Students’ Lives Making an Eternal Impact

Joanna (center) is a junior at Cal State Northridge, and a Christian involved with InterVarsity. Last year, she decided to become an RA in the campus dorms so that she could have the chance to share the love of God with students who didn’t know him. This past fall, she and one of our staff interns, Terrell, started a “gig”—a God investigation group (translation: a Bible study for folks who aren’t Christians)—in Joanna’s dorm. It began in a dorm room. As it grew, it moved to the dorm lounge. And as time went on, more and more students began coming.

When Joanna and Terrell (left) invited them to consider coming to Catalina island to explore a relationship with God at our Can This Wait conference, eight of them said yes, joining 47 other non-Christians at our conference. They spent their weekend bonding and having fun at Catalina, as well as discussing spiritual questions and hearing messages such as, “Who is Jesus” and “What does it mean to follow him?”

Saturday night of the conference, UCLA staff Sam Rizk gave a message about the great banquet parable from Luke, challenging students that they shouldn’t wait to make a decision of faith. Each student was given an RSVP to God’s banquet table, and at the end of the message, students were offered the chance to RSVP to God’s banquet, and give their lives to following Jesus. At the end of the night, six of those eight students in Joanna and Terrell’s gig walked to the front of the 100-person room, and gave God their RSVP. Ten others joined them, for a total of 16 new decisions of faith.

This past Sunday night, the InterVarsity staff at Northridge had to gather the InterVarsity students for their first ever emergency follow-up meeting because there were so many students who made new faith decisions, and needed help growing into their new faith. Joanna and the other students left the meeting ready to help their new brothers and sisters begin the basics of Christian faith...and with a whole new perspective on what God will do through them when they give him the chance.

Ongoing Work: 47 Non-Christians came with us to Catalina…16 returned home Christians

We had a fantastic weekend at our Can This Wait conference, at Catalina Island. Christian students have been building deep relationships with non-Christian peers all year—hanging out with them, serving them, inviting them to explore things of God—and this past weekend, those Christian students brought 47 of the non-Christian friends to actively seek God. 16 of those students gave their lives to following Jesus.

Pray with us for those 16 decisions of faith to go deep, and turn into true discipleship. Additionally, pray for the 31 students who were at the weekend who didn’t make decisions, and the hundreds of other non-Christian students with whom we’re in relationship, that they would continue forward toward God, and be found by him as we continue to partner with God in seeking and saving those who don’t know him.

Behind the Scenes: Lessons From Can This Wait

This is the second year I’ve been directly involved with Can This Wait, and we’re learning a lot from what we’ve seen this year.

The most exciting aspect of the conference was the sheer number of non-Christians that InterVarsity students brought. 47 is more than double what we’ve brought in past years! I’m attributing this to the growing culture of mission that’s developing in our chapters. Increasingly students are coming to understand that the purpose of their existence as a Christian community is to let God love them deeply, and to offer that love to the rest of the campus. That sounds great on paper…but it’s a whole other thing to see students living it out, and to see the love of God transforming the campus!

Secondly, we’ve noticed the impact of gigs. The non-Christian students who had been involved in a regular Bible discussion with their Christian friends—where they can ask their questions, where they’re reading the teachings of Jesus for themselves—were much further along in their search for God. Gigs are an empowering opportunity for Christian InterVarsity students to lead their friends into the love of God, and they are proving to be a critical opportunity for post-modern seekers to work through their barriers to faith before making the choice to give their lives to God.

On the Horizon: Taking College Students into Urban Los Angeles to Encounter God

This summer, I will be stepping into a new role as the associate director of InterVarsity’s Los Angeles Urban Project, aka: LAUP. LAUP may be the single most powerful leadership experience that we offer college students in Los Angeles today.

Students spend the summer as LAUP interns, and are placed in teams who will live in the inner city. They spend their summer working with urban ministries and justice organizations—Boys and Girls Clubs, Union Rescue Mission, Inner City churches—and being led and trained in prayer, character, and a Biblical perspective on money and economics. During LAUP, students experience working through relational conflict, they learn to find hope in the midst of poverty, and they gain vision for what it means to fully live as Christians in our culture. On the other side of LAUP students come out with maturity, character, and an understanding of the world that makes them the kind of people who will shape their churches, neighborhoods, and places of work for the rest of their lives.

My sense is that participating in the leadership of LAUP—particularly the way it makes space for God to work at the intersection between college students and poor communities of Los Angeles—may be one of the most satisfying leadership experiences I have with InterVarsity.

Family and Financial Update

Tyler, Lucy, Jenny, and I are doing great! Our kids are growing up to be sweet and passionate people who are just pure joy to spend time with. Jenny has finally recovered from Urbana, and some of the pieces she created and performed can be found at http://www.urbana09.org/videos.cfm (My personal favorite is on Day 2, video #14, where Jenny tells Rahab’s story in the first person.)

Scott is going into a final fundraising push to see the remaining $14K of our budget come in. If you feel led to participate in helping reach that goal through an extra one-time gift, it would come as a great blessing to us.