Andrea Summers: Leading in Faith
When Andrea Summers arrived at Indiana Wesleyan University (IWU) as a freshman, she was intent on helping others through a career in the medical field. She was also running from her calling.
“If it wasn’t for IWU calling out my gifts and giving me opportunities to serve in ministry on campus, as well as providing the mentors and professors who really affirmed my call to ministry, I don’t know that I would even be in ministry right now,” Summers explains. “IWU got me to the point where I could accept that I was being called to pastoral ministry.”
While accepting the call to ministry as a young woman in 2000 was intimidating, Summers trusted that the Lord had a plan. The remainder of her undergrad program was a great experience, from meeting and eventually marrying her husband Jeremy to finding dear friends who she remains close with today. Despite her positive experience, when she graduated, she didn’t expect to ever return.
Summers immediately went into pastoral ministry at a Wesleyan Church in Illinois, working as a young adult pastor under the leadership of Senior Pastor John Bray. After serving there for several years, Summers decided to pursue her doctorate.
While still in the midst of her program, she was hired by Southern Wesleyan University and started teaching in their division of religion. This sparked a love for Christian higher ed and college students, but Summers also found herself missing traditional pastoral work.
In 2016, Summers visited the Lausanne Movement Conference for younger leaders in Jakarta, Indonesia. There, in a room full of about 1,500 church leaders from across the globe, Dr. Summers felt God telling her that the next half of her ministry would be focused on fostering spiritual awakening in the next generation. While she had no idea where God might lead her, she had a clear sense of her purpose from then on.
“Campus ministry and IWU weren’t even on my radar, at that point,” Dr. Summers recalls. “But I can see looking back on it how the Lord was preparing the way.”
When the role of dean of chapel opened at Indiana Wesleyan University, Summers was contacted by multiple people suggesting her for the role. To her, it felt like a strong intersection of Christian higher ed and pastoral work, providing the perfect location to embrace the ministry calling the Lord had placed on her heart. Not only would she be returning to the place that first inspired her toward her calling, but she would also be taking over the role from John Bray—the same man who had been there at the beginning of her ministry journey.
When Dr. Summers arrived at IWU and stepped into the role, it was with the context of John and his wife Patty having spent many years there, becoming beloved grandparents of the campus, and leaving Dr. Summers with big shoes to fill.
“He’s a great man and was a great leader in this role,” Dr. Summers says. “He really set me up for success.”
The biggest shift which occurred when she stepped into the role was the title being changed from “dean of chapel” to “campus pastor and dean of spiritual formation.” While a small change in some ways, it was indicative of the role’s constant expansion to encompass more than the traditional thrice-weekly chapel services.
Three chapel services a week was already a sizable undertaking, but Summers had the desire to create new spiritual formation pathways for students.
“We have students coming to us from so many walks of life, at so many places in their spiritual journey, and we want to offer something for all of them so they can grow spiritually,” Summers explains. “For some of them, that’s chapel. For others, the thing that’s really going to help them lean in is a small group or faith integration group or something like that. So that was a shift toward a more holistic approach to spiritual formation.”
For Dr. Summers, pastoring a campus with thousands of people on it—from students to staff and faculty—is a challenge wholly different from any other role she’s held. She enjoys thinking about spiritual formation on both the individual and community level, both because of the way it allows her to reach so many individuals and because it allows her to highlight their voices.
“I preach every couple of weeks, which is a nice rhythm for me, because I love being a door opener for other people and elevating their voices,” Dr. Summers says. “We have faculty who are incredible communicators, experts in their field, and passionate about the Lord. I get to preach, but I also get to be a door opener and introduce these students who I love to people involved in faithful ministry across both our campus and world.”
Additionally, there’s an administrative layer to Dr. Summers’ job, which is simply part of being at a higher ed institution, and yet she makes it a priority to be as accessible as possible.
“If my schedule ever becomes too busy for me to meet with a student who reaches out, then I need to do some reprioritizing,” Summers shares.
Five years into the role, Dr. Summers believes change is still occurring, partially because of the nature of higher education as a whole and partially because of the nature of people.
“I came here in the middle of COVID, and so the first few years were pretty tumultuous with that. I thought, ‘Well, eventually this will even out,’ and it still hasn't. There's just continual transition all the time. Some of that is just the nature of Christian higher ed and the nature of the world around us. Some of it is also just the transition IWU has had in recent years, and while I love that, because I like change, it is also a challenge sometimes,” Summers says.
Yet, while things are constantly changing and while it might not be possible to create one-size-fits-all solutions to every challenge, Dr. Summers believes that things are in a good place overall and growth is happening continually.
“I also think I’ve learned more about prayer, discernment, and listening to the Holy Spirit from praying with students and discerning with them. I feel like I have encountered the presence of God in such tangible ways in and through their lives,” Dr. Summers says.
Dr. Summers is currently engaged in the Presence worship conference, occurring March 20-22 and featuring over 100 worship leaders. Organized by Campus Worship Pastor Josh Lavender, Presence features a mixture of alumni and external individuals gathering, speaking, and helping to lead worship together. For Dr. Summers, it’s an exciting new opportunity for spiritual formation among the IWU community which she hopes will become an annual event. Learn more about Presence by visiting newroomconference.com/presence.
