Global Trek

Learning to Serve

webteam@intervarsity.org — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Jonathan Rice

Learning to Serve

When Michelle Kao began the engineering program at Johns Hopkins University, she had plans for a lucrative career. But as an ��ñ�� student, she became increasingly passionate about serving people in desperate need. So she changed her major.

A Change of Heart
Michelle changed her major to Public Health and found through ��ñ��’s campus witnessing community the training she needed to integrate her Christian worldview with a vocation that would minister to people in desperate circumstances.

After graduation in 2003, she moved to Los Angeles to work with Servant Partners, a non-profit ministry to the urban poor. Then a few years later she joined a missions team in Bangkok, where today she not only brings God’s love and hope to residents of a slum but is herself growing as a Christian. “It’s been so sweet to see God work in people’s lives,” said Michelle. “And I’ve learned to love God a lot more too.” Michelle is an example of the many students that ��ñ�� prepares for service in the world.

Learning Servant Leadership
Jesus taught his disciples to proclaim the gospel and express God’s love through service to people. ��ñ�� teaches students and faculty how to invite people into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ and how to show every person God’s love through acts of service. Such service includes personal care to nurture another person’s life and community participation to advance social justice.

During the school year just past almost 600 ��ñ�� students have participated in 37 urban projects in cities across the U.S. This summer 400 students are traveling abroad to participate in global projects in every region of the world.

��ñ�� enables students to become servant leaders by offering Christ-centered campus fellowships welcome to all, programs for biblical study in small groups, experiential learning projects in campus evangelism, and domestic and international missions opportunities.

Learning Service through Fellowship
Our campus fellowships are not private Christian clubs, catering to the desires of Christian students, but are welcoming witnessing communities that reach out to everyone on campus. Within our witnessing communities, Christians and non-Christians alike are encouraged to draw closer to God, grow together as friends, learn about the gospel, follow Jesus Christ, and serve people in need. ��ñ�� students model their fellowship with one another and their servant leadership in other campus communities on the biblical principles they learn through weekly small group Bible studies.

Learning Service through Bible Study
Since establishing our first chapter on the campus of the University of Michigan in 1941, ��ñ�� has held that regular Bible study is essential for a maturing Christian life. ��ñ�� staff, students, and faculty hold that the Bible is God’s Word to humankind and as such carries a divine authority.

Through regular study of the Scriptures during their college years, and through insights provided by the biblical commentaries and scholarly books published by ��ñ�� Press, many an ��ñ�� alumni has gained sound biblical footing for their vocational journeys, whether such journeys proceeded through seminary to pastoral ministry or to missions in faraway lands or to marketplace ministries in a corporate business or a suburban neighborhood.

Through regular Bible studies, ��ñ�� students draw close to God. And within a caring community they pray to see other students and faculty transformed by Jesus Christ, and they make Christ known on their campus in hopes of seeing their campus spiritually renewed.

Learning Service through Evangelism
Reaching out to people with the gospel is a core value for ��ñ��’s campus witnessing communities. “And making Christ known is a hallmark of our ministry,” said ��ñ��’s president Alec Hill.

Some of the ways our staff, students, and faculty make Christ known on campus have included book tables that feature the latest publications from ��ñ�� Press, interactive displays that spark conversations about morality, invitations to ��ñ�� outreach events—such as dinners, weekend retreats, and lectures by renowned Christian scholars—and, always essential, the building of friendships through acts of genuine caring.

��ñ�� students learn to evangelize their campus by participating in the daily life of the student community and building relationships with their classmates. Through their participation in the campus community our students discover that God uses them to bring classmates into a relationship with God. And seeing how God transforms the lives of their friends inspires many ��ñ�� students to integrate evangelism into their daily lives

Learning Service through Missions
��ñ�� teaches students that all Christians are called to advance the kingdom of God, so we encourage all students to look for ways that they may be of service to God’s global mission. Still, we recognize that some students, when they sense that God may be calling them to life-long vocations in Christian ministry, need a resource to confirm such a vocation. So ��ñ�� offers students short-term mission projects, from one week to a month, within the United States and in many foreign countries, and we sponsor missions conferences, most notably our triennial Urbana Student Missions Conference, where students from around the world come to learn about missions, connect with working missionaries and missions agencies, and respond to God’s call in their lives.

This year’s week-long Urbana 09 conference begins on December 27th in St. Louis, Missouri, and will offer participants inspiring speakers during the two-a-day plenary sessions. Daily Seminars and week-long Instructional Tracks of interest to students with visions for cross-cultural missions abroad or with passions for social justice among the urban poor, and Tracks of interest to experienced church workers desiring to enhance their practice of ministry among congregations with diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, will also be offered at Urbana 09.

Conference participants will also have opportunities to worship with thousands of other people of different ethnicities in the Edward Jones Dome and America’s Center and make new friends in small group Bible studies that meet in their hotels. Thus far, over 6,300 people have registered for this year’s Urbana 09, which promises to teach, inspire, and transform students’ lives.

Sara Stephens is an example of someone whose life was transformed by an Urbana Student Missions Conference. “I went to Urbana 2003,” said Sara, “kind of asking God what he might have me do. I was able to talk with some missionaries and hear from people’s experience on the field. I started seeing myself as somebody who could actually do something like that, rather than seeing missionaries as people who are just super spiritual or seemed called to missions since their birth. I think after that Urbana I really felt like God was saying, ‘You know, I’ll make it possible for you to do this.’”

And God did make it possible for Sara to serve: Today she is working among the poor in Bangkok, Thailand, through the missions agency Servant Partners.

��ñ�� students are learning servant leadership. Through our campus fellowships, Bible studies, Evangelism activities, and missions opportunities, ��ñ�� students are learning to serve people in the name of Jesus Christ.

^{Photo: Michelle, second from left, and Sara, far right, are shown with their Servant Partners colleagues in Bangkok. ��ñ�� Photo by Matt Kirk.}

^{Michelle and Sara are featured in a video on the Urbana 09 website.}

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H1N1 Flu and ��ñ��

webteam@intervarsity.org — Wed, 13 May 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Press Room

H1N1 Flu and ��ñ��

News Release

(Madison, WI) — Life in Mexico is returning to normal, with schools and businesses reopening; ��ñ�� Christian Fellowship will be operating its 2009 Global Projects overseas as planned this summer, barring any other unforeseen circumstances. While new cases of H1N1 flu (also known as swine flu) are still being reported, the virus isn’t as powerful as originally feared. The World Health Organization has not recommended any travel restrictions in relation to the outbreak of the virus.

Approximately 700 participants from campuses all over the U.S. will be participating in 40 Global Projects through ��ñ�� this year, and paying extra attention to good health practices. More than 100 students plan to participate in the six Global Urban Trek programs this summer. There are also eight Lingua-Cultural programs and ten Service Projects taking place in various parts of the globe.

One Global Urban Trek team will spend the summer as planned in Mexico City, working with ��ñ��’s ministry partners: World Vision, Amextra, Armonia, and Servant Partners. Reports from these four ministries indicate no cases of flu in their immediate communities of workers. Two other teams will attend orientation and debriefing in Mexico City before and after their summer program.

Participants in the Global Urban Trek spend the summer in slum communities around the world: Bangkok, Kolkata, Manila, Cairo, and Mexico City. While in these communities, they volunteer their time in service ministries, working alongside the poor of the communities, seeking to love them as Jesus does. Participants will be asked to seriously consider long-term service to the poor in the future.

Participants in the Service Projects have opportunities to help the sick, love the orphans, comfort the dying and preach the good news. Participants in Lingua-Cultural Projects have the opportunity to develop cross-cultural friendships with students from another country.

��ñ�� camps, which have a full schedule of events in the late spring and summer, are also monitoring local health conditions in their areas and taking extra health precautions. ��ñ�� camps are located in New Hampshire, Upper Michigan, Colorado and Southern California.

��ñ�� Christian Fellowship is a Christian, inter-denominational, evangelical ministry active on U.S. college campuses since 1941.

For more information:
Gordon Govier
ggovier@intervarsity.org
608-443-3688

News Keywords

Global Trek

Press Release

Calling to Serve the Poor

webteam@intervarsity.org — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 05:00:00 +0000

News

Katie Montei

Calling to Serve the Poor

Dwellings puzzled together with mismatched pieces of wood and metal are built along sewage-filled streets; children caked with filth and many under-clothed play in the trash that surrounds them. In Cairo, Egypt, images such as these are common in the sprawling slums around the city; one such slum has three million people packed together, living in squalor.

On Google maps, the slums look distinct from the rest of the city, as if the streets and buildings in those impoverished areas were crushed together by a compactor. In developing countries, slums like those found in Cairo exist in almost every major city.

Unfortunately, in many urban slums very little Christian presence exists. It was the need for a Christian influence in these slums that motivated ��ñ�� to bring groups of students during their summer break into those areas to live among and serve the poor.

The Global Urban Trek (GUT) stands distinctly apart from other short-term mission trips for several reasons. The first distinction is the Trek’s focus on going into urban communities and not rural ones.

In some developing countries, slums are a fairly recent human condition. As more people move away from the country into a city, the living conditions in urban areas become smothering, and the close-quarters are compounded by the intense poverty and lack of sanitation; these things make it a difficult place to minister because the situation seems hopeless and unredeemable.

It takes amazing courage, radical sacrifice, and a clear call from God to enter into such intense poverty. ��ñ�� provides students a place to explore God’s call, by giving them the opportunity to live among the desperately poor.

The Global Urban Trek not only provides the opportunity to live among the poor, but unabashedly and directly asks participants on the trip to consider whether God is calling them to live in a slum. The student considers this call before, during, and after the mission, making this process the second distinction of the GUT.

Scott Bessenecker, director of Global Projects, who was instrumental in the inception of the Trek, believes that ��ñ�� attracts students who are drawn towards activism. The kinds of students ��ñ�� draws and the range of topics our staff address regarding Jesus, justice, and mission feed into the purpose and vision of the Global Urban Trek. This makes ��ñ�� a womb for birthing individuals who desire to live incarnationally in the slums of the world.

The third distinction of the GUT is that at the end of the trip every student who participated is asked to make a commitment to serve the poor, to respond if they felt God’s calling. Every year about 30 students pledge to spend two years serving the urban poor. That’s forty percent of participants!

The two-year commitment is lived out in one of three ways: living in a slum among the poor, living outside a slum and going in to serve, or placing themselves in positions of authority with the express purpose of advocating for the poor.

This summer marks the seventh year in which groups of ��ñ�� students will spend their break in various slum communities, such as Cairo, Calcutta, and Mexico City. At the end of April, about 100 Trek Alumni are meeting in San Francisco to celebrate what God has done in the last six years. During that time the group of former ��ñ�� students will revisit and explore the commitments they made on the Trek and how God worked in their hearts.

Since the Trek’s inception about 800 students have spent their summers serving the urban poor. “The Global Urban Trek has provided an outlet for students who are concerned and energized about urban poverty,” said Scott.

��ñ�� has a symbiotic relationship with GUT, each has influenced the other. They feed into each other. ��ñ�� believes in developing world changers, and the Trek produces those world changers – it is a manifestation of ��ñ��’s commitment and value to follow God and help to accomplish his purposes in the world.

News Keywords

Global Trek

In and Out of Africa

webteam@intervarsity.org — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 05:00:00 +0000

News

Chris Recktenwald

In and Out of Africa

Chris Recktenwald, an ��ñ�� alumnus from Northwestern University’s MBA chapter, joined ��ñ��’s Professional Schools Ministry director John Terrill, Al Erisman of the Institute for Business Technology and Ethics, and seven others on a “Business as Missions” trip to the Central African Republic (CAR) from June 18 to July 6, 2007.

Early last December I was attending a church service at Willow Creek Community Church, and I distinctly felt God prompting me to take a trip to Africa. I needed to experience the front line of AIDS and poverty-fighting efforts and observe how God is working in spite of these tragedies, so that my perspective could be realigned with God’s heart. At Urbana 06, ��ñ��’s student missions convention in St Louis in late December, I attended a seminar led by Integrated Community Development International (ICDI), and learned of an ��ñ�� trip for MBA students and graduates to the Central African Republic. I knew that trip was the exact opportunity I was supposed to take.

I was one of a team of eight who worked as volunteer consultants, to help ICDI add a micro-enterprise development (MED)* program to their operational portfolio. We spent time traveling and interviewing to understand the economic environment as well as the organization of ICDI, so that we could make recommendations for ICDI to take the next steps in their MED program. We met with many visionary and entrepreneurial people already involved in these types of activities to encourage them, learn from them, and partner with them.

Our team was highly encouraged by the points of light beaming through this incredibly challenging environment. We participated in many seminars to train entrepreneurs, educate individuals on how they can leverage micro-finance, and expose people to the ideas of business ethics, as wells as God’s mission for business. As a result of our efforts:

We encouraged many people who are working incredibly hard in a challenging environment to provide for their families and make their world a better place to live.
We are providing a very detailed analysis and recommendation to the board and leadership of ICDI toward implementation of MED.
We oversaw the launch of a micro-finance program; business loan applications are now being accepted.
We influenced key government officials, NGO leaders, university professors, and church leaders to partner with ICDI and take action in their spheres of influence.
Our lives were changed by what we experienced and learned.

CHALLENGES
The acronym TIA (This is Africa) from the movie Blood Diamond summarizes the challenges we faced. The most simple of tasks can be a huge undertaking in this environment, but God blessed our team with safety and productivity. The Central Africans’ courage in spite of these obstacles is humbling and inspiring.

Travel was difficult as we traveled 1,600 km over deteriorated roads (largely dirt). On one trip we passed 24 roadblocks where soldiers questioned us, looking for handouts. We passed risky areas at certain times of the day to avoid bandits and chose other roads to avoid rebel forces in the North. We had vehicle trouble: a faulty injector burned up one engine block, front brakes gave out 60 miles from our destination, an overheating engine had to be babied over 1,200 kilometers. Yet, we only missed two appointments. The team was extremely patient and gracious.

Without doubt, police encounters were the hardest part of the total experience for us all. It’s truly humbling to be stopped without just cause and harassed. We were stopped at the same spot multiple times, just two blocks from where we stayed. It had a profound impact on us because it illustrated how hard anything and everything can be in the CAR, especially for the people who simply desire to move forward in their lives.

Imparting vision was a challenge. The plight of the poor and even the elite in CAR has crushed spirits. Typical villagers do not see past the end of their week as they are consumed with activities of hauling water, gathering firewood, gathering food, and maintaining their shelter. One descriptive example of this is the distribution of fruit tree seedlings to improve nutrition in villages. Since the fruit will not be available until three years after planting, the work of growing the tree is not viewed by many as productive.

Our work and the intrinsic design of MED focuses on taking small steps forward in spite of circumstances to make a local difference, rather than solving the problem all at once from the top down. We encouraged everyone to take ownership and tried to enable those who wanted to pursue it, to do so. It was too easy for us to take our American perspective where a small risk and effort usually pays a large reward and misapply it to this situation. We didn’t take their position lightly, but we knew through observation that individuals can take small steps forward when they apply themselves. The work of MED supports those individuals, enabling them to take the steps.

SIGNIFICANT MEMORIES
Connecting with the Central Africans, especially the children, was probably the greatest highlight. We met men and women who were hard working, loved God, and were committed to their families. They showed great courage and vision in spite of their environment. Their children showed amazing contentment. Perhaps it is their close family structure or their lack of resources. They were precious and would smile broadly at the slightest opportunity. Wherever we went they treasured our attention and melted our hearts.

Meeting a group of fruit tree farmers in their garden brought me to tears. These men are true visionaries. They understand that they are doing God’s work by providing for their families and raising this garden. It is close to a trail; as they work, they are mocked by passersby with comments like, “You are working so hard for nothing,” “You are wasting your time,” “Where is the fruit of your work?” These men were so grateful that we came so far to see their garden, and they knew we were bringing an encouraging word.

We did our best to grasp the beauty of the situation and explain to them that they are leaders and visionaries and that even though leaders and visionaries are sometimes mocked, they are the ones who make a significant difference, and it is worth it in the end. We told them that they were already making a huge difference and that someday, passersby would recognize and celebrate their effort. We told them they were doing God’s work. I am confident that this work will be a nucleus of economic development as the fruit trees yield more than their families can consume and these men pursue market opportunities.

A one-day seminar, led by Dr. Al Erisman and translated by Joshua Lohnes, challenged over 100 participants as we met at the sole university in the CAR. Participants closely tracked with Al’s teaching. Hard questions from the audience were met with firm and authentic responses from Al. Teaching will be an important tactic to change the thinking of those who prepare people to do business in this country. The country will never be able to hire all the graduates from the university, so creative entrepreneurial efforts by self-disciplined and self-motivated individuals will be necessary.

We participated in our U.S. Embassy’s July 4th celebration. The retiring Chief of the Staff, Jim Panos, hosted 600 high ranking and influential CAR leaders. There were probably about 20 Americans present (our group stood out). The President of the CAR spoke briefly. The new ambassador also spoke. This two-hour, suit-and-tie, fancy hors d’oeuvres event sealed special connections we had made with a few important government leaders.

Photos from my trip are on line.

*What IS Micro-enterprise Development?
The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to micro-credit pioneer Muhammed Yunus and the Grameen Bank. Micro-enterprise involves a small business employing one to five people. It requires a tiny investment ($50-150 in developing countries) and a lot of hard work to return a small profit.

Micro-Finance is an enabler of micro-enterprise. A small loan is granted to an entrepreneur, which is used to help start a micro-enterprise. Most lending institutions don’t consider business loans for less than $35,000. However, the micro-finance movement has generated many micro-finance institutions and programs which are writing loans equivalent to tens of dollars. When these loans are repaid, the funds are redistributed to sustain the process.

In impoverished countries like the Central African Republic (CAR), enterprise development is one of the most effective vehicles for spiritual, social, and economic transformation. In the U.S., an individual could get a loan for $50,000 to start a business and all they need is a business plan. In the CAR, an individual could have a great opportunity to start a business, which would supply income to meet the family’s needs, but not have access to the $50 it would take to start the business. Micro-finance tries to solve this dilemma.

For more, check out: i>A billion bootstraps by Phil Smith and Eric Thurman

News Keywords

Professional Schools Ministry

Global Trek

The six week 24/7 Challenge

webteam@intervarsity.org — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 05:00:00 +0000

News

The six week 24/7 Challenge

An interview with ��ñ�� president Alec Hill

You’ve just returned from a trip to East Asia visiting an ��ñ�� global project. You’ve visited other summer projects. What differences did you observe during your stay at this one?

I visited a project in Egypt two summers ago. During that project the students lived in a garbage village in Cairo and spent the time in service to those who lived there. During this project the ��ñ�� students are paired with local students who want to learn to speak English.

You met a group of ��ñ�� students who were on a summer project. How did you see them being transformed into world changers through the experience of this summer project?

I suspect that many of the students went on this trip with the idea that they would have an opportunity to share the gospel. And many of them did. But I saw them being discipled, giving up important parts of their lives to show the love of Christ. Living together with a student from another culture 24/7 for six weeks challenged the ��ñ�� students to live the submissive, loving life.

What was one experience that you had that shows what God is doing through this project?

I met one local student who had been in the program two years ago and came back this year to be on staff. She has an interesting story. Her father studied for his PhD at Kansas State University. A couple working with international students and ��ñ�� invited him to their home. He came not because he was interested in Christianity but because he enjoyed the hospitality and the fellowship with others from his country. When he completed his studies, the couple gave him a Bible. When he got back to his home country he gave the Bible to his daughter so she could learn English. He warned her to ignore the content. But she read the Bible she became a believer. Now she holds Bible studies on campus and is involved in the local church.

Did you meet anyone not directly associated with the project that impressed on you what God is doing in this part of the world?

I met a missionary from Holland who was working with the Buddhist minority in this country. She told of the spiritual leader of a large monastery who had five hundred monks under him. This Buddhist leader is talking with her about Christianity because he is tired of working for salvation. He will be giving up much to become a Christian, so he is counting the costs.

Alec talks about his China trip at a chapel service at ��ñ��’s National Service Center. Listen or download here.

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Global Trek

From the President

Global Urban Trek 2007 - Bangkok

webteam@intervarsity.org — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 05:00:00 +0000

News

David Nguyen

Global Urban Trek 2007 - Bangkok

On Monday, the team took a trip to visit CCD (Christian care for Children with Disabilities), a site that the Bangkok team once worked with. After touring the facility, we went over to the government wards where they keep children suffering from Cerebral Palsy (CP), a brain defect acquired from birth, which in plain language, limits the person drastically from motor functions such as moving limbs.

Because of the religious and cultural beliefs in Thailand, a son or daughter born with CP is seen as merely a result of bad karma. Hence, little if any value is given to the newborn and they are discarded from the family. The ward houses rooms filled with these children of various ages, most of who are unresponsive to environmental stimuli, even touch, because they have lacked human interaction all their lives.

One of CCD’s ministries is to take some of these children back to their own facilities to play with them and work with them, giving them the social and environmental interaction they need in order to develop. But CCD only has room and staff for a few at a time, so most of the children are stuck in the wards all week.

When I first entered the ward, there was a potent odor (I figured it was due to the lack of bathing they receive). There were probably about 16 to 20 beds, with 2 children in each bed. They lie in their beds all day, 7 days a week (which is why their CP condition gets worse and worse as the days go by).

Some even had their arms and legs tied to the bed frame to keep them from hurting themselves or the other child on the bed they share. If I remember correctly, there were only 2 workers in the room, but even they didn’t interact with the children very much. As a result, little is done to improve the children’s condition on a daily basis.

As I went from bed to bed, I was very discouraged by how unresponsive the children were. I was upset with God because I knew he is sovereign, but do these children know that? And what did he expect me to do about it?

I thought to myself, “What am I supposed to do? There’s nothing I can do for these children, God!” I even cried out to God, “Why did you allow this? What did they do to be in this, almost non-existent state?”

The next thing I knew, one of the workers handed me a bowl of rice, meat, and vegetables to see if I wanted to try feeding them. I thought about it, then hesitated, and handed it back to her. I guess I was afraid that I might accidentally cause them to choke because they lie on their backs even when they eat. Then I realized they’ve been in that position all their lives, so eating on their backs is something they’ve mastered already. After seeing Janet feed them, I had to give it a try so I asked for the bowl.

I was disgusted at myself for hesitating initially at what turned out to be such a simple, yet deeply moving act of service. I gave it a shot and began scooping one spoon of rice after another, dropping them into the mouths of the 3 hungry girls in front of me.

Immediately after the first spoon emptied, tears began filling my eyes. I remember Janet coming over briefly saying, “How’s it going, Dave” and I pretended to be okay, making sure she didn’t see my watery eyes. But inside, I was somewhere in-between cursing God’s name and praising it for the simple lesson of compassion he was teaching me in that moment. Even now, I don’t really know what happened. I was moved! I think I felt God’s compassion. Those who know me well will know that having compassion is the one thing I ask God for the most, because I lack it so much.

David Nguyen is a student from San Leandro, California, and a participant in ��ñ��’s Global Urban Trek to Bangkok this summer. Read more about the Bangkok Urban Trek and the other Global Urban Trek teams at urbana.org.

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Global Project

Global Trek

Slum Communities at Urbana

webteam@intervarsity.org — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 06:00:00 +0000

News

Slum Communities at Urbana

Out of the more than 20,000 attendees who came to ��ñ��’s Urbana 06 Student Missions Convention in St. Louis in December to learn about missions, about 400 took one step further. The members of the Slum Communities of the Developing World track occupied their own hotel. Their daily Bible study highlighted scriptural applications that addressed the poorest of the poor. They listened to additional speakers whose live and serve in slum communities. And they forsook daily showers for bathing out of a bucket to experience the daily inconvenience that defines the lifestyle of the poor.

Participation in the bucket exercise was voluntary for track members. Those who took the bucket were instructed by track director Scott Bessenecker not to disparage those who showered. “If your heart allows you, it’s going to be a privilege and a joy to do it,” he told them. He didn’t hear any complaints. “I think people engaged it with joy,” he said.

Bessenecker, the author of i>The New Friars (��ñ�� Press), a new book that focuses on Christians who voluntarily reject the comforts of the 21st century to identify with and serve the urban poor, was not surprised by the lack of complaints. Even so he was surprised that the Urbana 06 bookstore sold out the book.

“This emerging movement of young people is on a quest to live deeply spiritual lives in impoverished situations in the spirit of St. Francis,” he said. “Those people were part of this track.” One of them, Grace Mendola, told the Urbana Today newspaper that she was willing to endure a small sacrifice to make a point. “It’s one small step that this group can take to try to understand the reality of what we’re learning about,” she said.

Bessenecker believes that many young people today are ready to reject the orderly, insulated, over-managed, modern lifestyle. They hunger for gritty authenticity. “People are getting more and more famished for connection with the majority world that lives such a radically different experience than us,” he said. “People recognize the cocoon and are eager to get out.”

The “new friars” that Bessenecker describes in his book are also eager to bring the light of the Gospel to the darkest corners of the earth, and to fight injustice. The Slum Communities track at Urbana educated them with sessions focused on global poverty, international sex trafficking, and children who live on the streets of many large cities. “I think in many ways these are the darkest days humans have experienced on earth,” he said. “And some of that came crashing in to the track for us at Urbana.”

Halfway through the track Bessenecker scheduled time for grieving, so that participants could express some of the emotional pain they were feeling from the information shared in the workshops. “Jesus said, ‘Blessed are those who mourn,’” he noted. “There’s an appropriateness to lifting our voice and wailing. I didn’t want people to take on the despair of poverty, but to cry out for the promises of God yet unfulfilled in those places.”

Track participants were invited to take the next step in ministry to the poor by volunteering to spend at least two years in service to the urban poor. Bessenecker compares this to the novitiate stage of the monastic communities, a time of initiation when those who feel a call from God to urban ministry begin to experience the reality of the commitment. “His Spirit is actively stirring up people to take some pretty radical steps,” he said. “But I really think you need to hear specifically from God on this one.”

Bessenecker is the director of ��ñ��’s Global Projects. He’s also an ordained member of the leadership team at Madison’s Faith Community Bible Church. He’s been focused on incarnational urban ministry since his Master’s Degree studies in 1999. He said he’s had many sleepless nights since then, not because of the burden of ministry to the poor but out of the excitement and anticipation of seeing what God was doing through what he calls the “couriers of hope” in urban ministry.

“I really feel like the Spirit of God is touching this area of the church,” he said. “What I’m seeing are people who are ready to forsake opportunity in exchange for a different kind of spirituality and another kind of power that comes from self denial, making themselves dependent on God. I couldn’t not write about that.”

To hear more from Scott Bessenecker on this topic, check out this week’s podcast on ��ñ��’s audio page.
Christianity Today review of Scott’s book

News Keywords

Urban Ministry

Global Trek

Urbana

Scott Bessenecker - The New Friars

webteam@intervarsity.org — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 06:00:00 +0000

News

Scott Bessenecker - The New Friars

Scott Bessenecker is the director of ��ñ��’s Global Projects and Global Urban Treks. He grew up in Iowa and attended Iowa State University. He has been involved with ��ñ��’s overseas mission projects since 1986 when he started with the organization. He became the director of Overseas Training Camps in 1990 and changed the name of the program to the current Global Projects. He and his family spent summer 2002 with students in Cairo’s garbage village of Mokattam.

The New Friars
Scott Bessenecker, ��ñ�� Press, 2006
Paper back, 199 pages, $15.00

Tell us, Scott, why did you choose The New Friars as the title of your book?

I wanted to represent the commitment to live in poverty for the sake of the gospel. I chose the term friar rather than another term, monk for instance, because the friars were noted not only for their strong sense of mission but also for their mobility. They were willing to travel anywhere that God might call them.

What do you say about the new friars?

Through a number of stories drawn from historical and contemporary examples, I present several elements that describe the life of those who follow the path God has called them to in serving the poor. They are incarnational, pursuing Jesus’ descent into humanity; devotional, pursuing intimacy with Jesus; communal, pursuing relational wealth; missional, pursuing the kingdom of God; and marginal, living on the edges of social acceptance.

What do you hope your readers will learn and do as a result of reading your book?

I wrote this book to honor those who have made the choice to live a radical mission ideal—to honor them by telling their stories. These men and women are serving as a leavening force for the church. As church historian Adolf Harnack says, “It was always the monks who saved the Church when sinking, emancipated her when becoming enslaved to the world, defended her when assailed. These it was that kindled hearts that were growing cold, bridled refractory spirits, recovered for the Church alienated nations.” I predict that today’s emerging movement to the world’s poor, powered by the new friars, will also bring renewal to the global church of the twenty-first century. I trust that this book will play a small part in that renewal.

Scott Bessenecker is leading the Urbana 06 track, Slum Communities of the Developing World.

Mission Network News report on “The New Friars.

Christianity Today review

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