Best Friends!

Memo and Josiah, best friends at Catalyst, InterVarsity’s summer camp in our region

Have you heard about Urbana?

Check out this promotional video for InterVarsity’s triennial missions conference: Urbana, coming up Dec 27-31, 2012!

If you know someone who might be interested (college-aged students and/or pastors/church leaders), please feel free to point them to www.urbana.org!

Vision at UMKC

“My first InterVarsity event I attended was the retreat during Martin Luther King’s weekend. My friend invited me to come.” 

“I learned about InterVarsity at the Roo Fair [organization fair] at the beginning of the year. Someone called me to invite me to a bible study…and I started coming!”

“When I came to UMKC two years ago, I checked out several different Christian groups. I liked InterVarsity the most because of the way it approached Scripture and bible study.”

If you could have been at the Mays’ house (KU InterVarsity alumni from the 1970s), you would have heard UMKC students share stories like these. It’s amazing to me how many different ways people end up joining InterVarsity, but in the midst of such diversity, they pursue such unified vision. Each of these students have played a major role in starting and/or leading a bible study this semester–reaching out to such friend groups as 6-year-med students or jazz students. They have grown in their boldness and in their faith…and have successfully increased the chapter from just a couple of students this fall to 30 or so active students this spring.

Jamie (the lead UMKC staff) will be joined by Lola Oduyeru, a UMKC graduate, next year to continue building this chapter. We can’t wait to see who else God will bring to InterVarsity!

Reaching out to Nursing Students

This past week, I took a “day-trip” to Wichita, which means 3 hours driving there and 3 hours driving back (plus $8 in tolls). The reason? I was invited to a special leaders’ meeting for Nurses Christian Fellowship at Wichita State University and Newman University (both in Wichita).

Nurses Christian Fellowship (NCF) is a specialized niche ministry of InterVarsity, and it is likely the only national, faith-based ministry for nursing students in the States. Unlike most of the rest of InterVarsity, however, NCF is largely faculty or volunteer-run, with few (if any!) full-time campus staff devoted to its ministry.

When the national director of NCF student ministry flew in this past week, I knew I had to be there to observe, learn and offer any resources we can give. There, I met faculty like Phyllis, who has been a cornerstone of Wichita State University’s NCF chapter for 15+ years. And a student at Newman named Miranda, who is struggling to figure out how to serve and reach out to fellow nursing students when her own schedule is so overwhelming. Our hope is that in the next few months, I will be able to begin providing some long-distance coaching for these student leaders and faculty!

For more information about NCF (and/or if you know someone who should be in a chapter or who should start one!), please visit www.ncf-jcn.org.

Josiah and Crocs

What can one do with a Croc? Let’s see what Josiah thinks…

Light Sabers @ K-State

The week before Spring Break, I had the opportunity to stand outside Marlatt Hall at K-State, waving a “light saber” around, and calling out:

“Want to swing a light saber?”
“Want to duel?”
“Want to hit Ryan?”

Star Wars intersected with Marlatt for a few brief hours that day, as dozens of aspiring Jedis tried their hand at wielding light sabers. When dusk came, the crowd slowly settled down into philosophical conversations.

In the middle of the conversation, Ryan the staff worker (closest to the front of the photo) turned the conversation by remarking, “You know, I work as a campus pastor here, and as much as my boss [I was sitting beside him...] loves light sabers, he probably wants me to get into some kind of spiritual discussion. So would it be all right with you guys if we talked about Jesus for a little bit?”

And remarkably, they all said okay! And with a pile of light sabers on one side, the students began sharing about their skepticism of the church and the judgment that they feel from religious people. Who knew that light sabers could get us into such deep conversations?

Josiah sings…Jesus Loves Me