The Rev. Amy S. Klinkovsky, campus minister for UCM in Aggieland, is a member of the Fighting Texas Aggie Class of 1995. She journeyed to Los Angeles in 2008 to attend San Francisco Theological Seminary, dabble a bit in the entertainment industry, and serve as a director for youth and young adult ministries at Brentwood Presbyterian Church. Upon earning her master’s degree in 2012, Amy K. was ordained to a ministry among the religiously unaffiliated in West Los Angeles. She returned to Texas in 2016 and began serving UCM in Aggieland—the official campus ministry at Texas A&M University and Blinn College for local churches in the Disciples of Christ, Presbyterian Church (USA) and United Church of Christ denominations.
Sally Kate Humphries joined UCM in Aggieland in 2018 and serves as a the director of UCM for both Texas A&M and Blinn College. The ministry at Blinn College in Brenham is a shared ministry with our friends at Treehouse (ELCA) and Canterbury (Episcopal). When Sally Kate is not hanging out with college students, her four-legged pal Apollo, or training for marathons, she can be most often found chilling with her family while watching her spouse build a plane. Sally Kate graduated from Austin College in 2015.
Legacy
United Campus Ministry in Aggieland is the campus ministry of the Disciples of Christ, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and United Church of Christ. UCM seeks to be a Christ-centered, welcoming, ecumenical community. Since 1928, United Campus Ministry has offered Christian fellowship at Texas A&M with opportunities available for spiritual growth, encouraging students to discover and express their gifts and talents.
We are an inclusive, open, and affirming fellowship. Believing the Holy Spirit infuses the educational community with a vision of the redeemed world, UCM strives to honor diversity of thought, faith, and practice through authentic, growing relationships with God, neighbor, and self.
What makes us unique?
We are the only ecumenical Christian group on campus. “Ecumenical” is simply a biblically based word (from the Greek ‘oikumene’) for an understanding that diversity of belief is the beautiful handiwork of God and that our quest for unity among these diverse beliefs is the will of God. We are a group of churches that hold to particular beliefs but are committed to understanding the light of truth that others can help us see. Like the early Christian leader known as St. Augustine, we proclaim “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things love.” Being an ecumenical Christian group, we offer the right hand of Christian fellowship to Christians of various creeds and no creed. Admittedly, many of our students and leadership hold to and teach classical Reformed theology. However, we do not demand adherence to these beliefs.
We embrace Christian Unity and Freedom of Religious Expression
We support Texas A&M as a public university setting where religious diversity, dialogue and mutual understanding are cultivated and a climate of religious uniformity and dogmatic exclusion is soundly rejected. We stand in solidarity with the policies of Texas A&M University in the right of groups and individuals to hold the beliefs they wish without fear of manipulation or coercion. We believe in Jesus’s prayer “that they may all be one” and strive toward that goal.
Our Principle Identities
UCM is an inclusive outreach to the Texas A&M University and Blinn College-Bryan campuses. We accomplish this through an ecumenical partnership of two Reformed/Revivalist denominations; the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the United Church of Christ.
We are Reformed in that our supporting churches and our theological assumptions have their history in the Reformed theology which evolved during the 16th century religious movement known as the Protestant Reformation. It emphasizes God’s authorship over all of life and humanity’s chief purpose as being to glorify and enjoy God forever.
We continue to be ecumenical in nature which means we take seriously Jesus’ prayer, “that they may all be one.” We believe that we learn more about what it means to be Christian by talking through our differences and seeking unity amidst those differences rather than dwelling upon or making light of them.
We strive to be inclusive as we welcome all persons into our fellowship. Seeking to follow Jesus’ own example of welcoming the stranger, we believe that each person has an important role to play as part of this community of disciples openly seeking the Way of Christ together.
We also seek to share the hope of Jesus Christ with a profound sense of gratitude for what God has done with and for us. At United Campus Ministry, our approach to outreach is simply as “one beggar showing another beggar where to find bread for the journey.”
