Well, this is Ben and this is Keith.

And this is Main Street Lutherans. And today we are happy to present to you a conversation. I think this is our first episode with a guest speaker. Is that right, Ben?

This is, this is, we're going to talk with. Well, I'm going to talk with. You were actually there. You just didn't say anything.

Well, we hadn't planned on me being there. That's right. So I didn't want to get in the way, but I did get to listen in, which was awesome.

If ever we share the video, Keith's just sort of nodding along with the whole thing, which is kind of fun.

And that's why this is a podcast.

That's right. Exactly. Yeah. So we got a chance to talk with Pastor Elizabeth Friedman of Lord of Light Lutheran Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And that church is a campus congregation. It's made up nearly entirely of students at the University of Michigan. And she said just a block off of campus. And so it's the ELCA's campus ministry to the University of Michigan supported by the southeast Michigan synod. So that's where I'm at. And I'm sure lots of alumni contribute as well. And in fact, in the middle of, in our talk, she'll talk about needing to build a new building because of challenges they have from that building not being. Yeah, well, this brings up of know talk. Keith and I met during our college years, so this discussion brings know for us. Capitol Keith was at another school in Columbus, Ohio, when we met know, I think our campus ministry experience was a little bit different, at least at Capital, because it's a ministry funded by the university. And so they've got a different funding solution there. And it's sort of implied that it will be there no matter what. And Elizabeth talks about how the programs, the campus ministry programs at universities around the country are really at risk, and we nearly lost several big ones. And that's kind of interesting there.

Yeah.

And she also spoke about how for many college students, this is a really vulnerable point in life. And so it's a time where the church really gets to be the church in a uniquely impactful way, sort of stepping in as sort of surrogate parent to these people that are often out in a different context for perhaps the first time in their life, and sometimes a wildly different context. I came to Columbus to Capitol, like Ben said. I had come from another institution, but I had come to Ohio from Pennsylvania to go to college. And actually one of the reasons I wound up at Capitol was because of the congregation down the street from my apartment, which is really where Ben and I first met. Yeah. Through a camp ministry program that you were a part. So, you know, that, know, I had grown up in an ELCA congregation and went to Ohio for college, and by luck or the Holy Spirit or grace or whatever, wound up at this other congregation right down the street and know was welcomed there and drawn. You know, it was the pastor in that church that helped me discern that I was really perhaps going to the wrong college and changed majors and changed schools and changed career paths and ultimately led to me becoming a pastor myself.

Shout out to Pastor Brad.

That's right. Yeah. So it's really a unique perspective. So I guess we are ready to get into it, right?

Yeah. Well, Pastor Elizabeth, I'm so glad we get to have you here on the podcast today. We're going to talk about what does it mean to be ElCa Lutheran? And the reason we've invited you here in particular is because as a minister near campus or on campus, I'm not sure how you would refer to it. At the University of Michigan, you get to deal with students who are trying to figure this stuff out. And so I think that you're probably one of the people that most commonly answers the question, why are we ELCa Lutheran? As opposed to some other sort of Lutheran or some other sort of Christian? And so I'm very glad to have you here.

Well, thanks. It's really wonderful to be with you, too. Yeah. Getting right into it. I think that our theology as Lutherans specifically being centered in grace, is really important. One of the things that I encounter a lot is folks who were raised in other traditions, and particularly with the idea of what I would call God as malevolent Santa Claus. So I'm watching your every move, and I'm just waiting to strike you down or give you a treat for doing good things or whatever. And that is a really damaging theology in so many ways. But this idea that we can't earn God's love or we can't earn our salvation is pretty monumental for folks who have grown up in other traditions that they have not found life giving. So whereas it's interesting for a lot of our cradle ELCA folks, it's kind of like, well, yeah, that's normal. Which is because I grew up in the ELCA, too. And then specifically being ELCA, I find that students are often surprised that I'm a woman and that I'm the pastor and I'm the only pastor at that congregation.

Well, I guess that would be particularly striking because Ann Arbor also has a Concordia campus.

They do. And also just about a block two blocks from us is the LCMS campus ministry as well. And so it is a different sense. The other thing, too, is that there are in the region of 60 christian campus ministries serving University of Michigan.

Wow, that's a lot.

And three of them. Only three of them are affirming. So lgbtqia plus affirming. So that would be us. We've been affirming since 1987, the Methodists and then the Episcopalians at Canterbury House. And so to my knowledge, and things may have shifted this year, but to my knowledge, there aren't any other active campus ministries run by denominations that would have that kind of theology, and the vast majority are more fundamentalist and ascribed to biblical inerrancy and complementarianism and things like that.

Yeah, that's surprising. I'd expect the UCC and UU to be in there, but no.

Yeah, no. As far as I know, I am not sure if anybody started anything up this year, so I want to make sure that I don't act like. But if there is something, it's brand new this year.

Well, as we were talking before we got started here, these ministries are expensive. Yes. They don't bring in income, so you've got to have somebody dedicated to funding it. So I could see why that's a challenge, but with that many different ministries on campus or near campus, I can see why it's also sort of a thing in flux. You never know who's operating where and when.

Yeah. And I think there's a misconception as well that campus ministry is something that can be done super part time and for not a lot of money. And it's true that there are many things that you can do that don't cost money, and we do a lot of them. But figuring out, being consistently there and figuring out people's schedules, especially when you're starting a ministry, is really hard. You will show up to events, and campus ministry is one of the situations where you can put all kinds of effort into planning something, and there's a real possibility that no people will show up. And so, especially at the beginning, when I started in 2017 and we had almost closed, I would just bring a book to our Wednesday night discussions because I started a Wednesday night campfire and s'mores conversation, and there were nights when there were one or two people there. I don't think I ever just sat there and read, but I always.

You were ready to.

Yeah, I was ready to. Yeah. And somebody had to pay for me to be there and to show up and be consistent because I never knew when someone was going to show up and it was going to be really a life giving situation. And now it's grown. Know, we have a critical mass of people who show up every week in addition to our Sunday service.

And I know folks around Ann Arbor who choose to do things with you that they're members of their a. That's a big asset, I'm sure.

Well, and it's cool too, because our services in the evening and so I can preach somewhere else in the morning and then still be at church in the evening, or other people can come to us as well, which is really nice.

Oh, for sure. When Keith and I were at Capitol, one of the things that I remember most is we somehow convinced the campus pastor to rent a hot tub. And so I don't know if you've been on the campus at Capitol, but outside the religious life center is a giant steel cross that stands, I don't know, 45ft tall, something like that. And so most people don't notice it because it's just way too tall. It looks like a telephone pole or something. And so right beneath that cross, we put a hot tub that fit, I don't know, 1012 people. It was this time of year and the temperature was four degrees outside. And so we had this thing brought in and we filled it up and we had a campus party. We had quite a number of people there for that event, but the hot tub kept freezing up as we were trying to get it going. And so it didn't get warm enough until right before the people came to take it back. So it was quite an event, but.

It got attention, though, and I'm sure.

It wasn't free, right? Yeah. It ended up being the same night as one of the big fraternity parties that always gets taken down by the police. It was a nice thing to have as an alternate activity, definitely. So it was a lot of fun.

Yeah. I would say that for us, the most important thing that we do that costs money is that I take students out for lunch or coffee and that it isn't and that there's the generosity that's available in being able to say, yeah, get that fancy late, and I'm going to take you to lunch and we can do that. And that I'm not going to be. I mean, I do choose places that are within a reasonable budget, but I'm not sitting there limiting people or worrying about that. That is the part of the budget that it's like there's an imperative here to be generous, which is so important.

Yeah. In a way, the church is acting as apparent to those folks in some ways.

Yeah. Because, of course, this is one of the most vulnerable times of people's lives. They're often coming, being taken completely out of their social networks, their families being moved to a completely new place, and within a few weeks they've got a whole new friend group. And sometimes those are really life giving, wonderful relationships. And sometimes they find out that this is not the friendship they thought it was. Trying to find, figure out what's important in life, what are their values. Sometimes it's who they are, sometimes it's. Maybe this isn't the right major for me. And all of those things can be. You put all of those factors into at the same time, and it means that it's just a very unsettled time. And so having a community that can walk with you through that time, I think, is really important.

Oh, for sure. I think where I want to go from here is, it seems know campus ministry is something that needs to be supported more than the average person thinks of it. What are ways that just anybody who maybe isn't around Ann Arbor or isn't around a university that has a programmer? So somebody out in, say, North Dakota or out in Louisiana or something, how can they best support the ELCA's campus ministry programs?

I mean, the first would be, obviously, financial donations. Campus ministries are almost invariably barely making ends meet, if at all. And just as a point of context, we almost lost our campus ministries at several major universities within the last 15 years. So University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Nebraska Lincoln, Ohio State, are all on that list of places that nearly folded and then are now doing really well. Nebraska Lincoln not only has just a vibrant program, but they also built and paid for in its entirety, a brand new building.

Oh, wow.

Any of these site based ministries? So we call them site based ministries when they are mostly just students. Ours would be included in that in terms of the way that it was originally conceived. And the building that we have. These buildings were built all around the same time. And ours, for instance, is Ada non compliant, and we cannot, you just have to trust me on this. We have done so many studies, we can't retrofit it because we have seven levels over two floors with stairs absolutely everywhere. And so even if you put in a ramp, you then couldn't get anywhere from where you get to, and there's no central place to put an elevator. And so we really do have to build a new building, but we're on our own to figure it out. And so I think that there is this sense that there's all this money for campus ministry and there just really isn't. The ELCA divides roughly $700,000 between 125 ministries that serve roughly 300 institutions of higher learning. And to put that into context, crew, which is campus crusade for Christ, their annual budget is 500 million.

Wow.

So, yeah, the financial piece is really important because a few hundred dollars will only buy you so many pizzas. You do need to have somebody be there consistently. Right. Also, not to put this as like, in a side note, but prayer is really important. Campus ministry is known as a really lonely profession because our colleagues often don't understand what we do all day. We're on the front lines of the mental health crisis among young people.

Sure.

And that's tough. That's a tough place to be. And the intensity of September and October for us is like, I tell people that that's my Christmas, Easter, lenten, advent all rolled into one. Like, Easter is fine, right? Holy awake. That's fine. It's September and October is when we're absolutely just, we're at every event trying to make sure that we're visible because we don't have the fancy budgets to get noticed. But then if you are close to a campus ministry, find out if you can bring dinner. We have dinner every Sunday night, and that's a huge deal. And it is the most wonderful thing for people to have a home cooked meal. The number of times I hear, oh, my gosh, my grandma makes this because people can get takeout, but having something that somebody made for them is a really big deal, too. Yeah, I think those are the big ways.

Yeah. Having people that make themselves available to the congregation in general sounds like a really big impact for not much effort there as far as a layperson or what have you. I've heard from friends of mine that say that you do some amazing work. I heard that you were a social media maven, but we have different criteria on that than, I think, the rest of the world. But they're pretty impressed with what you've done and all that. So I'm really glad we got to talk to you about this. We're going to talk to you about another topic on a future show here. Thanks for talking with us today.

Thanks.

Well, so, Keith, what were some interesting things that you heard there that really stuck?

Think. I think part of it that struck me was right near the beginning when you asked the question, these, these students might come to you and why. Why be a part of this ELCa Lutheran campus ministry? And to hear Pastor Elizabeth speak of her kind of response to that, speaking about the theology of grace, that there is nothing to be earned, nothing to be done to gain salvation, that it's simply a free gift from God to speak. Know. The ELCA's stance, perhaps, towards women in ministry, towards the LGBTQ community, to our understanding of scripture, to our understanding of authentic know. She was speaking out of a very specific context, and yet those values, those stances really translate into, I would think, at least most congregational contexts. If not, we would hope every church.

Context, we would hope that anyway. And I know that, say, calvary, which we were talking about before we got to the interview there. Calvary certainly. Was that, too, right? Open to all sorts of folks. Yeah, absolutely. And people from all over. We had Darren from Hawaii.

Right, right.

Wearing shorts in freezing cold weather.

We had gay couples. It was a very multiracial congregation, people coming out of vastly different backgrounds, and yet not a very large congregation either. So you did have this real sense of community, and people showed up for events at the church to support each other when there were problems or projects to be done. It was just a fantastic place to be a Lutheran.

Absolutely. Yeah. I was struck by when she talks about the other campus ministries there, she says there are 60 other or 60 campus ministry programs for churches on campus, and of those, she can only recognize, three that are open to LGBTQI folks. That was sad. When I think of Ann Arbor, I think of a very progressive place. They're well known for the progressivism. They're a liberal bastion in the middle of rural America. And so when you think of what the attitudes on campus will be, you think they've had a marijuana festival on campus for decades. And to think that only three of the churches, three of the denominations that have campus ministries are open and affirming. It just strikes me as OD, and it tells me how important it is that we keep our ministry there and that we support it as much as we can, because she talks about being on the front line of the health crisis, the mental health crisis for students, and having that welcoming thing. She mentions the malevolent Santa Claus image. Right. You've used the term bait and switch on that. We get this idea, and sometimes they'll be very welcoming, but as you get deeper and deeper, the shroud falls off and you find out that they're not really doing that. And that segues into the commercials for he gets us. The difference between them and us, I hope, is that we are genuinely welcoming to folks and that we want the best for them and that we believe that Jesus gets us. Yes, but we need to understand that Jesus is the one giving us these things. We have to get that Jesus is not judging us. Jesus is providing us grace that we can't even refuse there.

Yeah, I remember before we started recording, you had used the expression that rather than speaking of it's not important whether Jesus gets us, he does. But does the church really get, do we, do we openly embrace the open embrace that Jesus represents and extends to all people? That's a tough value to wrap our minds around and to have our ministries mirror and reflect to the community.

It's an amazing thing, because I think if most people understood that our churches are doing this, a deeply rooted theological thing, that this is what we believe, this is core to these things. And so if people realize that, I don't understand why people wouldn't want to come and get it. That's part of what this podcast will be about to some extent.

Well, and it's also a reminder that we're not just looking to glom on to the current hip, cool trend that all the cool kids are doing. We're really trying to reflect a deep honesty of who Christ is scripturally, spiritually and contextually in our congregations. So to extend that identity of Christ, and therefore our identity as Christians, is really a part of the core of what it means to be the church. It is one of the things that, like you said, sets the LCA apart from other factions or other factions, other faces of the christian church. And we're not here to bash other denominations or traditions, but we need to name and claim who we are too. Just say this is what we're about, and it's one of the things that we highlight of who we are.

As the ELCA, I also found it interesting. She talks about the accessibility of being able to take lunch with kids, that they have their service late on Sunday so that kids can make it right, and not trying to make the kids adapt to a normal. I'm using air quotes there Sunday schedule, but then also that their building isn't really inviting with all those levels. I feel like I should go out and do a bake sale real quick and try to help them raise money for that. So we're going to have links to Lord of Light Lutheran there in the episode notes and some of the other things that we talked about there. We'll talk to Elizabeth here in another couple episodes. We're going to talk about baptism next week or next episode. And then after that, we'll get back with Elizabeth and we'll talk about some other things there that are pretty interesting. I hope you'll stick with us for all those. But you know what? We need to move on to catechism questions. So our last episode, the question was, who wrote the small catechism? And this was tough. A was Martin Luther King Jr. B was Martin van Buren, C was Martin Luther and D was dean Martin. D for Dean Martin.

I would really like it to be Dean Martin.

It would be, you know, it would be more singable than it is now.

Right.

But it's Martin Luther. Not that he didn't write some singable tunes. They're just a lot harsher, I think, than what Luther.

Luther was definitely not a crooner.

No.

So this week's question is also about Martin Luther. There's a famous story about, well, basically, you should know that, you know, grew up in a middle class family and was going to college, studying to be a lawyer, until he came home from the school for a break of some kind. And on his way back to the university, he had this soul shattering moment as he's walking through a storm. He thought he was about to die, struck by lightning.

It was under a tree. He definitely wasn't a tree.

Right? He's under a tree sheltering from the storm. The lightning strikes the tree. Luther throws himself face down on the ground, and he cries out to St. Anne that if his life is spared, he will become a monk. All right. This is also definitely before Luther had any notions of what Grace was himself, even though he's famous for it. But anyhow, fast forward a little bit, and here is our question. When Luther told his parents that he was going to become a monk, they were, a, angry that they had wasted all that money on his college education b, angry that he was wasting his life and talents c, angry that he wouldn't be able to take care of them in their old age, or d, all of the above. And we'll have the answer for that question for you next episode.

That's right. Ah. So here we are at the end of another episode. This has been great. I can't wait till we talk about baptism and then all the other things coming. Main Street Lutherans is hosted by Keith Fair and Ben Foat. You can reach us at [email protected] for our email. Our website is mainstreetlutherans.com or on the socials. We are at lutherans. See, there's sort of a theme there. So right now we're on Facebook, Instagram and threads, and I participate as Bjorn 74 on Reddit, if you want to look me up there. The show is produced by folk media productions. Until next time, go in peace. Serve the Lord.

Thanks be to God. Bye.