Myles Olenski and Anna Webb

Transcript

Derek Smith:

Hello and welcome to Baylor Connections, a conversation series with the people shaping our future. Each week we go in depth with Baylor leaders, professors, and more discussing important topics in higher education, research and student life. I'm Derek Smith, and today we're discussing Vertical Ministries. Vertical Ministries has served Baylor students For 15 years this year. A non-denominational student-led ministry, Vertical meets every Monday night at 9:00 P.M. on campus with services and more to challenge students to pursue an authentic relationship with God. We're joined today by Myles Olenski and Anna Webb of Vertical Ministries. Myles Serves as the executive director and Anna as associate director of Vertical Ministries. Both are Baylor graduates and we're excited to have them on the program today. Happy birthday, I guess, we'll start off by saying to Vertical Ministries, and Myles and Anna, thanks so much to both of you for joining us today.

Myles Olenski:

Derek, thank you so much for having us on. It is such a fun gift to get to have this conversation with you.

Anna Webb:

Yeah. We're super grateful to be here and just talk about what God is doing on Baylor's campus.

Derek Smith:

Well, we're excited to dive into that, a neat relationship that the Baylor and Vertical Ministries have and great work being done, and we'll really dive into that over our next 20 minutes or so. And I want to ask both of you this, Myles, I'll start with you. I'll just start by saying Monday nights, Monday nights at Baylor, what comes to mind first for you when you just think about Mondays here at Baylor, which is the night Vertical Ministries serves students, we should mention.

Myles Olenski:

Right. Yes. Vertical meets Mondays at 9:00, 9:00 P.M. It's late. It is a young man's game. I have to drink a coffee or a Celsius every single week, but it is a weekly Bible study that meets on the campus at Baylor University. That is who we are at our core. We are a worship night and Bible study that meets each and every Monday night.

Anna Webb:

And I think when you walk into that space, two words that we hear over and over again from students is that there's just an eagerness and an enthusiasm by students, and that's what keeps them coming back every single week is it's a space where they can see their peers authentically and eagerly and enthusiastically pursuing a relationship with God.

Derek Smith:

Well, and they've been doing that for a long time and a lot of different places on campus and it's exciting to see. And to dive into this a little bit further, and Myles, I'll go back to you again first. I gave a very brief description of Vertical Ministries at the top of the program. I'd love to have each of you take us a little further inside and tell us more about how you would describe it if maybe you were talking to someone from another institution and they asked you what it's all about.

Myles Olenski:

Yeah, absolutely. So like I said, we're a weekly Bible study that meets each and every Monday night, and really our goal is to introduce students to Jesus and inspire them to follow him. So we want to be a place that reaches our campus for the gospel. We want to create time and space for students to encounter the living God and to respond to him and be changed by him. We truly believe that college students surrender to the Lord can change the trajectory of their life. So that is what we're trying to do. What we want to be all about is helping create time and space for students to be introduced to Jesus and then respond to him and live with them for the rest of their lives.

Anna Webb:

And I would say that this can happen anywhere, and it does happen in a lot of places at A&M with things like breakaway and different places across the country that there isn't anything that necessarily makes Vertical special or unique, that it is just a group of students who 15 years ago raise their hand and say, "Hey, I want to impact my campus for the gospel," and then there's just been a legacy of students who year after year pick up that mantle and continue to invest in their campus in its basic form what scripture calls us to, which is to learn from the scriptures together and to be together in community and fellowship and to worship alongside one another.

Derek Smith:

Well, and Anna, you mentioned we talked about the fact, again, it is the 15th anniversary of Vertical Ministries. We know when it started, but how did it start? For either one of you, how did it start and how has it grown from then to now?

Anna Webb:

Yeah, absolutely. So Vertical started in 2009, and so yeah, here in 2024, 2025 we're celebrating our 15th anniversary, which is really special. And when you talk to our founders and those people who were there in the early days, they said, "Man, we can't believe that this thing is still going," because it was just a group of friends, a group of college students who started to gather in first a living room and then a parking garage praying together and saying, "Hey, how can we impact our campus for the sake of the gospel?" And so yeah, it started in that living room and grew to a parking garage and eventually found its way to the Hippodrome in downtown Waco where that first night they kicked off a worship gathering and a thousand students showed up and they said, "Hey, I guess there's something to this. I guess that the Lord is in this."

And so since then, Vertical really has just served as this bridge and unifier for the student body at Baylor that regardless of what your denominational background is, regardless of what student organizations you're a part of or major you belong to. That is a space where any and every student on campus can come and worship together as the student body. And so we've seen the Lord do a lot of things in the last 15 years, but I think the greatest thing has just been seeing generation after generation of students continue to rise up and say, "Hey, I want to not just continue to make Vertical happen, but continue to advance the gospel on Baylor's campus."

Myles Olenski:

Yeah. I wouldn't add much. That really was a great description, but it is fun to see how the Lord used a group of friends who just started gathering in a living room who invited more people and had to move to a parking garage and then move to the Hippodrome and see that that's just continued and it's still just been a group of students who have wanted to reach their campus for the gospel that has continued, that has been consistent from 2009 to 2025. That is still the call of our students who are a part of us and leading with us. So the name Vertical, man, I wish I could call one of our co-founders, Carter Hopkins, and just ask him what other names were in the running, but I know they settled on Vertical because they deeply desired Baylor students to have a vertical relationship with Lord, and that when we have a vertical relationship with God, our horizontal relationships make a lot more sense and we can let people well because we have been loved by God.

Derek Smith:

We are visiting with Myles Olenski and Anna Webb from Vertical Ministries today, celebrating 15 years on the Baylor campus. Again, Myles, you mentioned obviously there's a Bible study worship on Monday nights and it's grown in a lot of ways over the years. I'm curious, what are some of the ways that when those services are not taking place during the week that you all serve in the roles you're in and the ways you continue to minister to Baylor students for the other six plus days of the week when the service is not happening?

Myles Olenski:

Answer might surprise you, we don't do much and that's because we are a Monday night Bible study. That is who we are and we aren't a church and we don't want to replace the church. Something we say all the time at Vertical is that we are a supplement to the church. We are not a substitute to the church. So that's why you'll never find us having Vertical small groups throughout the week. You'll never find a Vertical small group meeting in the sub because we deeply desire for college students to find that community and discipleship within the context of the local church. We do have around 70 to a hundred college volunteers that volunteer with us each and every semester or year, and those are the ones that we go deeper with throughout the year. So we meet with some of our teams, our leadership teams each week, and then we'll host a couple volunteer events throughout the semester to encourage them and equip them so that they can go and be effective ministers of the gospel on this campus to their peers. But yes, surprisingly, you will not find much outside of us hanging out with our volunteers pouring into them and equipping them so that they can go and change their campus for the gospel.

Derek Smith:

Well, and that makes sense because I noticed on the website you really talk about that relationship not wanting to supplant the local churches, you said, and I noticed you even have resources on your website to help students, so it sounds like obviously students have a lot of great resources to find a local church. I know Baylor offers that, but it sounds like that's key to you all as well if they don't have a home church is helping them find one.

Myles Olenski:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's a part of our mission statement. So we exist to ignite passion in college students for Jesus Christ, his church and his mission around the world, so we just deeply believe in the local church and we have amazing partners here in Waco. We're so thankful for our friends who are on mission with us, that we are serving on the same team. We have the same mission that there is just a beautiful unity here in Waco among us ministers.

Derek Smith:

I'm curious, so if we show up on Monday night, obviously students are there. You have the hundreds, thousands of students who show up. Do non-students attend? Like if someone older like me showed up, would we see others? Are there faculty involved? Who all is a part of this, Anna?

Anna Webb:

Yeah, absolutely. There is such a variety of people who are involved from the students, and so we would say that Vertical isn't just for Baylor students, although it happens on the campus of Baylor University. We have students that join us from MCC and TDSTC who maybe just grew up in Waco and are working a job, but they have found, "Hey, this is a place that I can belong and experience community and connection, and I'm somewhere in the age range of 18 to 23." And so just a few weeks ago I was talking to one of those girls who goes to MCC and says, "Hey, I'm so grateful that I have found this space." And so on the student side, non-Baylor students attend, but then also, yeah, there is involvement. We are a student organization through the university, and so just like everyone else we have faculty advisors. And so Dr. Blair Browning, who I believe you guys had on this podcast not too long ago, has been a faithful advisor for Vertical really almost since the beginning, and so there is just support from the faculty and the administration that we really appreciate.

Derek Smith:

What does it mean to you both? I know you both are Baylor graduates, and Myles, I'll start with you. It's a student organization, student-led, but you get to pour into this in some different ways. What does it mean to you to get to walk alongside some of the students who are in the same spots you both were when you were on campus?

Myles Olenski:

Yeah. Exactly. It's really humbling. It is. You can't tell me I don't serve a good God in the sense that now I get to be back on my college campus, my alma mater serving students who are walking on the same campus that I was, sitting in the same classrooms, taking the same classes, sitting in the same exact seats. It's really surreal. I get goosebumps all the time and I have to pinch myself that the Lord has allowed me to do this, but it is really, really fun. It's the greatest adventure of a lifetime to get to do it. There is no greater joy than walking alongside a college student as they're making some of the biggest decisions of their life and watching them realize, "I want to move from just knowing about Jesus intellectually to following him intimately," and that is so fun that we get to see that and witness that each and every single week, students choosing to live wholeheartedly for him, surrender their lives to him and no longer make decisions based off of what they want to do, but what he would call them to.

Anna Webb:

Absolutely. It means everything. Baylor in my time in college is where I saw an example of what it looks like to live radically for Jesus, and so to be back on this campus and walking alongside these students and getting to challenge them and encourage them not to just have a faith that is cultural or nominal or social, but a faith that is truly is radical, is super, super sweet. And so when I was at Baylor, I started out as a student athlete and that's why Vertical felt like home for me, because it was the one day a week that I could go and be connected to the student body, that I could walk into that space and feel like I was a student at Baylor just like everyone else, and so to continue to provide those opportunities for students to have a space to encounter God is sweet. And we just firmly believe that when a college student fully surrenders to God in their college years, that it will change the trajectory of their life, and we get to see that happen week after week after week.

Derek Smith:

This is Baylor Connections. We're discussing Vertical Ministries celebrating 15 years of service to Baylor students this year, visiting with Myles Olenski and to Anna Webb today. And you talk about, and I think you've really described encouraging students to pursue authentic vertical relationships with God. Obviously the Bible study, everyone coming together on Monday night is really the tool to do that. What does that mean to you even further, and what are some of the ways you get to try to live out helping them pursue that as you describe it, that authentic passionate relationship, and how does that shape the programming that you all put together as you're visiting with students each Monday?

Myles Olenski:

It's really fun serving in college ministry, because again, you get to see just exponential growth in students where there are some students who come to Vertical who maybe have never really followed Jesus, who are learning, taking first steps in their walk with Jesus and what it means to truly follow him and be his disciple, and after four years now they're helping lead alongside us or they have now gone and served on mission trips with their churches or through BSM to South Padre Island for beach reach over spring break or go to the DR with Harris Creek, and they just come back with so much more confidence and awareness of their giftings and what the Lord has equipped them with, and I think that is just something that we are trying to do is just create a space for students to lead other students on Monday nights, that we are empowering students, giving them ownership of their giftings, of leadership opportunities, and we're just seeing them flourish and rise to the occasion and grow. That's just really, really encouraging as well. So we are always thinking about that on Monday as well, is how can we put students in front of students.

Derek Smith:

How much, being able to work with students on campus and as you equip them as leaders, how much do they in turn shape the messages, the content? I mean, I imagine there's a lot you learn about what students are dealing with from them that you can use to shape some of the messages or to speak to students where they are. Is that fair to say?

Myles Olenski:

Absolutely. Yeah. So we have a student led worship team. So all of the worship on a Monday night is student led, which is really, really fun. There's just a sweet purity and genuineness to the way that they lead because they know when it's test week. They know when it's crazy and busy. They are sitting in the same classrooms as those students, so they know a pulse on campus and can lead really, really well. We also have a team that joins us for sermon prep each and every week, and we get student involvement and feedback in our sermon writing process and planning sermon series of what do college students need to hear, what do they want to know? So students are setting pace and direction of our ministry each and every year. Some of the greatest ideas that come out of or that Vertical is doing has been because of a college student had that idea and they were the ones who voiced it.

Anna Webb:

Absolutely. We'll often say that Vertical is student led and staff supported, and so Myles and I both existed on the student side and in student leadership, and now we exist on the staff side, and so as Myles said, our best ideas and our best initiatives come from those students, and we just get to play the role of helping to champion those as they seek to reach their campus.

Derek Smith:

Visiting with Myles Olenski and Anna Webb of Vertical Ministries here on Baylor Connections, and as I ask you this, I think you've already described some of it. You talk about seeing students come in and grow in confidence in sharing their faith, or maybe they come in at a spot on their faith journey where they're struggling and they grow into leaders in different things. But I want to ask you very specifically, Anna, I'll start with you. What are some of the moments when you're involved with Vertical Ministries and with students that really mean the most to you?

Anna Webb:

I mean, there's so many. We're currently getting to chat with just some students who are interested in volunteering with their team and getting to hear their stories and getting to hear how Vertical has impacted them, and it's those moments. It's the people who say, "Hey, I came into my freshman year and I didn't know where I was going to find a place to belong, and I've found that here." It's the students who came in and said, "Hey, I was around the church growing up, but I didn't really connect in anywhere and Vertical is a place where I realized I wanted to have a relationship with God and make that a part of my life going forward." Or the student that said, "Hey," even yesterday, just, "Vertical is what has encouraged me to spend time in the word each and every day and has taught me how to do it." And so it's those moments of watching students take their first steps and their next steps in their relationship with God, no matter how small or big that might seem, it's a miracle every single time.

Myles Olenski:

Yeah. Absolutely. I would say really similarly. It is success for us when a student can say, "I fell more in love with Jesus because I attended Vertical," or, "I spent time with them." That is what we're hoping for. We don't want to impress them. We don't want to be, "Oh, that was the coolest thing I got to be a part of." "That was the best worship I've ever heard." Because, hey, success for us is when students say, "I fell more in love with Jesus because of my time with them."

Derek Smith:

I want to ask you, as we head into the final few minutes here together, I want to ask you a couple things. One is FM72. It's a great Baylor program that's come back in recent years and it's later this month. I know there's a lot of people involved in that. What role does Vertical Ministries play in FM72?

Anna Webb:

Absolutely. So FM72 was started in 2019 by just a collaboration of campus ministries and college ministries that said, "Hey, we want to work together to reach this campus," and that really is the culture here in Waco, that there isn't a competition between the different ministries and pastors, but it is just an effort of co-laboring to reach our campus, and so FM72 was an outflow of that. It is 72 hours of prayer on Baylor's campus with nightly gatherings where students get to just set aside time to intentionally seek the heart of God at the heart of campus, and we get to just see so many stories come out of that year after year as students surrender to him and hear from him in that space. And so Vertical has had the joy of being a part of that since 2019 as one of those 20 plus organizations that kind of throw in together. I joke with our team all the time that it's the best group project that you'll ever do. It's the biggest group project you'll ever do. We have students involved and I say, "You have to do a lot of group projects while you're in college, and I hope that this is the most fun one that you get to be a part of."

Derek Smith:

Hey, final question for both of you, and Anna, I'll start with you. This year is anniversary number 15 as we've talked about for Vertical. Looking ahead to the next 15, wherever, whoever's a part of it, wherever things grow, what are you most excited about, each of you? Excited or encouraged about when you think of the next 15 years of Vertical.

Anna Webb:

Absolutely. Man, we're just walking each day with open hands, just like that team who started 15 years ago didn't know where vertical was going to be. Today we're in the same spot, so our prayer, just as we've been in year 15 and continue to flow out of it, is just for this campus and for this generation that we know that that group of people, when they gathered in 2009, they were praying that God would do something substantial on Baylor's campus and in their generation. That is our prayer for the current students, that in 2025, God would continue to work on Baylor's campus and he would continue to work in Generation Z, and so we're excited to see what he reveals in that.

Myles Olenski:

Yeah. As I reflect on the past 15 years, I am amazed at how much has changed. The venues, the speakers, the bands, the hairstyles, the fashion, all of those things have changed, and I'm more in awe of the things that have not changed. Our God has not changed. The gospel still saves. Jesus still sits on the throne, and God still wants to use college students. And I think that is what I am most excited about in the next 15 years, is just the faith in us of our God that he's going to continue to show up, he's going to continue to move on this campus. He goes where he's wanted, and I would say that this generation is hungrier for him than I've seen in the past few years, so I'm excited to see how he just continues to move and shows himself faithful to us.

Derek Smith:

That's great. Well, it's exciting work. You all are doing certainly very meaningful work, lasting work, and we're excited to celebrate that today, and as you all celebrate 15 years of Vertical, I'd say happy anniversary. Not just you all, but to everyone who's been a part of that going back over that time, and thank you both for joining us today.

Myles Olenski:

Absolutely. Derek, thank you so much for your time. This was a joy.

Derek Smith:

Thank you both. Myles Olenski and Anna Webb of Vertical Ministries, our guests today on Baylor Connections, I'm Derek Smith. A reminder you can hear this and other programs online, Baylor.edu/Connections, and you can subscribe to the program on iTunes. Thanks for joining us here on Baylor Connections.