Scott and Stephanie Seefeldt have deep connections with InterVarsity that have lasted long after they left campus.
Ten to twelve times a year Stephanie Seefeldt leaves her home in southeastern Wisconsin to travel to Asheville, North Carolina, to meet Anne Graham Lotz, Jill Briscoe or some other teacher who’s leading a women’s retreat at The Cove, the Billy Graham Training Center. She leads the musical worship segments of the retreat. And when Anne Graham Lotz travels to lead a conference or a women’s retreat, Stephanie Seefeldt is there to lead worship also.
Stephanie has been a church musician and worship leader for most of the past 20 years, ever since she was a teenager. But now she is spending most of her time supporting her husband Scott as he begins a new job, and home schooling their three children as they adjust to a new home. Scott, a 2007 graduate of Nashotah House Theological Seminary in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, is three months into his new job as assistant rector of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Racine.
Scott and Stephanie met as music students in the InterVarsity chapter at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. They both became leaders of the chapter and were heavily involved in chapter activities. After they graduated, they each spent several years on staff separately before marrying. “We were friends for a long time,” Stephanie says. “We never really dated. We went from being great friends to being engaged and I highly recommend that route.”
Their lives remain heavily invested in ministry to others, and both credit InterVarsity for giving them a spiritual foundation that still serves them well. “InterVarsity is the thing the Lord used to equip me not only to grow, but to be used in the church,” Stephanie says.
At the church they attended while Scott was in seminary, Stephanie led a women’s Bible study composed of two dozen women between the ages of 16 and 75. It followed the InterVarsity model. “I would say ‘Okay here’s your manuscript of Phillipians, get out your colored pencils.’ That’s what I learned from InterVarsity. I’m hopeful that my deep love for Scripture is also reflected as I sing and when I lead worship.”
Scott says his training as a student leader and InterVarsity campus staff member complements his seminary training very well. “It has equipped me for parish ministry in a way that I don’t think I would have been if I hadn’t had InterVarsity,” he says. “I continue to be amazed at how much of the apprenticeship that InterVarsity gave me I’m using in the parish.”
Scott and Stephanie marvel at how well Scott’s skills and experience complement St. Michael’s rector, Father Terry McGugan. A longtime proponent of the Alpha program, Father Terry is a gifted preacher and evangelist. But the growing church has needed someone to organize networks of small groups and Bible studies. Scott has dived in to that role.
“It’s basically InterVarsity 101,” Scott says. “Lay leaders — just like student leaders on campus — have to be given the training and tools to lead good inductive Bible studies.”
In the biographical material on her website, Stephanie talks about how important the ministry of InterVarsity has been to both of them. One way Scott and Stephanie stay connected with InterVarsity is by financially supporting the ministry of friends who are still on staff. Stephanie is still occasionally invited to lead worship at InterVarsity events. Scott will also be speaking at a local InterVarsity chapter event this fall.
“InterVarsity is an extremely important ministry,” Scott concludes. “We hope to be involved in some capacity for the rest of our lives.”
