"All of you is welcome here.” – This is a phrase that my students share at the start of our retreats. It’s something easy to say, but a task more difficult to actualize. How do you create a retreat program and a campus ministry space where students truly feel welcome? This is the question I found myself asking after my volunteer year that led me to a dual degree in Theology and Social Work.
In my social work courses, I was able to learn concrete therapy skills, practice advocacy at astate and national level, and spend in depth time reflecting on equity and justice issues. My theology courses offered a grounding to the intensity of these classes. When social work made the world feel too vast or overwhelming, theology allowed me to root the meaning of my work back to my faith. Classes focused on liberation theology, pastoral counseling, and the ethics of migration helped me to see that these two sometimes polarized degrees could truly exist in tandem.
I was drawn to both social work and ministry because of the vast array of jobs they allow one to do. During my time at Boston College, my social work internships were focused on homeless outreach, drug and alcohol counseling, and sexual violence prevention. When looking for my first job postgrad, I wanted something that would allow me to keep wearing many different hats. Now, a year into my role as a college campus minister at Loyola Chicago, I’m grateful for the vast array of roles I am able to fill.
In my role as Retreat Coordinator, a huge part of the school year is spent on student leader formation. This involves talk prep, setting ground rules, reflecting on discernment and other principles of Ignatian spirituality. I never would have imagined how much my social work training could come into retreat planning meetings. I start off each meeting with a check-in to get a pulse on how folks are doing and to build community. Some of my students' favorite check-in activities are the emotions cards that I adopted from my group therapy course at BC. My students love the little emotions cards that can help put to words what they are feeling and have even started asking to borrow them for their own meetings. Ground rule setting is another practice I’ve taken from my social work training. The first step to creating a safe space is tomake sure that everyone is on the same page. We model this in our formation meetings so student leaders can utilize it when leading their small groups on retreat. I always remind my students that it’s much easier to correct someone when you have a rule you can reference back to- we focus on calling people in rather than out.
The dual degree program allowed me to explore the intersections of psychology and spirituality. Last spring in hopes of using my skills in this intersection I started a Grief Group for undergraduate students through a partnership with our Wellness Center. For my students who are experiencing grief, feeling like all of them is welcome in a space is seldom possible. There is a tendency to hold back, to mask the intense feelings that can come up, but in the hour we have group each week, they are able to bring their whole selves to the space. I find myself constantly pulling on ideas from my Death and Dying course, as well as my Group Therapy course in order to create a space where processing and healing can begin.
Coming into my second year of full-time ministry I have been blessed to take over Loyola’s weekly homeless outreach program. A program that I could not have even envisioned when I began the M.A./M.S.W. degree but now feels like it was created just for me to put my two degrees to use. Every Thursday night, I and about 15 students head out in groups downtown Chicago to offer conversation, clothing, and some food to folks experiencing homelessness. We chat with recent migrants, the chronically unhoused, families, and individuals. Most weeks while on route I find myself wearing more of my social worker hat- I am thinking about what people may need, what resources we can give them, and what my student leaders need from me in terms of support. But in an instance the social worker hat can shift to a ministry one. Because more often than not the folks that we encounter need to be seen and heard more than receive any specific material good. Too often we hear how grateful people are simply for the eye contact, handshakes, and conversations that we offer. I think back to so many conversations in theology school about the dignity of every human person and can see how often our society fails to uplift this fact. We meet folks from across the religious spectrum, those who have been harmed by religion to those who find peace and solace with through their relationship with the divine. And every now and then I am asked to share a prayer with someone. There is usually an initial moment of panic, an “oh no, what do I say?” that goes through my head. But immediately after there is an echo of confidence, a reminder that this is exactly what I studied to do. Sitting on the cold concrete sidewalk of Chicago, my students and I hold hands with our friend who has asked for a prayer and all of us spend a moment with the divine together. After our hour and a half of encounters we spend intentional time reflecting together. I pull on my policy knowledge thanks to social work in order to bring statistics and legislation into our discussion. And to combat the hopelessness that can come from social justice work, I ground myself in the tenant of liberation theology that God is on the side of the oppressed and marginalized. Lately, one of my students has found a lot of meaning in the idea of “righteous anger” and we have reflected on what it means for both us and God to be righteously angry at the injustice we encounter each Thursday night.
What is ministry if not making others feel welcome? Making others feel like they belong? Through retreats I am able to plant the seeds of this belonging, through grief group we are able to create a space where even the messier parts of life are welcome, and through homeless outreach my students are able to see what it means to extend community and belonging to those whom society tends to ignore. I don’t know which hat I will don next in this role, but I am grateful for the confidence that my Social Work and Theology degrees have prepared me for whatever comes next.