By Rory Dulock | Staff Writer
The Christ-Centered Diversity and Belonging Council is holding weekly prayer meetings from noon to 1 p.m. every Friday in Room 322 of the Foster Campus for Business and Innovation.
“We seek to embody Christ’s teachings of love and inclusivity across boundaries of racial, ethnic, gender, socioeconomic, religious and other expressions of human difference,” the diversity and inclusion website reads.
Dr. Cindy Wu, professor of management and associate dean of diversity and belonging at the Hankamer School of Business, said the council was created from a mission for the business school.
“This is a council out of the need of our initiatives for promoting Christ in diversity and inclusion,” Wu said. “When our dean stepped into the position, he came up with the three pillars for the business school, the vision basically for us. And one is impactful research, the second one is innovative and experiential learning and the third one is Christ-centered diversity. So this is one of the three pillars that we’re trying to pursue.”
Wu said the business school can incorporate Christ-centered ideas on diversity, equity and inclusion because of Baylor’s Christian tradition.
“I often tell my prayer meeting attendees that we are doing this behind-the-scenes work, we’re pleading behind the scenes to God,” Wu said. “And then, when we pray together and gather together, the Lord is with us. Jesus is right there with us. So it’s powerful.”
Wu said anyone who wants to join is welcome, including faculty and students of all different departments and majors.
“The objective is to have a gathering place for whoever wants to come,” Wu said. “Bring their burden, lay their burden down and lay their burden at the foot of Christ, but also carry each other’s burden. So talk about belonging — we see this as a big piece of building that community.”
For those who are unable to come to the weekly prayer meeting, Wu said an alternative way to participate is to scan a QR code and put in a prayer request.
“Part of [building a community] is building this prayer request form, that QR code,” Wu said. “If you don’t feel like you want to come, but you do want somebody to hear you and want to know that your concern is prayed for and is addressed, you have a way to send us your prayer request. And it can be anonymous; you don’t need to let us know who you are. But if you choose to, and you want to talk to someone, we will find a person to connect with you.”
Amarillo sophomore Chloe Miller said she started going to the weekly prayer meeting so she could connect with faculty and students.
“It’s just a time to gather and make connections throughout the business school with people who I wouldn’t usually see, professors or staff that I wouldn’t know,” Miller said. “It’s also a good way to end the week, just to focus on what really matters, to focus on God.”
Miller said a typical meeting usually consists of praying over the requests.
“We always start with the prayer requests that are put in through the [Hankamer School of Business] QR code for prayer requests,” Miller said. “We usually use the ACTS way of praying — so adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication — and if we’re not walking around Foster, we just kind of go around the table, and we each pray for a certain prayer request.”
Miller said she encourages faculty and students to come to the weekly prayer meeting because of the community it offers.
“I think it’s a great way to engage with people that you don’t normally see,” Miller said. “We go to a Christian school, so I think it’s really cool to learn from faculty. … It’s really cool to see their commitment to it, and it encourages me as a student to grow up and become more of a servant of Christ.”
