chapter planting

Chapter Planting: What Did We Know About Starting From Scratch?

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Tue, 18 Jun 2019 13:11:18 +0000

Gordon Govier

Chapter Planting: What Did We Know About Starting From Scratch?

Renee McCrory decided to join ��ñ�� staff at the end of a long day at her sales job. She was driving to George Mason University (GMU) where she led a small group Bible study started by her church. “I realized that this could be my job,” she recalled. “I love it, so I thought, why don’t I do it fulltime?”

She turned in her two-week notice on the same day that she made the biggest sale in her company’s history. She and Matt, who is now her husband, also decided to get married at about that time, and join staff together.

Matt started college on the GMU wrestling team but dropped out to attend a community college, and then ended up at James Madison University (JMU), where he got involved in ��ñ�� and met Renee. They both became ��ñ�� leaders at one of ��ñ��’s largest chapters, which typically numbers over 500 students.

“I fell in love with college ministry,” he said. But he didn’t feel ready to join ��ñ�� staff upon graduation. So instead he went to work at a large northern Virginia church. As much as he liked working in a church setting, he eventually realized that the church’s campus ministry fell short of what he had experienced in ��ñ��.

Renee and Matt spent their first year on staff in North Carolina, wrestling with the challenge of returning to GMU to plant a chapter. They and their supervisors had a lot of questions, such as, “We had been students in a large long-established chapter; what did we know about starting from scratch?” Yet they couldn’t give up the idea.

“We said Mason seemed really hard but we would be willing to go there,” Matt said. “It's the largest public university in Virginia, and one of the most diverse colleges in the world. It’s almost totally unreached; we thought it was crazy that no one was there.”

Cru has a chapter at GMU but most other ministries that had tried to reach the campus had failed. Even the church that Matt and Renee were part of pulled out their campus ministry.

Other staff in Virginia quizzed their students for names of contacts at GMU. When Matt and Renee returned to the campus in 2013 they found four students from that list who bravely agreed to attend Chapter Camp and embrace the vision of planting a new GMU chapter.

When school started in the fall they made two sets of signs that said, “Does God = Love?” and took them to campus. They invited any students who responded to their question to a small group Bible study.

“We didn’t actually have small groups set up,” Renee said. “We hoped that if we invited enough people to a Tuesday night study, the first person who had said yes to coming wouldn’t be the only person who showed up.”

“It was scary to invite people to nonexistent things,” Matt added, but students came. After long days of campus conversations during the day, small groups at night, and social activities on weekends, they had three small groups organized. One fizzled out, but the other two succeeded. In fact, they had to split one group as it grew larger and larger.

They saw God answer their prayers and give them confidence through an awkward time. “It was very faith-building to see the Lord bring something out of nothing,” Renee said. “We had so many doubts about whether we could plant or not. I think the Lord met us in our inability.”

“I was amazed the whole year,” Matt added. “It was really students who were willing to take risks that made it succeed.”

Even today, five-and-a-half years later, the chapter is thriving because students are still willing to take risks. After many prayers for more Greek men to join small group Bible studies, one chapter member decided to join a fraternity himself. Now he’s in a small group Bible study that is steadily growing, and taking other fraternity members with him to Greek conference.

Although there’s a weekly large group meeting, the vibrancy of ��ñ�� at GMU comes from the small groups. After their freshman year, many small group participants become leaders of new small groups. However, it’s not unusual for them to also remain in their first group. Matt quoted one student, whose mother thought two small groups might be too much: “Mom, I just invested a year of my life into these women. I'm not going to leave this small group,” she said.

As the chapter embraces ��ñ��’s 2030 Calling to reach every corner of their campus. Matt and Renee have found the most success at GMU by having students use their friend networks, rather than pre-selecting target niches. “Each of our small groups is intentionally thinking about how they can incarnate on campus,” Renee said. “We’re inviting students to invest in the communities on campus that they’re a part of and see what the Lord will do.” Students are starting groups for people they know in their dance class, or their international student friends, for example.

When Matt and Renee look back on the past five-and-a-half years they are amazed at how they have been able to see God at work. They didn’t know it at the time but only one of the four students they started with was actually a committed Christian believer. More than 100 decisions to follow Jesus have been recorded so far, including two more of the original four. Last year the GMU chapter had 180 students. The newly converted and not-yet-converted made up 38 percent of the chapter. There are currently 13 small groups.

Combining what they learned during their student experience at one of the nation’s largest chapters, with their training as part of ��ñ��’s 2013 planting cohort, has resulted in transformed lives and the beginning of a culture change on the GMU campus. “We want to make disciples in four years so they can live out their faith in the next 40,” Renee said. “We’re seeing it happen.”

Donate to support chapters planted on more campuses

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George Mason University

GMU

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James Madison University

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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community

University of Hawai'i at Hilo

Hawaii

2030 Calling

Honolulu Community College

Ambition Is Shaping the Future of ��ñ��

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

News

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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��ñ�� Students and Staff Plan to Reach More Campuses at Ambition Conference

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Thu, 11 Jan 2018 16:51:54 +0000

Press Room

��ñ�� Students and Staff Plan to Reach More Campuses at Ambition Conference

(Madison, WI) -- ��ñ��’s Ambition conference, held in Anaheim, California, January 11-13, 2018, focuses on an ambitious goal. More than 700 college students, 300 ��ñ�� staff, and a number of college faculty are meeting to plan and strategize what is needed to plant witnessing communities on every U.S. campus.

The conference is directed by Shawn Young, ��ñ��’s National Director of Chapter Planting, and features the Rev. Efrem Smith, founding pastor of The Sanctuary Covenant Church and CEO of World Impact, an organization that helps train leaders in urban ministry and plant churches in the inner city.

Ambition will also hear from a leader of another organization which shares ��ñ��’s ambitious vision. Mark Gauthier, Executive Director of U.S. Campus Ministry for Cru, will be speaking at Ambition’s Saturday morning session. Mark, and Jason Thomas, ��ñ��’s Executive Vice President of Field Ministries, also appeared together at Cru’s national staff conference last July.

Moved by the Lord to ask, “What can we accomplish together that we cannot apart?” ��ñ�� and Cru leadership have committed to collaborate on campus in order to see more students and faculty become followers of Jesus Christ. They are jointly sponsoring a new website inviting other individuals, churches, and ministries to partner together in order to see a Christian witness on all U.S. campuses. The website is at everycampus.us.

The Ambition Live Stream can be accessed at: /ambition/. Sessions are held between 7:00p.m. and 9:00p.m. (PST) and 9:30a.m. – 12:30p.m., beginning Thursday evening and ending Saturday evening. The name for ��ñ��’s Ambition conference is taken from 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]

��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 more than 160 countries. ��ñ�� is also a charter member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.

Follow along with the Ambition conference and ��ñ�� at:

https://www.instagram.com/intervarsityusa/

https://twitter.com/INTERVARSITYusa

https://www.facebook.com/intervarsityusa/

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Accelerating Mission Through Video Coaching

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Wed, 01 Nov 2017 19:46:11 +0000

News

Gordon Govier

Accelerating Mission Through Video Coaching

In the early days of ��ñ��, field staff itinerated from campus to campus by train; they were assigned to regions, not campuses. In order to reach every corner of every campus, a goal to which ��ñ�� aspires, we may be returning to a semblance of those days with staff once again mentoring student leaders on a number of campuses.

In fact, it’s already starting. But instead of trains, staff use Zoom and Google Hangouts.

Zoom is a California-based company that offers remote video conferencing services. In the last few years ��ñ�� staff have been using Zoom more and more to hold virtual staff meetings with colleagues across the country. Arul Karunanidhi, an ��ñ�� Campus Staff Minister in Florida, wondered, “Why can’t it work with students?”

Arul discovered ��ñ�� as a sophomore at the University of Central Florida (UCF) and joined ��ñ�� staff at UCF upon graduation. Three years ago, he began to visit nearby campuses that didn’t have an ��ñ�� chapter. “That was a big part of my heart, to do ministry with students who don’t have a witnessing community or don’t have access to the gospel,” he said.

Working with his staff supervisor, he created the position of “itinerant planter.” His first-year goal was to work on three campuses in Orlando. But then God started opening doors not only in Orlando but also in nearby Lakeland. Arul was making connections through students who wanted ��ñ�� on campus, or an alumnus who knew a Christian student on a campus, or a Christian faculty member who had an ��ñ�� connection.

By the end of the year two chapters had been established and two more had active ministry. And Arul had a vision for planting 10 more chapters on 10 new campuses in three years. “God’s been opening doors and now I’m working on nine campuses; we planted ��ñ�� on seven of them,” he said.

Zoom was an experiment at first; it seemed like it might work with student leaders as well as ��ñ�� staff. But has turned out to be a critical component. Orlando is a big, spread-out city and Lakeland is a 90-minute drive away. “There was no way I could meet with people face to face and still have any other life,” he said. “But now I can do Scripture studies with them, I can do training, I can debrief events, all through Zoom.”

At one media-focused school, students changed schedules every month and finding a time for Christian students to all meet in person was nearly impossible. “Let’s try things over Zoom and see what happens,” Arul said. Now the students are doing video conference Bible studies together. “It feels completely natural for them,” he added. After all, the students are already used to a lot of screen time on their smart phones and through online courses.

NaKhia Grays, Black Campus Ministry (BCM) coordinator for the Mid-Atlantic Region, faced a similar dilemma. After becoming involved in ��ñ�� as a student at Bucknell University, she joined staff as a volunteer in 2001, and became a full-time staff member two years later. When she transitioned to part-time with the arrival of her baby, NaKhia wanted to keep mentoring students who were initiating BCM small groups in Maryland, D.C., Pennsylvania, and Delaware. So she began a monthly Google Hangout video conference. “I was trying to streamline my work and figure out the best way to influence the most student leaders with the least amount of time,” she said.

The first Hangouts were early in 2016. After maternity leave she resumed Hangouts again in February of 2017, following the Black Student Leadership Conference, RELEASE. Within another month, two of the students had started a BCM small group on their campus. “Who launches anything in March of the school year?” NaKhia laughed. “The students were either eager to create a space on their campus that hasn’t been there or they experienced something at the BCM conference that they wanted to replicate on their campus.”

The students share prayer requests and pray for each other during the call. NaKhia teaches about leadership and other relevant topics, fields questions, and then they close in prayer. “The students get to know each other pretty well,” she said. They are encouraged to be connecting with others like themselves on other campuses.

Arul found the same response. “We were creating a community across campuses,” he said. “It really felt like the original ��ñ��—a Christian fellowship between the universities.”*

Arul’s hope is that each campus represented on his calls will eventually have their own staff person—perhaps one of the students he’s now mentoring by video, so that a sustainable ministry can start at each school. “They just need vision, support, and coaching,” he said.

In the Mid-Atlantic region, NaKhia is hoping to see Black Campus Ministry continue to flourish through Bible studies and BCM chapters. Some of the students NaKhia has been coaching have become accountability partners to strengthen their faith. Long-term relationships are being built.

This year, Florida classes and scheduled events were thrown off schedule by Hurricane Irma, which moved through the state near the start of the semester. But Arul found that getting his students back on track was helped by the video conference connection.

It looks like video conference coaching will be keeping ��ñ�� on track for years to come.

*See how ��ñ�� got its name on our history page.

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Teaching Students How to Plant & Grow

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 19:23:40 +0000

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Gordon Govier

Teaching Students How to Plant & Grow

Laurel Thiel thought that becoming a physical therapist was the perfect career plan. Her dad was a doctor and her mom was a nurse. She could join them and they could work as a team on the mission field in East Africa where she grew up.

Even though she was heavily involved in revitalizing the ��ñ�� chapter at Sonoma State University as a student leader, she didn’t think joining ��ñ�� staff was for her. After all, she had two uncles and two aunts with ��ñ�� and she thought that was enough.

But a physical therapy internship the summer before graduation began to raise questions in her mind. “I liked what I did that summer but it didn’t bring me life,” she said. Laurel found herself frequently thinking about campus ministry. When she returned to campus she was torn between the two career paths and not sure which one to take. So she spent a day alone praying in the mountains.

“That’s when I felt God calling me to come on staff,” she said. “Deep in my heart there was a desire to stay on campus and to stay with ��ñ��. There’s something about this ministry that I can’t walk away from.”

The next day, Laurel tore up her grad school application and started her ��ñ�� staff application. Following graduation she was assigned to work at the University of California-Merced campus.

Arriving at Merced, five years ago, she found a medium-sized fellowship of about 75 people. Her second year at Merced, God gave her a vision of lights from her campus going out to all the other campuses in the Merced area. “My sense was that UC-Merced would be a place where students and staff were sent to these other campuses to start ministries there,” she said.

At a prayer retreat with her student leaders God gave the team a second vision: that no student would leave UC-Merced without the chance to hear the name of Jesus. “Our fellowship is growing in our desire for people to know about Jesus,” Laurel said, “and our desire to share our faith, and also our desire to see specific communities reached that aren’t being reached with the gospel.”

Last year, Laurel joined the Plant to Build Cohort, a team of ��ñ�� staff members. This cohort came together to see if they could meld the plans developed by two previous groups that had separately researched strategies on how to plant and grow campus chapters. “We want to plant chapters that will build, and we want to build chapters that will plant,” Laurel explained.

Her experience with the cohort strengthened the small group focus of ministry on the UC-Merced campus. “If we believe that small groups are a place where people encounter Jesus in the context of relationship and community, then we want to have small groups in every corner of the campus,” she said. Each small group has apprentices who are being developed into leaders. When apprentices are ready for leadership they’re asked where their friends are on campus, and each is then invited to go plant a group there.

For instance Sam, a sophomore volleyball team member, planted a small group Bible study for UC-Merced athletes last year. With coaching from chapter leaders he was able to persevere through all of the challenges, and stay faithful to his vision even though it didn't grow as quickly as he had hoped. “I’m learning about how much I need to rely on God and rely on my community to help me reach my community of athletes,” he said.

“One thing I’ve learned through all of this is that students can do just about everything that staff can,” Laurel said. “There’s not much I do that I can’t teach and shouldn’t teach a student to do as well.” She credited her cohort experience for giving her the skills needed to teach her students.

She’s also been encouraged by the faithfulness of students like Sam who respond to God’s leading and don’t give up when the road gets rough. “It’s not just about me as staff casting vision and coaching—students cast vision for me too,” she said.

The UC-Merced chapter has now grown to almost 200 students. There are 30 leaders, each with an apprentice. Leadership meetings are chaotic but fun. Laurel said all of her top leaders have coached other leaders and planted small groups, and could easily plant a chapter on a new campus if God calls them to staff. She believes her vision for the other campuses in the Merced area is within reach. “I need a new dream,” Laurel concluded.

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University of California - Merced

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��ñ�� Is Back in Arkansas

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Wed, 20 May 2015 15:17:18 +0000

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Gordon Govier

��ñ�� Is Back in Arkansas

Seventeen months after a busload of ��ñ�� staff from Texas and Oklahoma made an exploratory visit to the University of Arkansas, ��ñ�� has become an officially recognized student organization once again on the Fayetteville campus. ��ñ�� has not had an undergrad chapter in Arkansas for almost a decade.

Joseph Pau-Wu, an alumnus of the University of Texas, has served as a volunteer Campus Staff Member over the past year, shepherding the new chapter. This summer he will be joined by Jacob and Christina Foor, who have been on staff at Trinity University in San Antonio for the past six years.

��ñ�� alumni and parents living in the Fayetteville area and nearby have played a major role in helping the new chapter get on its feet.

Doug Scott and his wife Laura met at an ��ñ�� camp, and Doug is a former ��ñ�� Campus Staff Member. They have funded a matching grant to help plant the chapter. Doug was introduced to ��ñ�� as a freshman in college by David Cox. David and his wife Kate hosted a dessert in their home this spring to help raise support for the new chapter.

Lamar and Shari Steiger hosted the 2013 bus trip to Fayetteville and continue to advocate for the new chapter. Their daughter Olivia was involved in the Trinity University chapter (with the Foors) and is now active in the ��ñ�� grad fellowship at the University of Hawaiʻi.

Bronson Stilwell was looking for Christian fellowship when he was a student at Rice University, and helped plant the ��ñ�� chapter on the Rice campus. Now in Fayetteville, Bronson and his wife Evelyn, who live across the street from the University of Arkansas’s “Old Main,” offer housing to international scholars. They have reserved an apartment above their garage for Jacob and Christina, the incoming staff.

Associate Regional Director Andrea Thomas is thrilled to see how God has called students, pastors, parents, alumni, community leaders, faculty, University staff, and ��ñ�� staff to all play a part in raising up the next generation of world changers in Arkansas. “The Lord has truly gone before us into Arkansas,” she said. “It’s been such a joy to connect the with high caliber people God has called to reestablish ��ñ�� as a vibrant multiethnic witness at the University of Arkansas and beyond. There is a missionary movement happening in Northwest Arkansas and ��ñ�� is again in the midst of it!”

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��ñ�� alumni

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Reaching Every Corner of Every Campus

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 20:21:05 +0000

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Alec Hill, president of ��ñ�� Christian Fellowship

Reaching Every Corner of Every Campus

What happens when nearly 400 students and 350 staff gather for four days to dream about “reaching every corner of every campus” via planting new witnessing communities? Amazing stuff! First, they get fired up. Then they get equipped to put legs to their vision.

��ñ��’s second Ambition Conference was hosted in Tampa last month. During worship on the first evening, I felt a tear involuntarily meander down my right cheek. Why? Because a decade ago, VP Jim Lundgren and I dreamed about a bolder and more missional Fellowship. But never in our wildest imaginations did we expect such energy and momentum, particularly amongst students.

The conference title comes from Romans 15. After planting in the eastern half of the Roman Empire, Paul declared his “ambition” to reach the other half - “to preach the gospel where Christ is not known.” His holy drive continues to inspire us today.

Highlights

Shawn Young (left), our National Director of Chapter Planting, kicked off the conference by emphasizing student initiative: “students are seeds to be scattered, not sheep to be tended.” He called students to (a) identify unreached affinity groups on their campuses and (b) establish witnessing communities on campuses near their own. Click on this link, and others in this story, and you can see videos from Shawn and others from the Ambition conference posted on ��ñ��'s twentyonehundred productions video channel.

Eric Rafferty then shared his story, a perfect illustration of Shawn’s vision. A few years ago, ��ñ�� had no work in the state of Nebraska. Nada. Serving on staff in Los Angeles, Eric and his wife, Stacy (standing on the left, with some students in this photo), began to sense the Lord’s call. After much prayer, they took the plunge and moved half- way across the country.

Today, there are five chapters on three Nebraskan campuses. Students have started ministry amongst their circles of friends – including baseball players, Burmese, African Americans, Greeks, basketball players, Latinos and international students. Rather than simply adding one student at a time, the Raffertys’ emphasize multiplication – each student is a minister to his/her network of friends.

Other staff speakers included Kathy Haug and James Choung. These two can really bring it! Like other participants, I was deeply inspired by their call to bolder and broader campus outreach. I confess to being convicted of my own relative cowardice and left Tampa more motivated to reach my pre-believing friends.

And, of course, it is impossible not to mention 2100’s fabulous videos. My two favorites feature Abner Ramos who heads LaFe’s chapter planting efforts and Chizu Shimizu who obeyed God’s call to get in her car one night and drive two hours to an unreached campus. She became the answer to students' prayers, and as a result of her submission, two new chapters were born.

Personal Note

I had a great time hanging out with ministry partners who came to Ambition as our guests. Here I am with students and staff from Salem State (Massachusetts). It was a joy to watch the event through their eyes. Values we sometimes take for granted – such as student initiative, racial reconciliation and the interconnected-ness of proclamation/justice – they experienced as remarkable demonstrations of the Kingdom.

I left Tampa thankful to our Father, proud of our staff and excited about our students. May the Lord continue to send all of us to new places on campus.

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Ambition

��ñ��’s First Chapter President

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 19:59:26 +0000

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Gordon Govier

��ñ��’s First Chapter President

��ñ��’s first chapter on a U.S. college campus was at the University of Michigan in 1941. And the first president of the first chapter was Don Brown, who was personally recruited by ��ñ�� founder C. Stacey Woods.

“He knew my family,” Don recalled. “And he knew I had just transferred from Wheaton to the University of Michigan. All I remember is that he approached me to say, ‘We're starting an ��ñ�� here, and would you please lead it?’ And that's how I got started with ��ñ��.”

Stacey Woods may not have known that Don had been in an evangelistic quartet with a young Billy Graham at Wheaton, but it was soon clear that Don was a strong leader. The young chapter in its first year ambitiously sponsored a lecture series outreach, featuring three evangelical professors from other colleges. Banks of typewriters were set up to type personal invitations to all of the students, and the 1,000-seat lecture hall was full for all three lectures.

The next year the head of the Religious Studies department told Don that the department had its own lecture series and ��ñ�� would not be allowed to compete with it. So Don decided to go to the top and scheduled a meeting with University of Michigan president Alexander Ruthven. An all-night prayer meeting was held the night before the Saturday morning appointment.

The next morning, when Don and another student walked into the president’s paneled office, the president observed that they weren’t attending the annual Ohio State/Michigan football game. But then he surprised them and said, “Fellas, I’ll never go to another Ohio State game, because of the way our students were acting up, and the drinking and everything that was going on.”

“Dr. Ruthven, that's exactly what we came to talk to you about,” Don responded, explaining their plans for the lecture series. At the end of the meeting, Dr. Ruthven told them, “Gentlemen, that's exactly what we need on this campus. You have my permission.” Dr. Ruthven also offered to host the speaker in his home for the weekend, an offer that was repeated for the following year’s lecture.

The Michigan chapter started out with about 50-60 students, who met regularly on Sunday evenings. Several Bible studies began in the dorms. The chapter was encouraged by occasional visits from Stacey Woods but was otherwise totally student-led.

As Don left the University of Michigan and began his dental practice in his hometown of Detroit, he stayed involved in ministry activities. He taught a regular Sunday school class in various churches for 65 years, and mentored young people through the churches. He served and chaired the boards of several ministries, led a regular prayer meeting with Christian businessmen, and participated in a number of overseas ministry trips.

After Don retired from his dental practice, he and his wife, Joyce, moved to Florida, and once again sought out ��ñ��. They wrote a letter to the local ��ñ�� Area Director and asked if there was a role for them as retirees.

There was. They became volunteers, working with the Edison College chapter at Fort Myers for four years (renamed Florida Southwestern State College earlier this year). They were concerned about the extreme age difference, but the students seemed to enjoy having someone the age of their grandparents to talk with. “We became Christian grandparents to that whole group of kids,” Don said.

They were on campus three days a week, meeting with students and attending prayer meetings and other events. “We saw kids really grow in the Lord,” he said. “It's been thrilling to see Bill Harward come in and take over that work and also the work at Gulf Coast University. He's doing a fabulous job. Kids are coming to Christ there, where we started at Edison.”

Don told more stories about how God had guided him through many ministry opportunities during his time on campus and in the military in this interview and a subsequent video interview with ��ñ��’s twentyonehundred productions. “��ñ�� made me fearless for the rest of my life,” he said. “If God could do that, with a couple of kids on the campus of the University of Michigan, he could do anything. I had to stand on my own two feet but the Lord won the battles.”

The next day after his video interview, Don died in his sleep and passed fearlessly on to glory. He was 93 years old. We are so thankful for the example established by Don, Stacey Woods, and the other pioneers who responded to the spiritual needs of the campus and laid the foundation for all that ��ñ�� does in our campus ministry today.

View the video that goes with this story.

News Keywords

University of Michigan

��ñ�� alumni

chapter planting

C. Stacey Woods

A Partnership to Plant A Chapter

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Tue, 11 Nov 2014 20:10:07 +0000

News

Gordon Govier

A Partnership to Plant A Chapter

Although ��ñ�� has 949 chapters on 616 U.S. college and university campuses, there are approximately 4,600 degree-granting institutions in the United States. Many of those other schools still have no Christian witness on campus. That’s why, for the past nine years, ��ñ�� has been intentionally planting more than 100 new chapters and developing momentum to reach even more campus communities with the gospel.

Planting new chapters is hard work and takes a lot of creativity. This year, our chapter plant at Saginaw Valley University, near Saginaw, Michigan, has gone very well with a creative new approach. Regional Director Fred Bailey credits the quick growth to chapter planter Mike Petersen’s partnership with Kareem, a local pastor and ��ñ�� alumnus.

“Kareem and Mike share a vision for a multiethnic ministry that will reach out to the whole campus,” he said. “The chapter plant combines Kareem’s strong preaching and leadership gifts with Mike’s strong networking, and evangelism gifts, both of their strong relational gifts, and Mike’s ��ñ�� planting and Bible study training.”

Mike is surprised and pleased by the strong start. “Things are moving faster than I expected,” he said. The first three weeks of large group meetings saw attendance grow to almost 100. Eleven students made decisions to follow Christ, and more than two dozen more rededicated their lives to Jesus Christ.

��ñ�� is eager to find better ways of partnering with local churches to reach more campuses in the U.S. “The work that Mike and Kareem are doing is exciting to see, and I hope we can establish more partnerships like this,” said Shawn Young, ��ñ��’s director of chapter planting.

To continue to build momentum and help staff and students see opportunities to start new chapters, ��ñ�� is sponsoring a conference called Ambition, which will be held in Tampa, Florida, January 15-18, 2015. Students, faculty members, and ��ñ�� staff will gather to discover innovative ways to collaborate in order to start new outreaches on campus.

News Keywords

Saginaw Valley University

Evangelism

chapter planting

chapter planting

Chapter Planting: What Did We Know About Starting From Scratch?

Chapter Planting: What Did We Know About Starting From Scratch?

Angel’s Story

Angel’s Story

A Huge Risk

A New Family

Ambition Is Shaping the Future of ��ñ����

Ambition Is Shaping the Future of ��ñ����

��ñ���� Students and Staff Plan to Reach More Campuses at Ambition Conference

��ñ���� Students and Staff Plan to Reach More Campuses at Ambition Conference

Accelerating Mission Through Video Coaching

Accelerating Mission Through Video Coaching

Teaching Students How to Plant & Grow

Teaching Students How to Plant & Grow

��ñ���� Is Back in Arkansas

��ñ���� Is Back in Arkansas

Reaching Every Corner of Every Campus

Reaching Every Corner of Every Campus

Highlights

Personal Note

��ñ����’s First Chapter President

��ñ����’s First Chapter President

A Partnership to Plant A Chapter

A Partnership to Plant A Chapter

Ambition Is Shaping the Future of ��ñ��

Ambition Is Shaping the Future of ��ñ��

��ñ�� Students and Staff Plan to Reach More Campuses at Ambition Conference

��ñ�� Students and Staff Plan to Reach More Campuses at Ambition Conference

��ñ�� Is Back in Arkansas

��ñ�� Is Back in Arkansas

��ñ��’s First Chapter President

��ñ��’s First Chapter President