Something Clicked at Chapter Focus Week

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 14:29:36 +0000

Gordon Govier

Something Clicked at Chapter Focus Week

Chapter Focus Week completely changed Parker’s mind about ��ñ��. As a freshman, he was ambivalent about the small ��ñ�� chapter that he was invited to attend at Franklin & Marshall College (F&M) in Pennsylvania.

“I was definitely ready to get involved in a Christian community in college,” Parker said. He had grown up in a Christian home and attended a Christian high school. But nothing clicked until after his freshman finals were over, and he spent a week away at Chapter Camp with ��ñ�� students from other area schools, studying the Bible, receiving leadership training, and learning about ��ñ��’s vision for campus ministry.

He was hesitant at first. Chapter Camp would take time away from his summer job without bringing in any income. “I prayed about it, talked with people, and finally decided to go,” he said. “It was huge for me in becoming a part of the ��ñ�� community.” Parker made some solid, long-lasting friendships and learned the joy of inductive Bible study. And he was even more excited about joining his chapter’s leadership team for his sophomore year.

Parker took advantage of every training opportunity that was offered after that. At Fall Conference his sophomore year, he met Sam, who became one of his best friends. In the spring, he participated in the Washington DC Urban Plunge. That was where God really began to work on him, as he learned to put his faith into action in an unfamiliar, cross-cultural setting.

Parker admitted that he has a tendency to “jump at stuff.” He was studying abroad the fall semester of his junior year when his ��ñ�� staff minister invited him to attend ��ñ��’s 2018 Ambition conference. “I didn’t know what my ambition was at the time,” he said. “But I wanted to see God’s kingdom grow, so I decided to go ahead.”

At Ambition, Parker and two other students from F&M were challenged to creatively reach out with the gospel message to fellow students. And that’s how they came up with the idea of Reverb, a night of worship and music.

“We wanted it to be something where we could invite people from campuses that don’t usually go to ��ñ��, but also to invite different campuses around the area,” Parker said. His experience with ��ñ�� has shown him that musical worship can have a lasting impact on people’s lives.

Almost a dozen different campuses were represented that spring at the first Reverb. They repeated it in the fall, and this past spring the neighboring ��ñ�� chapter at Penn State Harrisburg took over sponsorship. Parker thought Reverb invigorated the campuses of F&M and Penn State Harrisburg with a deeper, more passionate spirit of worship. Christian students at a number of local campuses became better connected with one another.

Parker’s passion for music and language also led him in another direction: writing and scoring a German opera focused on the execution of the Apostle Peter as an independent study project. The opera was performed on campus in April, but Parker says he’s still polishing it.

“Studying Peter and seeing how God’s grace came even in the last moments of his life, that was powerful for me, working on it,” he said. “It’s been cool to see how God can use music and poetry in that setting, both things which I really care about.”

As Parker has observed the Holy Spirit at work on campus through ministry, he’s felt a growing desire to see the same thing happen in business and hopes to use his degree in business to that end. Working on his chapter’s leadership team with people from all kinds of different backgrounds—religious, cultural, and ethnic—gave him a passion for the strength of diversity. “One of the biggest things I have learned from ��ñ�� is how to work purposefully with Christians from different backgrounds,” he said.

One of Parker’s memories from that first Chapter Camp was when the seniors in the group left early in order to get back to campus for graduation. He returned to Chapter Camp each of the following three years. “Every year just got better and better,” he said. This year he was one of those seniors who left early.

“Chapter Camp was the first time that I felt I was invested and could understand why people from ��ñ�� invested in me,” he said. The investment paid off. Parker is now preparing to invest what he has learned through ��ñ�� in his new career in business.

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Franklin & Marshall College

Serious About Spring Break

AD-16225 — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 13:53:44 +0000

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Gordon Govier

Serious About Spring Break

For many ��ñ�� students, Spring Break means heading off to a week-long urban ministry experience in cities such as St. Louis, New Orleans, Providence, Chicago, and Oakland.

This week for instance, 18 student leaders from Shasta College and Simpson University in Redding, California, are in Oakland for an urban plunge. Their campus staff member, Rachel Kuhn, explained:

Students spend a week in an urban center learning about God’s heart for the urban poor and oppressed, racial reconciliation, justice, and Christian community. Our week in Oakland will combine service, Bible study, simulations, and teachings by servants to the disadvantaged. As students learn to follow Jesus in loving ‘the least of these,’ some may become local activists on their campuses, others might change their major, and still others may decide to pursue a life of promoting Justice for the Kingdom of God.

The University of Rhode Island newspaper published an article on New England ��ñ�� students’ trip to New Orleans.

As Christians, we believe that our faith does not allow for us to be complacent,’ said Rhode Island College senior Adam Croft. ‘We believe we are called to action to serve and come face-to-face with the brokenness of the world.

Croft said at the end of each day, the team will have a discussion time to talk about how the day went, what they did and how it affected each of them. This time will also allow students to converse about what they think the Christian faith has to say about each project and also about challenges they might face.

In the daily discussions ��ñ�� staff and students offer other team members a glimpse of the gospel that they may not have seen before, as they investigate what the Bible says about justice, compassion, hospitality, and other themes. Afterwards one student wrote a follow-up report,calling it one of the best weeks of her life.

The Tufts Daily also reported on ��ñ�� students heading to New Orleans.

[��ñ�� campus staff member Alexandra] Nesbeda, who first traveled to New Orleans as an undergraduate in 2006, applauded ��ñ��'s commitment to continuing the rebuilding efforts even after Hurricane Katrina ceased to be breaking news. She estimated that it would take an additional five to 10 years for the city to fully recover.

What I like about this trip is our commitment to go back every year,’ she said. ‘We haven't forgotten New Orleans. We want to finish what we started.

Not all college students are partying during spring break. Many have jobs and other responsibilities. And some are making life-changing discoveries about the Kingdom of God through ��ñ��’s urban plunges.

Mission Network News also carried a story on ��ñ��'s spring break urban plunges.

_{Photo: Marquette University students at Providence, Rhode Island, urban plunge.}

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