When Brynn was in high school, she identified as an atheist. Despite being raised in the church, she struggled with the notion of a loving God. But even while professing atheism, the religious life intrigued her. When she arrived at Pitt, she called herself “agnostic but Christian curious.” Slowly, she began to explore other religious groups because she said, “I was struggling with finding community, and I knew I had a sense of spirituality that was sort of undiscovered, if you will. I had faith, and I didn’t know how to deal with it.”

Sharing her struggles with an aunt who lives near Pittsburgh, her aunt recommended Brynn check out the Lutheran Campus Ministry in Greater Pittsburgh, because she had heard the campus pastor preach at a local congregation one Sunday. Brynn, by then a sophomore, was worried though. “I didn’t think I would be welcome back into the church because of my previous atheism and agnosticism.” So before she ever set foot in the Lutheran University Center she checked out the website, and then emailed the campus pastor. After meeting him, she felt confident enough to come to a meal. “I wanted to find a community where I could just be,” she shared. She was not disappointed. “I was welcomed immediately, which was very shocking for me. It was radical hospitality and welcome right from the get go.”

Once welcomed into this community, what kept Brynn was the way everyone surrounded her. “It was good to know that people would care I was missing.” She continued, “I think a big part of church and being before God in the church is being able to remove the mask that we wear in everyday society, and to just truly be who you are as God called you to be. To be able to experience that in the campus ministry is really life changing for me.”

Brynn experienced a community that helped her hear God’s call. She served as a peer minister during the beginning of the Covid pandemic. She worked to cultivate community even while the students were in exile and isolation. She became comfortable going to worship services and through the ministry of compline, rediscovered her spirituality. Brynn is now a third-year Master of Divinity student at United Lutheran Seminary, where she will soon be looking to begin her internship and continue to develop her pastoral identity. Brynn will be a gift to the larger church as she seeks to pastor a community that expresses the radical hospitality and welcome of Jesus’s love to all who enter. The Lutheran Campus Ministry in Greater Pittsburgh is the place where Brynn’s faith was renewed and cultivated so that she could be sent out into the world.

Brendan is a Math major at Pitt, and a member of the class of 2027. A smart and talented young man, he grew up just north of Pittsburgh in a congregation that his family belonged to his whole life and to which his family had belonged for three or four generations.

When Brendan moved into Pitt, he was not aware of the challenge of working his way into a new faith community. “I didn’t know anybody and I didn’t have the familiarity that you get when you are with a church from baptism until your high school graduation.” Thankfully, Brendan was helped along by his home pastor, who wrote an email to the campus pastor introducing Brendan to him. “And then,” Brendan smirked, “I ignored that email for a few weeks.”

Eventually Brendan met up with the campus pastor over lunch to talk about what the campus ministry was about, and he did find his way to both worship and the midweek meal. He was happy he did. Brendan remarked, “I found a community that was supportive and allowed me to connect with my faith in a way that was new to me, coming from a church where I was the youngest person by quite a few years.” The campus ministry gave him a new understanding of faith. He no longer felt like he was the only one who didn’t have it all figured out. “I don’t feel behind in learning about my faith. I feel like there are people who are at the same stage in their faith journey and life journey.”

Brendan’s high school years challenged him where he felt like he had wrestle with the questions of “why I believed in God, why I believed in religion and why I still showed up to church.” But the campus ministry brought him into a community where he was now with people who were asking those same kind of questions.

This community of peers is a place which he relishes. “The biggest thing for me is feeling God in the community and feeling faith as a connection. I had seen it before in my church with women’s groups and bible studies, but I had never had that peer-to peer connection.” Brendan finds support with his friends affects his life in a deep way. “The college schedule is intense and busy and it feels non-stop and can feel overwhelming. The chance to engage in compline and service that meets you where you are, I think that has been a nice outlet to reflect and ground myself on a spiritual level, especially when I am struggling.”

Brendan has become a natural leader in the community, and has even joined the board of the Lutheran Campus Ministry in Greater Pittsburgh, because as he said, “I believe this space is an important space as a safe space and a supportive space, and serving on the board is a way to give back to a community that I am happy to be part of.”

Campus ministry is not only a place where students are ministered to, but where they develop gifts for the ways they minister to the world around them. The Lutheran Campus Ministry in Greater Pittsburgh gives Brendan the means to continue growing in leadership that will serve him and future congregations to develop meaningful relationships in which God is made known.