Thank you for attending GFM National Staff Conference 2023!
“Faithful Witness in Every Corner & Generation”
We are grateful many staff, volunteers, and special guests were able to join us in person or online for our National GFM Staff Conference held March 21 – 23, 2023. We enjoyed taking time to trace the development of graduate student and faculty ministry in InterVarsity, to celebrate the transition in leadership from Bobby Gross to Lynn Gill, and to imagine together how God is inviting us forward in faithful witness. It was nice to gather and reconnect at Mundelein one last time. In 2024, we will attend the National InterVarsity Staff Conference, in 2025 our GFM conference will be online, and in 2026 we’ll gather in-person at a new location.
Post-Conference Opportunities (aka "To Do Items")
Expense Reports: Please charge conference expenses to 712115 GFM National Staff Conference by creating an expense report in Workday and entering “712115” in the “Cost Center” box. If you’re not sure how to submit an expense report in Workday, contact your Area Director or Field Operations Director. Thank you for prioritizing this so that we may wrap up conference finances.
Origin Stories: How has ministry to Graduate Students and Faculty developed throughout InterVarsity’s 75-year history? How did our mission grow to more fully engage this corner of the University? We enjoyed watching a debut presentation on Wednesday evening, March 22, to discover streams and structures, stories and visions that brought us to our current moment. If you did not attend in person or get a chance to participate on-site, please share your GFM story with us. Visit GFM Lived History for full instructions and post your story here.
Listening Exercise: To help us enter into our topic, we asked everyone to complete the pre-course Listening Exercise before the conference. You can complete the listening exercise in meetings you already have scheduled with students or faculty or take someone new out for coffee. Add some time to reflect and see how the Lord draws you into the topic of Christian Witness. Talk with your supervisor about how to share what you discover. We encourage all GFM Staff to embrace opportunities to learn more about the next generation of grad students and future faculty.
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All of the recording links require staff login. If you receive this error message, click the blue link under the larger "Access Denied" message and use your InterVarsity credentials to sign in. Thanks!
Plenary Sessions
Tuesday: The Beloved and the Beloved Community
View the Tuesday Session Recording
Alice Brown-Collins
Associate Director, National Intercessory Prayer
Alice R. Brown-Collins, Ph.D., ordained Minister, is the Associate Director, National Intercessory Prayer, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, In addition, she is pastor at New Hope Christian Ministries, with her husband, Rev. Boris Collins. Dr. Brown-Collins has a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, Boulder and has taught in numerous colleges. As a social psychologist, she is a lecturer and teacher, conducting numerous seminars and workshops on families, married couples, evangelism and missions, discipleship, college ministries, multiethnicity, race relations, and women. She has missions experience in Ghana; Guyana, South America; Kenya and Australia. Rev. Dr. Brown-Collins is the spouse of Rev. Boris E. Collins, and they have two children; Jamal and Kateri; a daughter-in-law, Marisha as well as two grandsons, Jake and Shamar.
Wednesday: Identity in Christ
View the Wednesday Session Recording
Lisa Liou
Former Regional Director GFM West
Lisa Liou is the former Regional Director for GFM West. Having served with InterVarsity for over 20 years, she recently entered a season of discernment about her next professional assignment. In the meantime, her other vocations take up more space including, mother, spouse, daughter, friend, and deacon. With two teenagers, her heart is growing for GenZ and keeping them within our local churches, which has led her to take on a volunteer staff role at her church, where she launched a 10-week discipleship program for 100 middle and high schoolers last month.
Wednesday Evening: Celebrating & Commissioning
View the Commissioning Service Recording
Join us in giving thanks to the Lord in prayer and praise together in this special time celebrating our GFM family- past, present, and future. This session includes a message from outgoing VP Bobby Gross and new VP of Graduate & Faculty Ministries, Lynn Gill.
Lynn Gill
VP of Graduate & Faculty Ministries
Lynn’s passion for witnessing communities began in her junior year at the University of Rochester, where she was invited to a small group and came to know Jesus. Her passion grew at Purdue University, where she helped plant a graduate student chapter while completing her PhD in analytical chemistry. Since joining InterVarsity staff in 1999 she has planted grad student and faculty fellowships in North Carolina and on the west coast and recruited and led the GFM staff team in the West. After five years leading the undergrad ministry in the West, she rejoins GFM as our new Vice President. Lynn and her husband serve faculty locally at Western Washington University, where he serves as a faculty member.
Thursday: God's Pursuing Love
View the Thursday Session Recording
Susan Park
Associate Regional Director, GFM Northeast
Susan Park is the Associate Regional Director for the GFM Northeast Region and continuing interim Area Director for the GFM Boston team. Prior to joining GFM, Susan was a staff director with InterVarsity's undergraduate ministries and has been on staff for 22 years. She enjoys developing and empowering staff, leading teams, and ministering to people in the fullness life’s complexities. She is currently pursuing a MATM part-time at Fuller Theological Seminary. Susan and her husband, Danny, have two boys and live in Cambridge, MA.
Workshops
Check out the full list of Workshops held to explore key intellectual issues and practical steps for leading communities on campus today. It was helpful to explore ideas that are working and items that are challenging across our movement. Session One workshop recordings will be posted soon. Although these will not be interactive, be sure to complete the Pre-Course Assignment: Listening Exercise which informs several of the Session One Workshop Topics. Please reach out to the workshop leader if you have questions or would like to learn more.
All of the recording links require staff login. If you receive this error message, click the blue link under the larger "Access Denied" message and use your InterVarsity credentials to sign in. Thanks!
Links and Downloads
