Evangelism

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�� Remembers David Howard

drew.larson@intervarsity.org — Tue, 10 May 2022 20:10:25 +0000

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Drew Larson

��ñ�� Remembers David Howard

With David Howard’s passing yesterday, ��ñ�� remembers his lasting impact mobilizing students and campuses for God’s global mission. As Director of multiple Urbana conferences, President of Latin American Mission, and International Director of the World Evangelical Alliance, David’s humble and servant-hearted leadership in missions spanned nearly six decades.

“��ñ�� owes a great debt to Dave and to his leadership in missions,” said ��ñ�� President and CEO Tom Lin. “[He kept] us focused globally and on the importance of mobilizing students to share the gospel around the world. His legacy includes hundreds of thousands of college students who had their lives transformed and received God’s calling to global missions through an Urbana Student Missions Conference. ��ñ�� is forever grateful.”

A Legacy of Global Missions Begins

David attended the very first Urbana in 1946 with his good friend, Wheaton College roommate, and future brother-in-law, the missionary/martyr Jim Elliot. David attended, spoke at, or directed nearly every Urbana for the next five decades. For his entire life, he kept his signed World Evangelism Decision card from Urbana 46. (Urbana participants use these cards to mark their commitment to God’s global mission.)

After graduating from Wheaton College in 1949, C. Stacey Woods (��ñ��’s first president) recruited David to ��ñ�� staff for a year as an appointed ‘missionary staff member,’ visiting 120 campuses across the U.S. and Canada to challenge students to give their lives to missions. He then served Northwestern University as a part-time campus minister while attending graduate school at Wheaton and preparing for the mission field.

“My years with ��ñ�� were a very significant part of my life,” he said in a 2006 interview with ��ñ��. “They were a time when God taught me many things and gave me many opportunities. I didn’t know much about missions in those days, except what I’d learned second or thirdhand. But I learned to trust God, and not myself, for any results.”

After 15 years as a missionary in Colombia, God stirred David’s heart again about calling and equipping college students to give their lives to God’s global mission. The stirring, David remembered, was gradual — John Alexander, ��ñ��’s President at the time, offered him the job of Missions Director three times before David accepted!

During his tenure as Urbana Director (Urbana 73 and 76; he also served as Assistant Director of Urbana 51 and 70) attendance grew from 12,000 to 18,000 students, and commitments to missions grew from 8 percent to nearly 50 percent. He also helped design a summer follow-up program for those commitments that eventually grew into the Perspectives Program, which is a cornerstone of missions training in churches, seminaries, and ��ñ�� chapters to this day.

David also helped steer Urbana through the turbulent 1970s, a time when social unrest, campus violence, and the Vietnam War all pushed national anxiety to the brink. Leighton Ford, a leader in both the Lausanne Movement and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association — as well as a lifelong friend of David’s — remembered David’s example at Urbana 70. Leighton had been asked to deliver the keynote evangelistic message at a time when those tensions at the conference were especially high.

“That message was one of the most difficult of my life. I labored in prayer and heart searching as I prepared … [and] I felt little peace as I spoke,” he said. “But I knew that David was nearby, praying, standing by me, encouraging me.

“His fortitude, his steady calm in a testing time, left a lasting impression of Christlike grace and strength. His ability to listen and discern, his concern for helping others to flourish, his ongoing passion to know Christ and make him known — these traits always come to mind when I think of David Howard. I am grateful to have known and served with him.”

In that same 2006 interview, David reflected on the impact of Urbana for global missions: “I’ve been to probably 80 countries, and almost everywhere I go, invariably I run into people who tell me they’re serving today on the mission field because God used Urbana to call them.”

“David’s friendship was such a blessing to me,” said Tom Lin. “When I began as Urbana Director, he told me, ‘I will be praying for you every day.’ And that’s exactly what he did. Over those five years, in the most difficult days of leadership, I was always encouraged to know that each day David was praying for me.

“I’m deeply saddened and grieving Dave’s passing. Many throughout the missions world will miss Dave and celebrate him — in many ways he was a ‘giant’ in global missions. But I, most of all, will miss his smile, his joy, and his passion for students and for Christ.”

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Fluent in Patience: Participating in God’s Story Abroad

ashlye.vanderworp@intervarsity.org — Tue, 09 Jul 2019 21:27:58 +0000

Drew Larson

Fluent in Patience: Participating in God’s Story Abroad

Picture yourself alone in a foreign country—a place where you have no connections. You’re a college student studying abroad and interning thousands of miles from your campus and your friends, and a Christian in a country where following Jesus makes you a curiosity at best and a threat at worst.

And, with all that going on, you’re also asking yourself: What can I do while I’m here to advance God’s kingdom?

Hold that picture in your mind for a moment. Because that’s exactly what James* did.

As an energy science major in New England, James had been preparing to work and study abroad in South Asia for most of his academic career. He’d taken pains to become fluent in the native language of the place where he planned to intern and had created a small group Bible study on campus just for other South Asian students in his major. James was also, according to his ��ñ�� Campus Staff Minister, Karen, low-key amazing at leading people to Christ.

“He was just one of those students who consistently had two, three, four students coming to faith in his small group every year,” she said. “He’s one of those unassuming, quietly confident guys, but not one of those people someone would look at and say, ‘Oh, you’re a gifted evangelist.’ So I knew he was going to be a missional student before he went to study abroad because he’d been that kind of student already.”

James first spent a semester abroad studying at a South Asian university, supported by a Digital Small Group through ��ñ��’s Study Abroad program, and dreamed of all that he hoped to accomplish for Christ while overseas. But while he shared his faith with a number of fellow students, he found his efforts at outreach mostly stalling out.

“He had this moment in the small group where he realized that he had entered the semester with a dream of a ton of people coming to faith around him, and he hadn’t [seen that happen] yet,” Karen said. “That dream was all about him. But God was preparing him for the slower, more faithful work of missions, for trusting God for what God will do—kind of a holy patience. That can be hard for a rock-star evangelist to hear.”

James did settle in and wait though, and several months later, while interning at a large South Asian energy company during his second semester abroad, he finally got his chance. The company asked him to lead an English language lunch on Fridays all about American culture. With Good Friday approaching, James sensed an opportunity, despite the fact that the Human Resources Department heavily monitored public speech. He put together a presentation that used the Easter holiday as a springboard to subtly share the gospel.

“He and I met to find all the subtle ways that we could talk about the true meaning of Easter in the context of an American holiday, and then we prayed. By God’s grace HR [at his company] approved the plan,” Karen said. “So he essentially got to share the gospel with his coworkers.”

Afterward, one of James’s coworkers asked him additional questions about his faith, and James was able to share more about the hope of Jesus.

After his year abroad, James returned to campus, graduated, and now works full time at a US branch of the company he interned with. Even more importantly, he returned to the US with even more confidence and strength. “There’s a new sureness around him and his faith that I don’t often see in 22-year-olds,” Karen said. “He’s also gained some new evangelistic creativity, realizing that mission and evangelism look really different from context to context, and even from campus to the workplace.

“Study Abroad students [like James] have this opportunity to plant seeds that others often don’t,” continued Karen. “James had this really great placement to work with some very influential local people. All he had to do was be patient, plant seeds of the gospel, and then pray for God to bring along someone else to water them and make them grow.”

For more information about ��ñ�� Study Aboad, click the link below.

Check Out ��ñ�� Study Abroad

*Names and some details changed to protect student’s identity

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Remembering Robert Finley – ��ñ��’s First Evangelist

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 23:22:48 +0000

Gordon Govier

Remembering Robert Finley – ��ñ��’s First Evangelist

Robert Finley was hired straight out of college in 1945 by C. Stacey Woods, the founder of ��ñ��. During this formative period for a number of evangelical ministries, Finley met and worked with many other pioneers as they followed God’s call to spread the gospel message across the U.S. and around the world in the post-World War II era.

Finley died at his home in Charlottesville, Virginia, on March 22, 2019. He was 96 years old.

Finley came to the attention of the leaders of ��ñ�� and Youth for Christ by planting and leading a Christian fellowship on the University of Virginia (UVa) campus in Charlottesville, beginning as a freshman in 1941. He also became known as a Christian athlete who used his athletic accomplishments as a platform to share the gospel. Finley was undefeated for two years as a member of the UVa varsity boxing team, and in 1944 he was the inter-collegiate middleweight boxing champion. He was also elected student body president.

The University of Virginia Christian fellowship grew to over 50 students during Finley’s years. When Woods visited Charlottesville, he told Finley that Virginia had the largest Christian fellowship group he had ever seen develop spontaneously at a secular university.

Finley began to receive speaking invitations while still a student, and one in particular changed his life. A telegram from Chicago invited him to come and give his testimony at a Youth for Christ rally. A crowd of 25,000 was anticipated at the Chicago stadium.

Even though this was the same day as his graduation ceremony in Virginia, he decided to go to Chicago. On the platform he sat between singer George Beverly Shea and Dr. Harry Ironside, pastor of The Moody Church. Afterward he was besieged by pastors and ministry leaders, inviting him to speaking appearances.

Two organizations offered him the opportunity to be a traveling evangelist and he accepted both offers. During the week he would work for ��ñ�� on college campuses, and on the weekends he would speak at Youth for Christ rallies.

Finley was constantly on the road, traveling across the Midwest by bus and by train. On Memorial Day 1946, he gave his testimony before a crowd of 75,000 at a Youth for Christ rally in Memorial Stadium in Chicago. Another speaker that day was the young pastor of a local church; his name was Billy Graham.

A lifelong friendship between the two evangelists began. A few months later, when Finley decided he needed to buy a car to begin ministry on the west coast, Graham sold him his used 1942 Pontiac for $1,300.

During his many campus visits Finley became increasingly aware of the growing number of international students studying at U.S. colleges, some of whom he was able to lead to faith in Jesus. Later in 1946, he felt led by God to enroll at the University of Chicago for graduate study in church history. He took the opportunity to move to the International House on campus where up to 500 students from 100 different countries lived.

At every meal in the cafeteria, he would pray and ask God to lead him to a table where he could converse with students about God. His already growing interest in foreign missions was stirred by this unique opportunity to become a foreign missionary without leaving the U.S. Despite his best efforts, ��ñ�� did not begin specific ministry to international students until many years later.

The following year, 1947-1948, he returned to itinerant campus ministry with ��ñ��. At a missions conference for international students that he attended in Colorado, and at subsequent Youth for Christ and ��ñ��-related conferences in Switzerland, his passion for reaching international students was further stirred. But he spent the next several years traveling internationally as a missionary evangelist.

In his autobiography, Apostolic Adventures, Finley tells the story of his 1949 return from overseas ministry on a flight through Hawaii. He had cabled ��ñ��’s Gwen Wong that he would be available for ministry. She met him at the airport with an official welcome from a chorus of students and a full schedule for the next week. “She had arranged for me to stay with Christian families every night, speak for student groups every day, at Youth for Christ Saturday night, and three churches on Sunday,” he wrote.

Traveling in Korea in 1950, Finley was in frequent contact with Stacey Woods who referred to him as an ambassador for the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES). He found Christian fellowship groups abounded in every department of every college and university. Woods instructed him to help these groups affiliate with IFES.

Finley resisted, not wanting them to risk unneeded persecution for being affiliated with a foreign organization as Communism was growing in influence. War broke out and Finley returned to the U.S., but he was unable to patch his relationship with Woods and left ��ñ�� for the final time.

In 1953 Finley founded two mission organizations which today continue his legacy. International Students Incorporated, now based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, has staff and volunteers sharing Christ’s love with international students in college communities across the United State. Christian Aid Mission, located in Charlottesville, Virginia, supports indigenous evangelistic ministries in countries all over the world, some of which are closed to Western missionaries.

Photo: Robert Finley and Gwen Wong in Hawaii, 1949.

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��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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From L.A. to LA: Reviving Campus Ministry Along the Gulf Coast

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Mon, 13 Aug 2018 16:37:23 +0000

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Gordon Govier

From L.A. to LA: Reviving Campus Ministry Along the Gulf Coast

Starting new things with God in difficult places is “our heartbeat,” says Area Director Beau Crosetto. Six years ago, Beau and his wife, Kristina, moved from San Diego to Los Angeles to focus on Greek students who were not being reached with the gospel. In 2018 Beau and Kristina are trying something even more ambitious: moving halfway across the country to replant ��ñ�� in Louisiana.

Louisiana has 39 campuses and nearly 300,000 college students, but it’s the only state with no ��ñ�� undergraduate ministry and no ��ñ�� staff. Six of the 10 campuses in the Baton Rouge/New Orleans area are majority Black, and two of them have the biggest Greek systems in the state. “What does it look like to start a movement that reaches high identity Black students and high identity Greek students?” Beau queries. “This is where we’re going to start!”

God was already at work opening doors for ��ñ�� in Louisiana through long-term prayer and alumni cultivation by Bill DePury, Area Director in nearby Florida. In March, Smiley Abrams of Mississippi and Chelir Grady of Texas—two veterans of ��ñ��’s Black Campus Ministry—brought teams of students to help Beau and Kristina make connections on several campuses and plant seeds of ministry. During one visit more than 100 students at Southern University expressed interest in campus ministry involvement.

In April ��ñ��’s team of Evangelism Champions visited three campuses—Louisiana State University (LSU), Tulane, and the University of New Orleans—and connected with 120 interested students, including two new believers. The outreach at Tulane was assisted by an ��ñ�� alumnus from the 1960s who has been praying for ministry to return to campus for many years. Another alumna at LSU guided the team down Greek Row, where they found several students who were already involved in Bible studies and interested in ��ñ��.

Beau was cautious about visiting Loyola University New Orleans, as he had heard they were leery of outside groups. But he met an administrator there who had also been praying for ��ñ�� to come to her campus. She introduced him to other administrators, including the Directors of Greek Life, Athletics, and Student Affairs. They welcomed him to campus and even talked about giving ��ñ�� office space.

In his planting ministry in Southern California, Beau learned how to start chapters on multiple campuses at once and network them together, raise up staff and volunteers, create advisory councils to resource the campus mission, and design tools that help spread the gospel on campus. These tools, lots of prayer, alumni involvement, and much more are being put into play now in Louisiana.

This fall as classes begin, Beau and his team have ambitiously identified five campuses for planting: LSU and Southern in Baton Rouge, Tulane and Loyola in New Orleans, and Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond. Allison Allred, another campus ministry veteran, has joined the team, moving with her family from Arizona to Baton Rouge.

“The state of Louisiana is the leading edge of our new 2030 Calling, of reaching every corner of every campus with the gospel,” says Jon Hietbrink, Vice President, Central U.S. “I’m so excited about what God is doing in Louisiana.”

_{^{Photo: Students Lauren and Mark at Tulane University}}

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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

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A Friendly Atheist

ashlye.vanderworp@intervarsity.org — Thu, 19 Jul 2018 15:56:27 +0000

Gordon Govier

A Friendly Atheist

Carlos Vera was well known as an atheist on the Penn State Mont Alto campus. He thought Christianity was for people who were unable to handle the challenges of life by themselves and needed to believe in another being—one that didn’t exist.

He also had questions about God that no one seemed to be able to answer for him.

But shortly after he arrived on campus Carlos met Rachel, a Christian who wasn’t shy about throwing his questions back at him. They frequently bantered about philosophical issues and both enjoyed learning each other’s views.

“We clashed on a lot of ideas,” Carlos said. “But she continually invited me to [��ñ��] events. She invited me everywhere.”

At first, going with Rachel to a Bible study or to church didn’t sound very interesting, and he ducked the invitations. But as Carlos struggled with the rigors of college, he also realized that Rachel was a good friend who he liked hanging out with, so he began to take her invitations more seriously.

"I Feel Ready to Choose..."

When Rachel invited Carlos to ��ñ��’s Fall Conference, a weekend retreat away from campus, he thought, Why not?

At the retreat, Rachel and Carlos ended up in a small group with Bennett, a senior from Dickinson College, who had come to faith several years earlier through the influence of his best friend. Nudged by the Holy Spirit, Bennett invited Carlos to go on a hike during their free time.

As they hiked for over two hours, Carlos shared about his doubts and how no one had ever been able to answer his questions about God and Christianity. Bennett tried his best to answer Carlos' questions and told his own story of how he started following Jesus.

Bennett's story about his journey to faith struck Carlos and felt relatable to him.

“Our stories are remarkably similar,” Carlos said.

At the end of their hike, Bennett asked, “Carlos, what do you think is the next step for you in exploring faith?”

“I feel ready to choose: I want to follow Jesus,” Carlos answered.

"I Was An Atheist For a Good 18 Years..."

Carlos read his Bible voraciously for the rest of the fall semester. He dropped a lot of his bad habits and spent more time with his new ��ñ�� friends.

“The idea of an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent God did not fit with my worldview, so I rejected it harshly,” he reflected. “��ñ�� taught me that the secret to life is not really a secret. It’s truth that is available to everyone.”

As the spring semester began, the first assignment in Carlos’s communication class was to give a speech about something he used to believe in but changed his mind about. It was an easy assignment.

“I was an atheist for a good 18 years. But now I’m Christian,” Carlos said during his talk.

Just like Carlos, ��ñ�� wants to see more students who don't know Jesus experience his real hope and decide to follow him. You can help make that happen by giving a generous gift to ��ñ��. Click the button below for more information.

Help Students Experience Real Hope

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On the Way Home

ashlye.vanderworp@intervarsity.org — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 20:23:40 +0000

Drew Larson

On the Way Home

When Taylor started college at the University of Rhode Island, she had one goal: to be a normal college student. She wanted to make friends, get involved on campus, and learn to impact the world after she graduated.

There was only one thing she wasn’t interested in: having anything to do with God.

“I grew up nominally, culturally Christian, and it all meant absolutely nothing to me,” Taylor said. “Faith didn’t seem relevant at all, and I had no intention of exploring it when I went to college. I considered myself done with church.”

A Noticeable Faith

That intention lasted a semester and a half, until Taylor realized she was hungry to serve others with her spring break. She agreed to go with ��ñ��, whom she had met during one of their outreaches when they knocked on her door months earlier, on their annual service trip to New Orleans to help those affected by Hurricane Katrina.

While there, she couldn’t help but notice the faith of the people she served with—and the people she served.

Taylor’s curiosity was piqued.

“I started thinking that this couldn’t just come from nowhere,” Taylor said. “I had never been given a reason to believe in God, but I wanted to know where this kind of faith came from.”

One evening of the trip, Taylor’s small group leader encouraged her to pray. She agreed and experienced the presence of Jesus in her heart for the first time.

Then, on the way home, she gave her life to Christ.

“I gave my life to Jesus,” she said with a smile, “somewhere on a bus in the middle of Georgia."

A Broken Heart for Others

After that, Taylor’s life changed dramatically. As she became more involved in her ��ñ�� chapter, she discovered a community of friends who encouraged her and invested in her relationship with God.

She had always had a passion for helping others, but as a new Christian, Taylor’s view of service changed. She began to view her whole life as an extension of Jesus’ mission, and her enthusiasm for sharing the love and patience of Christ to others on campus was ignited.

“[Because of Christ] I have felt love for people that I don’t really want to love sometimes, and I’ve had my heart broken for people and campuses that could not have possibly come from my own heart.”

Taylor eventually became a student leader of her chapter and now works on campus full time as an ��ñ�� campus minister. Her eagerness to lead others into new life in Christ has only grown since that day on the bus, and, having seen what God did in her own life, her hope of what God can do in students’ hearts is almost limitless.

“I’ve seen that when I submit myself to him and open my hands in surrender, he shows up in bigger ways than I could have imagined.”

��ñ�� chapters across the country provide spaces for students like Taylor to experience the love of Christ in community and serve others through that love. You can be a part of creating more communities on campuses without one by giving to ��ñ��'s 2030 Calling. Click below to find out more.

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��ñ�� Remembers Billy Graham

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Wed, 21 Feb 2018 13:59:32 +0000

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Gordon Govier

��ñ�� Remembers Billy Graham

Billy Graham partnered with ��ñ�� Christian Fellowship many times during his life in order to bring the gospel message to college students.

One campus that he often visited was the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the home for many years of ��ñ��'s Urbana Student Missions Conference. He spoke at Urbana at least nine times: in 1948, 1957, 1961, 1964, 1976, 1979, 1981, 1984, and 1987. (Photo from Urbana 64.)

“What a wonderful joy it is to go to a city and hold a crusade in which there are university students engaged in ��ñ��, who are winning people to Christ, and who believe in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Graham said at Urbana 57. At each Urbana he challenged the attendees to make a commitment to follow Jesus Christ for the rest of their lives.

“He has left an unforgettable legacy with generations of Urbana students, tens of thousands who have been mobilized long-term around the world because of Dr. Graham’s challenge to give their lives to God’s global mission,” said Tom Lin, ��ñ��’s president.

Former president Alec Hill said that students appreciated Billy Graham’s commitment to integrity in ministry and responded to his challenge to devote their lives to a worthwhile cause. “He will be remembered as a humble, faithful follower of Jesus Christ,” Hill said. “His personal influence, which was considerable, is totally related to his desire to share the gospel message with as many people as possible.”

At more than one Urbana, Graham quoted a six-word phrase written in the Bible of William Borden, an heir to the Borden milk fortune who died in Egypt on his way to the mission field. “There are a thousand things you can do with your life; a thousand ways you can spend it,” he said at Urbana 87. “But how many of them will enable you to say at the end of your life, ‘no reserves, no retreat, no regrets’?”

Hundreds, probably thousands, can look back on their encounter with Billy Graham at Urbana and reflect on how that one meeting changed their lives—people such as Ken Anderson and Linda Kroeger. At one Urbana conference, a medical student in the audience may have saved Billy Graham's life by diagnosing a blood clot from Dr. Graham’s on-stage discomfort.

At a news conference at Urbana 87, Graham said, “I do not know any organization in the world that so motivates students and young people to become missionaries throughout the world [as ��ñ��]. I meet them wherever I go in the world. They’re scattered to almost all the countries of the world and they come up to me and they tell me ‘I heard you, I saw you at Urbana.’ You feel like you’re already in a family because something happens here that makes us a family even though we belong to different organizations.”

Lin observed that Dr. Graham’s commitment to mobilizing students was unwavering. “We are honored to have his name so closely associated with ours—it’s often what people think of when they think about Urbana,” he said.

Graham also held evangelistic meetings on college campuses: at the University of Minnesota during ��ñ��’s “Year of Evangelism” in 1950-1951, and a four-day mission at Yale University in 1957. He spoke to over 31,000 people during a weeklong series of meetings at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in September of 1982.

Billy Graham spoke at the University of Chicago during his 1962 Chicago crusade and at seven campuses in New England during his 1981 New England crusade. ��ñ��'s chapter at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has its roots in the 1978 and 1980 Billy Graham meetings that were held in Las Vegas.

After Billy Graham’s 1957 crusade in New York City, ��ñ�� staff were charged with the responsibility of following up with the 1,700 college students who committed to follow Christ during those meetings. One of those who came to faith at the 1957 crusade was Ned Hale, who described his journey to faith in this way:

When I first heard Billy Graham at a “campus mission” at Yale University in 1957, I believed in God but not that I was a sinner. I was upright morally and even working my way through school. After four months of struggling unsuccessfully to prove that I was not a sinner (to myself if not to others), I was ready to hear Graham again at his Madison Square Garden crusade. The Holy Spirit convinced me not only of my sin but also that Jesus was alive, and equally incredibly that he loves me!

Ned became an ��ñ�� student at Yale, and then joined ��ñ�� staff after graduation. He held a number of leadership positions over a long career in campus ministry. Today, as a retiree, he volunteers as ��ñ��’s archivist.

Speaking at Urbana 57, Graham may have foreshadowed the student activism of the sixties by telling students they had the power to change the world. “You cannot wait upon the faculty,” he said. “You cannot wait upon older leaders. It is time for students to exert their leadership with all of their enthusiasm and the tremendous power that they have. Give it all to Christ.”

Speaking at Urbana 64, Graham said: “God has given us an open door and given us the tools and technology to touch the whole world in the next decade—if you and I mean business, if we are faithful.”

Billy Graham was faithful to the end; his life was dedicated to his Savior and Lord. For many students who heard him at Urbana and on the other campuses where he spoke, he modeled a life of total commitment to the gospel: “no reserves, no retreat, no regrets.”

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��ñ�� Remembers Billy Graham

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