Church Work Students gather for fellowship over board games in first Ministry Ties event

Students playing board games at the Ministry Ties event.

Photo credit: Cole Yunker

 By Cole Yunker

Church work students gathered to enjoy fellowship, pizza, and board games on Friday in the Ministry Ties club’s first event of the school year. Attendees praised the community promoted by Ministry Ties.

Sophomore church music student Deagan Jones enjoyed the time with fellow church work students apart from classes.

“It’s more focused on fellowship than it is on being specifically church work oriented, and it’s nice to be able to talk to people in that kind of a context,” Jones said.

Junior pre-seminary student Jeremiah Weaver said that the time with other church work students has been very important.

“It’s not like I just go to church and am nourished there. I’m nourished pretty much everywhere outside of that as well with my brothers and sisters here,” Weaver said.

For freshman church music student Temperance Nguyen, the highlight of the event was its community building.

“It’s been fun talking to a bunch of new people and getting to know people who we’ve already met more,” said Nguyen.

Ministry Ties’s leaders were also pleased with the event, its turnout, and its promotion of unity between church work students.

Ministry Ties’s DCE representative junior Reilly Saline spoke about the club’s mission. “Our goal is just to make opportunities for fellowship between the church work majors so we get to know each other better [because] these might be our future colleagues,” Saline said. “I think this event did a really good job of just providing the space to meet new people and meet new people who were in church work.

President of Ministry Ties senior Rocco Fritz noted the growth of Ministry Ties over his time at Concordia.

“We had a great turnout. I was pleased with how many people came; a lot better than what we’ve had in previous times,” Fritz said. “When I first started out there weren’t many people, I would say maybe twenty people came to each event. But now, we have a whole sheet and a half of people who have signed up, which is fantastic.”

According to the club’s leadership, there are more events to come.

“We’re planning on doing [an event] every month,” said Fritz.

According to its club description on the Concordia website, Ministry Ties is, “designed to bring the various ministry programs together at Concordia Nebraska. We are working to reduce some of the stigmas around the groups and to give the groups opportunities to come together in fellowship.”