Rev. Sarah Voigt Receives the Francis Asbury Award!
Rev. Kevin Witt, Director of Growing Spiritual Transformational Leaders
Kim Shockley, Coordinator for Pathways of Spiritual Leadership
The Francis Asbury Award recognizes and encourages outstanding support of higher education and campus ministries within The United Methodist Church; named for Bishop Francis Asbury, as one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the U.S. Perhaps because he only had six years of formal schooling himself, Asbury charged the people called Methodist to erect a school in the vicinity of every church. “We must,” he said, “…give the keys of knowledge to your children, and those of the poor in the vicinity of your small towns and villages.”
Each year, the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry invites Annual Conference Boards of Higher Education and Campus Ministry to submit nominees based upon extraordinary leadership above and beyond basic responsibilities in United Methodist higher education ministries. Rev. Sarah Voigt is the Wesley Foundation Ministry Director for the University Park Campus of Penn State.
In a recent interview with Kevin Witt, we get to know Sarah:
1. How would you describe your calling into ministry?
It was through the church that I first experienced a call to ministry. During my time in college, I had two pastors and campus chaplains who saw gifts in me and asked hard questions about passions, callings, and vocation. Their questions, conversations, and countless meals around the table gave me confidence to take the next step in vocational ministry. It was around tables in a soup kitchen that I felt my heart and soul come alive, as I experienced a desire to love and serve my community. That God-given passion has led my family and I to various tables around the world to join God in creating spaces of welcome, community, and service -- and for that I am grateful. I am ordained an Elder in the Church of the Nazarene, in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition. Interesting aside, I was ordained in Scotland on St. Patrick's Day 2014 while serving as a missionary in Ireland.
2. What do you love most about campus ministry and what are some significant impacts of the ministry?
I love having conversations with students and the opportunity to hear their questions, wonderings, and passions. I give thanks that now I am gifted with the role of walking alongside students as they journey through questions of vocation, passion, and calling. I love that with students we are able to be creative, playful, and also have meaningful conversations, often all at the same time. And most of our times for connection happen around food! I am continually grateful for the opportunity to intersect with students' lives in the midst of this time period and the reciprocal impacts that are shared because of these relationships. While students will move on after four (or more) years and their lives will take them in other directions, we, those who work in campus ministry, will continue to remember the impact students have had on us personally as well as our ministries.
3. Describe various dimensions of the Wesley Foundation ministry at Penn State.
The Wesley Foundation at Penn State is connected with St. Paul's United Methodist Church in State College, PA, only one street away from the main campus of Penn State University. Through St. Paul's UMC and the Wesley Foundation, we seek to connect with students in various ways. Our vision and mission is: Be Fed, Be Known, Be Loved, Welcome Home. For decades, the Wesley Foundation has been known as a "home away from home" for students; it is our mission to continue to live into this calling. We run a free student coffee house called Abba Java, which is open to students five days a week as a study space and a place to connect with friends, offering free coffee/tea, snacks, pastries, and more. The Wesley Foundation also gathers weekly with students for a meal and a time to connect with each other as we share prayer practices, questions, and art finding ways to grow in faith together. We also offer opportunities to gather with other mainline campus ministries for times of conversation, events, and service.
4. What else would you like readers of Susquehanna LINK to know?
The most important thing would be a request asking pastors/parents/readers to let us know if they have students at Penn State, University Park campus. It is the only way I have to know of our United Methodist students on campus. This is true for every campus ministry throughout the Susquehanna Conference.
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The honorees of the Francis Asbury Award represent the breadth of United Methodist campus ministry from laity, university chaplains, Wesley Foundation Directors and administrators, and the episcopacy. The recipients have demonstrated exceptional local, multi-generational, international, ecumenical, and interreligious educational Christian ministry with students, faculty, staff, and colleagues.
