James Madison University

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

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

Gordon Govier

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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chapter planting

George Mason University

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James Madison University

God's Word Changes a Campus

AD-16225 — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 16:28:42 +0000

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Amy Hauptman

God's Word Changes a Campus

“One day, my small group leaders stormed into my dorm room dressed up as ninjas and invited me and my roommate to an ��ñ�� freshmen volleyball tournament,” said Neal. “We thought we would be the only ones dressed up, but it turned out that everyone else in the tournament also dressed up.”

Neal arrived at James Madison University as a freshman eager to make new friends and get involved in a Christian organization on campus. He had met a couple ��ñ�� small group Bible study leaders at a freshmen welcome event and ended up going to their Bible study.

“Being a part of that small group was one of the best decisions I made,” stated Neal. “In that small group, I met ten guys who are today still my closest friends. These relationships carried me through college.”

Letting God’s Word Teach

Every week, Neal and his small group pored over Scripture, letting God’s Word teach, guide, and transform them. One of the passages that struck Neal was the Great Commission, where Jesus instructs his followers to make disciples of all nations.

“I loved this passage because this was not just a command that Jesus was giving his disciples at a particular time,” said Neal. “This is God’s vision for the entire world—that we all go and make disciples of all nations.”

As Neal considered this, he realized that many of his non-Christian friends had negative perceptions of Christians—that they were too judgmental—and wanted nothing to do with Christianity.

“There are so many people who have negative perceptions of Christians and still haven’t heard the gospel,” said Neal. “Negative perceptions prevent people from seeing and experiencing the truth. This is why getting people to engage with Scripture is so important.”

God’s Word Inspires a Vision

Neal was moved to host a campuswide worship event, where Christians on campus could invite their non-Christian friends to come and hear the Word of God.

“I was praying something like that would happen, but figured nothing would,” said Neal. “But then, one day a couple of my friends came up to me and told me that they had just reserved a room so that we could do the event.”

Neal and his friends started planning, gathering support and help from ��ñ�� and other campus ministries along the way.

“This was a monumental time in my college career,” said Neal. “I had never taken any steps of faith like this before or organized such a large event before.”

Everything seemed to be going well as Neal and his friends planned: they found speakers, a worship band, the funds, and sound equipment.

But five days before the event . . . everything fell through—the speakers, the band, the funds, and the venue. The only thing that didn’t fall through was the sound equipment, but the production company threatened to sue Neal if he broke the contract.

It’s Time to Pray

“I started to panic, so I contacted my small group Bible study and other friends in ��ñ�� and told them about my situation,” said Neal. “My friends in ��ñ�� organized prayer for me, and word of my situation quickly spread. I was also encouraged by their faith to go and pray myself—so I went to a prayer room on our campus and began to pray.”

Thirty minutes after Neal had finished praying, a friend gave Neal $1,000 in cash to pay for sound equipment, Neal got his brothers’ band booked to play, and he remembered a connection he had to a well-known speaker.

Two hours later, every detail for the campuswide event was taken care of.

New Life

“When the day of the event came, the auditorium was packed with 600 people,” said Neal. “The worship was powerful, the speaker shared the gospel, and at the end of the night, seven non-Christians decided to start following Jesus.”

Now Neal is preparing to graduate and attend Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, but he is extremely grateful for his faith-growing experiences in ��ñ��. ��ñ�� gave him a greater vision for what making disciples of all nations could look like. Now his dream is to one day become an urban church planter and a writer so that he can engage as many people as possible with God’s Word.

“When people think about changing the world, it seems impossible to them,” observed Neal. “But from my experience and from what I’ve seen in Scripture, changing the world is a natural result of following Christ.”

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James Madison University

��ñ�� alumni - Isaac Gill

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 21:26:57 +0000

News

��ñ�� alumni - Isaac Gill

Isaac Gill spent several months in a fruitless job search following his 2009 graduation from James Madison University (JMU). Then in August, he received a phone call from a childhood friend. She knew Isaac had a degree in digital filmmaking; she asked him to make a short promotional video to raise funds for a documentary focusing on the growing trend of the sexual exploitation of children in the United States.

The project was called Sex+Money: A National Search for Human Worth. After making the promotional video, Isaac continued on as an Associate Producer. He also enjoyed using his creative skills as an assistant to the Music Supervisor for the documentary.

Then as the production team put together a nationwide tour of churches and college campuses to show the documentary, Isaac had two more jobs, tour coordinator and worship leader. The tour crossed the country, with screenings in all 50 states.

Returning to Campus

The 50 state Sex+Money tour officially ended last December, but the team is still adding showings. In February, Isaac arranged a presentation at his alma mater, JMU, which attracted about 700 students. Isaac spent the whole day on campus, visiting with his former professors and friends he had met through ��ñ��.

He shared with his professors his media activities since graduation. “They taught me valuable technical skills, relational skills, and personal skills, that had become invaluable to me,” he said. "I just went back and thanked them."

Isaac also sat in on an ��ñ�� Small Group Bible study, the same one that he used to lead three years ago. It was now led by a student who had been a freshman in the group three years ago. Several of the guys in Isaac's Bible study group are now leading their own Bible studies at JMU. "I'm so proud of them and so impressed with how God has worked in their lives," he said.

He also spent some time in quiet reflection during his visit. "Coming back to JMU after all the experiences of the past three years helped me recall my roots. Reconnecting with the track record of what God has done in my life, I saw his faithfulness across the years. In some ways I've changed and grown a lot, and in some ways I'm the same Isaac. That was pretty powerful."

A Crucial Decision

Isaac recalled his first week on campus and the important contact he had made with a friend from back home. His friend invited Isaac along to swim at a water hole out in the country and to some other activities that didn’t seem all that important at the time. But now seven years later they loomed large in his college memories.

“I thought of my friend Andrew who became my Small Group leader, what if he hadn't reached out to me during those first weeks. Would I be the same person now? What if I hadn't gone on that trip to Blue Hole, or if I hadn't gone to an ice cream social with ��ñ��, or if I hadn't gone to that first Bible study. Would I have worked on this documentary, would I have traveled or have done the things that I have done? I'm really grateful for how it worked out. I'm really grateful for God's grace. I could've gone the other way, and made some bad decisions.”

Repenting of an Addiction

In spite of his involvement with ��ñ��, Isaac admitted that he had made some bad decisions at JMU. He had battled with a pornography addiction. The summer after he graduated, he came to a point where he realized he didn’t want to tolerate that sin in his life anymore. He spent a lot of time in prayer and repentance, seeking God.

Then when he was invited to be a part of the Sex+Money project, he was honest with the producer, Morgan Perry about his past issues with pornography. "I don't want to be somebody who is bringing down the team spiritually because of what I'm coming out of,” he told her. “Morgan was super supportive. She said, ‘That's the reason you're supposed to be a part of this.’”

Last year on tour, and because of his transparency about his past, Isaac had the privilege of praying with many men who shared the same addiction. “��ñ�� really created that context for vulnerability and confession and repentance, a biblical style of repentance,” Isaac said. “It wasn't working out our salvation or trying to do good works to regain our credibility with God, but just receiving God's grace once for all.”

Isaac cited statistics that show 50 percent of the men and 20 percent of the women in American churches are involved with pornography. Pornography, he said, is just part of the hypersexualization of our culture that is leading to the sexual trafficking that the Sex+Money documentary exposed, resulting in sexual abuse and brokenness of families.

Isaac would like to continue to be involved with the Sex+Moneyproject, to get the message out to more people who need to hear it. He’s also finishing up production of his first album, which will be released soon. He’s confident that as he continues to trust in God, God will continue to lead him, just as he did during his time with ��ñ�� at JMU.

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James Madison University

��ñ�� alumni

Sex + Money

��ñ�� alumni - Doug Arms

webteam@intervarsity.org — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 05:00:00 +0000

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Gordon Govier

��ñ�� alumni - Doug Arms

A seven month around-the-world tour is not a bad start for a first job after graduation. The tour is a daily adventure, according to Doug Arms, who was an ��ñ�� student leader at James Madison University (JMU).

Doug and his colleague Marc Berruezo are visiting 14 countries on five continents, chronicling the work of Ambassadors for Christ International (AFCI), an organization that supports indigenous ministry.

Deep in the Jungle

During February, Doug and Marc traveled deep into a Malaysian jungle for a visit with Christians in the Penan tribe. “Life slowed down, particularly after the sun went down, as there was no electricity,” he reported, in an email interview. “The tribe’s day-to-day life is totally different than mine. I go to the grocery store, they go to the jungle. I play with video games, they play in the river. I drive a car to go places, no one in the village owns a car. But I experienced that life is basically all about the same things: family, friends, laughter, and love. It was really cool for me to see that.”

Doug committed his life to Jesus Christ in high school and connected with ��ñ�� his first day on campus at JMU. “��ñ��’s campus staff worker, C.J. Goeller, became one of my best friends and my spiritual role model and mentor over the next four years,” he wrote.

Deeply Invested in the Lives of Others

He served as a small group leader on campus for two years, and then on the Exec Team as the Large Group Coordinator his senior year. “The person to person ministry that I experienced through leading a small group was one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever done,” he wrote. “It allowed me to deeply invest myself in the lives of others. It was amazing to see those in whom I was investing make decisions to follow Christ.”

Doug’s involvement in ��ñ��, including his attendance at the Urbana 06 Student Missions Conference, helped prepare him for his current job. But he also wrote that ��ñ��, “by helping me to grow in love for God, his Word, his people, and his purposes in the world, also prepared me to face the rest of life with a firm foundation in Christ.”

Between graduation and the start of his current job, Doug and four friends rode bicycles across the U.S. He likes to travel and admits that it would be hard to face an office job when it’s time to leave his current position. “I want to feel alive doing what I do, and for me I don’t think that will ever put me behind a desk Monday to Friday, 9 to 5.”

Looking to a Future Back on Campus

So what’s next? Doug has decided to take his adventuresome spirit back on campus. He has accepted an invitation to become a staff intern with ��ñ�� at Elon University in Elon, North Carolina, this fall.

“It seems funny to me that after traveling and seeing so much, that I would come back to work with the same organization that I’ve been involved with for the past four years. But what makes me most excited at this time in my life is the idea of seeing young men and women on college campuses come to know Christ personally,” he concluded.

^{photo: Doug (left) and Marc depart for the next country on their itinerary.}

News Keywords

Missions

��ñ�� alumni

James Madison University

James Madison University

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

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

God's Word Changes a Campus

God's Word Changes a Campus

Letting God’s Word Teach

God’s Word Inspires a Vision

It’s Time to Pray

New Life

��ñ���� alumni - Isaac Gill

��ñ���� alumni - Isaac Gill

��ñ���� alumni - Doug Arms

��ñ���� alumni - Doug Arms

��ñ�� alumni - Isaac Gill

��ñ�� alumni - Isaac Gill

��ñ�� alumni - Doug Arms

��ñ�� alumni - Doug Arms