Baylor chaplain offers pastoral care to campus community

Posted: 9/30/05

Baylor chaplain offers pastoral
care to campus community

By Terri Jo Ryan

Special to the Standard

WACO–The toot-toot of a motor-scooter horn raised a chorus of murmers and chuckles from the thousands of Baylor University students who attended chapel the first day of classes this fall.

“I couldn't find any parking!” interim university Chaplain Byron Weathersbee announced.

Weathersbee saw his unconventional arrival in chapel as a visually arresting way to introduce himself to the students for whose spiritual welfare he has charge–at least until the next semester.

“Hang on for the ride of your life,” he told the predominantly freshman class. Weathersbee, 42-year-old co-founder and president of Legacy Family Ministries, could be speaking to himself as well.

The 1985 Baylor graduate, who will provide pastoral care to the university community at-large, comes into his new position at a time of great transitions on campus.

Interim university President Bill Underwood named him to lead university ministries, which has the mission of spiritual development of students through resident chaplains, discipline-specific mission opportunities and the sports chaplain program.

Interim student life Vice President Dub Oliver described Weathersbee as a committed Christian known for excellent ministry.

Randall O'Brien, interim provost and vice president for academic affairs, lauded him as “a gifted leader, a caring person and a passionate visionary of the place of Jesus Christ in the lives of young people, and all people, in our world today.”

Weathersbee just hopes he touches students where they are on their faith journeys. Since chapel attendance is required, he acknowledges it can be a tough audience.

So, he told his charges in the introductory chapel service that with the stresses inherent in their first year, the class-load and the roommate relations, he hoped chapel will become “a refuge in the hectic craziness, a place to get recentered, to gain perspective on who you are and who the Lord is.”

Even at an “unapologetically Christian university” such as Baylor, students can pursue power, prestige and possessions, he said. But as the writer of Ecclesiastes observed, these are “meaningless, meaningless” without a relationship with the divine, he added.

Weathersbee calls chapel–the twice-weekly 45-minute devotionals with contemporary Christian music and guest speakers from a variety of Christian traditions–a “Sabbath moment” students should seize to power down and reboot.

“We all need these 'pull away times' to re-assess who we are and where we are going. This is a time of inquiry in their lives, and we want to help them navigate that tricky terrain,” he said.

He considers it a privilege and a sacred duty to step into the role of interim chaplain.

“One of Baylor's greatest assets is its commitment to the spiritual development of students, and I look forward to the challenges ahead. I am honored to work with one of Baylor's oldest traditions,” he said.

“We want chapel to be so good that you are there every time. We know we've hit a home run if people come to chapel and they are not even enrolled in chapel.”

To build suspense and increase anticipation, Weathersbee said he will only release one month of the chapel schedule at a time.

Weathersbee was ordained to the ministry in 1985 at First Baptist Church of Gatesville. Following his Baylor graduation, he earned a master's degree in religious education from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and his doctorate of education degree in leadership from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

His took his first church staff position in 1983 as a youth intern at First Baptist Church in Bartlesville, Okla. He also served as minister of youth and recreation at First Baptist Church in Gatesville and Immanuel Baptist Church in Temple; minister of students and family life center director at Southern Hills Baptist Church in Tulsa, Okla.; and minister of youth at Columbus Avenue Baptist Church in Waco.

In 1995, Weathersbee became associate pastor at Waco's University Baptist Church about six months after its founding by Chris Seay and David Crowder. At the innovative church that targeted a younger generation and grew to nearly 1,000 worship participants in its first year, he organized and implemented spiritual-growth groups and trained small-group leaders.

That same year, Weathersbee and his wife, Carla, founded Legacy Family Ministries, a nonprofit organization that does relationship development with students, marriage preparation courses for engaged couples and family camp weekends.

He also has taught recreation/wellness and graduate sports ethics courses the past five years as a part-time lecturer in Baylor's department of health, human performance and recreation.

He was recruited by his predecessor, Todd Lake, as a part-time sports chaplain at Baylor in June 2003 and still is responsible for recruiting, training and coordinating volunteer sports chaplains for each of university's athletic teams. For the past decade, he has been the volunteer chaplain for the Baylor baseball team.

The Weathersbees have three children: Bo, 18; Brittney, 16; and Casey, 12. They are members of Columbus Avenue Baptist Church, where Weathersbee currently serves on the church's pastor-search committee.