Witness

Ambition Is Shaping the Future of ��ñ��

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 19:32:47 +0000

Gordon Govier

Ambition Is Shaping the Future of ��ñ��

��ñ��’s 2018 Ambition conference was called to inspire, equip, and release students and faculty to plant witnessing communities in every corner of every campus. The conference drew 700 students and 300 staff, plus faculty members, church partners, and other guests, to the House of Blues in Anaheim, California, in mid-January.

Efrem Smith, pastor of Bayside Church in Sacramento, California, and former CEO of World Impact, an inner-city church planting movement, told the attendees that reaching out to new communities is not just about reaching more people. “Planting is a revolution,” he said, and challenged them to plant with revolutionary compassion, like Jesus, and with revolutionary authority.

On the final morning of the conference, longtime southern California staff members Beau and Kristina Crosetto announced that they were moving in 2018 to replant ��ñ�� chapters on campuses in Louisiana. They were followed by ��ñ�� Executive Vice President, Field Ministry, Jason Thomas and Mark Gauthier, Vice President and Executive Director of Campus Ministry for Cru, who talked about how God had led both organizations together to partner on a new website, http://everycampus.us/. The website’s goal is to create more partnerships in order to see that every U.S. college campus is reached with the gospel.

Ambition Director Shawn Young, ��ñ��’s National Director of Chapter Planting, invited ��ñ�� staff leaders to speak at Ambition, but also students. “Students are speaking to our movement in powerful ways; it's not just our staff trying to speak to the next generation of our students,” he said. “It’s not just that students have good stories to tell and that their testimonies are important. They actually have important challenges, exhortation, and encouraging words.”

Students came from across the country to attend Ambition, including three students from Pennsylvania, who said afterward:

I want to become a Resident Assistant and start a dorm ministry at York College.
I am excited to go back to Penn State Mont Alto and reach atheists.
God renewed my ambition to reach Black students, as well as start a prayer ministry at F&M College.

For another student, Ashley, Ambition was about setting higher goals. “Don’t underestimate what God wants to do for you,” she said. And Al-Nisa said, “I’m learning to hear God for myself and not have to hear from somebody else.”

The conference demonstrated that ��ñ�� is defining ourselves not by the number of campuses that we are on, but by the number of campuses that God is calling us to. He is inviting us to develop partnerships in ministry with more students, more churches, more alumni volunteers, and more like-minded organizations. Ambition is shaping our response to our 2030 Calling, to reach every corner of every campus by the year 2030.

Shawn said the conference has exceeded his hopes as it has steadily grown larger than each previous Ambition conference. “Everything we wanted to see in terms of empowering students and faculty to reach their campus and consider other campuses around the country is really coming true,” he said.

The seven general sessions of Ambition can be viewed at our YouTube channel. The Ambition conference is based on the words of the apostle Paul, “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation” (Romans 15:20).

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Racial Difference Without Division

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Wed, 15 Nov 2017 17:47:45 +0000

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Racial Difference Without Division

Sarah Shin, ��ñ��'s Associate National Director of Evangelism and an ��ñ�� Press author, contributed this article to Change Makers, Christianity Today's special focus on women who are influencing the church, their communities, and the world.

Read the article here.

Learn more about Sarah's ��ñ�� Press book Beyond Colorblind here.

Learn more about ��ñ��'s Beyond Colorblind Campaign and resources here.

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In a similar vein, ��ñ��'s Brenda Wong has just posted the story of her own multiethnic journey, The Painful Gift of Cultural Displacement, on ��ñ��'s weblog.

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In the Crucible of the Workplace

AD-16225 — Thu, 29 Jun 2017 20:57:56 +0000

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In the Crucible of the Workplace

On the first weekend of April, 252 students and business leaders from around the country gathered in New York City to learn about good business practices and following Jesus, and how to connect the two.

It may seem an unusual connection but it’s not. “Most of Jesus’ miracles occurred in the marketplace, so the marketplace is a valid mission field,” said Henry Kaestner, a successful entrepreneur who was one of the main speakers for the weekend. As former ��ñ�� Vice President Pete Hammond used to point out, most of the people God used in the Bible were not professional clergy.

This was the 12^th annual Believers in Business conference. Planned by MBA students who are involved with ��ñ��’s MBA Ministry, the goal is for them and their peers to learn from more experienced business leaders who apply their Christian beliefs to their business practices.

Henry was a co-founder of Bandwidth.com, a communications technology company. He left the company to get involved in philanthropy but then felt called to return to the business world. Now he mentors entrepreneurs whose projects have a connection to their Christian faith.

During the conference Henry used stories from his own experience to encourage students to be faithful business leaders. “You’re being commissioned to be able to do God’s work in his marketplace,” he told attendees. “Lord willing, you’ll be a part of the cultural transformation that’s bringing about God’s kingdom.”

Business mentors participating in the Believers in Business Conference also included the Dean of Pepperdine University's MBA program, the head of Women in Technology at GE, and leaders from finance, marketing, entrepreneurship, and management fields. Students appreciated the opportunity to hear from business leaders who had not only a depth of experience but also a faith perspective.

In comments afterward, one student said, “The conference gave me more clarity for my calling to missions in business.” Another commented, “The conference allowed me to rededicate myself to following God's plans for my life. I am at a position where I will be making important decisions about my life and career. This conference reset me on the path of obedience and faithfulness.”

The significance of the workplace focus was summarized by one speaker: “Work is the primary crucible where God sanctifies you, where he makes you more like Christ, where he makes you more of a disciple.”

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God Is Not Dead on Campus

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 18:39:39 +0000

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Gordon Govier

God Is Not Dead on Campus

The struggle between faith and doubt on college campuses is highlighted in the movie God Is Not Dead, which has been seen by surprisingly large audiences since its release one month ago today. For three weeks in a row, God Is Not Dead ranked in the top five movies, generating a financial return ten times its $4 million production budget.

But does its theme accurately reflect the climate confronted by ��ñ�� in its campus ministry? A valid question, since ��ñ�� is listed at the end of the movie among the groups which have gone to court to defend religious freedom on campus.

The Contrast in Campus Ministry

From ��ñ��’s perspective, we have never been more successful in our work on campus. The number of people coming to faith in Jesus Christ through the ministry of ��ñ�� during the 2012-2013 school year was up 50-percent from five years previous and double the number of ten years previous. ��ñ�� staff, students, and faculty are doing an outstanding job of sharing the gospel message, often with tools such as Proxe Stations, interactive exhibits that encourage conversations about important issues.

At the same time ��ñ�� is facing increasing resistance to our efforts to faithfully present the gospel. In a few instances, ��ñ�� chapters have been derecognized as student organizations because of our desire to remain true to the unchanging message of the gospel and demand adherence to standards of faith from our student leaders. A section of our website describes the campus challenges we have faced in the past few years at schools such as Vanderbilt, Rollins College, and Bowdoin College.

It’s Not All Bad

Are all campuses antagonistic, and all college professors as antagonistic as the professor portrayed by Kevin Sorbo in God Is Not Dead? Fortunately no. Our staff and students have good relationships with administrators on most of the 590 campuses where we have chapters.

And ��ñ�� has a long history of working with Christian professors through our Graduate and Faculty Ministries. Some top faculty, like those we have profiled at Oregon State University, the University of Oklahoma, and Augustana College, are even former ��ñ�� staff members. College presidents and university presidents are also ��ñ�� alumni.

College Is Meant to Be Challenging

But, as the movie illustrates, the college campus provides challenging opportunities for Christians to grow their faith. A simple faith that satisfies in childhood is either stimulated to grow or discarded. ��ñ��’s campus ministry provides a framework for students to grow in their faith.

Most Christian college students will not have to address an in-your-face challenge such as God is Not Dead depicts. But they will face a more subversive worldview, one also reflected in the mass media and other parts of society, which nonetheless assumes that God is not relevant to our world today.

A strength of ��ñ��’s campus ministry is Bible study. Through evangelistic Bible studies called GIGs (Groups Investigating God), and other forms of inductive Bible study, we share with students the relevance of God’s Word to our world today. We have found that Bible studies, done with students as a part of ministry to needy communities, are much more effective in reaching their hearts than confrontational debates.

Those Who Saw the Movie

One ��ñ�� staff member who saw God Is Not Dead with some of his students said the students were encouraged by the movie to be strong in their faith. The movie has been criticized because it is “preaching to the choir,” but the movie’s producers say that was the point, to encourage Christians to stand up for their faith.

Another ��ñ�� staff member went to the movie with a graduate student who has been experiencing persecution in her program for two years, and was told by her dean that she did not fit in the program because she is a Christian. She was encouraged by the movie because she identified so closely with the challenge it portrays.

We Love the Campus

For ��ñ��, the campus is our mission field. We love the campus; we love academia. Our vision is “to see students and faculty transformed, campuses renewed, and world changers developed.” We have been pursuing this mission on campus for almost 75 years.

During the next few weeks of April, May, and June, thousands of students who have had life transforming experiences through ��ñ�� this past school year will add a week to their school year by attending year-end camps at rustic locations across the country. At Chapter Camp, as the week is often called, they will deepen their faith commitments through Bible study, and help their chapter plan for an even stronger presence on campus next year.

Each campus is unique but each campus needs a witnessing Christian community that is willing to respond to the antagonistic and the curious with the compelling message of love from the gospel of Jesus Christ. We invite you to join us and help us fulfill our vision for the campuses of America.

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Greg Jao, ��ñ��'s Field Director for the Northeast, offered some additional thoughts on this topic in interviews with Mission Network News and with CBN News.

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