Indiana Wesleyan University’s campus pastor, Andrea Summers, began her spiritual journey in West Africa and is planning a vision for IWU’s spiritual formation.
Summers said she grew up in a Christian home in Sierra Leone, West Africa. At seven years old, her family experienced a bad car accident. Summers said she found Christ after her mom’s back was miraculously healed.
“I prayed to receive Christ for the first time at a worship service right after that accident happened,” Summers said.
Summers said she remembers her dad sharing about the ways God provided for their family by sending the right person at the right time.
“Seeing God’s provision and his faithfulness…it just sent me to the cross,” she said.
Summers started as a pre-med undergraduate student at IWU and accepted her call to ministry during her senior year.
“I realized that God had been calling me into vocational ministry from a pretty young age, but I just was running away from that.”
Summers began working as the campus pastor and dean of spiritual formation at IWU in 2020.
“When this position came open at Indiana Wesleyan, I was like, ‘Oh my goodness,’ this was the intersection of all the things I love the most: college students, academic setting, pastoral ministry and my alma mater.”
Emily Robbins, spiritual formation office coordinator, works alongside Summers. She said Summers is a down-to-earth individual who sees others. Robbins said Summers’ long-term vision for campus is spiritual revival.
“I believe that God is using Gen Z to bring a kind of spiritual renewal and spiritual awakening to the church, the global church,” Summers said.
Summer’s short-term goals for IWU are community engagement, global involvement, prayer and discipleship through small groups.
“I think (Summers) is really hungry to see discipleship on our campus become fruitful,” Reed Hall chaplain Hannah Woods said. “Implementing small groups was the best thing that she could have ever done. I think so much transformation happens in small community…scientific studies prove that, and so I think she has been such a pioneer for that on our campus, and she has been the visionary.”
Summers said she worked together with countless students and faculty to launch the discipleship groups. At IWU, 65-70% of students are engaged in small groups on campus.
“There will be an invitation over the next year to step into small groups, like soul conversations, where there’s another added layer of depth,” Summers said.
Summers said that in addition to making small groups accessible to students, she also desires to make herself available.
“If a student ever reaches out to me and they want to meet, I’ll make it work…I love connecting with students,” Summers said.
