Our Identity

THE WESLEY IDENTITY

WHO WE ARE
Over 75 years ago, a place was created where students could grow into Christian leaders whose lives proclaim and embody the loving Lordship of Jesus Christ through fellowship with one another, worship of God, service to their community, and the disciplines of Christian life. Today, located in the same building for 60 years, the Wesley United Campus Ministry continues. Although the faces have changed, the vision has stayed the same for the Wesley Ministries at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Today more than ever, support from students, alums, and members of the community is needed to continue building the legacy of touching students lives. We are growing into a community of students who remain connected even after graduation, in hopes of helping each grow into deeper relationship with God, touching the lives of everyone around us through love, service, and grace...

WHERE WE COME FROM
The Wesley Ministries at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette began as and remains a part of a much larger community called The United Methodist Church. The origins of the Methodist movement start with two brothers around 1738, John and Charles Wesley, both priests in the Church of England. The movement became officially organized as The Methodist Episcopal Church of America in 1784, its strength has always been involvement of small groups of lay people. Today, the UL Wesley Ministries is a shared college ministry of The United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and The Episcopal Church. All of which have shared roots in the Ancient Church of the British Isles and in the Reformation.

TAKING ACTION
The focus of Wesley Ministries at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette is to return to the roots of the original movement by drawing a community of young adults into a deeper understanding of the truth, love and faith of Jesus Christ.
Today, you can participate with us in taking action. Wesley's largest weekly event is a free lunch where students gather to eat, fellowship, and hear a life-changing message. Students gather throughout the year to take part in community service and mission work.

In recent years, our students have traveled to Mexico to built houses, and work on a Methodist Church, and to Scotland to work in a youth center. Together, we can be the hands and feet of our God, showing the love of Jesus Christ in concrete and practical ways.

Get involved. Come take part of our action to spread the love and grace of God to our fellow man. We are in constant need of your prayers and financial support. Hope for tomorrow begins with your prayers and gifts today. Take action with us, see how you can help.

WHAT WE BELIEVE

The Wesley is a campus ministry sponsered by several Christian churches, and as such, we emphasize especially those beliefs that are held in common by all major Christian groups across the ages and across cultures.

We see the Bible as the "written word" inspired by God that points us to faith in Jesus Christ our only Savior. We use the Tradition of the Church, along with logical Reasoning and our living Experience of the Holy Spirit to help us understand what God says to us when we read the Bible.

We point to the ancient creeds, the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed, as authoritative summaries of the Christian faith that have been held in common by all major Christian Churches through the centuries. These creeds contain the basics of our Biblical faith in the Triune God, in the saving work of Jesus Christ through his coming, death, and resurrection, in the work of the Holy Spirit in the one catholic (universal) Church, and in the hope of the final coming of the Kingdom of God when Christ returns as King over all.

We believe that we are called both to proclaim with our words and to embody with our lives the reality of the Kingdom of God: showing in our lives what it looks like for God's will to be done on earth as it is done in heaven. In these ways we call others to embrace the loving Lordship of Jesus over their own lives. All that God is doing in the world and in our lives - including forgiveness of our sins - we see as a gift of free grace: it is not earned but is simply recieved by faith in Jesus and embodied in lives of hope and love.