During these past two and a half years serving as the campus minister at Valley Wesley, student involvement has grown significantly in our ministry.  A number of students attend worship each week, participate in small groups and bible study, in service opportunities and mission trips, and in a number of social activities.  Every day of the week you can find Wesley students in our student lounge studying, socializing, praying, or just taking a break from their day.  Much of this is programmed by myself and our student leadership team.  However, many of our programs have grown naturally or organically through students who have become part of our community of faith.  What I have witnessed year after year is that our students want to be in continual “intentional” community together.  They want to extend their Christian relationships beyond a worship service or bible study, they want to help encourage one another and hold each other accountable.  They want that same sense of belonging that they experience within the “programmed” elements of our ministry.  At the end of each year of ministry, various groups of Wesley students, who have become friends through our ministry, have decided to live together the next school year.

Imagine then, a facility that allows students to be in this “intentional community” beyond our programmed events.  Imagine a facility where students, not only live, but study, hold social events, participate in prayer and bible study, discussions, and service projects.  Imagine a facility where students live in a place dedicated an environment of learning, service, and spiritual formation.  Imagine a facility that encourages dialogue around issues of life and faith, offers leadership opportunities for students, and creates creative space for writing, art, poetry and music.  Imagine a student community drawn together around a covenant of loving God and loving neighbor.

On the night of February 10, 2010, Valley Wesley, Tempe First United Methodist Church, and a student housing corporation called Newchapter entered into an agreement to begin exploring the possibility of building a new Wesley Foundation building and student residence hall on the grounds of Tempe First UMC. This was an agreement that has been in the works since October, 2009. Around that time I was on the College Union website and heard an interview with some of the team from Newchapter and how they wanted to partner with campus ministries to build student housing, providing a place for intentional community and also to help provide an income stream to ministries. What made Newchapter unique was their business model. In most cases, if you want to build a building, you have to raise all the money up front and find the experts to help you build a facility you want. Well, Newchapter eliminates both of these issues. They bring the funding up-front, as well as the expertise in building and managing student housing. This was enough to send an e-mail to Newchapter and get more info. Before I knew it I was having multiple conversations with Ian Clark, their Director of Business Development. Soon we were forming a joint TFUMC and Wesley Foundation committee to explore a partnership with Newchapter. We worked on a number of drafts of a partnership agreement that would allow Newchapter to get to work. After being approved by various committees at all levels of the church the partnership was officially formed following approval by the TFUMC church conference.

A quick side note- Valley Wesley is NOT a ministry of Tempe First UMC, it is a ministry serving the Desert Southwest Annual Conference. TFUMC, however, has always hosted our facilities, including the Baker Center building which was built for The Wesley Foundation in the 1960′s. As the campus ministry declined over the years the Baker building began to be used for TFUMC programs. Wesley is currently housed in another building on the TFUMC campus. TFUMC is crucial Valley Wesley partner and has been a gracious host of our ministry for many years. The new Wesley facility would be built on TFUMC’s property, which ultimately means they must approve of this project along the way.

So what’s next? Members of the Newchapter team have already been meeting with city officials and potential architects. They will also be working on a conceptual design that will give us an idea of where and how big the building will be. That design will need to be approved by the building committee and the church before we will move into a preliminary design stage where it will be determined if the project is feasible or not for Wesley, TFUMC, and Newchapter. If feasibility is agreed upon we will begin the final design and then hopefully the construction stage! We don’t have a lot of details now but I hope to keep everyone updated through valleywesley.com and Facebook and Twitter updates.

One area of the project that is not covered by Newchapter upfront is furnishings and equipment for the facility. This is something Wesley will need to raise money for, a task we believe is very possible. We will cross that bridge though when we get to it.

I hope you will join us in our excitement for what is possible with this project. We don’t know 100% yet if we will actually build a building so keep us in prayer as we sort all of this out. We could not do this without your continued love and support!

Stay tuned….

Rob