Community

For InterVarsity staff, there are additional resources available by logging into the website here.

We all want community. Real community. Jesus is all about creating the kind of community that goes beyond just being known—how we live and love each other will change the world around us.

Journeying in Faith: Weekly Readings for Grad/Faculty Groups

We’re all moving toward the unknown this fall. We don’t know what to expect, or even how to imagine what things will be like. It’s a critical moment when we can choose to follow Jesus on the journey, to walk by faith instead of sight. This collection of readings from the Emerging Scholars Network blog is designed to help you do that together. Built in are study questions, prayer ideas, and optional spiritual activities for groups meeting online or in socially distanced ways.

Tags: Bible Study | Community | Faculty | Grad Students

Chapter Growth in GFM

Interested in figuring out how to grow your chapter? Here's some help!

Tags: Chapter Growth | Community

Hope For the World Through Global Church Relationships

Learn more about the joy, hope, lamentation, and unity experienced at World Assembly 19 and our partnership with IFES Caribbean. It is such a joy to be co-laborers.

Tags: IFES | World Assembly | CARIFES | Community | Missions

Faculty Ministry – Listening for God’s Invitation

What is God’s invitation to you? As a spiritual director, I have loved this question and use it often. Yet I never imagined that God’s invitation for me would include partnering with him to plant faculty ministry. Read more about Renee's experience with faculty in Chicago.

Tags: Faculty Ministry | Community | Faculty Prayer Groups

ESN / ASA Collaboration Blesses Harvard Fellowship

In 2018, the ASA conference featured Francis Collins and was hosted at Gordon College near Boston. ASA and ESN collaborated to provide transportation for local grad students in the Boston area, and in time that led to a collaboration between the local ASA chapter in Boston and one of the InterVarsity Harvard grad fellowship groups.

Tags: Community | Collaboration | Mentoring | ASA

What Matters to Me and Why

Have you struggled to find an outreach that can reach both graduate students and faculty? The "What Matters to Me and Why" speaker series is a university sponsored, secular series that encourages faculty to share something that is personally important to them and why. They can share about a charity they've started, their family, their childhood, or even share about their faith. The entire university community is invited, and a free lunch is provided as well! Click here to read more.

Tags: Speaker | Community | Evangelism

You Are Not Alone: Networks of Christian Academics

Misunderstood. Alone. Aliens in a strange land. These are apropos descriptors for how Christian scholars often feel whether in the academy or at church.

Tags: loneliness | Academic Vocation | Community

Dear Mentor

Women in the Academy and Professions answers questions from students about life, studies, faith, and challenges.

Tags: Integration | Spiritual formation | Community

Next Steps in Cultural Competency

This guide from Mundelein 2014 includes helpful ideas and resources for anyone wanting to continue learning and growing in cross-cultural dexterity and multiethnic ministry. This guide was designed for both individuals and staff teams, but can also be adapted for use with grad students and faculty.

Tags: Community | Cultural competency | Cross cultural relationships | 2014 GFM Staff Conference | Mundelein 2014

Approaching Differences

This diagram, video, and bookmark are useful tools when guiding students and faculty through cross-cultural experiences.

Tags: Approaching differences | Community | Cross-cultural experiences | relationships

Why Every Faculty Member Should Seek to be a Part of a Community

Serious Christian faith necessitates engaged Christian community. But is this possible in the world of academia?

Tags: Faculty | Community | Faculty Ministry | Faculty community

Establishing a Faculty Community

At the foundation of the InterVarsity Faculty Ministry vision is the formation of witnessing communities of faculty within the institutions of higher education. Gathering in community is also hard work. How should we proceed?

Tags: Faculty | Community | Faculty community | Faculty Ministry

Lunchtime at the Areopagus: Developing Community around Discussions of Faith

Joel Potter longed to have his philosophy students experience a good intellectual defense of the Christian faith.... What could he offer to the students at UAA to help them participate in meaningful discussions and relationships outside the classroom? What if there was something ongoing, he wondered, that would foster thinking and discussion about the Christian faith?

Tags: Community | Faculty Communities

Distinctives of GFM Communities

Communities of graduate students and faculty have certain qualities that distinguish them from communities of undergraduate students. Here are several to think about.

Tags: Community | Distinctives

A Guide to Large Group Meetings

What Should We Be Doing in our PhD Large Group Meetings? Carrie Bare shares some ideas to help you and your leadership team prepare for future gatherings.

Tags: Community | Four commitments | Large group

How Can We Change the University?

This lecture shared by C. John Sommerville at InterVarsity's Midwest Faculty Conference elaborates on his premise that now is the time for Christians to initiate change in the university to answer the question, "How can we change the university?"

Tags: Community | Integration of faith and academia

The Community of Scholars, Part One

Marc Baer, professor and department chair of history at Hope College, addresses foundational and practical aspects of faculty mentoring. Originally presented this talk at the ESN National Gathering at Following Christ 2008. (Part 1 of 2)

Tags: Mentoring | Community

The Community of Scholars, Part Two

Kenneth G. Elzinga, Robert C. Taylor Professor of Economics at the University of Virginia, advises faculty on why and how to mentor. Originally presented at the ESN National Gathering at Following Christ 2008. (Part 2 of 2).

Tags: Mentoring | Integration of faith and academia | Community

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