jwhc – Page 2 – Alumni Blog

December 2, 2016

Ethan Linder: JWHC Graduate

By: Heather Cox

—

Ethan Linder graduated from Indiana Wesleyan in 2015 as a Christian Ministries major with an Honors Humanities minor through the John Wesley Honors College.

Linder grew up in Seaford, Delaware in a Wesleyan church. Linder said his church valued Wesleyan higher education, which led him to consider Houghton College and Indiana Wesleyan University. After visiting the campus, Linder felt IWU was the place for him.

“I came on campus and heard the stories of the people who were Christian Ministries students, and talked with some of the profs about what the program was all about,” Linder said. “I became pretty convinced that the story IWU is writing was something I wanted to be a part of. The story that God was writing in my heart harmonized well with the story that IWU seems to encourage their students to write in the world, so that helped me clarify where I was supposed to be.”

Though Linder ended up majoring in Christian Ministries, he did not always have that major in mind. Linder said that throughout high school he had been planning on doing something with Marketing. A trip to a summer camp changed this for him, when he felt he was being called into Ministry instead.

“I was very set against it. I wasn’t all about the ministry life; I was about marketing and figuring out what it looked like to help people,” Linder said. “I kind of came to the realization that I was called to ministry, and I walked alongside my home church back home to figure out what that call looked like for me.”

Linder also had a positive experience being involved with the John Wesley Honors College. He said that he enjoyed learning from people who were in other majors outside of Christian Ministries and loved that the honors college values shaping students not only in knowledge, but in virtue.

“You’re not going to just be shepherding Christian Ministries majors in your church after graduation, you’re going to have people who think deeply about nursing and education and journalism and marketing and things like that,” Linder said. “So having the opportunity to engage with people who were outside my discipline and find out how the spirit would draw them to shepherd areas of their own influence was really helpful for me.”

Linder was also a Resident Assistant (RA) on campus while he was a student in South Hall. He was heavily involved in the community of South Hall while he was a freshman, and decided to invest in the residents’ lives as a sophomore. Linder loved investing in people through residential experience, and growing along with them.

During his time as a student, Linder has come to really appreciate Indiana Wesleyan’s willingness to dive into difficult discussions that are important to have.

“I think that IWU, at its best, sits at the intersection of culture and Christianity,” Linder said. “In a way that doesn’t reject what culture has to offer, but fully engages and leans in to the conversations and the needs and the difficulties that are happening in our community, starting in Marion, extending through the church, and then into all the world.”

Since graduating from IWU, Linder has worked for College Wesleyan Church, just right off the IWU campus in Marion. He was hired on full time as College Wesleyan Church’s College Young Adult Pastor and the Pastor of Hospitality and Connections this past April. He also writes and leads a staff of writers for the Wesleyan church headquarters in Fishers, IN. Currently, he is involved in IWU’s Kern Master’s program, through which he will earn his Master’s degree at the end of five years.

As for goals for the future, Linder hopes to be known for his ability to listen and love deeply.

“I want to cultivate the discipline of listening,” Linder said. “Then I want to help the church to elevate our ability to listen to people’s stories so that as people come into our church, as people come into the church, they feel cared for well, loved deeply, and they know because of the way we listen, their stories can harmonize with what God’s doing in His church and around the world.”

—

Written by Heather Cox, guest writer for the Alumni Office. Heather is a Junior Journalism major at IWU. She is also the Editor of GrantCOnnected.net, a community news site run by IWU students. She is unsure of where life will take her after college, but she knows she never wants to stop writing!

November 27, 2016

Amy Wagner: A Master of All Mediums

By: Heather Cox

—

Amy Wagner graduated from Indiana Wesleyan University in 2012 with a degree in Fine Arts.

Originally hailing from Northwest Ohio, Wagner found IWU through researching art programs at Christian colleges. To Wagner, it seemed as though IWU had the best art program in the midwest. The art program and appealing atmosphere of campus called Wagner to make IWU her home for a few years.

Wagner had grown up loving art and math, but knew she would have to choose between the two when it came to picking a major to study. As for why she chose Fine Arts instead of a specified medium of art to study, Wagner has a love for all mediums.

“I chose Fine Arts versus majoring in one specific medium because in high school I wasn’t really sure what my favorite medium was,” Wagner said. “I just knew I liked creating all sorts of art whether it was sculptural or two dimensional.”

In addition to majoring in Fine Arts, Wagner was also a member of the John Wesley Honors College. Wagner said that growing up she had always excelled in school and had been placed in gifted programs at an early age. Joining the honors college on campus just seemed to make sense.

“If I’m not challenged, whether it’s at school or work, then I’m bored and I don’t feel satisfied,” Wagner said. “I wanted to do the honors program so I would be more challenged, and after I started the honors program I was very glad I chose it because not only was I challenged, but I also feel like I got a better grasp of our faith through the generations.”

Wagner also enjoyed developing a deeper historical view of Christianity, as well as a more in-depth look on Christianity as a whole.

A lot of Wagner’s time as a student was dedicated to schoolwork and hanging out with her art friends, but she was also a student chaplain her senior year in what was the west side of North Hall, now Beckett Hall.

Being a chaplain meant that a lot of her time was also dedicated to working in North Hall and planning hall events.

Out of Wagner’s many favorite things about IWU, the school’s emphasis on critical thinking is at the top of her list. Wagner said she appreciates that IWU always encouraged students not to base things off of people’s assumptions, but to instead turn to the Bible to see what God has to say about certain situations.

Wagner also said her art professors were another favorite aspect of IWU, specifically Professor Goodman and Professor Crossman.

Following graduation, looking for a job was intimidating for Wagner.

“Every entry level job I’m overqualified for,” Wagner said. “And every artistic kind of job I’m under-qualified for and they want me to have my Masters, or they want me to specialize in Computer Graphics or something like that.”

Wagner went on to care for her father until he passed away in 2013, and in April of the following year she moved to Kansas City, Missouri. There, she began working at God TV, and met her now husband, Derek Wagner.

Before the two married last July, Wagner began working for a company he had started, called Peak Distribution LLC. He continues to manage the business side of the company, while Wagner does administrative work and manages their employee.

As for the future, Wagner has big plans and dreams.

“My husband and I have talked about starting a product line and that is still under development and probably won’t be on the market until the middle of next year,” Wagner said. “I’m really looking forward to designing the packaging and creating the products listing for that because it’s more on my creative side, which is what I excel in, and it’s what I live and breathe for.”

Wagner also hopes to someday open a space for artists to come and work on projects with some needed supplies readily available for a minimal cost. In addition to this creative space, she hopes to have a gallery and offer classes. She also hopes to be able to teach technical skills to artists.

“There are a lot of Christian artists who create what the world would look at and dismiss readily because it’s not technically good,” Wagner said. “I’d love to teach the technical skills to fellow artists.”

As for artists who are already technically skilled, Wagner said she would like to teach them how to dialogue with Jesus while they create. Wagner’s use of her passion to glorify the kingdom of God is a beautiful piece of herself and makes her an IWU World Changer.

—

October 30, 2016

Chloe McLaughlin: Humbled by the John Wesley Honors College

By: Dezaray Barr

—

Chloe McLaughlin, a 2016 graduate of Indiana Wesleyan University, said, “I applied for the honors college because I wasn’t very humble. I stayed in the honors college because it humbled me.”

Coming into college, McLaughlin thought she was brilliant, the smartest of the bunch, and wanted everyone to know it. This was her incentive for joining the John Wesley Honors College (JWHC) at Indiana Wesleyan University, but she quickly realized she was not the smartest individual in the room. While a horrifying experience, this was how she became humbled and how she grew into the woman she is today.

“The best way to learn something,” McLaughlin said, “is to be in a room with people who are smarter than

you.”

The 2016 John Wesley Honors College Graduating Class

McLaughlin, upon graduation this April with a double major in Christian Worship and Honors Humanities and a minor in Church Music, took the position of Modern Worship Leader & Youth Director at Trinity United Methodist Church in Elkhart, Indiana. McLaughlin knows that the honors college readied her for the career she now has. During the first few years of the JWHC curriculum, students are required to question everything they believe.

McLaughlin said, “Now that I’m in the church I have a firm grasp on what the historic church says… and because of the honors college I have a better idea of how to have a conversation of those things and what I believe.”

McLaughlin easily affirms that the honors college is the community she enjoyed the most at IWU and the place where she never questioned her worth or if she was in the right spot. This affected McLaughlin so much that during her junior and senior years of study, she was both a peer educator and the chaplain for the honors college.

“I knew that we were all learning together and there wasn’t judgement in that process,” McLaughlin said. “If we had questions or started to bring up certain topics, no one would question our commitment to our faith or our education because we knew it was a process, and we would come out stronger on the other side.”

As McLaughlin works with teenagers in her role as a youth director, she uses this skill that the JWHC taught her everyday. She has a lot of students who have a lot of questions, and she knows the honors college prepared her to understand why these students have the questions they have, as well as help the students answer their own questions by asking them new questions.

As McLaughlin reminisced and remembered her time in the John Wesley Honors College at IWU, it was obvious that her love for the program and the impact it had on her life are both very large. As McLaughlin finished, she said, “the honors college challenged us, and we became better people because of it.”

—

Written by Dezaray Barr, PR Specialist for the Alumni Office. Dezaray is a Sophomore Strategic Communication and Honors Humanities double major at Indiana Wesleyan University in the John Wesley Honors College. At IWU Dezaray is involved in PRSSA leadership and runs both the JWHC Blog and her own blog. Visit Dez’s website at www.dezaraybarr.weebly.com.