VOL. 2 NO. 2
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FALL 2024
THE HOLLER
Your Lutheran Campus Ministry at West Virginia University
SEARCHING FOR BOTH/AND During her senior year of high school, Lindsey was given an assignment: go online and find a church you might like to attend near where you’re going to college. Since she grew up Lutheran, the first keyword in her search was easy: “Lutheran.” But then came the more difficult decision: did Lindsey look for somewhere that had the closeknit feel of the small midwestern church she had spent her early years, where people knew her name and cared deeply about her story? Or, did she want something like the church she belonged to in her teenage years, where there were more people her age and a diversity of experience and opinion? Instead of having to choose, Lindsey found all of the above. After searching online through many different churches and campus ministries in Morgantown, your Lutheran Campus Ministry at West Virginia University was the one that became real for Lindsey when Chaplain Courtney reached out with words of encouragement and prayer before Lindsey had even stepped foot on campus. When she walked through the Chapel doors that first Sunday, Lindsey was greeted not only by a diverse community of peers but also by people who already knew her name and wanted to know more about her story. “I just knew,” Lindsey shares about discerning which faith community she would join during college. “I wanted someplace where I could grow in my faith and form my own opinion— not to be told what I’m ‘supposed to do’ but to explore what I want to do.”
Leaving her home in Minnesota to live and learn in the mountains of Appalachia was a big change, but the community your Lutheran Campus Ministry at West Virginia University cultivates, through worship, shared meals, fellowship, and study, gives...
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