Ryan Roe

Fall 2000

"Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord. Thank you for being our rock and our redeemer."

So goes the prayer before Beverly Jones’ morning message today. This paraphrasing of the fourteenth verse of the nineteenth Psalm is the same prayer she uses to precede every sermon at every Thursday 11:00 a.m. chapel service in the Lois Perkins chapel at Southwestern University. For those in the congregation, the regular use of this prayer has a comforting familiarity that makes weekly chapel-going inviting.

Southwestern University is affiliated with the United Methodist church, and always has been, as were all four of the universities that joined to form SU. Until 1978, chapel attendance was required of students. Since it became voluntary, attendance numbers have had their up and downs, though in the time Beverly Jones has been university chaplain the average number of people present has gone up and stayed up. Last year it started at about 80 and slowly declined. This year it is held steadily at about 100 people a week.

Jones doesn’t try to take credit for the recent renewed interest in chapel. Rather than attribute the new numbers to her sermons, she says, "I think a lot of it comes from the fact that we have so much great special music . . . and that this year we’ve sent out reminders by voice mail and e-mail instead of just voice mail."

According to the Southwestern University website’s "Religious Life" page (http://www.southwestern.edu/student-life/religious-life.html), "The University Chaplain works with students of all denominations, religious traditions and those who are unaffiliated with any tradition, to explore the meaning of faith and a life of service." Jones has been university chaplain since 1999, and has been at SU since 1995, when she came aboard as associate chaplain and director of religious life. She tries to make herself available to all religion-affiliated groups.

Currently Southwestern’s religious organizations include Baptist Student Ministries, Catholic Student Association, Methodist Student Movement, Cross Training, a Friday-night worship group; Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Kappa Lambda Chi, and Sigma Phi Lamda. There are also various bible studies and other groups that Jones says are more informal. She stays in touch with all of them to varying extents. "I like to know what’s going on," she says. "I realize there are a lot of students on campus who are very interested in religious things. Some of them are involved in some of the organizations, there are some who want to explore religion but aren’t involved as much, and I know there are some who just do their own thing."

In addition to talking to the religious organizations on campus, Jones also works with service teams, such as Destination Service’s mission trips and last year’s service trip to Honduras.

Towards the end of every week’s chapel service, Jones travels with lapel mic into the congregation to hear the joys and concerns of the community. This may cover everything from requests for prayers for cancer patients to thanks for a good fall break. By venturing into the congregation for this part of the service, the chaplain is putting herself close to the group.

Part of her job involves what she calls "pastoral care." This is a major part of the job for any minister, but for a university chaplain deals with people who face issues unique to a college campus. When asked how much of her job is devoted to this, Jones replies, "Really, a little each day." She has a couple of appointments every week just to speak to people, both students and faculty, as a pastor. Though being a chaplain requires organizational skills for planning chapel and the like, this is the part of the job in which true ministry skills are needed. Though Southwestern University may not be as devoted to faith as it was in the day of required chapel, the opportunity to receive "pastoral care" is there for anyone who may need it.

"I think people are both open and reluctant to talk to me about certain things," Jones says about whether people find it easy to open up to a chaplain

Jones attended Texas A & M before going to seminary in New Mexico to become a minister. At that time, the national number of undergrad students on their way to careers in ministry was on the rise after a period of decline. "I think during the Sixties there were a lot of things going on that caused interest in that to decline, but at that time people were beginning to get interested in doing that again." The number of potential ministers in college has more or less been maintained in the years since. At Southwestern the last few years have seen a moderate rise in that number-- there are now twenty-one pre-ministry students compared to eight in 1995 when Beverly Jones arrived. "I try to guide them and encourage them," Jones says.

This Thursday’s chapel service is a little more crowded than usual, because it’s All Saints Day, when special people of faith are remembered and honored. Beverly Jones, who is listed in the service’s bulletin as giver of the morning message and as "Celebrant," delivers a sermon that emphasizes the importance of those who have come before to pave the way for Christians today. She begins the message with an anecdote from her youth about visiting a large tree (appropriately named Big Tree) on a family vacation. The tree was estimated to be 3000 years old, and as a girl she realized this meant that it stood in the same spot it stands now when her ancestors were around, and even all the way back to the days of Jesus. She then uses this thought of Big Tree to express how every person is somehow connected to those who have preceded him or her.

The tree provides an easy-to-understand example of the point of the message. Jones does this on purpose. "I try to make it warm and inviting," she says of her weekly message. "I don’t think I necessarily try to write for students; I try to write for

everyone. . . It’s never easy to write sermons, but I do think that I’ve started to trust myself more. I don’t always try to come up with the ‘perfect illustration’ anymore; I realize that I can use an imperfect illustration and still connect."

Though she puts in a good 8 to 10 hours a week towards the planning and execution of chapel, Jones doesn’t get too disappointed if attendance is off one week. "When you have a good service, that’s more important. Quality is beautiful no matter what the number." This reflects the sentiments of the "Wherever two or more are gathered" sentiment from the Bible. Churches all over this country have tried tactics such as adding guitar bands or drama segments, or, more gimmicky, puppet shows, to worship services to get people to come back to church. But Beverly Jones isn’t alone in thinking that though all these attractions may be well and good, it’s the quality of the service that’s most important and which is most likely to consistently bring people in to fill the pews.

Not that Jones never feels frustration. "People have so many individual needs that one minister can’t meet," she admits. "But that’s why we hope to create cultures of support." She speaks of the influence of a community, saying, "Group life should be meaningful, so individual needs can be met." In this way, in her opinion, the application of which is not limited to religious beliefs, individuals who have something in common can find what they’re looking for by being in contact with others of their ilk. It’s the same reasoning that’s led to the formation of organizations like Promise Keepers, founded in 1991 as a group that encourages Christian men to lead good lives; and Emmaus, a community formed in the 1970s based on a movement from the 1940s, consisting of Christians who have been on a Walk to Emmaus retreat who want to maintain their level of faith. Groups like this are "cultures of support" for believers.

The large numbers of people involved in such organizations (approximately 3,500,000 men are involved with Promise Keepers) is evidence of the increasing crossing-over of Christianity into the mainstream. This also extends to music by Christian artists such as hard rock band P.O.D. and the pop trio Sixpence None the Richer, the Veggie Tales animated children’s videos, and the best-selling "Left Behind" book series by Tim F. Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, which have already spawned a direct-to-video movie. "I really have no time to read the books or listen to some of that stuff," Jones admits, "but I do always kind of keep an ear out, to be aware. I know these things like the music help to shape students."

That’s fine for those who have a clear idea of where they beliefs are. However, as Jones puts it, "Religion means different things to different people." That’s why she doesn’t believe that a campus with mandatory chapel attendance would necessarily be a campus more receptive to religion. Indeed, a cartoon from the Megaphone around the time required chapel attendance was eliminated in the late 70s attests to this: it depicts students in chapel listening to music on headphones, reading, playing cards, and kissing in the pews. These students resented being forced to go to church at school, perhaps even to the point where those who might have gone voluntarily disliked chapel because it wasn’t voluntary. "Faith is in your own heart," Jones believes, ". . . so it’s important to give students opportunities to be active in religion," but not, she believes, to try to force them to it.

One week, a few minutes before chapel service, as the regulars and semi-regulars were making their way into the chapel, two students were walking towards the chapel from class as they talked. As one started into the chapel, the other student seemed to be in disbelief that anyone would want to do such a thing. He pretended to be walking up the steps to enter, then said, "No! I can’t go into a church!" and walked the other way laughing.

The knowledge that there are people who think like this does, of course, bring occasional frustration to any minister. Though she doesn’t like it, Beverly Jones is accepting of it, however. "Some people have no use for religion, and some of them are even hostile toward it." As might be expected of the chaplain at a school as liberal-minded as Southwestern, she’s not about to suggest that the best situation would be one in which everyone had the same beliefs. Still she confesses, "Sometimes I do think, Why can’t everyone think like me? But the diversity of Christianity is creative . . . If we all agreed, it would be a totalitarian system instead of Christianity." Unfortunately, it’s this same diversity which has led to events such as the recent conflict between the Southern Baptist Convention and Texas Baptists, who see the Southern Baptists as too conservative and are threatening to break to form a separate regional convention.

"Religion is more controversial than it should be," states the chaplain. "When you put something out there . . ." she begins, then pauses, finding it difficult to accurately describe what she’s thinking. "You never know when you put something out there, if . . . if it’s going to be accepted as you meant it. It’s the same with any caring profession-- good offerings are not always well-received. Or it doesn’t work. Do you know what I mean by that?" It’s not a simple situation to describe, and it’s not a simple situation. On a college campus like Southwestern, there’s a multitude of differing beliefs packed into a relatively small group of people, and sometimes they clash.

Jones is fully aware that there are those at the university who are even anti-religion, and some sentiments are express that mock and degrade Christianity. "I think a lot of it comes from people who just don’t understand, people who haven’t experienced that so they don’t really understand what we’re doing. Most of the time it happens when somebody maybe had one bad experience, maybe with one particular church, and that becomes what their expectations are for all the churches in that denomination, when really it was just one church."

There’s an interesting challenge here. How do you get people more interested in participating in religious activities when they have no interest in what they think would be a repeat of the unpleasant experiences they’ve had in the past? Currently church youth groups and college ministries all over the country are dealing with this problem as they try to attract young people to religion.

Beverly Jones believes that perhaps no one has a clear answer to this yet, but she hopes that by providing numerous chances for students to get involved, and reminding them on a regular basis that these opportunities exist, many will take a chance and give it a try.