Some students regularly attend Shabbat, some pray five times a day and others don’t pray at all, but once a week, these students gather together to work toward an interfaith community.
Interfaith Impact is a registered student organization whose overall goal is to build communities across faith lines, said Evan Young, campus minister at United Campus Ministry and facilitator of Interfaith Impact’s weekly meetings.
“Oftentimes, we are encouraged by the media and popular culture to understand differences as walls that we can’t traverse,” Young said. “We are trying to create a space and opportunities for people to meet with each other and understand each other.”
The weekly meetings have a focus topic meant to initiate conversations with spiritual context that are intentionally inclusive of all faith traditions, including those with no faith identification, Young said.
Olivia Bullock, a student intern for UCM and a junior studying geography and East Asian studies, helps Young come up with the weekly topics.
“We’ve talked about power and authority and rights of passage,” Bullock said. “The idea is to get students to talk about their experiences, because one of our core values is that faith builds bridges not walls, so we want to find commonalities not differences.”
Interfaith Impact also has projects the students can partake in, such as interfaith passport, for students who have an interest in learning about different traditions and who want to connect to different communities, said Melissa Wales, executive director at UCM.
“The way the structure works is we invite a representative from a faith community to talk with us about their experiences as a member of that community and what it means to them,” Young said. “It’s a safe space where any question students have can be asked and answered.”
The group then attends a practice specific to that week’s representative to experience it firsthand.
Interfaith Impact often focuses on engaging students with worldly issues on a personal level, Wales said.
“Faith differences can be a barrier, so the group is an opportunity for students to connect with their own identity and talk with others about theirs,” she said. “We recognize the value of religious and non-religious diversity on campus, and we have a pool of resources on campus to take advantage of.”
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If You Go:
What: Interfaith Impact
When: 7:30 p.m. every Thursday
Where: United Campus Ministry lounge, 18 N. College St.
Admission: Free
