Running the extra mile
Disciples student adds co-chair of national student
ministry group to growing list of church service

Catching up with Trayce Stewart is tough, and not just because she competes on Hiram College's track team.

In addition to student teaching four days a week and carrying a full load of classes, Trayce is involved in campus ministries at Hiram and serves on the Student Ecumenical Partnership's Leadership Team.

In October, Stewart added another task to her to-do list: She will serve as the student co-chair of the Council for Ecumenical Student Christian Ministries (CESCM) through 2007. CESCM is an association of seven mainline Protestant denominations working together on campus and student ministries and is the primary relation to the World Student Christian Federation.

CESCM's primary goal for the rest of the year is to plan Celebrate '06, the quadrennial national gathering of college students around the New Year holiday. New Orleans will host Celebrate '06, which is expected to send 1,100 students into mission fields as well as worship, fellowship, and reflection. (See www.cescm.org/ Celebrate06 for more information.)

When Celebrate ends, Trayce's year-long term as co-chair begins. Her first assignment will be to represent CESCM at the National Council of Church's meeting in Orlando January 7-9. CESCM will meet again in the spring, a meeting she will help plan and oversee.

"The co-chair is the point person with the all the activities going on," she says. "When articles and assignments are due, the co-chair makes sure they're all in. The co-chair is in charge of the meetings and represents the students in other ways."

A member of Bethany Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in suburban Cleveland, Stewart joined the Student Ecumenical Partnership (STEP) Leadership Team at the beginning of 2006. Early on, she volunteered to represent Disciples students at CESCM meetings.

During her second meeting, Trayce was selected for the position by CESCM's administrative committee because of her leadership skills, says staff co-chair Douglas Fenton.

"At the [September] meeting, Trayce took a stand that was not an easy stand to take," said Fenton, the staff representative for the Episcopal Church USA. "While the council chose to go another direction, she did an admirable job making her case and showing her resolution. When it came time to select a new representative, Trayce was our choice."

Stewart is the second Disciple in three years to hold the co-chair position. In 2005, Brandon Johnson served in the position.

"The co-chair can direct and moderate conversation to help CESCM think and dream beyond that responsibilities of Celebrate," said Johnson, a graduate of Transylvania University now studying at the Yale Divinity School. "The student co-chair learns to negotiate denominational and personality differences while moderating a meeting alongside a staff member. As co-chair you develop a deeper understanding and respect for the gifts of all those at the table."

Trayce expects the primary tasks for CESCM during her term will relate to CESCM's affiliation with the National Council of Churches, revisioning CESCM's mission, and relations with Canadian student groups.

CESCM will work its way into her busy schedule. This semester, the elementary education major is student teaching third-graders at an elementary school about 10 minutes from campus. She arrives there at about 7:30 a.m. four days a week. Eight hours later, she leaves the school and has about an hour to get back to campus in time for track practice. Stewart competes for the Division III Terriers in the long jump, triple jump, 4-by-1, and 400-meter dash. She's carrying a 17-hour load this semester.

"If I don't stay busy, I get in trouble," she says with a laugh.

Stewart credits two people - and old-fashioned networking - for opening doors to the larger church

"My home pastor (Rev. Dr. Robin Hedgeman) has been so involved nationally and regionally that as people find out what church I go to, and who the pastor is, I find opportunities to do things that might take others a while to discover."

After transferring to Hiram in 2005 from a Pennsylvania college, she found a new mentor for her spiritual development: Hiram's campus minister, Jon Moody.

"When Trayce transferred here, she introduced herself to me as a Disciples student who was interested in ministry," Moody says. "I began tossing things to her, from sitting on our church relations committee to church internships to interfaith programming to STEP. What got me about Trayce was that she caught everything I tossed her."

Trayce is already investigating seminaries for graduate work after she graduates from Hiram in December 2007.

"I have felt more of an urge to start my own church outside of Ohio that is inclusive of all ages. That been a struggle for a lot of young adults and youths: how do they fit in at a church that only ministers or focuses on the needs of adults."