“We are just trying to catch up with God.”
I heard this quote last week from student leaders in a sister movement of InterVarsity/USA in eastern Europe. It has been my experience as well. In fact, what we experience on new campuses we enter is that God is there ahead of us and invites us to partner with him.
As a veteran campus staff, I was challenged by Rev. Ronald Bobo in 2007 that God had gifted me to start new work. I was not certain about this and began to ‘test’ out this challenge by prayer walking on campuses where InterVarsity did not have work.
One of the campuses I walked on was Harris Stowe State University. As I walked and explored the potential of starting a new group on campus, I encountered the move of God in many ways. First was with a student hungry for a relationship with God that I happened to sit next to in front of the main building pictured above.
Another was as I prayed for open doors for the Gospel on campus with a staff colleague, looked down the hallway, and saw the door above propped open. As we walked through the door, we met a woman of prayer outside asking for God’s presence. She then painted the spiritual realities of the campus she faithfully engaged through years of her work there.
More than any campus I have walked on in my 21 years of work with InterVarsity, I experienced the consistent visible move of God in that space. In June I went to this place, gave thanks to God, and laid stones of remembrance.
Pray that as our students, staff, and partners walk on new campuses this year that they would look for and encounter the move of God.