Do you care about your school?

Are you a member of a struggling degree program that often butts heads with Wesley administrators?

Do you want to have a say in the way our school develops?

Are you frustrated 'cuz there's no pressure in the basement water fountain? No change machine in the laundry room? No straight cues for the pool table?

Do you wanna do something about it?

Student Council nominations end this week on February 24th. We are looking for people who feel called to run as President, VP, Secretary, Treasurer, or as a regular old representative (though it's worth nothing that the first four positions come with stipends).

Please nominate yourself or somebody else for one of these offices by filling out a form, getting the nominee's initials on it, and sticking it in the ballot box we've placed in the dining hall on the buffet table.

Personal Testimony

Having been selected for Council my first year, serving as VP my 2nd, and being a rep on this, my 3rd, I can say that it is a great platform for folks with vision. Being on Council I have been able to solicit donations for, and finally move a 9' pool table onto Wesley's campus whereas before we'd only had a warped ping-pong dealie.

Through Council I had access to student activity funds that would have paid for contemporary Christian artist Derek Webb to come to campus (if he hadn't cancelled), that have paid for Rev. Donald Messer, and that helped pay for Dr. Tony Campolo, on various World AIDS Day (week) commemorations. Many of these were joint Plumb Line/Council activities.

I have also been able to stop the waste of thousands of dollars that might have been spent on a bench or some such memorial gift (just because we had money) when student organizations could actually use the funds in their ministries.

Thanks to folks on Council this campus has wireless internet access in many areas. This happened because of our work and effort--not initiative on the part of our busy administrators.

I list these things in part to brag, but also to demonstrate that PARTICULARLY if you've ever thought "This place would be so much better if..." then a spot on Student Council is right up your alley.

Please consider nominating yourself or a friend.

Homily from National Prayer Breakfast

As you're by now no doubt aware, I am a Minnesotan. Our senior (and Republican) Senator, Norm Coleman, was this year the first Jew ever to chair the National Prayer Breakfast. I don't know what the decisionmaking process is, but somehow Bono ended up giving the homily.

You can find the text anywhere, including in this week's Wesley Journal. If you want to watch it, here's the link to the CNN streaming video.

The man is concerned with AIDS in specific, and Africa more broadly. He proposes an "additional 1% of the federal budget being tithed to the poor." That, of course, would bring our total foreign aid to 1.014% of the budget--a drastic increase. I think other ways to act in the same spirit include debt relief for certain nations and a reduction in domestic agricultural subsidies.

In between he talks about how important the poor are to God (see Isaiah, Luke, and Jim Wallis' talking points), how Americans are good at charity but how we suck at justice.

It's good and thoughtful, maybe a bit too detailed for a homily, but if it got those issues on the agenda, which are also near and dear to my own heart, which were emphasized again by Kristen Foley's wonderful sermon this past Wednesday at the Of Sacred Worth chapel service, and which were brought up in this community last year by Rev. Tony Campolo and Rev. Donald Messer, then I am convinced God's work was done.