Praying for unity

On Wednesday night, roughly 100 Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans and Baptists were just Christians.

"We all know the different doctrines and things that we do disagree on, but I always tell the group, what we have in common is much greater than what divides us," said Shannon Duffy, a lay campus minister at St. Stephen the Witness Catholic Student Center. "So let's focus on what unites us and not the hot-button issues and the doctrinal things that turn people off."

Duffy helped organize "Changed by the Peace of the Risen Lord," the University of Northern Iowa Campus Ministry Association's first-ever ecumenical prayer service for Christian unity, an event that brought together Christian students from across campus and the spectrum of Christian belief to pray for peace and unity in the Commons Ballroom.

During the service, students lifted up prayers and songs calling for an end to inequality, for peace for the weary and for light in darkness. Students also brought canned goods, winter clothing, shampoo and other household items to donate to the Hospitality House in Waterloo, a shelter for the homeless.

The service's organizers set up six stations of reflection to help build bridges between Christians and with others in the UNI community. At one such station, students wrote prayers on "prayer planks," popsicle sticks carved with grooves that were used to build a structure. The planks, with prayer requests as broad as for "understanding of differences" and as specific as "for Lonnie," were later taken home by different students, with the idea that they would continue to pray the request.

Another station allowed for reflection on the Biblical passages shared during the service and on ways to break down walls of hostility.

"It makes you really just think about what you think about other people and how it affects the way you think about them, even if you don't intend to," said BreAnna Syverson, junior elementary education major.

The service not only allowed Syverson to encounter different perspectives, but different forms of worship as well.

"(I) attend a more modern church, so it was different, but it was nice to be able to get together with other Christians and see how they worship God," Syverson said.

Joseph Carey, a graduate student in music composition, was drawn to a station that featured a rock with "Jesus" written on it with Sharpie, intended to reflect Christ as the cornerstone of the Christian faith and of Christian community. Students wrote on the rock any way they were connected to, centered on or would like to be centered on the central figure of their faith, with answers like "music," "water," "family," "nature," love," "have a servant's heart" and "God's word" sketched in Sharpie.

"For me the interesting part was looking at what other people had written and figuring out something I could add to the conversation," Carey said. "There were plenty of things that had hit me — I'm a music major, so music is an obvious one for me, but it had been written a couple times, so I spent a little more time reflecting, trying to see what I could bring differently to the table."

For Laura Scearce, a senior bioinformatics major, the most important part of the evening was making new friends.

"If you gain more friends, you talk about more of your values, get to know them more — you start talking about God, and those are when the real conversations start," she said.

Carey agreed.

"I had a professor once who said the real learning doesn't take place in the classroom; it takes in the basement at midnight around a couple of beers," he said. "This is sort of the Christian equivalent."

Duffy was excited to see so many students come to the service.

"Just seeing a lot of people gather to pray from different churches whether they be denominational, nondenominational, is a joy," he said. "Just to see the turnout — it's what we're about, and I think it's really a success."

Duffy hopes to see the service grow from being interdenominational to including people of all faiths in future years.

"Life's too short to burn bridges, to tear down brides; it's all about building bridges," he said.

_{Photos by Whitney Phillips/Northern Iowan}