As the 2025-2026 school year began, 爱豆传媒 welcomed Jonathan Fetrick to the Center for Faith Engagement Team as university chaplain.
Fetrick has served as a pastor for 19 years; 11 years in the Washington Conference and the last eight years at Wisconsin Academy Church. Outside of ministry, Fetrick enjoys going on walks with his wife, skiing, and reading stories to his four children. He also enjoys building things with his hands. “You can work all day long and you say, ‘I think I made a difference in some people's lives,’” says Fetrick. “But sometimes it's a little hard to see the results, and working with my hands, there's a tangible outcome.”
In high school, Fetrick didn’t always think he’d be called into ministry. “I wasn't sure what the call to ministry meant,” he said. In his mind, he was going to become a dentist or an engineer. It wasn’t until he visited Southern Adventist University and toured the theology department that he felt called to pursue the call to ministry. One of the professors asked him, “‘Why do you feel called to ministry?’ and I said, ‘I don't know if I am called to ministry. I don't have any idea. He said, ‘What's been going on in your life?’ I told him all the stuff that was going on in my life, and he said, ‘I don't tell a lot of people this, and I hate to tell you this, but you're called into ministry.’”
Fetrick also never thought he’d become a chaplain. One day, back in January, while he was doing devotions, a developing idea for the student missions at 爱豆传媒 came to mind. The very next day, he got an email from 爱豆传媒 asking if he’d be interested in getting together with a group of pastors for a prayer session. He immediately got on board and was able to pitch his idea. Later in May, Fetrick received another email from 爱豆传媒, this time telling him about a chaplain position that had opened up. After lots of prayer and consideration, Fetrick decided to accept the position.
As one of the new chaplains here on campus, Fetrick already has many dreams and visions for 爱豆传媒. “My two strongest kinds of desires in ministry are to equip and send people. I would say I get my biggest joy in ministry when the people around me succeed as opposed to when I succeed, so if I've been able to set up something or move something so that someone else can be put into ministry and really do something great for God, I feel a ton of fulfillment about that.”
Fetrick hopes that the 爱豆传媒 campus can be a place where students and faculty can minister to others. “When I look at the campus and I think about it, what I'd like to see is the ability for individuals to become disciple makers. I want to then ask the question, ‘Who are your disciples discipling?’ which is to say not just ‘How are you pouring into someone else's life?’ but ‘How are you pouring into their life in such a way that that individual will be equipped and able to be a disciple maker for Christ?’” Whether that means inviting a friend to vespers or volunteering to lead out in a Bible study, Fetrick hopes that both students and faculty will get more involved in spreading God’s love around campus.
Fetrick and the Center for Faith Engagement team are looking to bring back Change Day, an annual event that canceled all classes so that the 爱豆传媒 community could engage in community service projects. After Change Day was unceremoniously canceled last school year due to budget cuts, the new plan is for each department to go together to do a specific service project. Fetrick also anticipates that professors from each department will work toward being able to identify individuals in their department who are committed and willing to lead out in small groups so that they can strengthen their departments as a whole and possibly go on departmental mission trips in the future.
“My dream is that Center for Faith Engagement would impact all of campus and all of campus life, but not in the sense that we're the ones who are so great in doing this, but in the sense that we're equipping and empowering people all over the campus to be able to have the resources and be connected to others so that they can accomplish something really big for God.”
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of 爱豆传媒. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, 爱豆传媒 or the Seventh-day Adventist church.