A big thank you to Janelle Schanilec from Real Presence Radio, who stopped by the Newman Center on Thursday November 5, 2020 to drop off a box of rolls for Fr. Luke Meyer, our Pastor. Fr. Luke’s name was drawn as a part of RPR’s visits to local parishes. A big thank you to Terrie Mann who nominated Fr. Luke, and to RPR for providing something to keep body and soul together on a Thursday morning!
#Student
Takeo
ver
What happened when our ministry moved off-campus.
Bible Studies reported 100% attendance. Over a dozen people prayed Morning Prayer with Fr. Luke. Discipleship meetings took place daily.
This is what happened when students staged a #StudentTakeover of undCatholic.
With classes moved online and dormitories closed for the rest of the semester. It looked as though the life and ministry of the St. Thomas Aquinas Newman Center was about to slide to a standstill.
While Father Luke and the staff prepared to start streaming Masses online, members of the student board proposed a #StudentTakeover to keep the community of the Newman Center together through the COVID-19 lockdown.
At the center of their takeover was a social media platform called Instagram.
Instagram is a website that began as a way for people to share pictures with each other. See a really beautiful sunset and want to show your friends? Instagram. Make a delicious dinner and want to brag about how good it looks? Instagram. Unlike Facebook, Instagram is made to work best on a cell phone, not a computer. So it has become the default website for college students.
Abby Skibicki appears on-screen during her “Instagram Takeover” having coffee with her favorite mug. Abby’s video has been viewed over 200 times.
We at undCatholic started using Instagram a few years ago. And the most useful feature for us (by far) has been the “InstaStories” -- short videos taken throughout the day that are linked together and viewed in quick succession. Father Luke has used this to update our donors about the day-to-day happenings at the FOCUS conference, or about his Bike Race training. This time, though, it was students who ran the show.
The undCatholic Student Board proposed the Instagram Takeover to Fr. Luke early on during the lockdown.
The first student to stage an Instagram Takeover was Jacob Tupa. His first video showed him eating breakfast and praying the daily readings from the Magnificat. “I’ve been big on the intercessory prayer lately. Been talking to Luke (on of the FOCUS missionaries) about that,” Jacob says directly to the camera.
Abby Skibicki also staged an Instagram Takeover. “The way I start out my weekday mornings,” Abby whispers into the camera, “is by saying hello to some of my favorite friends: the women in my discipleship chain.” She turns the camera around and there, on her laptop screen, are half a dozen other women from the Newman Center, faces in a grid on the screen. “We all log into a Zoom call at about 7:30 in the morning and spend a holy half hour together, so that we can give our day to God, and to just keep each other accountable, and to grow in fellowship.”
To emphasize the last point: These are half a dozen college aged women voluntarily going our of their way to begin each day communal prayer.
Emily Sears ended her Instagram Takeover with a video of the sunset over Harlow, ND. “God is showing off tonight.”
“I’m impressed to see the spirit of community still alive and well,” said Fr. Luke as he recalled the InstraStories. Taylor Sagan began her Instagram Takeover (and her day) by praying the rosary. Emily and Maria Sears began their day with coffee and reading Scripture. Jacquelyn Blessum began with the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.
Throughout all the of Instastories, students were filming themselves going to Bible studies and discipleship, streaming daily Mass and praying by themselves.
“The mission has always been to ignite the fire of faith on campus. But it is now evident how brightly it was buring as things have moved off-campus,” said Fr. Luke. “Seeing the faith and community of the students grow during this time has been the great surprise blessing of this semester.”
Emily Sears baked her grandmother a loaf of pumpkin bread during her Instagram Takeover.
“Go forth and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” - Matthew 28:19
Approximately 2,000 years later…
Derek Hayden has been in Archives Coffee Shop for over half an hour, and he still hasn’t started the work he brought with. Derek is a FOCUS Missionary at the University of North Dakota. And this Tuesday afternoon he was planning to call all the students who have applied to go on his mission trip to Belize. He ordered his coffee, opened his laptop, plugged in his cell phone, and is now standing 20 feet away, talking to two male students at a high table.
One of those students is in a Bible Study that Derek runs. After 10 minutes at that table. Derek says hello to two female students who are both on the Student Board at the St. Thomas Aquinas Newman Center. Now, sitting down at his workstation, lukewarm coffee in hand, he greets the young lady on a nearby couch who recognizes him from Welcome Week. They begin talking about the stresses of the day, then the difficulty of planning work and relaxation, then the role of prayer, and soon Derek is talking to her about coming to Mass and adoration at the Newman Center. She enthusiastically agrees and Derek gives her a few Bible verses to pray with throughout the week.
FOCUS Missionaries have a very difficult job to do. In the years after they graduate college, they are moved away from their homes and their alma maters, placed on a campus they have never been to before, and are charged with spreading the Gospel to the students they meet. Think about this for a second: you are hundreds, maybe thousands, of miles from home. Your schedule is yours to make. And you are trying to preach the Good News to the most distracted, busy, and anxious generation the world has ever seen. What would you do? How would you do it?
For 24 hours, we followed Derek around the campus of the University of North Dakota to see how he does it. And we invite you to do the same. One thing we learned: When Derek walked into Archives Coffeeshop, the students he stopped to talk to weren’t a distraction from his mission. They were the mission.
We started tailing Derek on Monday night. Your author and photographer work a standard 9 to 5 schedule, which means we actually miss the most active times for FOCUS Missionaries. On Monday night just after 6, Derek is down in the St. Therese Room of the St. Thomas Aquinas Newman Center, with chips, salsa, and 5 college guys, asking about the high point of their week.
“These chips and salsa,” says one, to chuckles from the others.
This is part of an icebreaker called “Highs and Lows”. Each of them has to give their highest moment, their lowest moment, “and a God moment” (a moment when God’s love was clear) from the week.
Besides chips and salsa, other “Highs” include a sibling’s wedding (“the sight of the bride and groom kneeling in prayer after communion was really moving”), and getting a better score on a test than expected. While light laughter and murmurs of agreement are common, the boys will get seriously excited for each other when the time is right. One guy shares that he and his girlfriend will celebrate their two-year anniversary on Friday and the room erupts in cheers and clapping.
“You got that rock yet?” Derek asks with a little more Kentucky drawl than usual and a wink so quick and flutter-free that you can almost hear it ding.
“Don’t have enough money for that,” comes the reply, with some nervous laughter.
“Get a ring pop!” someone shouts.
“Or a synthetic diamond,” suggests another. “You can get those. They’re not naturally occurring. But synthetically created…”
These guys have been in this Bible study for over 3 years now. They all started as freshman and are now well into junior year. They get each other and Derek gets them. So when he moves the group from the light icebreaker to the actual point of tonight’s Study -- a discussion of Sexual Authenticity -- no one squirms or looks uncomfortable.
“Do I need a Bible for this?” asks the “ring pop” guy.
“You will need your Bible for this,” says Derek with a smirk.
Everyone else already had theirs out and ready to go.
It is cold and wet and windy on Tuesday morning. Derek and the other FOCUS Missionaries are standing in the entryway of the Newman Center saying the opening prayers of their weekly rosary. In addition to their own personal prayer, the missionaries spend at least an hour of each day in prayer together. On Tuesdays they take a rosary walk around the campus, then they have a holy hour in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
In Derek’s two years on campus, the team has never missed a Tuesday rosary walk, despite the insanity of North Dakota weather. On this day, in October, it is raining. Over the weekend, Grand Forks received 8” of snow. Snow. And before that it pretty much rained all month. Over 15 inches of rain has fallen in the past 6 weeks. That’s as much rain as Grand Forks usually gets in a summer. As Derek and the missionaries begin the first decade of the Rosary and step out into the morning chill, they step out onto mud-streaked concrete and nearly liquid dirt.
Praying the rosary and sitting in adoration might seem like a waste of time. Surely the missionaries could spend that time chatting with students over coffee and breakfast. Or greeting class-bound pedestrians on the quad. But the prayer is vital. It follows “the method modeled by the Master” (to use the words of FOCUS founder Curtis Martin) -- the way Jesus himself preached the Gospel. As often as Jesus was preaching and teaching and healing, he was withdrawn, up a mountain, praying. Practicing what FOCUS calls “Divine Intimacy”. Knowing God. As opposed to simply knowing about God. It seems strange to say, but of all the things the missionaries do on campus -- greeting students on the quad, inviting passersby to join a Bible study, visiting dorm rooms and Greek houses -- the most indispensable and most effective is prayer.
In addition to Bible studies, FOCUS Missionaries spend some of their days meeting one-on-one with students. This is called “Discipling”. And this, too, is intended to follow the pattern set down by Jesus. He had hundreds of disciples, then the 12 Apostles, and then a little inner circle (Peter, James, and John) to whom he dedicated an extraordinary amount of time and attention. Similarly, in addition to greeting hundreds of students on campus and leading large bible studies, FOCUS missionaries “disciple” (as a verb) a smaller group. The idea is that these young men (in Derek’s case) will in turn draw together a close inner circle whom they will help and encourage in the faith. If that process is a little unclear, just refer to 2 Timothy 2:2, “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.” Teach reliable people who will in turn teach others. That’s what Derek is trying to do as we leave the Newman Center, through the obscene amounts of water, and head to Wilkerson Commons -- a student center of sorts that lies in the middle of campus.
Discipling seems to be working for him. The first man Derek meets -- Luke -- will graduate in December and is already committed to be a FOCUS missionary at another campus in the Spring.
For obvious reasons, we hang back during Derek’s two discipleship meetings this morning. The zoom lens stays on the camera. Our ears listen to every noise in the building except the voice of the man we are here to observe. And it is those noises which clue us in to something rather important about FOCUS and its work on campus: the conversation Derek is having with Luke (and later with Ben - Derek disciples each of them back to back) is the only friendly conversation happening in this room. We hear a young man in a fraternity polo announcing to passers-by, “Free raffle! Free raffle! All you gotta do is sign up. Free raffle!...” No one signs up in the two hours he stood there.
Also here is a student interviewing some sort of campus employee and it is strange to hear both of them speak almost exclusively in phrases lifted from their resume: “I’m trying to develop my skills as a reporter, having been an associate editor for two years now, so can you tell me what really drives your work on campus?” “Well, when I started, I was a secretary for two years before getting my Master’s degree in Management and applying for the job I have now. I would say what drives me is….” Our photographer mentions that this conversation in particular is what Aristotle called “a friendship of utility” -- where each participant is using the other for some personal benefit, in this case career advancement. And as far as we can tell, that seems to be the dominant form of friendship present this morning in the common room: a strained group of sophomores negotiating who will do what for their science project, the formulaic friendliness of students ordering coffee, the raffle man.
It is precisely this sort of friendship that FOCUS works to avoid. “If you are not seeing your disciples socially, and are not a part of their lives as a friend, you aren’t doing it properly,” said Madeleine Carson, the FOCUS Team Director here at UND. FOCUS calls this habit “Authentic Friendship”, and it is the second most important habit after “Divine Intimacy”. Love God and thy neighbor, in other words.
Derek Hayden is married. His wife Sarah served as a FOCUS Missionary at UND last year, and is now at home with their son, John Thomas. On Tuesdays from noon to 3, Derek goes home for a weekly “date”. We elect not to tag along. When Derek returns and we ask what sort of date the Hayden’s had today. His answer is one any parent will appreciate: Derek watched John so that Sarah could shower and rest. If noon to 3 seems like a long break to take in the middle of the day, bear in mind that Derek will be at the Newman Center until well after 10PM tonight. In fact, he will be at the Newman Center most nights until the school year is over.
In Chapter 10 of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells his disciples to go out and preach that the kingdom of God is at hand. “Stay at the same house, eating, and drinking whatever you are offered. For the laborer deserves his wages.” You might be surprised to learn that college students can’t offer much in the way of food and shelter for the missionaries, much less things like medical insurance or a salary. So the missionaries ask for these things from other people. Each missionary has to personally raise the money they will need to live for a year on campus. The people who help them are called “Mission Partners”, and once a week the FOCUS missionaries at UND gather to write letters to them. Derek, having a bit of seniority, is leading this gathering when we meet him at 3PM. Claire and Morgan, two younger missionaries are already there: organizing stamps, envelopes, and lists of names on the table in front of them.
Derek gets them started with a prayer, offers some direction, and then makes his way toward the door. We are heading to Archives Coffeeshop just down the street, where Derek intends to call all the people who have applied to join his upcoming mission trip to Belize. We arrive and our writer orders a cappuccino. We sit and watch Derek do everything except sit down and call the people he wanted to. We’re surprised how many students Derek talks to, and how naturally he accepts this change in plan. We’re also surprised how good the cappuccino is.
We leave Derek, and the UND campus at the end of the work day. Derek stays. At 8PM he has another Bible Study, a new one, full of some guys who are involved in Greek life here at UND. We agree that it would be best not to photograph this Bible study. These young men are just starting to hear the Good News, just beginning to realize that Jesus desires a relationship with them. It is a time when they are hopefully being won over by Him.
FOCUS trains its missionaries to follow as closely as they can the way Christ shared the Gospel. FOCUS distills this way into 3 words: Win, Build, Send. Leading souls to Christ. Helping souls to grow in Christ. Commissioning them to go and do the same.
On Tuesday night, Derek is trying to lead souls to Christ. Last night, over chips and salsa, he was helping souls to grow in Christ. And in the Wilkerson Commons, he was preparing Luke to go off to another campus and do the same work there. That’s what a day in the life of a Focus Missionary looks like. Winning. Building. And Sending. As Christ did and we also must do.
It was a great adventure with God on spring break this year. Five students and two FOCUS Missionaries from UND, along with a missionary and four students from other campuses on a week-long mission trip to Albania over spring break. I was asked to serve as chaplain on this mission, and the Holy Spirit gave a clear green light in prayer. This was one of 139 mission trips…
