This past Sunday our church council met for our regular monthly meeting. One of the things that we have been working on (and will continue to work on) is a vision for what we can do as a church and student center over the next five years. Since this isn’t just a vision for the Council, but a vision for University Lutheran as a whole – I wanted to share what we have talked about so far.

First we decided where we wanted to focus our efforts. Our choices were basically between a focus on a geographical area or a demographic. We chose to focus on a geographical area – namely the geographical area of student housing for the 3 major campuses of Tallahassee (FSU, FAMU, and TSC). We included the idea of both apartment/rental and dorm living – so both on campus and off campus housing.

Secondly we wondered what we had to offer the people that lived in these student housing areas. After thinking about it, we came up with two things that we thought we might offer: leadership development and spiritual formation. We identified leadership development because we saw a need for it as well as an opportunity given some of the gifts that we already have in the congregation. Leadership development coming out of University Lutheran would always have a spiritual element to it, but we decided to be clear about it and add “spiritual formation” to the things that we would offer the people living in student housing around us.

As we started to put all that into a couple sentences, those sentences went like this: “By the time 2030 arrives, the people of University Lutheran will have trusted avenues* taken by members to invest in the lives of students living in the housing marketed to the three major campuses of Tallahassee. The investment of the members into the lives of these students will form them into spiritually robust Christian leaders who can do great things for the Kingdom of God.” *”trusted avenues” remains undefined for right now, but would be do-able ways for UL members (student and non-student) and friends to engage with students and help them become spiritually robust leaders.

We are now setting this before you as the people of University Lutheran, whether a member or non-member, whether a student or non-student, whether an alumnus living away from Tally or someone who lives nearby. We want to hear back from you. Feel free to email me ( pastor @ universitylutheranchurch.org ) or answer the “Question of the Week” below. We would love you to be a part of this vision along with Council.