Discipleship

Urbana 22 Calls Gen Z to Rise Up as Whole-Life, Whole-World Disciples

AD-18513 — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:41:38 +0000

Urbana 22 Calls Gen Z to Rise Up as Whole-Life, Whole-World Disciples

��ñ�� hosted its 26th Urbana Student Missions Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana, December 28-31, 2022, inviting almost 6,000 participants to see themselves as God has created and called them — as witnesses of his glory to the ends of the earth.

Through onstage testimonies of people living out their faith across vocations and nations each morning and Bible expositions from the book of Acts each evening, Urbana created a space for participants to see the Holy Spirit empowered witness of a global Church.

Students also had time to dig into God’s Word for themselves — through student-led Bible studies. In the months leading up to Urbana, ��ñ�� equipped over 620 student leaders from chapters across the country to lead their peers through three morning Bible studies. “I really loved my group,” one student leader said. “I felt like we were all learning from each other, and it wasn’t just me leading. It was a group discussion we were all contributing to.”

A major highlight of the conference came when these student leaders gave an invitation to faith in response to the story of the Ethiopian and Philip (Acts 8:26-40). “These student leaders took a risky step of faith, and they saw their peers say yes to the good news of Jesus! They saw God work through their obedience,” said Greg Jao, Executive Vice President of Communications and Mobilization. “They are going back to their campuses excited and eager to invite more friends and classmates to know Jesus too.”

Students also got to hear from fellow students, like Naomi, during general sessions about the ways God has called them to say yes. Naomi shared about how much God has grown her faith since she started college from leading an ��ñ�� small group, even though she was an introvert, to ultimately planting a Black Campus Ministries chapter during the pandemic. “When it comes to my faith journey, there has been this theme of trusting God, even when it feels like there is no way some things could happen,” she said.

In the afternoons, participants had a broad range of opportunities to explore how messages from Scripture and general session testimonies applied to their own lives, including prayer ministry and next steps coaching, a Connections Hall with 190-plus missions organizations and seminaries, and over 150 seminars on topics ranging from business as mission to local outreach.

Participants came to Urbana from all across the U.S. and even the globe, weathering storms and significant travel delays. For example, after their flight was cancelled, two students in California decided to drive 30-plus hours to Indianapolis — and even picked up another stranded student in Oklahoma. “Seeing God working in so many cool ways was something I didn’t want to miss,” one of them said.

On the final day of Urbana, participants were called to consider their next step following Urbana, including making a commitment to regularly praying for the global Church, inviting a friend to study Scripture, or cross-cultural or global missions.

“A next step of obedience the Lord is inviting me to is building relationships with people that I have in my circle, to be bold about my faith,” one student said.

“Urbana has invigorated that passion for missions in my heart,” another reflected. “I’m excited to see where the Lord takes me.”

For more information, visit urbana.org/conference for general session and summary videos, seminar recordings, and more.

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��ñ�� Camps in Transition

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Tue, 26 Mar 2019 14:18:45 +0000

Press Room

��ñ�� Camps in Transition

For Immediate Release

(Madison, WI) – We are focused on reaching every corner of every campus in the U.S. by the year 2030. And we want those chapters to be communities that study Scripture and experience deep discipleship. ��ñ�� believes that getting off campus for special experiences like retreats, leadership training camps, and Global and Urban Programs are critical for students.

Over the past three years, ��ñ�� chapters brought students to 105 camps across the country. We believe we can increase the number of students who go to camps by removing barriers like long travel times and allowing chapters to use camps proximate to their campus.

As a result, over the next several years ��ñ�� will transition ownership of our three retreat and training centers: Cedar Campus in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Toah Nipi in New Hampshire, and Campus by the Sea on Catalina Island off the coast of California.

“Many of us on staff with ��ñ�� have stories about how God met us and grew our faith while at camp, so this is a difficult decision,” said ��ñ�� President Tom Lin. “But our value for camping ministry is as high as ever. We know the Lord uses time away at camp to powerfully transform students and whole chapters.”

Ninety-five percent of ��ñ�� chapters who do camping ministry currently use camps that are not owned by ��ñ��, choosing camps that are more accessible to their campuses. For the chapters that have continued to use our camps, high travel times and costs have meant many students are simply unable to go, which has led to significant attendance declines in recent years at our camps.

��ñ�� has begun a process of seeking ministries willing to take over ownership of each camp, starting with Cedar Campus. Programming at all three camps will continue as scheduled for all of 2019. More information on the transition is posted in this Q&A.

Questions? Contact us.

News Keywords

Camps

Retreat and Training Centers

Bible Study

Discipleship

��ñ�� Prepares to Reach 2,500 Campuses by Year 2030

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Mon, 20 Aug 2018 18:04:14 +0000

Press Room

��ñ�� Prepares to Reach 2,500 Campuses by Year 2030

For Release: August 20, 2018

(Madison, WI) – ��ñ�� announces today that the campus ministry will focus on establishing Christian fellowships on 2,500 college campuses in the next 12 years.

As more than 1,500 ��ñ�� campus staff ministers, along with student and faculty leaders, return to campuses this fall, their focus is on the 2030 Calling, which states: Longing for revival, we catalyze movements that call every corner of every campus to follow Jesus.

“We want to see a witnessing community on all 2,500 US campuses with 1,000 students or more by the year 2030,” says ��ñ�� President Tom Lin. “Right now, 53 percent of those 2,500 campuses do not have any known Christian ministry. We have seen that college students are still looking for hope and significance for their lives. In fact, the last 10 years have been among the most fruitful in ��ñ��’s 77-year history.”

Of the 20 million students in college right now, nearly one-third have no religious affiliation or identify as atheist, agnostic, or of no religion. To reach more of these students, ��ñ�� plans to accelerate the planting of new chapters throughout the country, partnering with other campus ministries as well as churches, volunteers, and ��ñ�� alumni. In addition, ��ñ�� is uniquely positioned to reach faculty members because of the nearly 2,000 faculty on campuses across the country involved with ��ñ�� in the 2017–2018 academic year.

“The 2030 Calling represents a new shift in how ��ñ�� approaches campus ministry," Lin says. "More than ever before, ��ñ�� is inviting partners from every part of God’s kingdom to participate in his work among students and faculty. This is not about planting ��ñ��’s flag on every campus; it’s about declaring God’s glory on every campus.”

��ñ�� has chapters in all 50 states, on a total of 695 campuses. A recent highlight is the relocation of ��ñ�� staff from Los Angeles to revive campus ministry along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana.

“We believe the Lord can use us, in partnership with others, to bring a powerful movement of the Spirit among a new generation of students and faculty,” Lin says. “We truly are longing for revival on campus. And we believe that, in the next 12 years, that’s exactly what God will do through the 2030 Calling.”

Real Hope on Campus from ��ñ�� twentyonehundred on Vimeo.

��ñ�� is an interdenominational ministry to students and faculty on US college and university campuses, as well as the publisher of award-winning books on the Christian faith through ��ñ�� Press. ��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.

For more information contact:

Gordon Govier
Media Relations
608/443-3688

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When the Trajectory Changes

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 19:05:07 +0000

News

Gordon Govier

When the Trajectory Changes

Hannah and Brandon Pepin met during college when they were both on the leadership team of the ��ñ�� chapter at the University of Wisconsin—Platteville. Back then, as they described it, the team was pretty dysfunctional. There were three guys and one girl, which turned out to be three extroverts and one introvert.

“We didn’t know how to communicate and there was a lot of frustration and turmoil,” Brandon said. But when the team attended Chapter Focus Week at the end of the school year,God stirred up a vision for their mission on campus and that brought unity to the team. Then through personality analysis tools such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and books such as Sticky Teams by Larry Osborne, they gained a greater appreciation for the importance of team dynamics in leadership selection.

They believe that a strong leadership team is key to the success of a chapter. “I think a lot of times teams are formed only around theological unity or philosophical unity and they forget the relational part,” Brandon said. "It's important to have all three."

For the four years that Hannah and Brandon have been a staff team at UW—Platteville, the student leadership team has led with a clear and unified vision. “I think this has helped the chapter develop consistency in their mission and vision,” Brandon said. “They are focusing on their mission instead of distractions.”

Having a clear vision has allowed the chapter to set aside some annual events that were fun and not bad in themselves but that weren’t furthering the chapter’s mission on campus. For instance, dropping the annual Valentine’s dinner that the males in the chapter put on for the females, and the Lumberjack Breakfast that the females put on for the males, made room for the chapter to more fully participate in and benefit from the discipleship training at their regional winter conference.

Faith Renewed on Campus

Hannah and Brandon were both raised in families that went to church. But ��ñ�� at UW—Platteville introduced them to a faith that was dramatically changing the lives of people they knew.

Hannah came to UW—Platteville as an athlete, running cross country and track. She didn’t get plugged in to ��ñ�� until she was a junior and an injury gave her more time away from athletics. That year she invited her friend Julie to join her at ��ñ��’s annual Cross-Training conference, and Julie became a follower of Jesus. “That was really huge in the development of my missional understanding,” Hannah said.

As a freshman, Brandon was mentored by an ��ñ�� upperclassman named Ben. “What I saw from Ben was what it looked like to let your faith impact every part of your life,” he said. Later Brandon felt God lead him to invest time in developing a stronger relationship with his friend Cody. Months later, after conversations that followed a lot of video games and pizza, Cody was ready to become a follower of Jesus.

“Being passionate about lost people finding Jesus is the impetus for both of us coming on staff,” Brandon said. Hannah added, “��ñ�� had such a big impact on our own lives and we saw so much growth out of our experience.” Now Hannah and Brandon have a daughter to raise as well as a campus fellowship to mentor. They want to prepare college students to live as disciples of Christ and make new disciples after college.

“It’s so critical for our students to realize that Jesus is not just asking them for some spare time; he’s asking for a blank check for their entire life,” Brandon said. “If students can learn what it’s going to take to make disciples when it’s easy—when there’s fruit that comes quickly—then they’ll be willing when the fruit comes more slowly, when it probably will take more sacrifice. If they get that as students, then they’ll be willing to make the sacrifice because it’s worth it.”

��ñ�� has a rich tradition of ministry at UW—Platteville, stretching back for more than 50 years (see video below). It’s one of the largest student groups on campus and is highly respected by campus administrators. To Brandon, that says that thousands of ��ñ�� alumni are now living lives of Christian witness that would not have happened if they hadn’t linked up with ��ñ�� in college.

“The four years on campus are important, but the 60 years that follow are even more important,” he said. “I think most of what happens in college is a trajectory change. That’s why it’s so incredibly strategic in people’s lives.”

News Keywords

UW-Platteville

Evangelism

Discipleship

Bible Study Transforms Students’ Lives

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 19:02:41 +0000

News

Bible Study Transforms Students’ Lives

In a campus ministry that started with the World War II generation and continued on through Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and now Millennials, ��ñ�� has always prioritized Bible study because Bible study changes lives. New evidence for Bible engagement and transformation has emerged from the survey “Millennials & the Bible,” conducted by the Barna Group on behalf of ��ñ�� and the American Bible Society, as well as from an additional survey of ��ñ�� students by researchers Terry Linhart and Jen Bradbury.

The just-released Barna survey of Millennials (18- to 30-year-olds) reveals some skepticism among non-Christian Millennials, but overall most still have a high regard for the Bible. Almost half believe the Bible is the actual (21 percent) or inspired (27 percent) Word of God. Only about a quarter of them read the Bible on at least a weekly basis. But among ��ñ�� respondents, 87 percent read the Bible on at least a weekly basis.

Bible reading and prayer are the two top spiritual disciplines practiced by ��ñ�� respondents. In the week preceding the survey, 98 percent of ��ñ�� respondents had engaged in Bible reading outside of a church service. The top reason given for reading the Bible was to seek “guidance and wisdom.”

Linhart found that nearly 90 percent of those surveyed participated in a weekly small group Bible study, but only 50 percent had engaged in communal Bible study before their ��ñ�� involvement. Their view of the Bible changed “from restrictive to life-giving” as a result of their Bible study.

Involvement in ��ñ�� also increased daily, personal Bible study (11% before, 40% after). Those surveyed reported that Bible study deepened their faith and that “gaining understanding in Scripture leads to confidence, spiritual excitement, and transformational growth.”

��ñ�� offers a variety of Bible studies, including GIGs (Groups Investigating God) and manuscript Bible study (using colored pencils to mark and analyze scriptural passages printed without verse and chapter numbers). “Many [respondents] think manuscript Bible study levels the playing field between church kids and non-Christians,” Linhart observed. “They find the participation of non-Christians in ��ñ�� Bible studies personally encouraging and unique among Christian organizations.”

“Bible study is in our DNA,” said Lindsay Olesberg, ��ñ��’s Scripture Engagement Director and the author of The Bible Study Handbook. “I am excited that we now have clear data from external research to confirm that. This information is so helpful as we empower student leaders to reach out on campus and draw their friends into small groups. This data will help us in both evangelism and discipleship.”

More information about ��ñ�� Bible studies is available on our Bible studies resource page.

In the minds of many, the Bible remains the bestseller that almost nobody reads. In the case of ��ñ��, the Bible is read and closely studied, resulting in lives that are transformed, campuses that are renewed, and world-changers that are developed.

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Only Dead Fish Swim with the Current

AD-16225 — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 18:19:25 +0000

News

by Alec Hill, president of ��ñ��

Only Dead Fish Swim with the Current

Non-Conformity
At age 89, John Stott penned his final book. Entitled The Radical Disciple (��ñ�� Press, 2010), “Uncle John” described nine characteristics of a serious disciple. His very first trait and highest priority — “nonconformity” — caught me by surprise.

Why would John Stott and Malcolm Muggeridge, quoted above, regard non-conformity as being so important? Why would they encourage believers to swim against prevailing cultural currents?

Historically, ��ñ�� has always leaned into cultural engagement. We are not by temperament Christ against culture* kind of people. Rather, we seek cultural transformation under the lordship of Jesus. Hence the second part of our Vision Statement reads “to see campuses renewed.”

However, we must never lose sight of the fact that Christian discipleship also involves non-conformity. This is particularly true in two pivotal areas – truth and holiness.

Truth
As followers of Jesus, we believe in truth with a capital “T” — truth that is objective and absolute. Suffice to say, this is not a popular position on campus today. To the contrary, the academic world prizes a “define-your-own-reality” approach to metaphysics and ethics.

A friend once called me “arrogant” because I believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and life. His words stung deeply, biting my soul. After all, who enjoys being thought of as rigid, judgmental and exclusive?

Sadly, anything-goes tolerance, not Truth, is today’s cultural norm. As believers, we find ourselves holding a minority position. This is difficult for us because, too often, we have subconsciously bought the erroneous notion that following Jesus leads to happiness and popularity.

Holiness
As Jesus’ disciples, we are called to lead lives of moral purity. While holiness is one of Scripture’s most glorious concepts — mirroring the character of God himself — it is generally disdained by our culture today.

Why? To many, the very idea that humans should pursue — and be held accountable to – a divine standard is simply absurd. Instead, our culture seeks personal freedom as its highest value. A deep conflict revolves around the question of lordship. Who’s really in charge of my life — God or me?

A few years ago, I was pained to the core when someone labeled me a “bigot” because of my views on sexual purity. I’ve been called lots of things in my life, but that was a new personal low. I suspect that many ��ñ�� staff have received similar epithets.

We ought not be surprised that our pursuit of holy lives sets us apart. Both the Old and New Testaments are replete with commands to “come out” from the prevailing culture, to live counter-culturally.

Rewards
On the surface, Jesus’ followers appear to be losers in interactions with culture. After all, who wants to be regarded as arrogant and narrow-minded?

However, while we may suffer a degree of ostracism for non-conformity, the benefits of following Jesus are so much greater than the costs. By pursuing Truth, we are touched by the very hand of God and our lives are framed by a worldview that actually works. By pursuing holy lives, we avoid many of the painful, life-destroying pits that our non-believing friends fall into.

Reflecting on Discipleship
The Fellowship is currently in a season of sharpening our definition of discipleship. As our newest Strategic Initiative, we are asking lots of questions. What does it mean to be a winsome non-conformist? How should Truth and holiness be pursued within the context of being missional on campus? What are the implications of Jesus’ lordship over our lives and the lives of others?

Over the next several months, I plan to share more thoughts about discipleship in this column.

^{* Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, Harper and Row, 1951.}

News Keywords

Nonconformity

Discipleship

Christianity

Following God in Career Choices

webteam@intervarsity.org — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:00:00 +0000

News

Marc Baer

Following God in Career Choices

At the beginning of the school year, when students consider the choice of a major and a career they may pursue after graduation, Hope College history professor Marc Baer offers guidance on how to follow God through our career choices.

To answer the question, “What is Calling?” recognizes two different types of calling for the Christian. All believers share a primary calling to love God and follow Him. I experienced that when I was 25, a few weeks after I had passed the comprehensive exams for my PhD program.

I had grown up in a non-believing family, completely outside the church. I wasn’t seeking salvation: I had no sense I needed it. But I was challenged by an undergraduate student to read the Bible, and over many months I encountered such profound truths that I was simply overwhelmed.

Don’t forget your neighbor
In addition to our primary calling to love God, we have a secondary calling to love and serve our neighbor, according to the Greatest Commandments that Jesus introduced in Mark 12:28-31. Our secondary calling is usually related to our job or career. Each secondary calling is different.

How does God call us to a vocation? Here are some examples from the Bible:

God calls us directly: Abraham and Paul.
God places a desire in my heart: Isaiah (“Here I am; send me”).
God takes some people along a path they would not have chosen: Daniel.
God offers an attractive option: Stephen was called as one of the seven in Acts 6.

Pay attention to others
In the case of the latter two calling examples, notice the role of others. Very often God uses other people to call us. If you read the 22 personal narratives of living out the Christian faith in the academy included in Paul Anderson’s Professors Who Believe: The Spiritual Journeys of Christian Faculty, you’ll find many who heard their call through a professor who knew them well.

We may be God’s agents in calling someone. Consider the British abolitionist William Wilberforce. God used three different men to call Wilberforce: the prime minister, William Pitt, who was a non-believer; John Newton, Wilberforce’s spiritual mentor; and John Wesley. In the early 1790s Wesley wrote Wilberforce to encourage the younger man to hang in there in leading the campaign against the slave trade:

“Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils; but if God is with you, who can be against you? Oh, be not weary in well-doing. Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery, the vilest that ever saw the sun, shall banish away before it.”

This was the last letter Wesley ever wrote; he was 88 years old and died six days later.

Another case, closer to home for me was Herbert Butterfield, an eminent early 20th century Cambridge University historian and Methodist lay preacher who had neatly divided his world between the two until he was asked by his university’s divinity faculty to give a series of lectures on Christianity and history. He told his eventual biographer he trembled “at the thought of proclaiming before a university audience what he considered to be the ‘intimacies’ of religion,’ things he had only uttered previously in the seclusion of Methodist chapels.”

Even at age 49 Butterfield was intimidated by the anti-Christian bias of his colleagues. But he accepted, thereby uniting his spiritual and professional worlds, and out of the lectures came a path-breaking book, Christianity and History.

Os Guinness thought after his conversion that he should be a pastor. A 10-minute conversation with a service station attendant caused him to understand his work was outside, not inside the church, and he became a public intellectual.

Let someone, besides a parent, know you well. In fact, let several people know you well. Consult them. Turn your face to God; pray really hard; read the Bible deeply. Read Christian writers as well.

Know thyself
And read yourself. Look for these six signs:

Passion: What motivates you?
Talent: Understand your gifts, and then seek work that matches them well.
Life experience: Think of John Bunyan or Alexander Solzhenitsyn in prison.
Opportunity: Is there an open door?
Community: Listen to the voice of others.
Joy—not happiness; joy.

As Dallas Williard puts it in Divine Conspiracy, “The deepest longings of our heart confirm me in my original calling.”

Calling—because it is so vital—presents us with moral challenges:

First, our work should not drive us: Vocation is not about doing, but being.

Second, our work should not trump family. A healthy sense of calling ought to lead to wise choices via good boundaries.

Vocations, careers, jobs, and work flow from the primary calling. Although our secular-minded friends, family, and neighbors wish it were not so, there is no calling without a Caller. Because there is a Caller, you have a calling.

^{Marc Baer is ��ñ��’s faculty adviser at Hope College and teaches courses in modern British history. He also teaches a senior seminar called Exploring Faith and Calling. This article on calling is condensed and adapted from a presentation at “Flourishing in the Academy,” the national gathering of ��ñ��’s Emerging Scholars Network at the 2008 Following Christ conference in Chicago. A transcript of the complete talk is posted online.}

^{If you’re exploring God’s calling for your life, you may want to check out ��ñ��’s Urbana 09 Student Missions Conference in St. Louis, December 27-31,2009. In years past God has spoken to many Urbana attendees about their life’s calling. For more information, go here.}

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Graduate Faculty Ministry

Ministry in Daily Life

Discipleship

Be True to the Kingdom of God

webteam@intervarsity.org — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 05:00:00 +0000

News

Katie Montei

Be True to the Kingdom of God

Forty years ago the Beach Boys sang, “be true to your school.” As Christians, God would ask us to sing, “be true to the Kingdom of God.” While our time in college is brief, the Kingdom of God is everlasting.

It is in college that we amass knowledge about life and who we are; in this respect, the love for our campus can teach us much about love for God’s Kingdom. But the values we learn at school seem shallow compared with the deep truths that Jesus wants us to know about the Kingdom of God.

St. Olaf, where I went to school, prides itself on having a thriving campus community. During the first week of school, the freshmen are taught the school song, a rallying cheer that we’d all sing together at every school function.

When we belted out “Um Ya Ya” (that’s pronounced oom-yaw-yaw) and pumped our fists in the air, it made us feel unified and reminded us of our school spirit and the common ground we stood on. Many campuses have similar rituals that build community – if not a school song, than a sports team, or music group.

Unity in the Kingdom of God

Similarly, Jesus is the unifier of the Kingdom of God; like a school song building community among the student body, the coming of Jesus brought redemption between God and us. As believers we are unified by the grace we have all received. And Jesus instructs us that we need a community of believers around us for our faith to find complete expression.

Accepted through Grace

But the good ideal of community found at college comes with a dark side. Not everyone can find a place in college, not everyone comes away feeling accepted; and occasionally, students must meet certain standards to be welcomed into community.

Being accepted by God into His Kingdom comes without our self-made conditions; we can do nothing to make ourselves worthy of God’s love and acceptance. Through his grace, Jesus extends his hands in welcoming us into the Kingdom, and all he asks us to do is clasp his hands in return.

Finding Common Ground

We also find common ground with our peers in the learning environment that permeates the campus. College teaches us to think, to pursue knowledge and truth so that when we leave, we will enter the world as productive members of society. While in school, some students may deny that they appreciate the atmosphere of learning, but the fact remains that it defines our college experience and who we are while we’re there – we go to college to learn.

But the truth and knowledge put forth by professors sometimes takes us on a detour away from God’s truth. Everything true in the world falls under God’s reign, but that’s not always what we are taught in school.

The Kingdom of God teaches us to seek knowledge and truth. Jesus came to earth proclaiming that the Kingdom of God was at hand, that he came as the truth and light of the world. Jesus is the truth; when we know him, we know truth. And when we pursue the Kingdom of God, as Jesus asks us to do, it means going out into the world to preach the same as he did. Jesus wants us to use our gifts, our minds, and the knowledge we have amassed, to bring more people into his Kingdom.

Following in Christ’s Footsteps

With knowledge also comes the formation of self. I have heard it said that it takes about a month for every year you lived at home in order to really become independent. That may be true, or it may not, but in college many people discover who they are and what they believe about themselves, the world, and life.

Instead of being defined and shaped by our teachers and peers, the Kingdom of God teaches us to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. It is in Jesus’ refining fire, not in classrooms, that we are molded into who we should be; it is in the Kingdom of God that we truly discover who we are.

While the Kingdom of God brings restoration between God and humanity, as well as God and the earth, our college campuses are fallen places. Of course, most colleges encourage the pursuit of good in the world – but many people stray away from their faith because of the secular humanist ideals of the university. These ideals preach that apart from any kind of deity, people are basically good; and that knowledge, truth, and goodness can and should be pursued apart from God.

College can be a time of selfish pursuit, whereas the Kingdom of God calls us to be outwardly focused at all times – to deny ourselves for the sake of Christ and others. As we weave our way through college, trying to figure out our place in the world, we often get stuck in the mires of our own dreams and goals. Not to say that students never think about others – college students, for example, champion human rights issues more than many other groups of people. But God asks that we put him ahead of our schooling and ambitions, listening attentively for what he wants for our lives.

People love their time in college for good reason – there they find community, they learn, they discover who they are. Those things embody Kingdom values. But while learning and self-discovery are good, they are not themselves the Kingdom of God.

Jesus preached the good news that he came to the world to heal our relationship with God, and that he will come again to complete the work that he started. It is that message that we are asked to remember, it is that message that lasts. In the lyrics, “be true to the Kingdom of God,” taken and reformed from the Beach Boys, we are reminded where our hearts really lie on this earth.

News Keywords

Discipleship

Learning Grace

webteam@intervarsity.org — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 05:00:00 +0000

News

Katie Montei

Learning Grace

For some of us it takes a long time to see our parents as only human, susceptible to the same brokenness that the rest of us suffer from, in need of the same grace that God offers to us all. For me, surviving my parents’ brokenness began my sophomore year in college, a few days before Easter.

I remember sitting in our family room with my youngest brother, the sun streaming in through the open windows warming our backs, and the contrast of the biting breeze that swished past us. My dad sat in front of us on the ottoman footstool, his head resting in his hands. He grimly told us his decision to leave my mom.

My world seemed as though it was crumbling around me. My parents had always seemed so stable, so steady – the possibility that their marriage could be fragile had never entered my mind. I thought of my parents as untouched by the rising rates of failed marriages in the country. It affected the parents of my friends, not my own happy family.

Everyone knows that separation and divorce deeply affect young children, but rarely do people mention how it affects adult children. As a young twenty-something, just beginning my life as an adult, living on my own for most of the year, my parents’ separation shook me. For the first time in my life I saw my parents’ frailty. They made visible mistakes, and that put them on the same ground as me.

My dad moved out Easter weekend. And I went back to school, hurt and confused. For most of my life I looked at the world with rose-colored glasses; my freshman year those glasses had been scratched by an unpleasant roommate situation – now they were snapped in two.

In college, so much of how we have seen the world up until that point shatters. We confront information that seems contradictory to what had always been taught to us and we are left to reassemble the shards. Our high school teachers, youth pastors, parents look naïve. Some of us react to what we learn by becoming cynical, we feel misled and see the problems that exist as irreversible, others of us try to shoulder the problems on our own.

When I came home for the summer, I faced a broken-hearted mother, an absent father, and two younger brothers who were also trying to work through their pain. I reacted to my parents’ separation by becoming the parent myself, my role as their child was flipped on its head. I comforted my mother, I scolded my father, and I tried to patch together the fragmented pieces of my family. Part of me knew that this disordered arrangement could not last; God did not intend for children to parent their parents, or to take on the responsibility of correcting their mistakes.

I was enmeshed in my family’s pain; it was providential, then, that I spent a month of that summer at ��ñ��’s Student Leadership Training (SLT), where my faith and discipleship deepened. While there, my world began to reorganize itself. With the guidance of a veteran staff couple, I began to understand God’s grace for my parents, and for me.

The Holy Spirit revealed to me the anger I felt towards both my parents and towards God, himself. My parents were supposed to care for their children by loving each other and modeling Christ. They had broken their promises – spoken and unspoken.

When I returned home from SLT, I had the work of forgiveness ahead of me. Paul writes in Colossians 3:12-13, “Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

We must all confront the sinfulness of others. Our parents’ brokenness may be hardest to deal with because often they affect us the most, their sins cut us deepest. When our parents reveal to us their frailty, it is not our job to correct them, but to forgive them.

As He often does in painful seasons, God went about refining my heart. On Christmas Eve, nine months after my father left, he came home. But even today, I struggle with lasting scars from my parents’ separation. The sins of our parents can leave us wounded. God continues the healing process in me. I parented my parents when I saw them broken, and then, when I realized that they were as broken as I, I became their child once again. I learned compassion and forgiveness; I learned that my parents are indeed in need of Grace, just as I am.

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Discipleship

Reflections on Tragedy and Redemption

webteam@intervarsity.org — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 05:00:00 +0000

News

Christina Sherman

Reflections on Tragedy and Redemption

In 2007, a student named Phill Grosser died in a motorcycle accident during an ��ñ�� orientation for a summer mission trip to Liberia. He was heading into his fifth year at George Washington University and was a vibrant, lovable, and memorable character on campus and in his ��ñ�� chapter.

Dealing with death is sometimes a part of ��ñ�� staff work. Phill’s death both challenged and strengthened the ��ñ�� chapter. Christina Sherman, the campus staff worker at George Washington, discovered that God was faithful through all of the pain and questions about Phill’s death that the students dealt with. Following were her reflections a year after Phill’s death.

Last spring I planted flowers at my parents’ house, recovered from camp, and got a phone call that changed our fellowship’s life – Phill Grosser had been killed in a motorcycle accident.

The week that followed was crazy – a fury of activity for a memorial service and care for students. But the weeks that followed were when the emptiness and questions truly set in. Where was God when this happened? Why did God not answer our specific prayers for Phill’s safety? And what redemption would come from this?

Some students struggled with faith and disappeared off our radar. Others struggled with grief. I struggled with my own insecurities as a staff worker as I saw how ill-equipped I was to cope with emotional problems and deep spiritual questions.

The passage from 2 Corinthians 12:9, which reads, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. . . .” came alive in a way I never completely understood. So many times this fall I left campus unable to know what to do, unable to help the hurting; and I was still left with my own questions. I could only pray desperately for God’s healing and presence.

The gospel felt more complicated than ever before, but also more true. God had watched his Son die on the cross, thus I could believe he understood deep grief. And as Jesus had defeated evil in rising from death, I knew and clung to the hope that he could redeem this situation beyond anything I could believe or understand.

Now that it’s spring again and the flowers at my parent’s house are out in full glory, we approach the anniversary of Phill’s death. As I reflect, I begin to see the beautiful array of God’s redemptive work. I see the healing journey in several students where Phill’s death brought up sin and struggles that needed to be addressed, and God used that to bring deeper healing than I ever thought possible.

I see the way Phill’s death taught us to take risks and watch as more and more students head overseas on missions. And I constantly see the impact in my life; whenever I catch myself afraid to tell the truth of the gospel, I am encouraged by Phill’s boldness on earth and the temporary nature of life demonstrated by his death.

Sometimes I even wonder if I should really call this a tragedy, but that’s the beauty and amazement of the gospel – isn’t it? Jesus’ death was tragic. Phill’s death rocked our fellowship; and yet, God’s grace and mercy are more than sufficient to redeem and transform a situation and reveal His full glory. Praise be to God!

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