This report is divided into two major sections. The first describes the campus ministry at WVU in broad terms; it is meant to orient those unfamiliar with our ministry and the beliefs, assumptions, observations, and idiosyncrasies of our current chaplain. The second provides details for this reporting year. Before moving on to those sections, let us preface this report with a brief discussion of September 11.

Preface: September 11

We discuss this separately because it was an unusual event which might overshadow the regular, on-going work of the ministry. Still, we know that our supporting synods will want to know how we responded to the event. We direct you to our website (www.LutheranMountaineer.org) where you will find a collection of articles about activities related to the attack.* As a quick summary, we give you the following.

• For the octave of the attack, we conducted (in addition to our regular liturgies), daily compline, an ecumenical prayer service the night of the attack, an all-night prayer vigil, two sanctuary days with all seven prayer offices, and a requiem mass. We experienced over 250 incidences of worship attendance in eight days.
• We kept the chapel open as a refuge and hospitality center for the octave. It is estimated that we hosted 150 first time visitors to the chapel.
• We were the only campus ministry open 24 hours the day of the attack. Students wandered into the chapel throughout the night. At 4:00 AM, e.g., a Jewish student wandered into our chapel and stayed with us through vigils.
• We experienced a dramatic increase in those seeking the chaplain for counsel.
• The chaplain sat on a faculty sponsored panel discussion attended by over 200 students, faculty, staff, and community members.
• The chaplain lectured on Just War Theory at St. Paul, Morgantown.
• We experienced excellent press coverage and a real boost in visibility and respect for our work.
• A positive working relationship with the Roman Catholic campus ministry has been another benefit.*
• The students participating in our campus ministry rose to the occasion, taking the initiative to ensure that their campus ministry rendered a Christian service to their peers. You should be proud of them.

The Nature of the Ministry

The Lutheran Campus Ministry at WVU is a chapel-based campus ministry in a non-metropolitan university setting. It is not a congregation; therefore, there is no membership (strictly speaking). We are charged with ministering to the university community, which includes students (undergraduate and graduate), faculty, staff, administration, and the families of these populations. Among these populations, students hold primacy because of their transience; primacy is also accorded members of the other populations who are similarly transient. It is assumed (and encouraged) that those who are permanent residents of Morgantown hold membership at St. Paul Lutheran Church, Morgantown, or at a congregation of one of our full-communion partners. While active participation in a local congregation is encouraged for permanent residents, we welcome their additional participation in the campus ministry, not only for the benefits which a peculiarly university ministry offers to them, but also for the enrichment which they bring to the campus ministry.

When ministering to the university community, we recognize that some are members of the Lutheran movement, some are members of polities with which we have full-communion, still others are members of other Christian traditions, and too many are non-Christians. Within the Christian population, we also encounter everything from the faithful to the nominal, from the orthodox to the heterodox. In this context, our ministry is like a hybrid of military chaplaincy and foreign mission work.

Remembering that our Reformation began on a university campus (Wittenberg) and was led by university professors (Luther, Melanchthon, et al.) and their students, campus ministry should also serve the whole church by interpreting the church to the academy and interpreting the academy to the church. We mediate to the academy the gift of Divine revelation and our theological systems. We ask of the academy its expertise in matters of the Natural Law. Luther taught:

We should fear and love God, and so we should not tell lies about our neighbor, nor betray, slander, or defame him, but should apologize for him, speak well of him, and interpret charitably all that he does.

The Nuts and Bolts

We own and operate a late 1960s chapel of distinctive architectural design, which is strategically located in the Downtown Campus. It is surrounded by the university on three sides and a sorority house on the fourth. It is across the street from both the main library and the only 24x7 computer lab at the university. According to some estimates, we are only one block from the most heavily (pedestrian) trafficked intersection in the State of West Virginia. In addition to the chapel, we own an early 20^th century brick house adjacent to the chapel (it is the former St. Paul’s parsonage), which now serves as a two-bedroom rental unit. Lastly, we have a small parking lot.

Staffing is limited. We have one full-time ordained chaplain. We have a part-time bookkeeper who also serves as the part-time organist. We also have a part-time custodian. The chaplain is salaried. Bookkeeping and custodial work is hourly wage for services rendered. The organist is compensated on a per service basis. The current staffing configuration needs to be evaluated.

Financial support for the campus ministry comes from

• the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
• the Northwest Pennsylvania Synod, the Southwest Pennsylvania Synod, and the West Virginia-Western Maryland Synod
• offerings received at worship services
• gifts from individuals
• gifts from congregations, and
• rental income.

Part II: Details for the 2001-2002 reporting year.

Worship Life

To obtain such faith God instituted the office of the ministry, that is, provided the Gospel and the sacraments. Through these, as through means, he gives the Holy Spirit, who works faith, when and where he pleases, in those who hear the Gospel. --Augsburg Confession 5

• The mass is celebrated every Sunday, Thursday, and on most feasts and lesser festivals whenever the university is in fall and spring session.(cf. Apology 24:1) On occasion, the mass is celebrated when the university is not in session in observance of special days. Even with the suspension of Sunday masses during the summer 2001, we still averaged just under one liturgy per week.
• The offices are also an important part of our worship ministry. Vespers is prayed on Sunday nights. Sext is prayed Wednesdays at noon. Compline is offered nightly during dead week and finals week; during those weeks, we schedule our offices in coordination with the Roman Catholic campus ministry, inviting each other’s participation. Once each semester, we make a pilgrimage to Pittsburgh for compline at Heinz Chapel, a ministry of our sister campus ministry in that city.
• Sanctuary Days are observed at least once per term. On a "day of sanctuary" a full cycle of prayer offices are offered, and the chapel is set up as a refuge from the "noise" of campus life. Since the last report, sanctuary days were held in Lent 2001, on St. Benedict’s Day, and twice in the wake of September 11.
• The Health Sciences Center Ministry was begun in Lent 2001. During Lent, a weekly mass is held in the Health Sciences Building Chapel on the Medical Campus, Thursdays, noon. Throughout the rest of the year, masses are offered at that chapel on appropriate days. One such day was September 4, 2001, the Commemoration of Albert Schweitzer. Another was the Feast of St. Luke—a Service of the Word for Healing was held. These liturgies on the Medical Campus attract students, teaching faculty, researchers, doctors, nurses, and support staff. The Health Sciences Center administration has been very cooperative in permitting the use of their chapel. We are the only campus ministry at WVU conducting a regular and on-going ministry on that campus. The only hymnal to be found in the Health Sciences Center Chapel is Lutheran Book of Worship—thanks to a gift of older copies from St. Mark’s, Oakland.
• Inviting our neighboring congregations to special observances has been a practice begun during this reporting period. Easter Vigil 2001, Henry Melchior Muhlenberg Day (October 7), and Reformation Sunday provided opportunities for campus and congregation to come together for worship at the Lutheran Campus Chapel. On Muhlenberg Day, we worshipped using Muhlenberg’s 1748 liturgy. For Reformation Sunday, we used Luther’s German Mass (in English); Pr. Jim Caton, the dean of the local conference, preached, and Pr. Sarah Lee, the pastor of the Church of the Covenant, Grafton, presided. We are already planning for Reformation 2002.

Community Life

…the mutual conversation and consolation of brethren. "Where two or three are gathered," etc. –Smalcald Articles III:4

• Informal fellowship fares well and is getting stronger. Those participating in the campus ministry are talking with each other. There are, of course, the peripheral participants who come for the liturgies and leave after the perfunctory handshake, but the majority of the participants appear to enjoy the informal fellowship of the chapel. Conversations can go late into the night. Spiritually substantive conversations are commonplace.
• Formal fellowship activities do not fare as well. Our weekly dinner and social hour suffers from sporadic attendance patterns, and the Lutheran Student Movement, the fellowship backbone for several years, has not rebounded well from a case of exhaustion consequent of the pastoral vacancy of spring/summer 2000.
• Supporting the fellowship, the addition of a salvaged foosball table has been a plus. If anyone has a bumper pool table they would like to donate, please contact us. In the not so distant future, we would like to replace our entertainment electronics; the television is now older than the incoming class, and the sound system has an 8-track player. Again, a donation of something a little more recent would be appreciated. Scrabble remains the board game of choice.
• Rafting with our sister campus ministries in our inter-synodical compact was the fellowship high point of fall 2001.

But outside the Christian church (that is, where the Gospel is not) there is no forgiveness, and hence no holiness. –Large Catechism II:3

• We acquired a domain name, www.LutheranMountaineer.org, and a new e-mail address, Lutheran@WVU.edu, in June 2001.

• We have acquired two all-weather banners for use on the front façade of our chapel. The new main university library overlooks that façade.
• We continue to use the Daily Athenaeum, the WVU newspaper, to announce regular and special offerings.
• We changed our listing in the 2001-2002 Mountaineer Country Phone Book Yellow Pages so as to highlight our campus ministry mission but will reconsider its cost effectiveness before renewing for 2002-2003.
• We held our annual opening of school lemonade stand—very successful.
• We made and distributed fastnachts from the porch of our chapel on Shrove Tuesday.
• The chaplain consciously attempts to be a visible and recognizable presence on the campus.
• The chaplain attempts to be present in the Creative Arts Center through attendance of recitals and performances of various types. He works closely with the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the men’s music fraternity on campus.
• Plans to expand our visibility on the Law Campus and in the Evansdale Residential Complex have been postponed until 2002/2003. The September 11 attack and its fallout required more immediate attention.

I therefore beg of you for God's sake, my beloved brethren who are pastors and preachers, that you take the duties of your office seriously, that you have pity on the people who are entrusted to your care, and that you help me to teach the catechism to the people, especially those who are young. –Small Catechism, Preface

• Most teaching takes place in the form of informal conversations. Some of these conversations take place within the confines of the chapel. Others occur at university events. From time to time, students request appointments with the chaplain to discuss specific points of theology or church history.
• An evening of Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue was held on the topic of the Sacrament of the Altar.
• "Movie & Discussion," once a regular feature of the campus ministry, is no longer held because of the inadequacy of the entertainment system.
• Many sermons are unabashedly didactic.
• The chaplain has advised students with respect to term papers related to religious studies.
• The chaplain is teaching a Bible study on the Holy Week narratives.
• The chaplain also taught a pre-baptismal series.

The nexus of the church and the academy can be an exciting place. We seek to bring the strengths of the academy to bear upon the needs of the church.

• The B. B. Maurer Prize for 2001/2002 will be given to the best paper written in response to our denomination’s present first draft of Health, Healing, and Healthcare.
• We are commissioning a sculpture student to design and sculpt a baptismal font and paschal candle stand for our chapel.

• The chaplain has been appointed to the university’s Internal Review Board, the oversight body concerned with research upon human subjects.
• The chaplain served on a faculty sponsored panel discussion following the September 11 attack. In addition, the chaplain frequently attended other events connected with September 11.

A persistent danger in campus ministry is isolation from the parish. While we are building a stronger relationship with St. Paul, Morgantown, we are also working to strengthen relations with other congregations and church entities.

• This campus ministry hosted the St. Mark’s, Clarksburg, youth group for a day at WVU and will be doing the same for Christ, Vienna, in a few weeks.
• As mentioned under worship, this campus ministry has sponsored special worship events intended to draw together area Lutherans and others for common worship.
• With this year’s transfer of the principal weekly mass to the Sunday evening, the chaplain is available for supply preaching. He has visited several congregations already, covering for vacations, vacancies, and sudden illnesses.
• The chaplain has guest lectured on just war theory, on campus ministry, and on Gettysburg Seminary in Sunday Schools and at council meetings.
• The chaplain continues to serve on the faculty at Camp Luther and as director of Camp Melanchthon.

The chapel building is in apparently good shape (structurally), but, at thirty-four years of age, we need to pursue certain upgrades and maintenance.

• The electric stove has been replaced with a new appliance; the refrigerator has been replaced with a used appliance (thanks to a donation). Both original appliances failed.
• Upgrading of the electronics has been deferred, but the donation of a used computer has helped.
• We continue to explore new exterior signage and additional parking.
• Replacement of the roof shingles should be considered this summer.
• Painting and treatment of the wood should also be considered for this summer along with an exterior wash and sealing of the masonry—two years of construction across the street has left the building coated in dirt and grime.

• In summer 2001, we removed asbestos floor tiles throughout the building and began work on restoration of the wood floors.
• The gas stove has been replaced.
• We continue to work on plans for a major renovation of the house.

The importance of the physical plant cannot be underestimated as suggested previously in this report. During this reporting period, we have permitted other groups to use our facilities in order to further the Christian witness on campus. In particular, we have developed a mutually beneficial relationship with the local Inter-Varsity in relation to their International Buddies program and their Jesus Week activities.

Closing Notes

The members of the Lutheran Campus Foundation at WVU (the board of directors) are Mr. Wyatt Hoffman (chair), Mrs. Cathryn McKinney, The Rev. Mark Combs, The Rev. Russ Yoak, Dr. Russ Dean, and Ms. Anna Gensler. Mrs. Sue Tucker is the foundation bookkeeper.

To follow the ongoing life and work of the Lutheran Campus Ministry at WVU, please visit our website: http://www.LutheranMountaineer.org

Submitted by:
The Rev. Matthew Lynn Riegel
Chaplain