Welcome back, everyone!

As I sat in Monday’s chapel, I couldn’t help but notice that “Global Missions Week” has disappeared. In its place, announcements for “World Reach Week” scroll across the screen. Are the two weeks the same? If so, why the name change? To answer this and other questions, I sit down with Stephanie Bernotas from Student Life a few days later.

 “I really don’t know much about… Global Reach Missions Week,” I say, a little embarrassed.

“World Reach Week,” she gently corrects.

“Right…Could you tell me a little about why you decided to change the name?”

 I set my backpack down, expecting a bit of, “Well, we thought it was time for a change. Change is good, you know—that’s why we keep changing the name of our university.” Instead, Stephanie pauses her Spotify playlist and turns her chair towards me, eager to share the story. And it really is a story—about change, yes, but also awareness and love. This is a story about Cairn University carrying on God’s care for people all around the world.

This school has been part of missions since before it was known as Cairn University. Students would arrive at school in the week previous to the spring semester, before classes began, to experience Missions Week—a good time to hear from missionaries around the world and learn about upcoming trips. As students changed, the programs designed to help them also changed. Thus, the Global Missions Week was recently renamed “World Reach Week.”

The goal of the week remains the same – to educate students on upcoming trips and discuss the joys and sorrows of bringing God’s love around the world.

“We still believe that it’s important, and we still try to figure out how we make [it] work for our students in [each] season,” Stephanie says.

The decision to change the name originally came from a discussion about logos. In order to bring more association and connection between Reach Week and the school-planned mission trips the students took, Cairn’s staff decided to create one logo that represents both.

“Then we got into real discussions about some of the places we go to…places that won’t want us to have a logo that [promotes], ‘Hey, we love Jesus. We’re missionaries!’ We wanted to choose words that we could put on a tee shirt and go to the places we go.” From there, Stephanie says, a whole philosophy developed. She notes that part of this decision mirrored one of the reasons why the university name was changed to Cairn.

“But one of [the reasons involved] people’s resumes going into closed countries. That’s kind of the same with World Reach.”

Stephanie thinks back to the meetings beforehand, recalling that there must have been close to 50 names they considered to replace “Global Missions Week.” It is here that she points out with incredible insight that “the word “missionary” has almost a feeling in other cultures of colonization or invader.”

This makes sense to me, as some false Christians use religion as a way to harm other people groups. It’s important to separate those who use religion for their own gain from those who do missions in order to present Christ’s love properly.

“We really wrestled through all of the words because we’re not the saviors of the world, but we know who is,” Stephanie says.

“One of the phrases that we said it couldn’t be was the “West to the Rest.” It can’t be–it’s not America to the nations. It’s not Cairn World Reach because, [though] we’re part of Cairn, we want to partner with other cultures; we want to learn from other cultures, and we want to tear down assumptions. God’s calling upon a diverse worldwide church. God’s not up there saying, ‘How do I make diversity work?’ He chose diversity. The church is diverse–and that’s the beauty of it.”

She tells me about the themes Cairn chose to accompany the World Reach Week that would cycle every 3 years: Discover, Prepare, and Commit.

“We want to wrestle with our own perceptions. So, Discover is a kind of shake-it-up year. [In] Prepare, we’re going to teach skills. How do you share the gospel? Not just sharing your testimony in Youth Group, though that’s important too. But if you’re talking to someone who is Muslim or Buddhist, how do you make that connection in a [way] they can understand? How do you prepare yourself for service? Giving, no matter if you’re called to a classroom in Langhorne or overseas, is still part of the Christian life.

“Commit is a little bit more specific. How do you figure out your role? Year One and Year Two [emphasize] everybody’s role. Year Three is [about figuring] out how God created you, and how to not waste your life.

“I believe that God’s heart for the world is that the world engages with each other, and that he is glorified. He’s been writing a story for his glory since the beginning and we are a very small part of it, but when we are part of it, we trust in his sovereignty, but we also do what he says. He says to go and tell the world.”

It may sound like Cairn retracted their passion for missions, but, “We…feel like we’ve increased our heart it, not muted it. We’ve increased our initiatives towards it or our strategy. This is co-curricular. This is something that faculty are doing in their classrooms. In all [these] places: divinity, social work, ministry center, provost’s office, everywhere, we [stress] that this is who we are, and we need to do it well. Honestly, the day to day might look very similar. We still have World Reach Week, still have a couple of other chapels. We still go on short term trips, but we’ll start connecting [all these aspects of Reach together].

“Maybe you’re called to be a senator. Maybe you are called to corporate America. Maybe you are called to Africa. Maybe you are called to a refugee camp. Maybe you’re called to all of them in different seasons.”  

But the point of Cairn’s Reach goal includes looking past local communities. It’s about going out of the comfort zone, not isolated from the rest of Cairn, but part of it.

“It is about crossing cultural lines is about realizing that we are not the only way. Jesus is the only way. That’s why like we want to go in as learners, especially on these trips….[Other peoples] have beautiful things to offer. They have culture, they have traditions and they have wisdom.

It also includes working together with God’s people.

“God’s calling upon a diverse worldwide church to learn from each other,” Stephanie concludes, “and engage in this kingdom-building together.”