For this end-of-year Inside GFM, I want to offer some reflections on the last few months and a few words of encouragement as we come to the end of this academic year.
Thirty Days of Prayer & Fasting
Thanks to all of you who increased your prayers and practiced fasting over the 30 days between April 5 and May 5—in concert with colleagues all across InterVarsity. We were beseeching God to grant fresh mercy because we long to see staff flourish in MPD, leadership development, ethnic reconciliation, and cross-cultural competency, especially our Black and Latino colleagues. I am prone to stew about these complex challenges within our organization and our society, so the discipline to fast and pray for a season pushed me back to a posture of dependence on the Lord—voicing lament and pleading for change.
I am grateful that the 30 days started when many InterVarsity field leaders were meeting at Cultivate for training (most of us in GFM took the Crucial Conversations course in order to strengthen our supervisory skills, especially mindful of the challenges we can face working through issues with those on our teams whose ethnicity is different from our own). We devoted two meal times to prayer in response to Paul Tokunaga’s challenge from Nehemiah 1 about rebuilding broken structures in order to restore dignity to a disgraced community.
Then on April 27, I had the opportunity to speak in the weekly Chapel at the NSC as part of this prayer emphasis. My text: Acts 6. My topic: Ethnic Tension: How Do We Lean In? The Lord led me to rehearse one of the more painful but important passages in my own journey as a leader seeking to foster racial reconciliation and multi-ethnic community within a staff community. (Read the text of the short talk here.).
The 30 days concluded when the GFM Leadership Team was meeting May 3-6 in Nashville. As a team, we took time to pray our first afternoon. Our bible study in Psalm 27 also proved relevant: David rehearses how the Lord provides in himself a sanctuary of beauty and safety in times when we feel besieged and unsure what to do: “My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek.”
We want to find welcome ways for us as a GFM Community to continue in a pattern of dependent, hopeful prayer around these issues next year. Stay tuned.
Our New President
I am so excited that Tom Lin will be InterVarsity’s new president!
I had the privilege of working closely with Tom for two years when he served as Regional Director for the Central Region on the undergraduate side. I appointed him into this role as he and his wife Nancy and two children were returning to the U. S. after their years planting an IFES movement in Mongolia. I watched Tom gain the trust of the staff in the region and then motivate them into a fresh, ambitious vision for advancing the mission on campuses within their four states. With his team, he inspired them to trust God and take risks and, wow, the growth and health and energy within the region since then have been amazing. Then, of course, he went on to lead the Missions Department and Urbana with similar skill and vision.
Here are a few things I am thankful for when I think of Tom as our next president:
- He is a godly man with a disciplined spiritual life
- He is deeply devoted to his family
- He takes on this job as an InterVarsity “insider,” which I take as a sign of health for us as an organization
- As an Asian American, he will bring unique perspectives in leading us as a multi-ethnic mission organization serving a multi-ethnic mission field
- He cares about the university as a whole
- He listens well, makes thoughtful decisions, and exudes a healthy combination of confidence and humility
Let’s all continue to pray for him as he prepares to start his new role August 10.
A Few Final Thoughts
This is that time of the year when, if you are like me, you feel a bit weary. And some of us still have a critical push in June to finish the year well financially. This leads me to say two things: First, thank you for your dedication to our mission and for your hard work this past year. Second, please take time for some rest and vacation in the next months. And I trust you will also schedule some days for prayerful reflection about your work this past year—what did you see the Lord do? What were you able to accomplish? How did you grow? And then some prayerful planning for your work next year.
As a GFM Leadership Team, we are finalizing this month our shared goals for next year. We chose our spiritual foundation from Psalm 27: “Your face, Lord, we will seek.” Our “big rock” goals will focus on Multi-ethnic Growth, Evangelism, and MPD. (More on these later). And we are trying to discern how to be good stewards of the great zeal but finite capacity of everyone who is part of GFM. May God give us wisdom.
