Lutheran Campus Ministry of Winona Inc

Working TOGETHER. LIVING through FAITH. Taking ACTION in our world.

Home is the word students  and alums use to describe the LCC. In my twelve years serving the LCC as Pastor, I cannot tell you how many times I have heard that sentiment. One of the most compelling uses of the description came over a year ago from a student who didn’t grow up going to church. In fact, he’d only been to a church a couple times before he moved to Winona from Pennsylvania. During his first week of college, he happened upon the coffee shop we shared space with and picked up a bookmark with information about dinner and worship. He took it as a sign to show up the next week. After a year of being with the LCC, a friend asked why he “bothered with this God stuff.” Alex replied, “I feel loved.” The friend pressed further, pointing out that he was loved by friends and family. “So why the LCC?” Our student said: “This is the only place where I can be myself without having to earn my worth.” We are bombarded by messages, daily, that try to convince us that our worth is conditional, therefore needing to be earned. As Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber once preached, “My soul can never feel its worth if it has to earn it.” The LCC is a place- a home- where souls feel their worth held in God’s grace.

When our LCC home burned on October 1, 2024, we were devastated. Since the fire, we have come to understand in a deeper way how perfect our location is, being directly across the street from Winona State University, “easy for people to spot and turn to in good times or bad” (Alumna Mariah (Hoyt) Anderson). We have looked for other places to gather, and none of them fit so well as the LCC— the location, the partnership with the coffee shop, the welcoming, open kitchen, the large table that has held books, laptops, notes, scones, soups, and Tootsie Rolls, the chalkboard wall filled with messages of community, justice, belovedness, and God’s grace, my office where students can simply come right in and seek a listening ear, a word of encouragement, pastoral care, a place of welcome. The canopy outside announces to foot-traffic: “This is the Lutheran Campus Center!” The rainbow flags that hang in the windows proclaim: “All are welcome here, and all are loved!” Plus, a coffee shop is a college student magnet!

Immediately following the fire, we were given space at Winona State University and Central Lutheran Church. While we are so grateful for their generosity, there are challenges as well. Some of our students with backgrounds of religious trauma find it difficult to enter a church building. Our students from Saint Mary’s University found it cumbersome and difficult to navigate another campus, having to wait outside locked doors before they could come into a building at WSU. Mallory, a SMU student, was a strong leader before the fire; she wrote: “The LCC was a place where everyone could go and be their truest, most authentic selves. But on the WSU campus, that wasn’t the case. I couldn’t freely access the space as a non-WSU student, which eventually led me to stop attending Sunday dinner and worship… Right after the fire, Pastor Corrine preached that it wasn’t about the building, but about the people in the building and the connections we share. But I’ve begun to think that this is not entirely true. The building was an integral part of the connection. It was where our community gathered. It was a member in our community.”

Our beloved building on the corner of Huff and 9th Street in Winona truly, as Alex described it, was a sanctuary. “I've called it a second home, but even that doesn't quite feel right. It's a sanctuary. That building is, and was, a manifestation of all of the love felt there. All of the love put into it.” It was a holy, unintimidating, and warm, welcome space for all. 

There is, of course, new life that comes out of ashes. We have an opportunity to reevaluate what campus ministry looks like now. We have decided to rebuild, because we believe God is not done with the LCC in Winona. We are rebuilding out of our values of faith, community, inclusivity, relationship, justice, and hesed, the Hebrew word for “loving-kindness.” We are doubling down on our theological commitments of grace, radical hospitality, and God’s wide welcome. We are rebuilding, because it is clear from many people— students, alums, Board members, community members, faculty and staff, faith leaders, congregations, WELCAs, and other friends of the LCC— that our presence matters. As alumna Mariah (Hoyt) Anderson put it: “The Lutheran Campus Center is a vital life source for Winona.”

Please join us in this exciting time of rebuilding and returning to our home- restored!