A Letter to You: Rev. W. Ryan Ford

Monday of the First Week of Advent, 2023

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

Those of you reading this letter have likely supported The Wesley Foundation in recent years, many of you financially. Thank you. For decades, it’s been people like you who have set Louisiana Tech Wesley apart as the flagship Methodist campus ministry in the state. We need your help now more urgently than ever.

At Wesley, we’re living through a time of profound contrasts — between the promising fruitfulness within our ministry itself and the circumstances outside Wesley that threaten our future. As a missionary community, we find ourselves swept up in a powerful, revitalizing move of the Holy Spirit. We’ve faced new and substantial challenges on campus over the past handful of years, but God has led us to adapt and to endure in bearing witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Louisiana Tech Wesley is healthy and growing, but, as the Methodist family continues to divide, campus ministries everywhere are being left behind. Moreover, it’s becoming clear on campus that the decline and division of the Methodist church are actually symptoms of a much larger crisis within the American Church as a whole. For years, social scientists and statisticians have predicted a massive hemorrhage of young people from the church. We are now seeing that mass-departure firsthand at Louisiana Tech University. At Freshman Orientation only a few years ago I could ask any incoming student “Do you consider yourself a Christian?” and be reasonably certain he or she would immediately answer “Yes.” Now however, it is almost surprising to meet an incoming freshman who’s an avowed Christian. Instead, an increasing number of students identify either as atheists, agnostics, or they have no belief whatsoever about God or religion. Even those students who have been raised in church often seem deeply unsure about their faith and are ambivalent about continuing to follow Jesus. Every year more and more of the work we do is straightforward evangelism.

At a time when so many Mainline institutions are struggling to engage young people, by the grace of God, we are still baptizing new college-aged believers every year. Whether they are new believers or they are taking their next steps with Jesus, at Louisiana Tech Wesley, college students receive a truly rare depth of spiritual formation that roots their faith — in scripture, the sacraments, and disciplines of prayer — so that they have a fighting chance of remaining Christians throughout their lives. Every year at Wesley students and staff build a community that resembles the vibrant, shared witness we read about in the book of Acts. We are exploring new ministries with the poor in Ruston, and we send students on international mission trips every summer. We also continue to send our leaders on to seminary and into vocational ministry — at a rate of about two prospective young pastors per year. In all these ways and more, we are pursuing the revival of the church in North America.

Louisiana Tech Wesley has the legacy it does because we have a larger and more connected community of individual supporters than any other Wesley Foundation in the state. Nevertheless, the ongoing process of division within the Methodist family seriously threatens our future. About half our core operating budget has historically been provided by a grant from the Louisiana Annual Conference of the UMC. Despite our decades-long legacy as Louisiana’s most effective campus ministry and despite our ongoing growth and missionary vitality, the Louisiana Annual Conference recently informed us that our funding will be cut by $16,000 in 2024 and that we should expect further cuts in years to come. This is far from the only impact denominational turmoil has had on our funding. Furthermore, it’s rumored that after 2025 Wesley Foundations may stop receiving Conference support altogether. In short, if Louisiana Tech Wesley is to have a future it won’t be because large denominational institutions support us — it will be because you do.

Please consider making a year-end gift or becoming a monthly giver to Louisiana Tech Wesley. To give, please visit www.latechwesley.org and click on the “Donate” tab in the top right, where you can offer one-time or monthly auto-draft gifts. Or, you can send cash or a check made out to “The Wesley Foundation at LA Tech” to PO Box 3005, Ruston, LA 71272. On our website you can also subscribe to The Harvest Initiative, a weekly newsletter where students and staff share the story of God transforming lives on the campus of Louisiana Tech University.

Thank you for reading this letter. The task before us is urgent and serious, but the support of people like you gives us every reason to believe that Wesley’s missionary legacy will continue to flourish and grow.

May the Peace of Christ be with you.

Rev. W. Ryan Ford
Director,
The Wesley Foundation at Louisiana Tech University

Rev. W. Ryan Ford, our Wesley Director, is an alum of LA Tech and The Wesley. After completing his studies at Duke Divinity School, Ryan came back to his roots here at our ministry on Tech’s campus. Ryan is a prophet with a passion for The Word of God, bow hunting, trout fishing, and wood working. He and his wife Holly have two children, Elias and Margot.