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University Lutheran Chapel, College StationNo. 7 in the Congregational History SeriesWritten by Jason Moreno University Lutheran Chapel is the mission station for the Texas District-LCMS at Texas A&M University. This ministry has been around for many years and has had its ups and downs in attendance. Specific directions for ministry have changed with each pastor, but the main focus has always been to spiritually feed and enrich the students of Texas A&M University. Lutheran campus ministry at Texas A&M University began in 1922. Rev. A.J. Meyer had begun serving the Kurten-Zulch area in 1920, and soon saw a need for ministry on the Texas A&M campus. Rev. Meyer assumed responsibility for the university ministry along with Kurten-Zulch, and his successors continued Meyer’s efforts on campus. Rev. H.A. Traugott took over this joint ministry in 1939. The greater Bryan-College Station area did not have its own pastor at the time, but Bethel Lutheran was soon established in Bryan in 1940, with Traugott assuming responsibility. A.F. Droegemueller assumed the pastorate in 1945. By this point, Bethel's population had exceeded the Lutheran population of the Kurten-Zulch area, so Bryan and Kurten were combined into one pastorate (along with the university ministry), and Zulch was combined with another local pastorate. Rev. William C. Petersen assumed the Bryan-Kurten pastorate in 1950, and Kurten's ministry slowly merged into Bryan's ministry. In 1961, Bethel Lutheran became the sole congregation for the whole area. Rev. Petersen's pastorate saw the first full-time pastor assigned solely to Texas A&M University's campus. Rev. Erwin George Becker (now deceased) became campus pastor in 1960. At the time, the students were meeting on the top floor of the YMCA building on campus, but University Lutheran Chapel (ULC) was soon erected in 1965. This was the year when membership in the Corps of Cadets on campus (ROTC military and leadership training) became voluntary for students (Texas A&M was first established as an all-male military college in 1876). By 1963, Texas A&M had achieved university status, and female students were first admitted in 1964. Rev. Becker received his Ph.D. in sociology from Texas A&M in 1966, and he subsequently took a call to Concordia College in Austin to become a professor. This happened the same year that the LCMS joined the Lutheran Council in the USA (LCUSA). LCUSA replaced the National Lutheran Council, with which the LCMS had participated in cooperative campus work with other Lutheran church bodies. Current LCMS President Gerald Kieschnick attended Texas A&M from 1960 to 1964, as well as the fall of 1965 for graduate school. While he was a student, Kieschnick went to services at the YMCA building under Rev. Becker. There were usually around 50 students at each service. "Our campus pastor, Dr. E. George Becker, was formational in my life, including my decision to become a pastor," said President Kieschnick. "I jokingly told him that, 'If Dr. Becker can be a Lutheran pastor, so can I!'" Rev. Hubert Beck became pastor of ULC in 1968. "I enjoyed working in the university setting and very much wanted to enter a full-time campus ministry," said Rev. Beck about his decision to take the call to Texas A&M. Unfortunately, there was a drop in the student population at ULC before Rev. Beck arrived. Rev. Becker's departure had left a vacancy for over a year. Rev. Beck's responsibilities on campus were also lower than expected. University pastors provided counseling services on campus, but the need for counseling had dropped drastically since the Corps of Cadets had become voluntary and lost much of its population (most counseling at the time was for students adjusting to Corps life). Rev. Beck did cooperate quite a bit with the Civilian Student Council as well as the National Lutheran Campus Ministry (NLCM).
Shortly after Rev. Beck began work at ULC, Dr. J.A.O. Preus, Jr., became synodical president (1969). In the same convention, fellowship was declared with the American Lutheran Church. There were only two Lutheran churches other than ULC in the Bryan/College Station area at the time: Bethel Lutheran in Bryan (LCMS) and Our Saviour's Lutheran across the street from ULC (ALC). Since the LCMS and the ALC were in fellowship, Our Saviour's Lutheran and ULC decided to cooperate in their ministries, and the ALC relocated its campus minister to San Marcos. Even when this fellowship dissolved in 1981 at the same convention where Dr. Ralph Bohlmann was elected president of the Missouri Synod, Our Saviour's Lutheran and ULC continued to cooperate for a while, including sharing a church secretary. The Campus Ministry Committee of the District Mission Board continued to be supportive of Rev. Beck's efforts to serve the Lutheran students at Texas A&M. When Peace Lutheran (originally ALC, but later Evangelical Lutheran Church of America or ELCA) entered the picture, the original pastor there cooperated with ULC and Our Saviour's Lutheran in college ministry, conducting Bible studies at local apartment complexes. Rev. Beck was also part of the Bryan – College Station Ministers Association, interacting with parish ministers of different denominations. During Rev. Beck's time at Texas A&M, most of the faculty and students of Concordia Seminary – St. Louis left their campus and formed their own seminary, Christ Seminary – Seminex (1974). In 1976, the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC) was formed from LCMS churches that were sympathetic to Seminex. In 1978, the AELC joined the LCUSA, despite efforts to postpone the decision by the LCMS; the LCMS was a part of the organization at the time. In the world at large, the Vietnam War raged and came to a tumultuous end, and the first Earth Day was held in 1970. Students around the country were leading the fight for greater social freedoms and civil rights and against the Vietnam War. At Texas A&M, students who participated in Earth Day were more interested in environmental issues than wartime protests. The large Corps population and conservative faculty strongly supported the troops in Vietnam, but new trends of independent thought were still influencing colleges all over the country, creating a sense of identity and a need to be heard among the students. After dealing with family problems, Rev. Beck took a call to the campus ministry position in Durham, North Carolina, to serve Duke and North Carolina Central Universities in 1984. A retired ALC/ELCA pastor filled the vacancy for the cooperative Lutheran ministry until the next pastor arrived. Rev. Richard Manus took over the ministry at ULC in 1985. Manus also served as the vacancy pastor at Bethel during this time. When Rev. Manus took the call, the Lutheran ministry on campus was united between the ALC, the LCA, and the LCMS as part of the Tri-Synod Agency of Texas (LCMT – The Lutheran Campus Ministry of Texas), but this union dissolved shortly thereafter (December 31, 1985) due to theology and church procedure. This came in the midst of strife between the LCMS and other Lutheran bodies over theology and ecumenism, which came to a head in 1987, when the American Lutheran Church, the Lutheran Church in America, and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches joined to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. At this point, the LCUSA ceased to exist, and the LCMS discontinued joint efforts with these church bodies. ULC, though, continued to serve all Lutherans (as well as Christians in general). The ministry of Peace Lutheran continued without the LCMS and eventually called its own pastor. With its calling of a female pastor (Rev. Debra Grant), an iron curtain fell between Peace Lutheran and ULC (the LCMS does not ordain women), splitting the Lutheran population between the two congregations. University Lutheran continued to serve about 60 people each week with a liturgical style of worship. Many of the students at ULC were associated with the local chapters of the βσψ Lutheran fraternity and the φβχ Lutheran sorority. The strength of the student population on campus was evident by the way it stayed together between the time when Rev. Beck left and Rev. Manus arrived. Every Thursday, they would go dancing at the Texas Hall of Fame, a local country-western dance hall. Before the ELCA population left, the students were very social, holding regular parties for the students. Lutheran Student Fellowship (LSF) also began at Texas A&M in 1988. "I can’t speak highly enough of the students," said Rev. Manus, noting the strength of spirit of the students who attended ULC. The unity of the group, though, was deeply split when Peace Lutheran severed relations with ULC. In addition, Rev. Manus began work with international students from Texas A&M, and there was a culture clash with the American students. Many of the American students were not comfortable with some of the sights (people of different nationalities) and smells (different spices in international foods) associated with international ministry, and many of the LCMS students began attending Bethel Lutheran. This decrease in population occurred even though Rev. Manus had enlisted the help of a student worker to share in the responsibilities at ULC and build up the programs there. Vandalism was also a problem, and a local man began harassing the students. Chapel students were publishing their phone numbers and addresses in a handout given out at the chapel, and a man from the community obtained the addresses and harassed the male students from the chapel. Both of these situations also caused attendance to drop. It was within this context that Rev. Manus received the call in 1998 to be the Counselor for Campus Ministry at the national LCMS office, where he served until the national office of campus ministry under North American missions was shut down in 2002. Rev. Larry Krueger then took the call to University Lutheran in the fall of 1998. Seeing a need to provide service opportunities, small groups for the students, and interaction between the American and international students, Rev. Krueger set a plan in motion to not only get students to visit ULC while they were attending Texas A&M University, but also to become a part of the growing, international ULC family. Since ULC was already split from other Lutheran bodies on campus, Rev. Krueger focused on reaching out to students from LCMS congregations. This began with about 20 students in worship and 10 students in Wednesday night Bible study. LSF, which became synonymous with student activities at ULC, became very active and saw an increase in participation as it offered more programs geared toward the American students, including Bible studies, praise services, retreats, mission trips, and service projects. International Bible and English classes also continued at the chapel. In addition to providing these programs, an event on campus seemed to coincide with increased student awareness of the ministry at ULC: the fall of Bonfire. Bonfire was an annual activity held on campus every year where Texas A&M students (called Aggies) would construct a gigantic bonfire in preparation for the annual Texas A&M – University of Texas football game the day after Thanksgiving. In the fall of 1999, the Bonfire collapsed while students were working on it, killing 12 students and injuring 27.
When this happened, the student population at Texas A&M became more united, and Christian institutions grew as students sought comfort and spiritual strength. Rev. Krueger, in the tradition of the campus pastors who had preceded him, had maintained a good relationship with the administration on campus from the time he began work there, and he was given several opportunities to provide counseling and comfort to the students on campus. "That's when pastors gotta be pastors," said Rev. Krueger. Even though this event was a tragedy, the emotional and spiritual healing experienced by the campus led to a higher awareness of campus chapels, including ULC and LSF. This new awareness may have helped to increase attendance at the chapel and participation in student activities. Increased chapel attendance required a larger sanctuary for services. This expansion began in 2000 and was finished in 2002. In the meantime, services were held in the main assembly area of the chapel, which later became the narthex and room for overflow seating. Despite the awkward worshipping arrangements, worship size grew to about 85 each week, and when the new sanctuary was finished, average attendance was at 95. In the midst of this expansion, the World Trade Center was destroyed on September 11, 2001, and Texas A&M mourned alongside the rest of the world. ULC continued to be of support to its students, and the family unity of the chapel continued to grow. When the expansion was finished, the chapel frequently overwhelmed its new capacity of 130, but the ministry there soon reached a turning point. At Wednesday night Bible study, one of the students mentioned that, even if Rev. Krueger were to leave the chapel, the ministry there would be able to continue without him because it was based on what God was doing through all the students and not just through Rev. Krueger. Rev. Krueger later revealed how prophetic that statement was: he had received a call to work as an assistant to Synod President Gerald Kieschnick. He accepted the call and left in November 2002. The ministry that has continued since then has been a testimony to the unity of the ULC family as a part of the Body of Christ. ULC began the process to call a new pastor. Rev. Ken Hennings, the Texas District Mission Executive, worked with the students to set up interviews with three candidates. Students met with the candidates on separate days for lunch and a tour of the campus. Questions for the candidates were prepared and presented by the ULC calling committee, consisting of five long-time attendants of ULC. All students were welcome to attend the subsequent question-and-answer sessions and were encouraged to submit their feedback regarding the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate. At least 30 students attended each interview. The calling committee met with Rev. Hennings to present its recommendation, and in May of 2003, Rev. Paul Hoemann received the call to ULC. During this whole process, many students took on leadership positions that had fallen under Rev. Krueger's jurisdiction. Although vacancy pastors were employed to provide Word and Sacrament ministry on Sunday mornings, the students by and large took over the rest of the ministry at ULC and today continue to be vital leaders there. Freshman Bible study, a.k.a. Alpha Team, has grown to incorporate 15-20 different freshmen per academic year. Girl Aggies in Loving Service (GALS), a chapter of Lutheran Women’s Missionary League (LWML), has worked to get women involved at ULC and in LWML, attending zone rallies and workshops with other local LWML groups. Students also go with Christ Among Nations Disciple Outreach (CANDO) Missions to Mexico over spring break every year to provide manual labor for local churches and citizens. The International ministry, All Nations Christian Center (ANCC), has also grown since 1998. Beth Kroeger served as Director of International Student Ministries from 1998 to 2000. Katie Anderson served from 2000 to 2001. Trish Kelm has served since 2001. Programs at All Nations Christian Center have included English classes, small group Bible studies, conversation partners (international students paired with American students), group dinners, and field trips throughout the Bryan-College Station area. Lutheran churches are stereotyped as avoiding change, but the chapel has shown that, for a ministry to grow and to flourish, it must be willing to change with the times and the people. "The people have changed, the building has changed, and the management has changed," joked Tiffany Rogers, a fifth-year senior at Texas A&M. "Seemingly, as much change as we’ve gone through, we’re really not a Lutheran church." The true legacy of ULC is that it has proven that the Body of Christ knows no age, no specific group of people, and no specific leader other that Jesus Christ Himself. "ULC is truly a body of Christ that relies on each other and looks for God’s guidance when things change," said Stefani Kokel, a graduate student at Texas A&M. "I have been immensely blessed by this ministry, and I pray that the Lord continues to use it to impact the lives of many more college students at Texas A&M." "I have found no other place where I have been completely accepted into the fold of God," said Betsy Wilhelm, a graduate of Texas A&M. "I have found no other place where I have laughed as hard and cried as hard. I have found no other place that so challenges me to live as Christ lived and love as He loved. It is at ULC that I found my closest friends, those whom I turned to time after time, and those I know I will keep in touch with for years to come. It is at ULC that I have truly learned to appreciate 'the tie that binds.' "In my time at the chapel, we have had two wonderful pastors whose ultimate goal was to share the message of Christ crucified and resurrected with students. It is a privilege and a blessing to be involved with a church where God is clearly working to spread his Word among students who come from all over the world." |
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