A Wonderful Beginning . . . A Glimpse of the Future
By President Rich Gurgel NWC ’81, WLS ’86
A Wonderful Beginning
In this issue of InFocus, you’ll read about a leap forward in MLC’s EQUIPPING CHRISTIAN WITNESSES campaign. Eighteen months of generous gifts from God’s people around our synod laid a financial foundation for what had been called the Knight Center.
Now, God has graciously moved the heart of a generous donor to make a transformational gift that enabled us to move forward! The building will be called the Betty Kohn Fieldhouse. You’ll see how that building will be a blessing to our campus and our community on pages 10-11.
It’s a wonderful beginning! But we pray it’s not the end. We pray it’s simply a glimpse of the future.
In this InFocus you’ll also find information about the other facility that is part of pillar 3 of EQUIPPING CHRISTIAN WITNESSES, a new residence hall. We pray that God might speed the day when we can announce the groundbreaking of the facility we’ve been calling Luther Heights.
That too would be part of this wonderful beginning! But may that not be the end!
Even with the completion of both fieldhouse and residence hall, we still have sufficient reason to continue to invest in our college of ministry. Why? Because of pillar 1 of EQUIPPING CHRISTIAN WITNESSES: For the sake of the gospel ministry, we’re seeking to increase MLC’s enrollment to 800, 900, or even 1,000 undergraduate students. Having a well-equipped and attractive campus plays no small role in achieving that goal.
Facilities Support Recruitment
Certainly, we don’t want to become Field of Dreams Lutheran College by making our mantra “If we build it, they will come!” But as we recruit students in the 21st century, we must grasp this reality: The “you can be anything” world in which future students have grown up means they’re often wrestling with many different college and vocation possibilities.
Yes, many future MLC students have known since kindergarten that they wanted to pursue public ministry. As small children they gathered their younger siblings for impromptu classes or preached to their stuffed animals. It’s a great gift of God to have a significant percentage of our student body arrive on campus so highly committed to public ministry. And, yes, many of them would attend MLC whether or not our campus was well-equipped or attractive.
But we’d be shortsighted to plan for the future with only those students in mind. If you talked with current pastors, teachers, and staff ministers, you’d find many who arrived at the MLC campus with significant uncertainties. Several other educational and vocational paths appealed to them. It was only after they arrived on campus, perhaps even several semesters later, that they resolved to continue on toward gospel ministry.
Today we seem to see a higher percentage of such “uncertain about ministry” prospective MLC students. We certainly celebrate the many good and godly vocations in which believers can serve their Savior besides the public ministry. And we’re thankful for the schools (especially our sister schools, Wisconsin Lutheran College and Bethany Lutheran College) that train them for those vocations. But we also want to make every effort to make MLC an appealing option. We’re convinced that once they’re here, God may allow them to grow in their conviction to continue preparing for the public ministry.
An attractive and well-equipped campus can be a critical element in an uncertain student’s decision to give MLC a try.
A Glimpse of the Future
With that in mind, back in 2018, MLC developed a campus master plan in partnership with students, faculty, staff, and people around our synod. The Betty Kohn Fieldhouse and the residence hall we’re calling Luther Heights are two pieces of that master plan. What else might be part of that glimpse of the future?
Music and the Arts: As a confessional Lutheran church body, we delight in how vocal and instrumental music can sing the gospel into our hearts.
Our master plan envisions expanding our music facilities, first by completing the long-unfinished lower level of the Chapel of the Christ. What a blessing our chapel has been since it was built in 2010. To make the best use of this entire facility, we’d construct well-equipped rehearsal facilities in the lower level. There the hundreds of students who participate in our vocal ensembles can learn to treasure first-hand our Lutheran, gospel-focused musical heritage. What a blessing that would be for our churches and schools.
Our master plan also calls updating and expanding both our Music Center and Music Hall. We can show our commitment to excellence in instrumental music by providing more spacious rehearsal space for ensembles like our Wind Symphony and upgrading individual practice facilities for students of organ, piano, and other instruments.
We also dream of the day when we can add additional space to our Music Hall for what we have at times called the Institute for Liturgical Arts. Such an Institute could help us as a synod gain a deeper appreciation for how the visual arts—paintings and murals, sculpture and glass—also proclaim the gospel.
Now, imagine all of that work is completed. You’re walking along on a campus tour with a prospective student with strong gifts in music and the arts. That student is unsure whether MLC and the public ministry is for them, but you notice their eyes lighting up. It dawns on them that their church body really does value the gifts God has given them, and they begin to see how God might enrich the public ministry of our church as they put their gifts to work!
We plan to construct rehearsal spaces in the basement of Chapel of the Christ.
Athletics: Now picture another prospective MLC student. This student is also unsure about MLC or the public ministry. But this they do know: They enjoyed sports in high school, and they would love to participate in intercollegiate and intramural sports in college. What would you show them on MLC’s campus? What would spark a growing conviction in their hearts that their WELS College of Ministry values their athletic gifts and sees them as a means to develop leaders for gospel ministry?
Yes, you’d take them to the Betty Kohn Fieldhouse. There they’d picture themselves practicing with athletic teams, enjoying a PE class, or having fun in intramurals year-round.
Then you’d take them to another facility, our new physical education/recreation center. It would be built in what was once the large empty field next to the Luther Student Center, and it would include four basketball courts; a 200-meter indoor track; and multiple fellowship, recreation, and workout spaces for students, whether they play an interscholastic sport or not.
Why does our master plan envision this particular facility? Understand that our current gymnasium, built in 1968, has one full-size court and another smaller court on its stage. It’s served our campus well for 50 years, but much has changed in a half century. We now offer a broader range of interscholastic sports and intramurals, and we struggle to find sufficient space for all our indoor athletic teams, not to mention a strong intramural program. And what about open gym times for the students to have fun with friends when their schedules allow? Right now, that’s simply not possible.
Were this PE/rec center to be built, we could spark the idea in that prospective student’s mind that MLC has been planning for a student just like them! Suddenly they begin to understand that MLC understands that training people for ministry involves training the whole person—including those gifts and interests that are especially important to them at this time in their life.
From Dreams to Realities
Such are the dreams included in MLC’s campus master plan. All of those dreams have a singular theme: to provide a well-equipped and inviting campus that can help us attract and hold on to even more students who aren’t quite sure about public ministry yet.
So, as you read in this issue about the Betty Kohn Fieldhouse and the residence hall we’re calling Luther Heights, we ask two things! Pray that that those facilities might be just a beginning for our campus. And then ponder how God can use you to turn master-plan-dreams into MLC-campus-realities!
The Betty Kohn Fieldhouse will be ready for student use in early 2022. We hope construction of the new residence hall will not be far behind.
