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UIUC Grad VIsion
Graduate InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
University of Illinois
Our Ministry Commitments
God is at work among graduate students at the University of Illinois, drawing many to
himself. Our goal is to see that each Christian graduate and professional student shares
and lives out the following Four Ministry Commitments that have the good news of the
kingdom of God at their core--
The
Gospel is the good news that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has
raised the crucified Jesus from the dead and made him Lord over all creation!
The strange events concerning Jesus "are not simply odd Jewish occurrences,
but the fulfilment of the creator's plan for the whole cosmos. . . [T]alk of Jesus
and his resurrection is talk about the creator of the world--more specifically,
talk about how the creator is, through Jesus, becoming the true king of all the
world."1
This Gospel both unites and shapes us irrespective of the wide
diversity of our backgrounds.
Evangelism is "that set of all intentional activities which are governed by the goal of
initiating people into the kingdom of God for the first time."2
In Grad IV we want to do our
part in helping others at the U of I repent and believe the Gospel, and so be ushered into
the reign and rule of God that they too are sent back into the world as agents of Christ's
kingship.3
This Gospel creates, not just a bunch of individual Christians, but rather a
Christian
community in which Christ dwells by his Spirit. In community we are to grow intellectually
and spiritually as Christian graduate and professional students, serving others and the
university. Our love for one another is a crucial way that they will know that God sent his
Son into his world to redeem it.
Because Jesus is Lord over all creation, this fact requires God's people--us!--to think
about and live in the world in new ways. We must take all thoughts captive for Christ, and
this includes
integrating our faith, learning, and practice. Such integration is not
(merely) a matter of Christian scholarship, but also a matter of Christian discipleship. As
graduate and professional students, to follow Jesus in the world is to follow him into the
various disciplines and professions, thinking them through in light of the lordship of Jesus
Christ and then living accordingly.
Finally, God has pledged to conform his people to the image of his Son; God is re-making
us into his own image and likeness! We currently live in that overlap between the present
age, one that is filled with sin and its brokenness, where creation itself groans until the
day of our redemption, and the age to come, an age that dawned in the incarnation and
resurrection of Jesus Christ but which will be consummated at his return and our own
resurrection. In anticipation of the coming of God's kingdom in its fullness,
spiritual
formation can be thought of as a process of being conformed to the image of Christ--in
his sufferings as well as in his glory--for the sake of oneself, others, and the rest of
creation to the glory of God.4 The Gospel of Jesus Christ must shape us as God's renewed
humanity as we live out its implications in a fallen world that seeks to shape us to itself.
http://www.gfmuiuc.org/grad_vision.htm
Endnotes:
1 N.T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, (Eerdmans, 1997), 90 back
2 William Abraham, The Logic of Evangelism (Eerdmans, 1989), 95 back
3 Lesslie Newbegin, Foolishness to the Greeks (Eerdmans, 1986), 124 back
4 Robert Mullhouland, Invitation to a Journey (IVP, 1993), 12, with R. Scott Rodin, Stewards
in the Kingdom: A Theology of Life in All Its Fullness (IVP, 2000), 30, and with David
Peterson, Possessed by God: A New Testament theology of sanctification and holiness (IVP,
1995) back
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