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New campus missioner named

By Melodie Woerman
Editor, The Harvest

	The Rev. Craig Loya

The first of two people set to lead an innovative model for campus ministry in the diocese has been hired by Bishop Dean Wolfe. The Rev. Craig Loya, 29, has been named Campus Missioner, with his ministry in the diocese to begin Jan. 15.

Bishop Wolfe said, “I believe Craig will be a substantial addition to the diocesan staff. He is an outstanding young priest who has a passion for ministry with and to young adults. Of the many fine candidates we met, Craig grasped the innovative model for campus ministry we envision. He is enthusiastic about building a model here in Kansas that we believe will be useful to dioceses across the church.”

Loya will have primary responsibility for ministry at Kansas State University in Manhattan with special oversight of the new peer ministry program set to begin there. He also will share responsibility with a second campus missioner for establishing ministry on university campuses throughout the diocese without an active Episcopal presence.

Loya currently is serving as interim for two small parishes in the Diocese of Massachusetts. He also has been an interim assistant at a larger urban parish in Massachusetts, and he served four mission congregations on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. He was ordained by the Bishop of South Dakota in 2003.

Loya is a graduate of Hastings College in Hastings, Neb., and Berkeley Divinity School at Yale in Connecticut.

While in seminary he met his wife, Melissa Tubbs Loya. Both are natives of Nebraska — he grew up in North Platte and she in Lincoln. He joked that when they finally met in class, Melissa said, “Oh, you’re the other person with a Nebraska license plate in the parking lot.”

Faith grew on campus
Loya said his passion for ministry with college students comes in part from his own experience. He became an Episcopalian while in college after having grown up nominally Lutheran.

“I have always felt a call to campus ministry,” he said. “I am a Christian and priest because of my experience as a student at Hastings College and the relationship with my peers and the chaplain. It was so important in my own formation and my own sense of vocation.”

Loya said the new way the Diocese of Kansas is looking at working with college students is the right approach. “It’s the right questions for the church to be asking — how to build community, how to train leaders.”

He noted the particulars of his work will evolve as the new approach gets underway and will involve collaboration with the second Campus Missioner once that person is in the field, too.

“A lot is still up in the air,” Loya said, “but we will be doing something that hasn’t been done before. A lot of what we will be doing will be local ministry development but with the campus as the local ministry.

“The emphasis is on mission, not chaplaincy, on doing ministry that sustains itself. We will be equipping students to create Christian community themselves and creating future leaders for the church, lay and ordained.”

Loya said he and Melissa are very excited to be returning to the Midwest to be closer to their families. He said he was thrilled to be joining a diocese with so much potential. “Bishop Wolfe has real vision for the diocese and is a great leader,” he said.

Soccer fanatic
He said a move to Kansas means he can root for his favorite boyhood baseball team but noted, “I may be one of the few people in the country really looking forward to being a Kansas City Royals fan again.”

He describes himself as a “soccer fanatic,” with season tickets to the New England Revolution of Major League Soccer. He said he would enjoy watching the Kansas City Wizards play.

The couple’s dog, Abe, a Collie mix, will join the couple in their move.