INTERVARSITY: 10 Reasons Why I Love IVCF

1. Student Leadership. A core commitment of IV is that it is a student run fellowship on each campus. The great benefit of student leadership is that the students better understand the spiritual needs of the campus and it creates an indigenous group that reflects the Christian students of the campus. IV does not go around the country and have a cookie cutter mold that they make ever campus fit into. They have core commitments which are essential to a Christian fellowship but the specifics are formed by the student leaders of each chapter.

2. Women in Leadership. IV has the reputation of propelling women in positions of leadership without the student chapters and in the organization as a whole. This has been a place of growth for me since I have come to college but I have learned how the correct interpretations of leadership show that it is fully Biblical for women to take these positions. IV is at the forefront of this church issue and celebrates the gifts that Christian women bring to our chapters. I am personally serving on our chapters servant leadership team with 4 sisters in Christ. While I would love to have more men represented on the team I do not doubt God's gifting to my 4 amazing sisters in Christ.

3. Biblical Training. What thrust me into the vision and passion of our IV chapter was attending my first conference, Chapter FOCUS Week, at the end of my freshmen year. There I received amazing Bible expositions and practical tools to grow deeper in my faith and live it out loud back on campus. I can mark the milestones of my spiritual journey at IV conferences, because at each one God met me in a specific area of my life that I need to grow. These great training conferences included: School of Leadership Training, Global Projects, MAC Training, Urban Plunges, Urbana Missions Convention, Fall and Spring Conferences, and Chapter FOCUS Week.

4. InterVarsity Press. Being a logical minded person who loves to worship God with my mind I love to read books that grow my faith. IV Press is committed to publishing Bible centered teaching on specific issues of growth for the church. IV Press has a reputation of scholarly work. Christian scholars who want to publish there books come to IVP because they know they have an audience of college students and faculty and a history of scholarly publications.

5. Evangelism. The deeper I go into the leadership of IV the more I see a heart and passion for evangelism from people who have the gift and from those who don't. Since coming to Clarion this has been an area of huge growth for me. IV has taught me how important conversational evangelism and friendship evangelism is and the relevance to the college campus. On our campus IV is the Christian fellowship who is always pushing for more evangelism and is willing to be bold in proclaiming Truth in compelling ways to our campus.

6. IV Staff. Jesse, my staff worker, has had more of a positive impact on my spiritual growth that any other single person in my 5 years of college. Jesse continually challenges me in the areas that I am weak and encourages me in the areas of my strengths. All the IV staff that I have ever met at conferences love their job and love building up college students to be successful in leading their chapters. This has had such a positive impact on me that I have been called to participate in the ministry by going on staff. Jesse has now become more than just my staff worker but my friend as well.

7. Social Justice. I have not really thought much of my responsibility as a Christian to stand up and fight for social injustice in the world. I guess this comes from a very narrow view of my world being the world. Participating in IV conferences has taught me that I need to view my faith through the lens of AIDS, genocide, child sex slaves, and all other kinds of oppression. This is a relatively new area of growth for me but I am really open to it. I love how IV is so committed to putting hands and feet on Christianity and wanting to teach students how to use their position of privilege to stand up for the oppressed people who have no voice.

8. Racial Reconciliation. My personal growth in this area has only been in the past 2 years. Sadly this is an area that the Christian Church as a whole is very lacking in. IV is committed to the hard task of helping students of different ethnicities reconcile their differences and celebrate their diversity in Christian community. The IVP book More Than Equals is one of the best books written on the subject. This is a hard area of growth for me as a white person to admit that my former views were racist and that I need to be proactive in sacrificing my culture and comfort to go into the culture of other ethnicities and build them up not by making them assimilate into my culture but learning how to lift up their culture and bring it into the spotlight.

9. Vision. One of the most attractive things about IV for me is their vision to make world changers. It is so full of passion and identifies the strategic place that the university campus is. The top 1% of the worlds population graduate from college with a degree. These are the people who will run the businesses of the future, make the laws, publish books, educate our youth, and create tomorrow's media. In short, these are the people who will change the world for better or for worse in the future. The more that become Christians in college the more Christian workers who represent a Biblical worldview in the secular marketplace. Change the University and you change the world!

10. Inductive Bible Study. IV is fully committed to the inductive Bible study method. I had never heard of this kind of Bible study before and as I have learned that most people outside Bible college never hear of this study method. This method has truly revolutionized the way I understand and read the Bible. It completely reveals the Bible for all its wonderful mystery. It guards anyone who uses it from bad interpretations and shows the Bible's academic value. I love the inductive Bible study method, I have never learned so much in my spiritual growth prior to college then I have in the last five years of college at my inductive Bible studies. When done with a manuscript it makes you do the hard work of observing then in the context of community discover the riches it has to offer. I still love to look back over my manuscripts from the past 5 years of inductive Bible studies and see what I have learned.

INTERVARSITY: Fund Development for InterVarsity Staff

Being a ministry intern for IV while still finishing school was supposed to give me a head start on my fund development. I have been realizing how I have been going to the extreme of allowing it to consume all of my thinking to the point of worry and unable to do anything else or the extreme of keeping my mind and time so scheduled so that I don't stop to think about it. The result of both is that no fund development has gotten done this school year and it is half over. Jesse has been talking to me and praying for me to help motivate me to overcome my fear of doing fund development. Bottom line is that if I cannot fund raise the money, I cannot be an IV staff worker.

Jesse is really good brother in Christ and he keeps pushing me and praying for me. I realize that there is deeper issues in my heart that this brings out. Why am I avoiding working on this? Why does my heart drop out of my chest when I see Jesse's number come up on my cell phone? Why do I purposely not answer the phone when he or Paul calls? I thought I was more mature of a Christian than to be doing such foolish behavior.

I intellectually understand all the reasons why fund development is important and how it grows my trust in the Lord's provision, but this is the true test. I do not want to do this. I don't want to make the list of names or write my newsletter or make phone call asks or set up appointments. Why? I thought my intellectual knowledge of the right answers should overcome my emotions? I guess I am a more emotional guy than I realized. These are the moments that really define who we are. The ones that throw us out of our comfort zones faster that we can adapt to the change. That is when our true self rears its ugly head. I am challenged in this area of weakness. As Jesse asked me in our phone conversation on Friday, am I more afraid of God or of other people's responses when I ask for their financial support? Wow that is a cut to the core, no BS kind of question. First my mind goes to work and finds the answer but not as quickly as the sinking feeling in my heart, nor as strong. I continually yield to the feeling of insecurity and I fear man more that God.

Lord please help me through this like you have done ever other time. Give me the strength to walk by faith. I would appreciate the prayers of anyone reading this as well, thanks.