Most of us are preparing to pour ourselves out in the coming weeks to help our fellowships launch into the new semester, urging our chapter members (and pushing ourselves) to meet as many newly-arrived grad students and faculty as we can—as well as ongoing students and professors and administrators new to us. We will be offering an inviting vision of what we are about: supportive, inclusive community, spiritual formation, service to neighbor, witness to God’s shalom, integration of faith and thought and work.
God, please give us favor with hundreds on each of our campuses; stir us to a respectful boldness and a gracious hospitality; fill us with your peace so that we can embody your shalom; bring into our groups many more co-laborers for these fields which are so ready for harvest; let us see men and women turn to you even in these first weeks of the term; and multiply our joy!
Many of us are also tending to important work that is quietly critical to our mission effectiveness.
- We’re inviting our ministry partners to join us in this new season of mission (if you missed it, please read and respond to the Mission Memo—August 6 inviting all of us to a movement-wide Day of Invitation; I actually wrote the devotional from Luke 10, inspired by studying the passage with Marcia Wang, Kathy Tuan-MacLean and Don Paul Gross in July.).
- We’re writing our Annual Ministry Plans before starting NSO. We want to reflect on what we learned from last year and from our annual performance reviews. We want to look to God in prayer and discernment. We want to map out our goals and priorities, think through our campus strategies, work on our schedules and calendars, outline our professional development plans (PDP), and safeguard time for our MPD efforts. We want to be wise, purposeful stewards of our time and gifts and energies. Why? So that we offer to God our best work, growing each year in expertise, excellence, and effectiveness.
- We’re making a last set of appointments and calls to invite financial support for the mission, including all those who’ve recently finished their programs and are transitioning to work in new settings but have not yet become “alumni partners.”
In repentance and rest, asking mercy and grace,
we consecrate ourselves for our mission on campus,
longing to see revival, for your glory, O God.
Amen.
We’re protecting some additional days of rest or reflection or time with family before the pace surges. Hopefully, we also will embrace another movement-wide invitation to attend to our sabbath-keeping practices and patterns this year (See the Missions Memo—August 13), which can keep us from driven-ness and self-importance in the pursuit of our mission.
In Addition
For excerpts, with comments, from my GFM Annual Report 2017-18, see here.
For the Fuel for Mind & Mission free book program for staff (see Mission Memo, Aug 13), Rob Howe and I recommended to IVP two books geared toward GFM. For the selection on offer now, we chose:
- Disruptive Witness by Alan Noble: building on the social analysis of philosopher Charles Taylor (e.g. the “buffered self”), Noble discusses personal habits and communal practices that serve to “disruptively” plow up the heart soil of hearers so that it will be “good” for receiving the seeds of the kingdom. Good for GFM as we think about witness on campus.
- Healing our Broken Humanity by Grace Ji-Sun Kim, Graham Hill: in a broken world deeply divided by racial tension and social injustice, these authors commend nine practices that contribute to healing. Good for GFM as we seek to embody shalom on campus.
- A third book is recommended for all staff, Sabbath Keeping by Lynne Baab: I love this delightfully engaging invitation into the joy of the Sabbath, a helpful resource for the emphasis on sabbath this year across InterVarsity. BTW, the two options aimed at undergrad staff also would be valuable for us in mobilizing co-laborers and exercising prophetic witness. And did I mention that they are all free?!
For unsettling news on our grad group at U of Iowa being kicked off campus, along with some 40 other religious groups, see this press release from the group that is bringing a suit against the university. Let’s pray for Kevin Kummer and the fellowship(s) on campus.
Bobby
