good morning and welcome to mosaic. i pastor elizabeth. del. st. san francisco. with me today is pastor greg schafer. you serve in palo alto at the university lutheran church. of course, serving in palo alto is a unique setting, but what makes your congregation that more unique is your connection with stanford university. you are a campus ministry setting. >> we are campus ministry congregation of the elca. >> how long have you been th >> i have been there for 12 years. a little more the 12 years. >> you have seen students, and go. >> a lot. yeah.

>> a lot. is it a congregation that is in transition year after year or do you have people who stay around? >> there is both. there's a really interesting mix of people in the congregation. there are a lot of students, undergraduate, graduate, and professional students and that turnover happens pretty fast. sometimes with the grad students not as fast as they would like it to, but eventually they that is always hard for us. there is also a group of people who are alumni and who decide to stay involved in the congregation. they might move a little bit further out from palo alto, but they continue to come back. members of the neighborhood community are part of the congregation. one of the most interesting groups in the congregation are people who are involved in a campus ministry congregation when they were in school and have moved to the area to work for a company and seek out a campus ministry congregation to

be a part of. >> that's what i wantto ask ministry congregi went to a pri roman catholic college, and i was involved in campus ministry there. i went to a congregation while i was a member there. i didn't know much about campus ministry and tell my predecessor from the university retired and someone i know said have you thought about maybe going down there and drink campus ministry there? i had not thought about it before. that was an important turning point. >> had you thought about being a pastor before? as you were growing up? what led you to serve as a pastor in the lutheran church? >> when i was in high school i went to a nondenominational school. from first grade through high school. and my sophomore year of high school we had to write a paper about our denomination. i went part of the time to the

church that operated our school and part of the time to the lutheran church that my grandmother attended. i felt like i had two denominations. i wasn't sure what to do. i had to choose one for this paper. i chose the lutheran church and interviewed the pastor and that was a mind blowing experience for me. because i was asking questions that i thought i already knew the answers to and i was hearing answers from this pastor about the human condition and gods love and science and faith and all of these things. they are were answers i had not heard before. what i realized was i was encountering grace for the first time. that was a turning point for me. he suggested that i, i will never forget, it was april fools' day i was inain ththing wa aprlse i thought, what is this grace he

keeps talking abowg sundaywing more about the tradition and i did. i don't know what the texts were or what the hymns were or anything like that, but i remember leaving worship that day thinking i could do this. that was really how i first discerned the call to ministry. >> a very profound experience with that pastor embraced your questions with out judgment. >> exactly right. yeah. :that's grace. >> yeah. >> from that point on you felt a call to ministry? >> i did. i had always felt a call toward some type of a service location. maybe teaching or i thought about being a vet. i grew up on a horse and cattle ranch, so the idea of being a vet was really something present to me. >> and you are native of the bay area? >> i am. once i started to sense this call to ministry it became clear

that is where i was being called. i was a sophomore in high school i still had some things i needed to do before i could become a pastor, but all of those things were just tremendously informative. the educational experiences and practical experiences i had in the ministry have shaped me in a way that really, i think, i would be a completely different person if it weren't for the educational and practical experiences i was able to have. >> we are going to hear more from pastor greg schafer and his call to ministry. also, what he ck mosaic.

all welcome back to mosaic. with me is pastor greg schafer. involved with campus ministry at stanford university, but it is wider than just stanford. you have a congregation at the university lutheran palo alto. tell us an thalle and bring to the community. >> there is a really wonderful energy in a campus ministry congregation, i think. in part

it's an intergenerational community. that is something that, especially for students in college or graduate school, most of the intergenerational experience they have is with professors and their advisors or staff members. what being in an intergenerational congregation gives people is an opportunity to engage with someone in a nonevaluative way. in other words, they can exchange stories and thoughts and concerns with each other in a way that no one has to be concerned that they are being graded. students also find the intergenerational piece to go the other way. they encounter children that remind them of their siblings and who they have left at home. they have circuit family members, which i think makes a big difference when most of the time you are surrounded by people within just a few years of your own age. it makes a difference to have that experience in a broader

age wise community. >> in terms of the student population who is seeking out campus ministry? how do you reach out to them? >> there is a couple of people who end up being part of university lutheran, there are people who are lutheran and moved to palo alto, as you said, in a lot of cases they're going to stanford or working in one of the companies nearby or things like that. they seek out a lutheran congregation. and in some cases that is part of their upbringing. that's what you do when you move to a new place, find a church. other people will be out for a run and they will go fly our site and the will see a signtha they will see a cross and they

will say, i didn't realize those things could go together. they wander in and ask, is this real? i really welcome here? >> similar to the questions you are asking your pastor many years ago. >> exactly. yeah. there is so much about this that is about finding a place. finding a place where you can be welcomed as you are. also be nudged and challenged and pushed a little bit to grow and to deepen as a person, as a person of faith. several people involved in campus ministry, not just in the setting where i serve, but broadly across our church don't identify with a particular religious tradition when they first start coming to campus ministry. the number of adult baptisms that we do is really quite remarkable. students, especially, who discover grace, as we were

talking about before, and realize this is a new way of being in the world. maybe they just weren't familiar with it yet. it speaks to them on such a deep level that they just want to be more a part of it. >> and part of the community. >> and the community not only they are in palo alto in that place, but the community across time and space that are followers of jesus in a way that is both radical and deeply grounding. >> i would think the pressures and challenges of campus life, the anxiety that many students have these days, that somehow you are able to connect and address them. say more about that. >> really, the kinds of pressures that students deal with, it's an interesting, you

know, i kind of speak out of both sides of my mouth saying this, because there is something unique about them, because the pressures are different, the way the world now is different with the pressures students experience now that her new. the idea of experiencing pressure is not new. so, there is something both specific and universal about it. what students find, and not just tunes, what people in general find in the congregation is a place to be able to be who you are, to bring questions and concerns and doubts and feel like they will be received. they will be held, not judged. they will be engaged. and that we are trying to, that we are all on a path of seeking together. and that there is not a person

in the front who is giving out the wisdom in the sense >> you, for example. >> me, for example. but there is, sorry, i just lost the word -- accompaniment where someone will raise a question and we will say, boy, that's interesting. that's new. what is the application of technology for ethics? we don't haveyoknow, th arme thke gra that we have a standard answer for. but there are other things that we are discovering together. that can bring a different life and energy to a students academic pursuits. >> it sounds like there's a real openness there to journey with students where they arenet they. s not the case in

every congregation and every church. >> true. >> we will hear more about the unique setting that you are providing in palo alto when we get back. communities are starting to feel

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good morning welcome back to mosaic. with me today is pastor greg schafer. he is the pastor of university lutheran church in palo alto. it is a campus ministry site. of course, that campus is stanford university. you have been there 12 years. you have the congregation and students, faculty, staff flowing in and out. there are benefits to campus ministry that you were sharing with me. what are some of those benefits that students receive? >> one of the things that i think is not usually the first

thing that comes to mind, but students receive a lot of leadership experience in a campus ministry congregation. the president of the congregation has often been a student in the 12 years i have been there. and other elected leaders within the congregation our students one of the things we see as a when a student graduates from school and leaves they will seek out another congregation. what happens there is they arrived there differently than they might have otherwise. one student phrased it as being a contributor instead of a consumer. he talked about wanting to give back to a community that has given him so much already. one of the things we think is important is that students are given that kind of leadership opportunity in a congregation like this. and we often will tell people

this is a good place to try something out. if you have an idea you can try it out here. we are going to have resources to support you and if it works that's fantastic. if it doesn't, as the scientists like to say, negative results are still results. if something doesn't work we have still learned something. >> yeah. do you have a traditional worship service for students? >> we worship on sunday mornings , usually. during lent we worship on sunday evenings instead. partly just to mark that season as being different. we do have student participation in the leadership of worship as well as part of the worshiping community. students also will, when their parents are in town or something, they will bring their families. >> yeah. i was looking at your website, which is a wonderful website. tell us the address please. >> university lutheran.church.

>> what impressed me so much is how welcoming the website is, which certainly is a reflection of the community. you have some interesting sunday evening opportunities geared for students, presumably. what are those? >> we rotate through each nday of the month and we do something different. some are year-round and some are only part of the year. jazz vespers is something that would you, jazz evening prayer is something that we do during part of the are on the first sunday of the month. we have taken the ancient historic language and setting of evening prayer and we have, there are several us in the congregation, who are jazz musicians, so we just improvise and have prayer together that way. and then have some dinner and then we just stay around and play music for a while after that. we also do storytelling night, which has really been a

wonderful addition to our rotation. it was the idea that one student in particular and then it caught on to a few others. we said let's try it and see what happens. we give a theme and we say tell us a story about a time you experienced redemption. or a tell us a story about a food that is important to you. or something like that. people come and they can tell a story or not. they can tell a story of something that happened to them or that happened to someone else. they can invent a story if they are that kind of storyteller and they want to make up a story. they can do that. what it does is gets us practiced in what is really c liwhich is telling stor thatleof faith istell stories of god . t continuing that tradition. often people will say, even with the question about food, i found grace in the moment. we also have game night.

>> good. >> and movie night. art as prayer night. all of these things are really, they tap into a different part of our way of being. >> and the social justice focus . you were sharing earlier that currently the congregation is hosting a homeless shelter for women. tell us about that. >> several years ago a group of students in realizing that there was not enough shelter space for the number of homeless people that we have in palo alto got together and established an organization that would provide shelter. this was maybe five years later now and that is still going. we as a congregation host it six weeks out of the year. there are just a tremendous amount of volunteer opportunities for students serving dinner, making dinner,

doing laundry, just things at ar elterbut that e in se that we of people to be able to do them. homelessness and hunger issues have been really important within the congregation. so has environmental justice. that is something that has really been important to us as well as a congregation. >> how have you addressed that, for example? >> some of the things we have done have been notably small things that everybody does. we have changed all of our lightbulbs and put timers on our light switches and things like that. we are looking into things like solar panels and electric car chargers for a parking lot. and then also just being more aware of the things that are going on. we celebrate the season of creation in the fall, which is something that is catching on more globally than it used to

be. that is a time where we spent four or five or six sundays in a row specifically on an environmental theme. that really gets us thinking about faith and the environment in a new light. >> we are hearing about university lutheran church with pastor greg schafer in palo alto. we will be back in just a moment.

welcome back to mosaic. pastor greg sugar from -- i would like to ask you to reflect on what you have learned about yourself from your students and congregation. these 12 years. >> one of the things that i have noticed about myself is how much more i know about science than i ever would have. specifically, how it relates to peoples faith. that is kind of an anecdotal way of saying what i have learned and how i have grown is noticing how everything is integrated in a way that is not always obvious. if you're someone like me who didn't grow up speaking science than how different parts of the universe work and the eucharist

don't, obviously, go together. they do for me now. that is just a real gift to see how people experience the world and experience their faith and experience those things together. >> here is a community, university lutheran, that has helped people make those connections through the way that you have shaped your community and what a gift that has been and continues to your worship is open. you don't need to be a student. >> that's right. >> everybody is welcome to worship sunday mornings at 10 a.m. >> that's right. >> sunday evenings at 5:30? >> during lent. >> which is coming up. in just about a month leading up to the season of easter. >> right. >> everybody is welcome. what a delight it has been to have you on the mosaic program

and hear about the unique call to campus ministry. >> thank you. >> and your service. >> thank you. >> thank you for being our guest today. >> my pleasure. >> i want to thank all the people that have helped with mosaic. our late producer reverend hugh burrows, my cohost reverend ron swisher, who is now retired from his service. he is back on mosaic frequently . again, myself, pastor elizabeth axtell serving at st. mark's lutheran church. it's amazing that there is such diversity in our churches. and urban setting to a very diverse campus ministry setting . what i encourage you to do is to worship somewhere today or in the weeks ahead as we prepare our hearts and minds for the season of lent. with those words have a blessed wel see you next time on mosaic. thank you for joining us. whepin,

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live from the cbs bay area studios. this is kpix5 news the number of coronavirus cases continues to climb but there is positive news when it comes to hospitalizations for intensive care. a san jose fitness studio joins in the fights against the pandemic. how a gym turned into a test site. plus a troubling trend during the shelter in place. a spike in domestic violence. a report on the new efforts to help victims. it is just about 6 a.m. on sunday, april 12. i'm devin fehely, malcolm turnbull has the day off.