MilieuWinter07@HoughtonPaineWing

For several years now, Milieu has explored the college’s connection to The Wesleyan Church through articles about John and Charles Wesley. We will continue to do so in the future, but beginning with this issue we would like to examine connections with our denomination today. We thought a good place to start was right in town, so we asked Senior Pastor Wes Oden to give us a glimpse of a typical day at the Houghton Wesleyan Church.

by Wesley D. Oden

The day began, as each Tuesday does, with our staff meeting. We reviewed activities from the previous weekend, noting that hundreds of college students attended and participated in our services, where some served as ushers and others used their musical abilities in worship. We are thrilled at how many college students are involved in our church ministries. They work with children, in our youth group and at monthly senior citizen luncheons. A few weeks ago 36 students spent a Saturday morning at the church—doing yard work, creating bulletin boards, photocopying materials for various children’s ministries and more.

Following the staff meeting, I spent an hour with Assistant Pastor Todd Leach—who oversees college ministries—discussing a variety of church activities for college students. For each semester’s Christian Life Emphasis Week (CLEW), the church and the college share responsibilities for scheduling speakers and for funding. Todd was excited that Koinonia is exerting a strong influence this semester. Close to 500 college students gather on Sunday evenings in Wesley Chapel for this hour of singing, praying and praising God. The church selects and trains the students who lead these services.

Later that afternoon, Todd took about a dozen college students and some community members to The Waters of Houghton. Each week we organize an hour of ministry to the residents of this long-term care facility. Some students return on their own because they develop relationships with people there.

At our meeting Todd mentioned that the previous night he had attended one of the four Bible study groups for college students that meet each week. Jim Luckey ’08 leads the group, which meets in the home of Doug and Judi (Cook ’72) Mayhle. Students in the groups often forge significant relationships with the community members that host them—relationships that last beyond their time in Houghton.

Following the meeting with Todd, I began work for a sermon focus group that evening. The group—with community members, high school students and college students—meets once a month to discuss sermons I am preparing. I met one of the college students in the group on Student Hospitality Sunday, when the church arranges for community members to host college students for Sunday dinner.

After school, I enjoyed overhearing our children’s choir rehearsal through the walls of my office. Danielle Varnel ’07 directed the choir for the past three years, and Sarah Stedman ’05/’07 took over this year. I am not sure that we would have a children’s choir without them. In fact, it would be difficult to operate many of our children’s ministries without college students. More than 200 students work in our nursery, with Sunday school classes, at children’s church, and in our Wednesday evening ministries.

Last Sunday, a professor mentioned that her four-year-old daughter announces on Sunday mornings, “I get to go see my Ernie today.” Ernie is a college student who helps teach her Sunday school class. I recently watched a kindergartner head into his class, bound over to his college-student teacher and give him a big hug. The smiles on their faces were contagious. Our youth pastor, Jon Cole, was watching a college volleyball game recently when he heard a high school student point out a player and say to her friend, “That’s my Sunday School teacher.” The girl with her replied, “That’s so cool.”

As this Tuesday wound down, I remembered e-mails to which I needed to reply. I sent them on their way, reminded of the college’s generosity in providing a network connection for the church that allows us to surf the internet and process e-mail almost instantaneously.

Though the church is a separate entity from the college, we are intricately connected—by geography, by denominational ties, and by a common mission. We are grateful for the ways in which the college assists the Houghton Wesleyan Church and for the opportunities to serve it in return. We believe that the connection between these historic institutions will bear fruit for the kingdom of God in the lives of students, the community and their family members for years to come.

Wes Oden has served as senior pastor of the Houghton Wesleyan Church since 1996. He is a graduate of George Fox University, has his master's in divinity from Asbury Seminary and recently earned his doctorate from Gordon-Conwell. Wes and his wife Cindy, discipleship pastor at the church, have two sons: John ’08 and Andrew, a senior at Fillmore Central School.

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