paid role, but to be in a leadership role as serving on a church board, what would that look like? Or as a church Sunday school teacher or whatever it might be. And so I think we have to be intentional about trying to share that message with our leadership.
[41:28] So, what do you see kind of going back to looking at campus ministry, what do you see kind of as the future of campus ministry or where can campus ministry have an impact in, you know, obviously in colleges such as Westminster, but in state schools and other places? Yeah, definitely.
[41:51] So, there are three types of ministries working with college students. One would be a church-based ministry, which a lot of the larger university schools have that. For instance, I have a friend who's at First Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, who—I think it's Raleigh—who works with folks at University of North Carolina. You know, he's not on campus, but his ministry is right on the edge. Or University of Wisconsin has that type of ministry on that campus. Right in the center of the campus is a church. And that's where the campus ministry is located, right in that facility. And then you've got campus-based ministry like mine, where my ministry is right in the center of campus. I have access to everything that needs to happen. And so my, For instance, my direct supervisor is the president of the college. So I've got the in. I'm like right there. I'm in the leadership team, that kind of thing. And then a third type of ministry that's happening is the kind of the parachurch ministries, the CCO or CREW or InterVarsity. All of these ministries have the same challenges. It's hard to connect with college students today. For a whole lot of reasons.
[43:19] They didn't grow up in a faith community. So that initial group of folks that you might've had early on that, you know, kids came out just because the doors were open, that doesn't exist anymore. And that's really one of those revelations for me is I got to go to where they are because they're not coming to me anymore. You know, I thought when I came here that it'd be a piece of cake, you know, chapels open, they're going to come. Well, that lasted not very long, but then I realized, oh, we got to do something different. This is going to work. And so it's challenging. And I think these are the most challenging times to do this type of work that's ever going to exist. You don't always have the support of the community around you. You know, some campuses, they want nothing to do with faith traditions. They want you to welcome folks, but they don't want you to ever get into their lane.
[44:18] And sometimes on campus, I can get in their lane. I'm here. They can't get rid of me. But if I'm on the fringe, they don't always have that in. You know, they've got to work to, how do I develop a ministry on campus when I can barely go sit in the cafeteria and put up a sign and say, hey, come talk to me? And so it's more challenging than ever. Yeah. Expectations of college students is different. You know, I think they come today and that's not something they really think about. They think about growing their minds, you know, academically and growing their pocketbook later on. And, you know, that missing piece, that missing link is developing their spiritual life. And so, you know, it's really hard to do that. We've had to change some of the words we use because today's college student doesn't understand what it means. For example, Sunday night vespers.
[45:23] Okay. What's a vesper? You know, you and I know what that means, but the average college student doesn't have the slightest idea. We just changed Christmas Vespers, which is our big Christmas worship service that we held last week, to Christmas worship, because the word worship at least resonated with kids. Oh, I know what that is, but I don't know what Vespers is. And so that's been interesting. My office used to be called the chapel office. And, you know, we realized, especially when we moved away from the chapel, that that doesn't click anymore. So now we're the office of faith and spirituality. And so that is more inclusive. So my work isn't just with the Christian kids. It's not just with the Presbyterian kids. My work is with the faith community, and that's broad. So we work with our Catholic students or our Muslim students or whomever it might be, our Jewish students.
[46:34] And we celebrate that. We celebrate the diversity that exists within the campus community. And even though in other traditions it's pretty small, But I want them to know that they have a place, too. And it's got a place at the table. Well, not necessarily at the communion table, but in the table, at our table to eat.
[46:56] And so, and I think that for folks who are maybe doing church-based, where there's a church folks or students are going to, we don't do ministry the same way. But in some ways, they have it better than I do on campus because there's a perception that I'm just working with this group of kids. But for them, it's maybe broader than that. I don't know if that makes sense. But we participate in the Montreat Collegiate Conference, which happens every year in January.
[47:33] And this will be the first conference this year that they've had since the hurricane came through and all the flooding in the Arnton, Swannanoa, Asheville area. And, you know, we're making a point of going and I have a small group going, but that typically is a conference that attracts church-based students. You know, the students going to South Carolina or NC State or, you know, Vanderbilt or wherever, more so than students at Westminster College or Davidson or Presbyterian College or, you know, wherever. So, yeah. But that's a great one to get together with people doing a different type of ministry than I do. And so we can learn from each other. And I think that's a valuable part of what happens within the chaplaincy ministry world is we can learn what, you know, I'm always looking for best practices. And I take your best practice and I make it my best practice with my little tweaks to it. And I want people to take my best practice and do the same thing. Um, so yeah.
[48:46] So people want to know more about kind of what goes on with, especially with campus ministry, where can they contact you? Oh, great. Yeah. Um, sure. I'm at Westminster College, 1 students here in Western Pennsylvania. There are three Westminster colleges across the country. There's Westminster College, Pennsylvania, where I am. There's Westminster College, Missouri, or Missouri, I guess you might want to say, and Westminster College, Utah. And so we're the better ones on the eastern side of the world. But my Facebook, I'm on Facebook as Jim Moore, I think, at Westminster, or Faith at Westminster College, that kind of thing. You're welcome to email me directly to morejr at westminster.edu.
[49:41] I love talking ministry, love talking campus ministry, and just love the opportunity that God's given me to do the things I do. You know, it's such a cool gig. And I wish everyone had the opportunity to get to do what I do. All right. Well, Jim, thank you for taking the time to chat today. This was really great. And I hope to have you back on again soon. Sounds great, Dennis. God bless to everyone who's getting a chance to listen. And may the Christmas season be a blessing. And to you as well.
[50:20] Music.
[50:21] We'll be right back.
[50:49] Well, I hope that you enjoyed the conversation with Jim. I will put his article in the show notes. I also wanted to leave you with a thought that I hope that can help you. And maybe I'm thinking about putting this and writing this into a separate article.
[51:07] So, you know, keep your eyes peeled to churchinmain.substack.com for this. But my husband, Daniel, he is someone that will go to the funeral of the parents of friends. And I need to say that again. He doesn't go to the funeral of friends, but to the parents of the funerals of friends. And that means in most cases, he's going to an event where the person that has died is someone that he doesn't even know. And I've always been fascinated by his willingness to show up when people are suffering. And he does this in ways that is beyond a simple card or an email. He is actually there. And he kind of shared a poem to kind of explain why he does what he does. It's called What I Learned from My Mother by Julia Kassdorf. I'm not going to repeat it here because I have no idea if I will be doing, you know, doing something against copyright, but I am going to put it in the show notes, a link to it. I really do hope that you read it and take it to heart. And I'd also like to know, how are you showing up in life? How is your congregation doing this?
[52:29] What did you learn from the conversation with Jim Moore? Feel free to drop me a line. You can send me an email at churchandmaine at substack.com. I'd really like to know what you thought about this episode. And if you want to learn more about the podcast, listen to past episodes or donate, check us out on our website at churchandmaine.org. And you can also, as I said earlier, visit churchandmaine.substack.com to read related articles. I hope that you would also consider subscribing to the podcast on your favorite podcast app if you have not done that. And especially if you're listening to this on something like Apple Podcasts, I hope that you would leave a review that can help others find this podcast. That is it for this episode of Church in Maine. Thank you again for listening. Take care, everyone. Godspeed. And I will see you very soon. Thank you.
[53:31] Music.