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HELMdisciples.org > About HELM > HELM and Campus News
The art of conversation
Leadership Fellows practice talking about
their faith - and it’s tougher than it seems
December 1, 2010
Contact: Brad Lyons, Director of Communications
(314) 991-3000 - blyons@helmdisciples.org

During a break in small groups, Allie Lundblad sat against a wall, scribbling a sentence, then rephrasing it. A prospective minister, she was concentrating on how to express her relationship with God in words others could understand. “This is hard,” she said, but a big smile showed how much she was enjoying the challenge.

How Christians talk about our faith and work together despite our differences was the center of the 10th HELM Leadership Fellows conference, held the first weekend in November. Twenty-two students from across the country who have shown leadership skills and want to help lead the church gathered in Colorado Springs to meditate on their faith and then find the right combination of words to express it.

A member of the student planning team that helped select a theme and bring it to life, Lundblad explained the conference’s roots in her own struggles.

“I went into the planning meeting after a couple of really discouraging conversations in which I was disappointed in the ability of myself and other really intelligent, passionate Christians to articulate our faith well,” said Lundblad, a junior at Oberlin College from Asheville, N.C.

Lundblad isn’t alone in finding the assignment challenging. In these times when opinion is misrepresented as fact and there is little room for disagreement, the ability to state our beliefs clearly without offending others is a lost art. This year’s conference aimed to help students practice these conversations in a safe environment with the hope they would be able to start similar productive conversations back on their campuses and eventually in the communities where they will lead.

The conference’s theme closely resembled another HELM project, the Disciples Leadership Institute. When the student planning team suggested the theme of “reclaiming faith,” three DLI veterans were asked to lead students through the process:

  • Joe Blosser, an associate professor of religion and ethics at DePaul University and a member of the first Leadership Fellow class;

  • Chesla Nickelson, an M.Div. student at Christian Theological Seminary; and

  • Sara Steenhouse, associate pastor at Lafayette Christian Church and at InsideOUT, a new church start, both in the San Francisco Bay area.
Kiersten Hawes (left), Seth Rash, Sarah Cheon, and Stephen Hall listen intently as Sabreena Rodriguez explains her faith during Saturday afternoon’s small-group discussion. The three resource staff led students through a trio of conversations focused on personal relationships with God, sexual ethics, and interfaith relations. While such conversations are easy to label, engaging in those conversations is challenging – and the students were up to the task.

Students and organizers expected a challenging, exhausting weekend

“This conference demanded more of the Fellows than we had ever asked before,” said HELM Dennis Landon. “They spent a good part of the weekend in disciplined conversation about their faith and their lives. The conference also demanded even more of our resource people. Chesla, Sara, and Joe engaged the students and guided their conversations not just in the series of individual workshops but throughout the entire weekend. I’m proud of how hard everybody worked.”

Leadership Fellows shared a great appreciation for the experience.

“Articulating your faith in a thoughtful and meaningful sense is important. After spending a weekend focusing on doing this in a supportive and challenging environment, my belief in the importance of this has only grown,” said Virginia White, a sophomore at Rice University from Austin, Texas. “I have appreciated the time to practice this process, to be questioned, and to reflect. Through the weekend my hope for the future of the church as a body that can work compassionately together, even through differences, has been restored.”

While college students can often create a loose community during conferences like these, a deeper connection was noted by several students, including Sarah Cheon, a senior at the University of California from Claremont, Calif..

“I really enjoyed getting to know my peers on a deeper level and to be able to appreciate the diversity of ideas and backgrounds found in each individual,” Cheon said. “It not only helped me to articulate my own thoughts but also view my beliefs through a fresh perspective.”

Worship at Leadership Fellows conferences are planned and led by the student steering team, which provides opportunities for a variety of worship styles. This year’s conference borrowed from children’s worship styles and the monastic Taize tradition of silence and meditation.

“During Saturday night’s worship, we were given a long moment of silence allowing us to pray in a number of different ways. I was able to actually feel God’s presence,” said Paige Westerhausen, a freshman at Culver-Stockton College from Girard, Ill. “It was a very powerful and emotional experience for me. I felt a connection with God that I haven’t felt for a while.”



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