community

��ñ�� Christian Fellowship Releases Gen Z Survey Assessing Christian Students’ Viewpoints and Ministry Needs Amid Pandemic

ashlye.vanderworp@intervarsity.org — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 19:56:32 +0000

��ñ�� Christian Fellowship Releases Gen Z Survey Assessing Christian Students’ Viewpoints and Ministry Needs Amid Pandemic

(MADISON, WI)––��ñ�� Christian Fellowship released a survey today assessing Christian higher education students’ well-being and attitudes amid the COVID-19 pandemic, their viewpoints on social issues, their discipleship resourcing needs, and more. Representing 316 current ��ñ�� students on 127 college campuses, the findings reveal racial justice and climate change as the most important social issues, and isolation, lack of community, and/or a lack of social interactions as the primary factors in a decline in mental health.

“Generation Z is the most connected generation yet, with an unprecedented online presence and digital connectivity,” said Tom Lin, President & CEO of ��ñ�� Christian Fellowship. “However, the findings of this survey show just how important community and fellowship are to students’ overall well-being and how important it is to maintain and cultivate these on college campuses.”

Key findings include:

Almost half (47%) of students reported that their mental and emotional health has been negatively impacted as a result of the pandemic. Of these students, 71% contributed this to isolation, lack of community, and/or a lack of social interactions.
60% of students are hungry for even more resources on Scripture study and 52% want more guidance on prayer; nearly half (47%) of students are looking for resources to provide guidance on dating and marriage.
Top issues of importance to students today are: racial justice (39%); climate change (29%); foster care, adoption, and orphan care (28%). Jobs and the economy (14%); immigration (10%); and serving refugees (8%) were ranked the lowest.

“I’m deeply encouraged that the top areas Gen Z students want to grow in are in studying Scripture and developing a deeper prayer life. Scripture study and prayer are central to how ��ñ�� is addressing the loneliness and isolation Gen Z students have experienced this year, and they are the lens through which we understand and engage social issues,” Lin said.

Greg Jao, Chief Communications Officer at ��ñ��, added: “Emerging from the past year of racial unrest, we’re seeing how the social issues that our nation reckons with are also at the forefront of our students’ minds. As a campus ministry, it’s crucial for us to help students navigate both these issues and how to live out their faith from a Biblical perspective in real time on college campuses.”

The survey results are now available to read and download at https://pinkston.co/2021-Student-Survey.

For more information, contact ��ñ��@pinkston.co.

About ��ñ�� Christian Fellowship:

One of the largest campus ministries in the United States, ��ñ�� Christian Fellowship ministers to students and faculty on 769 campuses and has over 1,100 chapters across the nation, from Ivy League schools to community colleges. For over 75 years, ��ñ�� has partnered with hundreds of college campuses to see students and faculty transformed, campuses renewed, and world changers developed. ��ñ�� is dedicated to establishing and advancing witnessing communities of students and faculty on college and university campuses.

News Keywords

Racial Reconciliation

racial justice

climate change

Native ��ñ�� Family Dinners—Being Fed Body, Spirit, & Soul

ashlye.vanderworp@intervarsity.org — Fri, 11 Oct 2019 21:04:30 +0000

Nathan Peterson

Native ��ñ�� Family Dinners—Being Fed Body, Spirit, & Soul

Standing outside the house in the cooling air of a New Mexico evening, you hear laughter. Warm yellow light spills through the windows as you cross the sidewalk to the front door. Rashawn, the man you met on campus, welcomes you in with a big grin. Inside the laughter and conversations buzz even louder.

Past the sand-colored dining room walls you see two bulging bags of flour on the kitchen counter. People are bustling between the oven and sink. The savory smell of chicken and frybread thickens the air. Suddenly, you’re more hungry than nervous.

As more people greet you—one of them who you’d just seen in class a few hours ago—you feel a warmth that has nothing to do with temperature. From movies to bowling, they start asking you about your hobbies. Then someone pulls out the card game UNO, and everyone groans, “Not that again!” even as they settle down to play.

What you’ve just begun to experience is your first family dinner with the Native ��ñ�� chapter at San Juan College.

* * *

Everything you saw traces back to when Rashawn Ramone, of the Nambé Nation, went to his first family dinner in 2008 as a student at Fort Lewis College in Colorado. As the night went on, and he continued coming back week after week, his homesickness and anxiety began to melt in light of the laughter and deep conversations he was having.

After graduation, Rashawn became an ��ñ�� campus minister at San Juan College, a two-year community school. With no dorms on campus and a lack of community events, especially for Native students, he sensed a perfect opportunity to start hosting family dinners. Framed as a chance for a free meal and a break from the stress of schoolwork, the biweekly event immediately caught students’ attention.

“They always tell me this is a way of helping them to know the community,” Rashawn said. “It can definitely help them to be together, share laughs, know each other, see what the whole community’s like, and see the people. They never really had time to be able to sit down with other people and listen to them before.”

“I remember we had a slow start in the beginning trying to grow as a club,” said Shylasha Nunez, who belongs to the Navajo Tł’izí lání, Naakai dine’é, and Lók’aa’ dine’é Clans. But after four years of being involved with Native ��ñ��, Shy has seen it grow. “As we got to know our club members more, we became a family. Each family dinner, we have gotten closer with each other. Also inviting friends and family to join us made everything full of joy.”

A Thriving Family

By the time the food is all ready, the small dining room is overflowing with people. And they’re not just college students. Grandparents, moms and dads, even nieces and nephews playing tag, weaving between the grownups—it really is a dinner with the whole family.

Rashawn and several others carry over baskets of steaming frybread and plates of grilled chicken covered in a sweet, tangy sauce. After pausing to pray, everyone digs in. Rashawn goes on to explain that the chicken—luau chicken actually—is based on a recipe he got while visiting fellow ��ñ�� campus ministers in Hawaiʻi. He shares more about his trip and the many ways students are growing closer to God.

The meal continues, and someone asks what they should make for the next family dinner. The answers vary: green bean and mushroom soup casserole, dumplings, pork chops and mac and cheese, even spaghetti tacos, inspired by the iCarly show.

Whatever it ends up being, there’s an unspoken guarantee that it will be a family event, everyone chipping in to help, whether buying supplies, doing the cooking, or just bringing plenty of laughter and lively conversation.

* * *

Rashawn had originally started out doing all the cooking for family dinners and budgeting all the supplies as part of his ministry. But as the event has grown in popularity, several students asked if they could help. “This semester, they started to make the meals that their families make,” he said. “In a way, they’re sharing their story with other people. The food tells a story. It tells a story about where they’re coming from, how they learned to make the food.”

And once they saw the positive influence family dinners were having on Native students, San Juan College stepped in to cover all the costs for the event and help publicize it on campus. “There’s certainly not a lot of loneliness anymore on campus,” another student, Kelsi L’u Beth Monroe, said. “Our Native ��ñ�� chapter is the most active club on our campus right now. It feels like we’re this plant that was put into the ground, and it came up and has light on it, like a sunflower. It feels like we can be this beacon of hope to help everyone find their way in the darkness.”

Excited by the ways everyone was growing and connecting with each other, Kelsi brought her uncle to several dinners. “He was incredibly welcomed,” she said. “He said it felt like one of those old-style powwows in Oklahoma, when they get together and eat, like a feast.”

Rashawn has seen these events have quite an influence on students within the chapter, especially those who help host or cook. “They do have a better, healthier relationship with their families,” he said. “When Native students invite their nephews, parents, grandparents, or relatives, they always tell me that doing family dinners is really good for them.”

Sharing Stories, Finding Healing

After the food is cleared away, everyone settles back, and Rashawn says that Kelsi, a woman with cheerful laughter holding an infant, is going to share some of her story.

Kelsi begins explaining how her heritage is a little different than many Native people living in New Mexico, who are mainly Navajo. She is an enrolled member of the Southern Indian Tribe, a member of the Kitkehahki band of the Pawnee Nation, southern Cheyenne, Oglala, and Sicangu Lakota.

She shares how she first came across Native ��ñ�� back in 2008. One afternoon while sitting in her dorm at Fort Lewis College, Kelsi started hearing music and laughter. The smell of frybread wafting in through her window was the deal breaker; she had to go check it out. Walking outside, she discovered a crowd of people, many of them wearing Frybread Power T-shirts, like the ones from a favorite childhood movie of hers, Smoke Signals. “I wanted to see how to get one of those shirts,” Kelsi grins.

She explains that she’d just unknowingly stumbled across Native ��ñ��’s annual Would Jesus Eat Frybread? (WJF) conference. As she continued getting more involved with the ministry, Kelsi would return to WJF in 2016. “It made me feel very healed and renewed as an American Indian woman,” she says. “I already knew I could be a Christian and still be practicing my traditional ways and beliefs, but WJF just affirmed everything.”

The more she speaks in that packed little room, still smelling of frybread and luau chicken, something deeper happens than just a casual meal. Trust is being built.

* * *

Over the course of five years, many have shared their story during family dinners, including several pastors and priests who have partnered with Rashawn. Some moments have been light-hearted and encouraging, but many times as people begin to feel more comfortable with the group, they share more vulnerable moments, like how they’ve personally struggled with the historical trauma interwoven throughout Native history.

“There’s a lot of stuff like that, like alcoholism or drugs or spiritual brokenness. Some of the things the students share, they feel like it’s a normal thing,” Rashawn said. “The sin is telling us a lie. That it’s normal. Keep doing it. And that’s been passed down from generation to generation. It’s a spiritual brokenness, a spiritual lie to ourselves. But we don’t actually know it’s not normal for us until God reveals it.”

Rashawn has experienced this journey firsthand. For many years, he didn’t even notice the ways that the past’s darkest moments had been affecting him. But as he began receiving personal healing from Jesus, he knew he had to share this with others.

A huge part of this involves contextualization. “I think the family dinners are a way of contextualizing,” Rashawn said. “Contextualization opens the conversations about what it means to be Native and a follower of Jesus and the common ground of Native culture and Christianity. [Students] do want healing. They do want to receive the gospel in a way that they can understand. [We are] helping [students] understand how to contextualize the gospel into a Native context that can be seen through their families. The food, laughter, stories, community are actually helping Native students to heal. I think Jesus is definitely telling me that he can receive [this trauma] and help us to heal. And that this won’t go on to the next generation. It won’t hurt more Native families.”

Healing has taken many forms. A number of students have either rededicated their lives to Jesus or chosen to follow him for the first time. For others, their relationships with their families, communities, and churches are being restored thanks to the Spirit’s work through family dinners and Native ��ñ��.

“I have never been any happier to make changes and see healing in the future for our people and with God,” said Shy Nunez. “One of my greatest moments I remember is being involved in our community and learning a better understanding of what it is to be Native. I am not traditional, but learning the knowledge of caring and working together has changed my perspective and views of the world in a different way, where I deeply felt I can take bigger actions to help others.”

Many are discovering for the first time how their culture is a God-given gift and opportunity to praise and honor him. “God used Native ��ñ�� to bring me closer to my ancestry and also remind me of the wonderful and amazing and strong and resilient people that I come from,” Kelsi said.

“My grandpa always told me when you feed someone, you’re giving them life,” she added. “Family dinners give each of us life by nourishing our bodies through the sharing of food, nourishing our souls in sharing in the glory of God’s creation, and nourishing our spirits in fellowship with one another. It doesn’t just nourish our physical bodies. It helps our mental states to know that we’re not alone, our emotional states to allow us to open up to each other, and spiritual states in which each of us pray for one another. And we’re growing in a community and family.”

News Keywords

Indigenous Peoples Day

Good Gifts: Emily’s Story

ashlye.vanderworp@intervarsity.org — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 22:23:45 +0000

Emily Baez

Good Gifts: Emily’s Story

I sat down at a table in the dining hall and texted an old friend from high school. “Are you at orientation?” it read. Waiting for a response, I looked around the room to see groups of people sitting together and joking about their dorms, majors, and what they did last summer. I wondered how they connected so quickly. Was there a team-building exercise I missed? Did everyone coordinate with their childhood pals to go to the same college? Lunch ended, and I decided my goal that weekend would be to make a few lasting friendships, people who could accompany me on smoothie runs or free movie viewings on campus. But I left orientation with that goal unfulfilled.

A week later, someone stopped me before entering the student center. She asked if I heard about ��ñ��—which I had because my brother was a part of it—and handed me a list of small groups. “Thanks,” I said, but no thanks, I thought. I didn’t come to college to go to church. Plus, growing up in church meant I already knew Jesus. Why would joining some group further establish that? I left her with an “I’ll try to make it,” but knew it wasn’t going anywhere near my calendar.

Instead I spent the next two years joining and quitting student clubs, dodging invitations from my brother to come to Bible study, and applying to transfer to another university because I thought it had “better student life.” It became apparent that nothing was fulfilling me. Instead, I envied those who were having the coveted college experience, the years that were supposed to be the best of my life. They weren’t—they were boring and lonely.

When I moved into a student apartment my junior year, I thought I found the remedy. But then, a toxic sense of pride and independence started to consume me. I was convinced I didn’t need anyone else to be content and that happiness was as easy as living closer to campus and going to parties.

But when the novelty of all that wore off, I couldn’t ignore the fact that something was still missing. I couldn’t admit it, but I wanted to connect—to others, to something or someone greater than me.

Making New Discoveries

It was in that place of desperation and failure that I finally gave in to going to an ��ñ�� conference (called “Sonburst” at the time). Even though I didn’t want to go—considering how uncomfortable it would be to hang out with a bunch of strangers for a weekend—I pressed that register button and felt a strange mix of urgency and confusion. Isn’t this what I wanted? Friendship? People to grab smoothies with? But I didn’t want it in a faith-based context. I know about Jesus and don’t need this, I thought. I really did think I knew him—even without prayer, without being challenged or studying who he is and why it matters. But at Sonburst, for the first time, I realized how wrong I was.

That weekend, I discovered a community I never knew I needed: a group of people that genuinely cared for me and wanted to understand who I was. We gathered in small groups one morning and someone made a confession with complete vulnerability. The way others responded made me realize I could be honest and vulnerable too. I didn’t need to hide any part of me. For the first time since starting college, I was connecting in a way that surpassed small talk and group projects.

I also discovered a new knowledge of who Jesus is. I realized that the gospel was this radical, redemptive truth, and I was excited about it. I wanted to find out what it meant to be “missional.” I wanted to dig into scripture and learn as much as I could. I wanted to know Jesus and to have the closest of bonds with him. Because as it turned out, there was more to Jesus than what I thought I knew—more that needed to replace whatever I settled for before.

Saying Yes

On the last day of the conference, a feeling of peace and belonging overwhelmed me as we met in campus groups to make “I will…” statements. In that moment, I was ready to erase the boundaries I spent years drawing between myself and others. I was ready to surrender my overzealous need for independence. I was ready to accept the love I was experiencing and reject the notion that a superficial relationship with my maker, and with everyone else, was somehow enough.

When it was my turn, the words “I will commit to Bible study and embrace this new group of friends” spilled out. The room cheered. I was saying yes to community. More importantly, I was saying yes to Jesus.

Committing

The commitment I made four years ago meant I had to adjust my schedule to go to small groups. But sometimes, committing to Jesus meant living in places or cities outside my comfort zone. Other times, it meant staying put when I really wanted to go or leading a small group when I didn’t feel equipped. Last year, it meant volunteering to lead another chapter in my hometown. It’s meant and continues to mean trusting Jesus in every decision and every step I take post-college.

Now, I’m reminded constantly that we have a good Father who wants to give us good gifts. The gifts of understanding, community, and a promise between a Savior and his people, were offered to me time and again. For too long, I said no to those gifts. Finally accepting them meant finding what I was missing. It meant I wasn’t alone.

There are many students just like me who enter college thinking they know who Jesus is but pursue other things over him. But ��ñ�� wants every college student to have the opportunity to experience God's good gifts of community and a deep walk with him. Find an ��ñ�� chapter near you by clicking the button below.

Find an ��ñ�� Chapter

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Angel’s Story

ashlye.vanderworp@intervarsity.org — Mon, 22 Oct 2018 17:05:11 +0000

Ashlye Vanderworp

Angel’s Story

Angel, from Hawaii, had a difficult childhood and grew up in a broken home. Eventually, she was taken from her family by Child Protective Services and became a foster child, moving from home to home, constantly running away from abuse.

“I prayed every single night, waiting for a better day,” Angel said. “Why am I suffering? A better day didn’t come, so I left God’s side and accepted a world of pain and darkness—a world where I had to survive by myself.”

At only 17, Angel graduated from high school and had to leave her foster home at the time. She hopelessly searched for a place to live, fearing she would become homeless.

“I had already experienced years of stealing and selling myself to survive financially, and I didn’t want to go back to that life,” Angel said.

A Huge Risk

That’s when her social worker took a huge risk. She told Angel about Brenda Wong, an ��ñ�� Area Director who owned a Christian community house. Angel hesitantly accepted an offer to move into the house, not having any other choice but to be on the streets.

For months, Brenda persistently invited Angel to ��ñ�� events. Angel consistently said no because, to her, it sounded like “a place for nerds.”

Finally, Angel came up with a plan one night when Brenda invited her to an ��ñ�� event again. “I’ll go just once, tell her I didn’t like it, and never go back again,” she said, hoping Brenda would stop asking her.

That night though, the ��ñ�� staff minister who was speaking taught on Matthew 14 when Jesus calls Peter to walk on water toward him, reaching out his hand. He asked the students listening if they would take Jesus’ hand as well. Angel understood that Jesus was calling her to him.

“I felt something warm, I wept, and I cried so hard,” Angel said. “That one night I went to ��ñ��, I gave my life to Jesus!”

A New Family

Now a part of the ��ñ�� community, Angel has a family for the first time—one that loves her unconditionally. She spends her time with them, serves with them, and helps lead worship with them.

“When I first went to ��ñ��, people genuinely wanted to know about my life. That was something that was so foreign to me—this kid that was pushed to the side, no one wanted to know about me, and yet everyone was asking me, ‘Where are you from?,’ ‘What’s your background?,’ ‘Who are you?’—I felt important,” Angel said.

More than that though, Angel decided to take a risk just like the one her social worker took that changed her life. Having once dropped out, Angel decided to not only return to Honolulu Community College, but to also plant an ��ñ�� chapter there. She wants to start a small group where anyone can experience God’s love.

Already, God has used Angel to initiate spiritual conversations with classmates, helping them connect what’s going on in their lives to the life of Jesus. Her vision is to speak love to those who are hurting like she was and to see her community transformed through her own transformed life.

“Because I said yes to Jesus, God is putting my old self to death and has brought me new life. He is giving me back what was taken from me. He has prepared the fattened calf and wrapped me in his finest cloth. I am the prodigal that came home!”

Just like Angel at Honolulu Community College, ��ñ�� students and staff are living out our 2030 Calling to plant on campuses currently without a Christian witnessing community. Will you be a part of making our 2030 Calling happen so that more college students across the country, like Angel, can experience the tranformative love of Jesus? Click the button below for more information.

Give to the 2030 Calling

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story

testimony

community

University of Hawai'i at Hilo

Hawaii

2030 Calling

Honolulu Community College

A New View of Community

ashlye.vanderworp@intervarsity.org — Thu, 19 Jul 2018 16:49:32 +0000

Lisa Rieck

A New View of Community

When Josh Howard started college at Radford University in Virginia in the fall of 2016, he fully intended to find a Christian group on campus where he could grow spiritually. After experiencing hardship in high school that caused him to doubt the faith he’d been raised in, he’d come to a place of deeper faith before beginning his freshman year of college, and was ready to understand what he believed more deeply.

“I felt like, Okay, now that I’m becoming an adult I need to really learn more and get around people who are Christians,” he said.

But one bad experience with a Christian group during his first few weeks of college left a sour taste in his mouth.

“I gave up on it,” he explained. “I had my church family, but I [realized] I don’t really like the way a lot of groups act. My sophomore year I didn’t go to any groups.”

Acting on Conviction

In the summer of 2017, however, Josh felt convicted of the need to find Christian community.

“I started deciding that I really need to make my faith an important part of my life,” he said.

Then, a trusted friend at Virginia Tech recommended ��ñ�� and gave Josh staff minister Jen Jordan’s phone number. This time, Josh acted quickly.

“I met up with her and told her I was interested,” he recalled. “I went to that small group one of the first few weeks of the fall semester, and I’ve been going to ��ñ�� ever since. Right away I really liked it!”

By the beginning of the next spring semester, Josh led a second Bible study for the small ��ñ�� plant on campus. His view of Christian community also drastically shifted.

“For the longest time, I would get annoyed by people sometimes, or just want to do my own thing. Even my first couple years of college, I didn’t have that many friends, and I didn’t really want to make a whole lot of friends,” he reflected. “But I know in the Bible God calls us to come together as Christians and learn from each other. I knew I needed to get more involved in other people’s lives. And I think just being with ��ñ�� and having people I can be honest with, and the ways we learn from each other, has really shaped my understanding of how important community is.”

Wanting to Give Others the Same Experience

Being part of ��ñ�� also gives Josh more opportunities to do one of his favorite things: share about Jesus with others. The Radford chapter did a Proxe Station—an interactive art display designed to lead people into spiritual conversations— on campus and plans to do another one soon.

Josh said, “One of the biggest things I’ve learned from ��ñ�� is that people do want to learn more about spirituality even though it might not seem that way sometimes. It’s a lot easier to have spiritual conversations than I ever thought it would be before.”

His desire as he starts his senior year in the fall is that more Radford students would get to experience the love of Jesus and the community he’s found through ��ñ��.

“I really love having friends I can talk with about Jesus. And I have several new friends that I’ve made who are learning a lot about God who maybe didn’t think about religion too much before,” he said. “There are lots of people that need to hear the gospel at Radford, so I think ��ñ�� is a great way for people to learn more about who Jesus is and how we can experience him together.”

��ñ�� provides welcoming, witnessing communities where students can study the Bible and experience the real hope of Jesus and what it means to follow him. You can help create these spaces for students like Josh by giving to ��ñ��. Click the button below to learn more.

Give to Bring Real Hope to Campuses

News Keywords

christian organization on campus

radford university

Restored for Restoration

ashlye.vanderworp@intervarsity.org — Tue, 08 May 2018 20:38:30 +0000

Katie Ziegler

Restored for Restoration

As a senior in high school, Adryahna desperately wanted to fit in. Many friends turned their backs on her, and others bullied her. The friends Adryahna did have made poor choices, including bringing alcohol to school to drink together every day.

Lost and hoping for a change, Adryahna left home in San Diego to attend California State University, Long Beach, where she met some students from ��ñ�� who helped her move into her dorm. She ended up attending a few of their large group meetings.

However, Adryahna continued to make choices that chipped away at her well-being. By the end of freshman year, she was depressed and diagnosed with anxiety.

“My main goal was to turn up,” she said. “I was pretty much just partying. It was really unfulfilling, and I got really tired really quickly.”

One night, while Adryahna and a friend were walking home from a party, someone drove by and threw a milkshake at them, calling them horrible names. That moment was devastating and pushed Adryahna to get to know Jesus a little better. She decided to read through the entire New Testament that summer.

A New Family and New Desire

On the first day back on campus as a sophomore, Adryahna ran into an ��ñ�� acquaintance who invited her to get involved with Black Campus Ministries (BCM).

“I went, and I loved everyone. They became like family,” she said.

From that moment on, Adryahna found not only the community she longed for, but the desire to put Jesus at the center of her decisions. Then, at her ��ñ�� chapter’s Spring Conference, Adryahna officially gave Jesus lordship over her life.

Now, Adryahna is finishing her last semester of school where she leads the BCM portion of ��ñ�� on campus. During her time in the chapter, she saw not only her own relationship with Jesus deepen, but also the chapter grow exponentially with those invested in seeing change on campus.

Seeing her campus transform as her own life transformed prompted Adryahna to serve as the student emcee at this year’s Ambition Conference, where she shared vulnerably from the stage, prayed for speakers, and encouraged other students to be bold in following Jesus by carrying his mission on campus.

An Unexpected Leap of Faith

In her commitment to follow where God leads, Adryahna recently made the decision to return home after graduation with no job and no clear career plan. This decision came at the expense of turning down other opportunities, including Teach for America and an internship with ��ñ��.

But God gave Adryahna a vision of restoring relationships with her high school friends and inviting them to study the Bible with her.

“I’ve learned that we’re not supposed to have faith in our faith; we’re supposed to have faith in God,” Adryahna said. “I trust that God will sustain me and that there will be fruit and healing from this huge faith leap I’m taking.”

In the future though, Adryahna hopes doors will open to her ultimate goal—to help reform the prison system. Growing her relationship with God also grew in her a commitment to bring his justice and hope to our broken world.

“God used ��ñ�� to show me the truth of who he is—he is love. He used ��ñ�� to give me the confidence to use my voice and the discernment to know where to invest my time in the future,” Adryahna said.

While moving home feels scary for Adryahna, as though her future plans are on hold, she knows that serving God after college looks different for everyone, and that what she chose is just as important.

Are you graduating from college this year like Adryahna? Your involvement with ��ñ�� doesn’t have to end. Learn about the different ways to stay connected with ��ñ�� by clicking the button below!

Visit the ��ñ�� Alumni Page

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Black Campus Ministries

Basketball and Bible Study

ashlye.vanderworp@intervarsity.org — Mon, 12 Feb 2018 19:54:35 +0000

Ashlye Vanderworp

Basketball and Bible Study

Gabby was a college basketball star who went to church “maybe once a year.” She believed in God—mostly because she was afraid of what would happen otherwise.

“I couldn’t understand when people would say Jesus died for me. In my head, he didn’t even know me,” Gabby said. “I used to question God all the time, and I didn’t understand the Bible and its meaning.”

“God, like the real God, spoke to you?”

On a road trip in 2015, Gabby’s best friend and fellow basketball player on another campus talked about Rec Week, an annual ��ñ�� conference. Gabby’s friend shared how at Rec Week she grew in her love for Jesus and engaged in listening prayer.

Gabby was shocked, “God, like the real God, spoke to you? How?” Her curiosity was sparked, so she agreed to study the Bible with her friend over the summer.

The next semester, Gabby transferred with a basketball scholarship to Our Lady of the Lake University (OLLU) in San Antonio, Texas, her best friend’s school. Excited to join the same life-changing ��ñ�� chapter as her friend, Gabby regularly attended a Bible study led by Patrick Farris, an ��ñ�� staff minister.

Patrick convinced Gabby, along with her teammates, to go to Rec Week, the same conference her friend attended a year earlier. A call to faith was made. Gabby said yes and decided to follow Jesus.

“Jesus does know me! I know that now. I don’t have it all together, and I need him.”

“��ñ�� changed my life.”

The following year, after co-leading a Bible study for basketball players at OLLU, Gabby and her team attended Rec Week for the second time. There, they prayed for campuses with no ��ñ�� presence, including Sul Ross State University—the same campus where Gabby already accepted a role as Graduate Assistant Coach of the women’s basketball team.

“That,” Gabby said, “presented a great opportunity to start a chapter!”

Today, Gabby leads Wednesday night Bible studies for the Sul Ross women’s basketball team when they’re not on the road. Just like Gabby’s team at OLLU, God is transforming the lives of the players at Sul Ross. They’ve become more open and are reaching friends outside of the team. Plus, this May, three years since her best friend told her about the conference, four of the women agreed to attend Rec Week with Gabby—the first time for Sul Ross students.

“��ñ�� changed my life,” Gabby said. “It not only strengthened my relationships with friends I already had, but also brought into my life people whose faith kept my faith growing even more. I thought I was good before, but when I gave my life to God and felt his love for me, I realized I was far from good. I actually lacked everything.”

Will you consider giving to ��ñ��, so more students like Gabby and her team can come to know the God who knows them already? Just like Gabby, ��ñ�� wants to see more future leaders developed on campuses across the nation. For more information and to give, click the button below.

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Transforming Virtual Conversations

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Tue, 12 Dec 2017 14:42:48 +0000

News

Gordon Govier

Transforming Virtual Conversations

Angelo Blancaflor became a missional gamer during his third year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) when he realized something about his fellow gamers. He had been meeting with them online for years but knew little about their offline lives.

In high school Angelo and three online friends shifted their sleep schedules for almost a year, in order to be awake from 1:00a.m. to 4:00a.m. Pacific time so they could watch a game being streamed. “We bonded deeply because we were all a little bit crazy at those hours of the night, watching games and talking about whatever else, waiting for the games to start,” he said.

Five years later, they were still gaming friends, but not much more than that. So Angelo began to ask them about their families and what they did when they weren’t gaming. Eventually he asked if they could meet in person. As they established a new level of trust with each other, and developed curiosity about each other’s lives, sharing about his Christian faith began to naturally become part of the conversation.

But even though Angelo had been able to build community with these gamers, he began to ponder the unique challenges to really getting to know others in the online gaming world.

Angelo joined the ��ñ�� community at UIUC shortly after he arrived from his home in Orange County, California quite naturally. New friends in his dorm invited him to an ��ñ�� social activity where he found more new friends. He kept attending, his faith grew, and he eventually became a student leader.

Mid-way through college, Angelo attended the ��ñ�� Leadership Institute, a month-long summer training course at Cedar Campus in Michigan. There he committed himself to follow God’s leading in his life and in his relationships. And he felt that God was calling him to go to graduate school for biology research.

Toward that call, Angelo began working in a research laboratory as a UIUC student, and just before attending Urbana 15 he lined up a research position at the University of California–Irvine where he could work after graduation. He wasn’t planning on doing vocational ministry.

But, as he put it, “God rocked my world and said, ‘Hey, grad school is nice and all, but what about missions?’”

Angelo had already been planning to connect with ��ñ��’s Ministry in Digital Spaces (MDS) team at Urbana to talk with them about his experiences in missional gaming. And he found people who shared his passion and vision for gamers. “They said, ‘Yeah, this is exactly what we want to do too,’” Angelo recalled—to which he replied, ‘Well, I’m already doing this, I need to get on board with you guys.”

Once on the MDS team Angelo began to delve further into the dynamics of developing online communities, specifically online small groups that would be similar to the typical ��ñ�� campus small group Bible study. “It’s not terribly different than getting an offline small group started,” he said. “But getting into conversations with people is very different because you can’t just encounter them like you would on campus.”

Angelo became the evangelism champion for the MDS team and began coordinating his research with ��ñ��’s Evangelism Department. Then, when an unexpected leadership departure brought about the closing of the MDS team, Angelo was able to transition into a new role as the Evangelism Communications Manager. He’s continuing to engage with the online communities that he’s connected with and is now working on the second phase of his project; to test calls to faith in online small groups.

“I think that some of the things that we have learned over the past year-and-a-half are going to be really crucial for the next generation of college students that grew up in a really similar context, the online context, but didn’t stop to think critically about it because it’s so normal for them,” Angelo said. “I think it’s natural for the next generation to need people to guide them through and disciple them through some of these things.”

But facilitating the work of the Holy Spirit online also resonates in communities beyond college students. All ages are engaging with Facebook and other online social media. “There’s a ministry need here of people to bring life to all of these conversations,” he said. It’s the perfect challenge for a missional gamer like Angelo.

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University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign