Last week our Regional Leadership Team gathered to discern the direction for this next student generation.
As we met, we encountered the presence of God. It was a blessing to collaborate with this amazing group of leaders through deep discussion, prayer, tears, and laughter.
Over the next weeks I will share about the direction for this next season. Would you pray for us as we lead our team into what God has for us?
Can you imagine the impact of a witnessing community on every corner of every campus in the U.S.? As an organization we are partnering with others to press forward to this reality.
One of the ways we empower students from every corner of the campus to reach every corner, is through our Corners Conference.
I am directing this conference and overseeing the track leaders pictured above.
Please pray for God to draw the right people, to show up in power, and to send students from every corner to every corner of the campus.
It is clear that we never have the full picture of what God is doing. A story from Cal, staff of the ACF chapter at Washington U, gives one example of this.
“One of my alum, Jennifer, just told me a story from two or three years ago. While we were on a Discipleship Roadtrip to connect with people at Missouri S&T, she met a international student from East Asia who had family in the Bay area. Since Jennifer is originally from the Bay they swapped contact info and haphazardly planned to meet up when they were both home.
Jennifer forgot about this interaction and finished her semester. When she gets home she randomly remembers this student exists and decides to text her. They grab coffee and chat and Jennifer invites her to church with her the next day. Jennifer thought she had never been to church before though she tells Jennifer she actually had been to that church before! She shares with Jennifer that her aunt’s family lives in the Bay and are strong Christians and have been praying for her family’s conversion for years.
Jennifer invites her to a church young adult event the next week and at the event the girl accepts Christ! What a random awesome story! Now Jennifer is going to go be a missionary in East Asia!! Crazy amazing stuff 🙂 Praise God for discipleship road trips and how He crafts stories that are waaaaay longer and cooler than I can even imagine.”
Eleven years ago, InterVarsity staff Adam Leong had a vision to see the first InterVarsity chapter at the University of Missouri in Columbia born. Now, over a decade later, the group he planted there is thriving and other chapters in Mid-Missouri at Mizzou, Columbia College and Lincoln University have followed.
Adam and his wife, Megan, who transferred in 2013 from St Louis to work with international students at Mizzou, have tirelessly overseen the growth of the Mid-Missouri team which now includes three additional staff.
This month, Adam and Megan move to Omaha, Nebraska to start new roles with InterVarsity. Adam says “It’s hard to not see Mid-Missouri as ‘my baby’ but I’m confident that Jesus will show up in a big way and that it will grow beyond where I could have taken it.”
Please pray for the continued growth of the work in Mid-Missouri and for Adam and Megan’s transition to Omaha.
Sometimes allowing student leaders to really lead can feel like a big risk. That’s exactly what Danny Poon, InterVarsity staff at the University of Missouri, discovered this semester.
Beginning the year, Danny felt that the students were struggling with insecurities and relying a lot on him to take charge when it came to planning their large group meetings. Danny decided to set them up with a skeleton of what their meetings could look like and step back from the planning process to give them space to take full ownership.
Not only did the leadership team begin running their regular meetings, Danny was overjoyed when the time came for them to plan the final large group of the semester. The once timid leaders decided to share their testimonies and invite over 30 of their peers to faith in Jesus. The group responded incredibly well and Danny saw that empowering students to reach their campus can lead to truly life changing moments.
Ten years ago our region was first launching the 2020 Vision and many of us wondered, “Is it really harvest time in the Central Region?”
Two weeks ago we celebrated as a region (team pictured above) reaching what seemed like impossible goals – 500 cells, 50 chapters, and 1 overseas student movement. Truly it has been an extended harvest season in our region and goals that seemed unreachable by 2020, God brought to pass by 2017.
We spent time remembering and thanking God together. Then we continued a process of discerning what God has next for our region. At our meetings we clarified our list of potential hoped for outcomes for this next student generation. Our regional leadership team will finalize these in mid-January. Would you pray for God’s continued direction?
It is easy to get so focused on what is right in front of us that we miss what God is doing all around us.
At our Regional staff conference we ‘lifted our gaze’, prayed over the 187 campuses in our region (symbolized by the cups in photo), and asked the Lord of the Harvest to send workers to the harvest field and to grow our burden for every campus in our territory.
Would you join us in praying for the campuses in the Central Region?
This week 50 staff from our region are gathering to celebrate the completion of the 2020 Vision and continue to define the next season of work in the Central Region. Please pray for us!
“I was ready to give up on God. But during the evening session, the speaker said exactly what I needed to hear—it was as if God was reaching out to me. I am ready to follow God again!” These were the excited words of a sophomore from Rockhurst College at their recent Fall Conference.
Other students at Rockhurst are exhibiting a remarkable level of spiritual openness as well. One student recently told InterVarsity Kansas Area Director, Tim Lin: “I didn’t grow up in a religious home, but in the past year, I’ve realized that I wanted to find answers to my spiritual questions. So here I am at Rockhurst—I have no clue where to begin.” Another said, “I went to a Young Life camp this past summer and gave my life to Jesus. But I have no idea how to have a relationship with him.”
Praise God that there is an InterVarsity group on this campus ready to meet and help these students seek Him.
My partners give in so many ways. A week out from Giving Tuesday, I am taking the opportunity to say Thank You to those who have walked with me these past twenty and for some just this last year. Your multi-dimensional partnership is a tremendous blessing!
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑
