University of Virginia

Remembering Robert Finley – ��ñ��’s First Evangelist

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 23:22:48 +0000

Gordon Govier

Remembering Robert Finley – ��ñ��’s First Evangelist

Robert Finley was hired straight out of college in 1945 by C. Stacey Woods, the founder of ��ñ��. During this formative period for a number of evangelical ministries, Finley met and worked with many other pioneers as they followed God’s call to spread the gospel message across the U.S. and around the world in the post-World War II era.

Finley died at his home in Charlottesville, Virginia, on March 22, 2019. He was 96 years old.

Finley came to the attention of the leaders of ��ñ�� and Youth for Christ by planting and leading a Christian fellowship on the University of Virginia (UVa) campus in Charlottesville, beginning as a freshman in 1941. He also became known as a Christian athlete who used his athletic accomplishments as a platform to share the gospel. Finley was undefeated for two years as a member of the UVa varsity boxing team, and in 1944 he was the inter-collegiate middleweight boxing champion. He was also elected student body president.

The University of Virginia Christian fellowship grew to over 50 students during Finley’s years. When Woods visited Charlottesville, he told Finley that Virginia had the largest Christian fellowship group he had ever seen develop spontaneously at a secular university.

Finley began to receive speaking invitations while still a student, and one in particular changed his life. A telegram from Chicago invited him to come and give his testimony at a Youth for Christ rally. A crowd of 25,000 was anticipated at the Chicago stadium.

Even though this was the same day as his graduation ceremony in Virginia, he decided to go to Chicago. On the platform he sat between singer George Beverly Shea and Dr. Harry Ironside, pastor of The Moody Church. Afterward he was besieged by pastors and ministry leaders, inviting him to speaking appearances.

Two organizations offered him the opportunity to be a traveling evangelist and he accepted both offers. During the week he would work for ��ñ�� on college campuses, and on the weekends he would speak at Youth for Christ rallies.

Finley was constantly on the road, traveling across the Midwest by bus and by train. On Memorial Day 1946, he gave his testimony before a crowd of 75,000 at a Youth for Christ rally in Memorial Stadium in Chicago. Another speaker that day was the young pastor of a local church; his name was Billy Graham.

A lifelong friendship between the two evangelists began. A few months later, when Finley decided he needed to buy a car to begin ministry on the west coast, Graham sold him his used 1942 Pontiac for $1,300.

During his many campus visits Finley became increasingly aware of the growing number of international students studying at U.S. colleges, some of whom he was able to lead to faith in Jesus. Later in 1946, he felt led by God to enroll at the University of Chicago for graduate study in church history. He took the opportunity to move to the International House on campus where up to 500 students from 100 different countries lived.

At every meal in the cafeteria, he would pray and ask God to lead him to a table where he could converse with students about God. His already growing interest in foreign missions was stirred by this unique opportunity to become a foreign missionary without leaving the U.S. Despite his best efforts, ��ñ�� did not begin specific ministry to international students until many years later.

The following year, 1947-1948, he returned to itinerant campus ministry with ��ñ��. At a missions conference for international students that he attended in Colorado, and at subsequent Youth for Christ and ��ñ��-related conferences in Switzerland, his passion for reaching international students was further stirred. But he spent the next several years traveling internationally as a missionary evangelist.

In his autobiography, Apostolic Adventures, Finley tells the story of his 1949 return from overseas ministry on a flight through Hawaii. He had cabled ��ñ��’s Gwen Wong that he would be available for ministry. She met him at the airport with an official welcome from a chorus of students and a full schedule for the next week. “She had arranged for me to stay with Christian families every night, speak for student groups every day, at Youth for Christ Saturday night, and three churches on Sunday,” he wrote.

Traveling in Korea in 1950, Finley was in frequent contact with Stacey Woods who referred to him as an ambassador for the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES). He found Christian fellowship groups abounded in every department of every college and university. Woods instructed him to help these groups affiliate with IFES.

Finley resisted, not wanting them to risk unneeded persecution for being affiliated with a foreign organization as Communism was growing in influence. War broke out and Finley returned to the U.S., but he was unable to patch his relationship with Woods and left ��ñ�� for the final time.

In 1953 Finley founded two mission organizations which today continue his legacy. International Students Incorporated, now based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, has staff and volunteers sharing Christ’s love with international students in college communities across the United State. Christian Aid Mission, located in Charlottesville, Virginia, supports indigenous evangelistic ministries in countries all over the world, some of which are closed to Western missionaries.

Photo: Robert Finley and Gwen Wong in Hawaii, 1949.

News Keywords

Evangelism

University of Virginia

International students

Bringing New Life to Every Corner of Every Campus

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 13:22:12 +0000

Press Room

Bringing New Life to Every Corner of Every Campus

(Madison, WI) -- ��ñ��’s ministry vision includes not only transformation for students and faculty but renewal for the college campus.

“Universities bring life-changing wisdom, insight, and discovery to the world,” said Tom Lin, president of ��ñ��. “We long for Christian faculty and students to contribute their God-given gifts to these efforts. As this past weekend at University of Virginia demonstrates, universities also serve as the backdrop for ideas and idols that deface and destroy life. We believe the Gospel calls us to confront and denounce sins like white supremacy. We also want to offer the transforming hope of repentance and new life to the people who propagate these ideologies.”

With a new six-member Executive Leadership Team and 10 new vice presidents assembled over the past year, ��ñ�� has reaffirmed our commitment to our vision of transformation and renewal. “We are longing to see God bring new life in new ways on campuses across the country, and to catalyze movements that call every corner of every campus to follow Jesus,” Lin said, as he reflected on his first year as president. “We want to see systems and structures, ideas and idols change. These leaders will help us steward our values even more closely, respond to God’s invitations more nimbly, and lead God’s mission on campus more joyfully,”

To meet the challenge of reaching every campus, ��ñ�� also has a record number of staff serving a record number of colleges, with 1341 staff ministering on 687 campuses. At the same time, the number of people coming to faith through ��ñ��’s campus ministry is at its highest ever in ��ñ��’s 76-year history—up 12 percent from one year ago, up 130 percent from 10 years ago.

To reach more campuses, ��ñ�� is pursuing new partnerships: “How can we best partner in reaching the approximately 2,600 campuses currently unreached by any major campus ministry?” Lin asked. “Could we empower more churches and other ministries to work alongside us to reach the campus? Beyond U.S. partnerships, what could God do if we more intentionally sought out best thinking and practices from our sister movements in the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students?”

In his travels during his first year as president, Lin said that he has heard regularly from people he meets about how ��ñ�� staff and ��ñ�� Press books have changed their lives. But he stressed that student-driven ministry is the heart of ��ñ��’s mission. “Our chapter planting leadership team has done an amazing job creating a planting culture in ��ñ��,” he said. “Not just staff but student leaders are catching the vision and reaching out to neighboring campuses. These students are not simply sheep to be gathered, but seed to be scattered.”

��ñ�� is an interdenominational ministry to students and faculty on U.S. college and university campuses, working with more than 41,000 core students and faculty on 687 campuses nationwide. ��ñ�� is a founding member of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, advancing Christian student work in 160 countries. ��ñ�� is also a charter member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.

News Keywords

University of Virginia

renew

vision

transformation

Going Beyond the Acronyms

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Thu, 09 Mar 2017 14:49:19 +0000

News

Gordon Govier

Going Beyond the Acronyms

Parking lots or people? That was the question Thurston Benns started pondering during a church growth class in seminary for his degree in pastoral counseling; the conversation during class had turned to calculating the number of parking spots a church needs and how much it costs to keep the lights on. But Thurston’s was thinking about the group of students he’d been meeting with at the nearby campus of Lynchburg College as an ��ñ�� volunteer, and he realized that discipling students and teaching them how to lead small groups was much more appealing to him than dealing with church administration.

Up until that point campus ministry had been a sideline activity—a ministry opportunity—as he worked toward a career as a pastor. But as he met the students and helped them grow into a community of followers of Jesus, he discovered his calling. “I always want to be doing something like this,” he told himself.

Thurston had been involved in a student ministry while he attended the University of Virginia, but not ��ñ��. However, he and the other leaders had been mentored by ��ñ�� staff and invited to attend ��ñ�� camps and conferences. So he was somewhat familiar with ��ñ��’s vision for student-led campus ministry.

“I really believe in what a committed bunch of students can do for their campus and their community,” he said. “I feel like ��ñ�� as an organization believes in that too. We’re not the ministry that is trying to have a church on campus where a bunch of students come and listen to us talk once a week. Our role is to facilitate, train, and develop.”

When Thurston joined ��ñ�� staff full-time he planted a chapter at Norfolk State University, which was a change from Lynchburg College, since Norfolk is more of a commuter campus than a residential one. It took two years and three applications for the chapter to become an official student organization, because student organizations weren’t part of the campus culture. On orientation day there were only three tables: ��ñ��, ROTC, and Bank of America.

He invested in training some gifted student leaders but invariably they transferred or left school for other reasons, undermining the continuity of the chapter. “It was tough for that reason,” he said.

Given his insights in seminary, it’s ironic that Thurston is now Area Director for the Tidewater area of southeastern Virginia, a position that is adding more administrative duties to his schedule. But during his time as a Campus Staff Minister at Norfolk, he discovered broader leadership gifts as he helped develop a regional Black Campus Ministry conference.

Thurston’s goal for students in his area is gospel-driven transformation. “I don’t want to graduate students who just know a lot of acronyms,” he said. He thinks back to his own experience as a college freshman when he considered himself a good Christian. He knew the Bible, and he knew the right words, but at a gospel music concert during Christmas break God showed him that his heart was not faithful. That was when he committed himself to following Jesus. “My fall semester and spring semester were two very different Thurstons,” he said.

He used his own experience to challenge students at Norfolk about the depth of their Christian faith. “We have a lot of religious culture students who go to church and don’t do X, Y, and Z, and so they think they are good and righteous and they deserve to be leaders,” he said. He invites them to study the Bible to get a clearer perspective.

Thurston believes that in-depth Bible study allows students to measure themselves against God’s standards and God’s desire for their lives. “They have an opportunity to see Jesus more clearly, and as they see him more clearly they see themselves more clearly,” he said.

Shane Arthur, ��ñ��’s regional director for Virginia, said that Thurston is a gifted bridge builder among both students and staff. “He loves new ideas and opportunities to reach new corners of campus and treasures partnerships with others,” Shane said. “For many of us, his ability to invite White staff and students into deep conversations about race without shame or guilt is a great gift.”

The state of Virginia is one of ��ñ��’s newest regions, the creation of which has opened the door for expansion to more campuses. Virginia has a lot of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and commuter colleges like Norfolk State. From Thurston’s own experience, he knows that it takes a different type of approach to reach students at these schools, but he’s already developing plans to respond to the challenge.

News Keywords

University of Virginia

Norfolk State University

Prepared for Leadership

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 17:27:39 +0000

News

Gordon Govier

Prepared for Leadership

Charlene Brown, ��ñ��’s newly appointed director of Black Campus Ministries (BCM), became a Christian her first year at the University of Virginia (UVA). Like many students, she sought answers to her questions about the meaning and purpose of life, and found those answers through Christians who loved her and shared the gospel with her.

Within a year she was helping lead a ministry to Black students at UVA with 200 students, and it was challenging—too challenging. The leadership team needed help, so they reached out to other campus ministries for assistance.

“��ñ�� was the only ministry that said yes to coming alongside us and helping our student leaders to lead well,” she said. “That’s how I first got involved with ��ñ��.”

At the same time, racial incidents were increasing on the UVA campus. Charlene noticed that the only White students who cared enough to show up at the forums that followed those events were ��ñ�� students. “I got to know them pretty well,” she said. Her third year at UVA, Charlene and other members of her group even began attending ��ñ��’s Shenandoah area conference.

By the time she graduated Charlene knew she wanted to be involved in ministry. “The same ways I saw God impact my life, I wanted to do that for other people,” she said. She enrolled at Duke Divinity School and moved to Durham, North Carolina. She took a job at a large church that seemed to offer a great opportunity to work for racial reconciliation. But then she discovered that the church wasn’t as ready to work through the risks of reconciliation as it thought it was.

Called to Campus Ministry

That’s when a light went off for Charlene; she realized that college students are high risk takers and are much more open to letting God direct their lives. As she started considering campus ministry, ��ñ�� staff directors Joe Ho and Shane Arthur, who had remained in contact with her, invited her to return to Virginia and work with the same group she had once helped lead as a student. It was now affiliated with ��ñ�� but had shrunk to just 30 students.

Her first two years as a campus staff member went well. Her focus on discipleship and evangelism bore fruit; 19 students came to faith in the first year. The chapter grew to 100 students and helped launch a BCM conference for the region.

As students from the chapter followed her onto ��ñ�� staff and became leaders, Charlene felt God calling her back to Durham, where she had put down roots. She anticipated launching BCM chapters at Duke or the University of North Carolina. But God had other plans.

Her supervisor encouraged her to consider North Carolina Central University (NCCU), one of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). So one day in April of 2014 she dropped in at the NCCU admissions office to collect some information. When the lady behind the desk told her she looked a little older than the typical student Charlene admitted that she was a campus minister, and was thinking about planting a ministry on campus.

“She stood up from behind her desk and came over and hugged me,” Charlene said. “She told me, ‘We’ve been praying about something like this for a long time; we’re glad you’re here.’” Charlene also discovered that the NCCU chancellor’s son attended UVA and had been involved with the UVA chapter. The chancellor told her, “Whatever we need to do to make your ministry happen, let’s do it.”

Planting the new chapter at NCCU a year ago this past January was “amazing but also hard,” Charlene said. The eagerness of administrators and faculty to support her work led to more invitations than she could reasonably handle. Yet her attempts to develop a community of students were unfruitful through the first semester.

Her second semester, in the fall, did not start well either. She set up a Proxe Station (an artistic display designed to engage students in evangelistic conversations), but students did not want to talk. “How can you call me here when nothing is going the way it should?” she prayed. And then the wind blew her Proxe Station across a field, which seemed at first to epitomize her frustration.

But when a student picked up the Proxe Station and brought it back, they began to talk about what Charlene was doing on campus. The student surprised her by admitting, “You know, I was just praying about starting a Bible study.”

The student stayed to help with the Proxe Station, and then called four of her friends to come join them. They began to talk about how they could change the NCCU campus. “Suddenly I wasn’t the only one inviting people into God’s mission,” Charlene said. “Students understood the challenge of seeing lives changed and the campus renewed.” The chapter plant started to grow.

Leaving the ministry at NCCU to take on the national BCM leadership role has happened more quickly than Charlene anticipated. She has only been on ��ñ�� staff for four years. But those who know her are not surprised.

Joe Ho, director of ��ñ��'s Asian American Ministries and former Shenandoah area director, called Charlene a rare leader. “Wherever she goes, her ministry produces fruit of the highest quality, whether she is a student, pastor, or staff worker,” he said. “As a planter she typically accomplishes in a year what great staff do in two or three – and the rest of us maybe a couple times in our lifetime.”

Charlene officially becomes director of Black Campus Ministries on July 1, 2016. “We are so grateful to see her in this new role,” said Shane Arthur, ��ñ��’s area director in Eastern Virginia. “Charlene has blessed my own life through her deep desire to see lives transformed. Her partnership with me and many others has been such a huge part of the changes happening in the Blue Ridge.”

Charlene is ready to get started in her new position. “I want to see us usher in a generation of world changers who are passionate about the gospel, racial justice, and reconciliation,” she said.

News Keywords

University of Virginia

North Carolina Central University

Multiethnic Ministry

Black Campus Ministries

Counterculture on Campus

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Fri, 26 Dec 2014 17:16:17 +0000

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Gordon Govier

Counterculture on Campus

As the saying goes, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” The problems with sex and alcohol on campus have been growing for decades, and were pushed into the limelight again this month by the University of Virginia rape story reported by Rolling Stone magazine.

Greek ��ñ�� is a part of the solution on many campuses by being faithful to the gospel message. On the University of Virginia campus, still in shock from the pain of all of the media attention, Christian fraternity and sorority members are sharing hope and comfort.

"It's really hard to talk about the brokenness," Greek ��ñ�� Campus Staff Member Katie Nowell explained to CBN News. "It's really hard to talk about this culture and that our brothers and sisters are being assaulted like this and we hate this. But, we know that we serve a God who brings healing and brings justice and hates those things, too."

On campuses across the country, Greek ��ñ�� staff and student leaders are being encouraged to initiate conversations that may be difficult and uncomfortable — and listen well to those who have been hurt by the excesses of the campus culture.

At the University of Utah, Greek ��ñ�� student leader Mitchell Cox is working with the Rape Recovery Center through his fraternity Beta Theta Pi to sponsor sexual assault prevention forums on campus.

"As a fraternity, our partnership with the Rape Recovery Center is so important to us because not only are we able to positively impact the community, but we are able to dispel the negative stereotypes that are often associated with fraternity life,” Mitchell said on the Dr. Phil syndicated television program.

For his efforts Mitchell was recognized as a winner of the iAspire Grant by the Robin McGraw Revelation Foundation, which is associated with the Dr. Phil talk show.

Greek ��ñ�� has chapters on 29 campuses across the U.S., and works with more than 3,000 students on a total of 81 campuses.

News Keywords

University of Virginia

University of Utah

Greek ��ñ��

Responding in Love

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Fri, 08 Aug 2014 16:07:51 +0000

News

Gordon Govier

Responding in Love

When gospel preachers showed up on the University of Virginia (UVA) Charlottesville campus wearing T-shirts that said “Turn or Burn,” students resisted the message and protested, attracting a local TV station. And ��ñ�� students attempted to mediate with a gospel message that expressed Jesus’ love for the campus community.

Students' Reactions

The local TV station’s report on the visit states that ��ñ�� students arrived at the UVA amphitheater to find the visitors surrounded by students who responded to the harsh preaching by singing the UVA theme, “The Good Ole Song.” Some of the ��ñ�� students talked with the visitors and were concerned that they seemed more interested in condemnation than conversion.

"We were agreeing on some things but then on some things we just weren't seeing eye to eye. A lot of the things she was saying I don't believe lined up scripturally," said one ��ñ�� student, Anne Moenning. "As Christians, we believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, and I think what they were doing was picking and choosing some verses to kind of prop up their beliefs, which I don't believe in."

Issuing an Invitation

The UVA ��ñ�� students have a different way of sharing their faith with fellow students, using open-air displays called Proxe Stations, which are designed to initiate conversations that can lead to thoughtful reflection and repentance. In fact, a Proxe Station was going on at almost the same time, just a short distance from the amphitheater. Students who had been leading the Proxe Station moved to the amphitheater and talked with other students about their reaction to the campus visitors. The ��ñ�� students invited many of their fellow students to attend an evangelistic meeting that was scheduled for later that evening.

��ñ��’s Virginia Area Director Derek Mondeau was pleased to see the ��ñ�� students responding in such a positive manner to the difficult situation, using it in a way that he thought more clearly presented the gospel message and led to opportunities for more discussion.

“I was so proud of our students owning the moment, owning the reality of repentance in the Christian story,” Derek said, “but also owning the reality that the Bible's story doesn't end at Revelation 20, in fire and brimstone and the lake of fire. It ends with Revelation 21-22 and the tender beauty of new creation as Jesus makes all things new.”

Conversations to Conversion

��ñ�� national evangelist York Moore stresses that ��ñ��’s ministry to students is committed to both love and truth. “��ñ�� seeks to be a voice for reasonable faith,” he said. “We reject the harsh rhetoric. We believe that there is a starting point, a common ground in a pluralistic society where those with incredible differences can come together to begin a conversation that could lead to a conversion.”

Repentance, led by the Holy Spirit, is necessary for conversion. ��ñ�� believes that meeting students where they live, on their level, opens the door to the work of the Spirit. We love the campus and will continue to proclaim Jesus’ love for faculty and students throughout the 2014-2015 school year and beyond.

News Keywords

University of Virginia

repentance

condemnation

Ken Elzinga – Ministry Partner

webteam@intervarsity.org — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 05:00:00 +0000

News

Gordon Govier

Ken Elzinga – Ministry Partner

In a Florida State University article on the nation’s top economics instructors, Ken Elzinga is described as “probably the nation’s most successful teacher of college-level economics.” At the end of the article the University of Virginia professor reveals the key to his influence, the image of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. “My authority as a teacher is linked to my willingness to serve my students,” he says.

As a graduate student pursuing a doctoral degree, and as a new Christian, Ken’s career was shaped by a pastor he met who had been on ��ñ�� staff. “This young man, who had a heart for the university, taught me how being a Christian professor could be a calling or vocation,” he recalls.

An evangelist who claimed he could tell a lot about how close a Christian was walking with God by analyzing the Christian’s calendar and checkbook, also challenged Ken’s priorities during that formative period. Soon after, as he was starting his career as a college professor, Ken was involved in a Bible study with several mature colleagues and was influenced by the way they prioritized their time commitments and financial decisions. “I learned by observing the generosity of these mature Christians,” he says. “They modeled out the ‘cheerful giver’ commended by the Scriptures.”

As he developed his teaching career, Ken prioritized time for ministry. He often attended, or spoke at, ��ñ�� chapter meetings. “I soon came to admire ��ñ�� for the way it combined a love for Jesus with a heart for the academy, all with a biblical foundation,” he says. Ken has also served on ��ñ��’s Board of Trustees from 1992-2000, and several terms since.

Now Ken has followed up with a financial gift to help fund ��ñ��’s work on the grounds of the University of Virginia. He explains that “often a young person could raise the first 80 percent of the support needed to go on staff; the last 20 percent was very difficult to raise. I realized that one way to help solve the 80-20 problem is to set up an endowment. The revenues from the endowment will go to support the staff member.”

An economist by training, and a self-described naturally stingy person, Ken marvels at how God has schooled him in the joy of giving. And he counsels students to resist the inclination to delay implementing stewardship decisions until career and family are established. “Graduating students should decide how to give from their very first paycheck,” he says. “Young Christians who get married should be clear on their giving aspirations before they are wed: what really is going to count – accumulating, or giving, or how are the two going to be blended?”

He also counsels adults to act prudently in their financial decisions, with a will and an estate plan that maximizes the ministry impact of their resources, rather than letting them go to the government by default. “Christians are to be good stewards of the resources at their disposal,” he says. “Yet, many people die without giving any indication of how their assets are to be distributed.” He himself is concerned about, and interested in, the work of many Christian organizations and ministries. But ��ñ�� is a priority for him.

“��ñ�� ministered to me, and continues to minister to me,” he says. “In addition, ��ñ�� ministers to people I care about: university students. I have been in a position (as a board member) to observe how ��ñ�� cares for the resources entrusted to it, and I have been very impressed by the stewardship of ��ñ��.”

University of Virginia video profile of Ken Elzinga

Ways to support ��ñ�� financially
Creative options for ��ñ�� donors
Another article about Ken Elzinga

News Keywords

University of Virginia

��ñ�� alumni

University of Virginia

Remembering Robert Finley – ��ñ����’s First Evangelist

Remembering Robert Finley – ��ñ����’s First Evangelist

Bringing New Life to Every Corner of Every Campus

Bringing New Life to Every Corner of Every Campus

Going Beyond the Acronyms

Going Beyond the Acronyms

Prepared for Leadership

Prepared for Leadership

Called to Campus Ministry

Counterculture on Campus

Counterculture on Campus

Responding in Love

Responding in Love

Students' Reactions

Issuing an Invitation

Conversations to Conversion

Ken Elzinga – Ministry Partner

Ken Elzinga – Ministry Partner

Remembering Robert Finley – ��ñ��’s First Evangelist

Remembering Robert Finley – ��ñ��’s First Evangelist