Yesterday, here in New York City, several InterVarsity colleagues and I met with the program officer of a foundation which gave GFM a grant 18 months ago to focus on the integration of faith and work. During our meeting Mark Washington reported on the amazing Believers in Business Conference which was held this past weekend. David Williams reported on what we learned through the recently completed Vocational Stewardship Project in which we audited ourselves to learn how well we address this aspect of our discipleship work on campus. And finally, Tom DeWitt, Senior Director of Philanthropy for InterVarsity in the eastern U. S., outlined how we might move forward in partnership with the foundation, which seeks, among other things, to promote scripture engagement and vocational stewardship. It felt like we were all players in a larger faith-and-work movement.
We in InterVarsity and GFM are part of a multi-faceted movement.
First, we see ourselves as furthering a student movement on campus. Like our undergrad colleagues, we invite and organize students into witnessing communities, which at their best, are consistently inviting others, believers and seekers alike, to join for the sake of opening ourselves in community, sharing practices that lead to spiritual growth, seeking the shalom of our university through witness and service, and exploring the relation of faith to our thought and work.
Second, we understand ourselves as part of a wider faith and the academy movement. We invest in emerging scholars and future faculty who will be yeast in the loaf of higher education over the course of their careers. We find and encourage and equip Christian faculty and other university leaders so that they can flourish in their vocations as Christians and have a redeeming influence in the university. Because God loves the university!
Third, we are indeed players in the faith and work movement. We shape future professionals and emerging leaders to do good work in their fields and to do good works in their communities. We want a robust integration of faith, learning, and practice to be a hallmark of every student and faculty who has been involved with GFM on campus for any length of time. In this way, we implant a deep sense of being called and sent to serve God as whole-life disciples and to participate in his redemption of “all things” in this world.
In the past two months, I have been immersed in the national planning process for the next “season” (the next dozen years) of InterVarsity. I have found the inevitable complexity of such a process to be dizzying at times, at some points worrying as we try to balance continuity and change, but from the start invigorating as we aspire to more rapidly extend ministry to more campuses and more key corners of campuses, as we dare to imagine a breaking out of God’s work in word, deed, and power in ways we could call “revival.” This has awakened in me a fresh desire to be movement minded and to help us fan into flame these embers of movement within GFM.
Also, in this season of Lent, I have been trying to adopt a kind of “organizational humility” in my heart on behalf of InterVarsity and GFM, lest we think too highly of ourselves in our strategies or put too much stock in our grand ambitions or succumb to a kind of organizational hubris. Lord, have mercy.
More on all of this at Mundelein. As we gather next month, I look forward to engaging together with this emerging vision for GFM’s next season and to renewing our faith and our faithfulness for the work of witness on campus. We will hear from great speakers and workshop leaders but also have opportunities to learn from one another.
Thank you,
Bobby
PS- Be sure to check out the recent Comings, Goings, and Kudos to hear about what's new
