Jim Lundgren, InterVarsity’s vice president and director of Collegiate Ministries, became a Christian through involvement in an InterVarsity chapter at the University of Illinois. “Humanly speaking, I wouldn’t be a Christian without that chapter,” he said. “That’s why I’m [still] involved in InterVarsity—to see the lives of thousands of students and faculty transformed as they are part of a thriving witnessing community.”
While InterVarsity has chapters on 564 U.S. college campuses, 1200 campuses are still without InterVarsity chapters. And many of those campuses lack a Christian witness from any Christian group. So InterVarsity is embarking on two new programs, focused on the planting of new chapters and cultivating the growth of chapters.
InterVarsity staff members who have proven abilities and gifts in chapter planting and chapter growth are being identified. They will be trained and equipped to establish new chapters on some of those 1200 campuses. The first two cohorts of this initiative will be trained next summer. “Our goal is to jump start a lot of growth over the next five years,” Jim told a chapel service at InterVarsity’s National Service Center in Madison, Wisconsin. Referring to Howard Guinness, a British evangelist who spent 40 years launching student Christian movements in many countries, including InterVarsity Canada, he said “We want to raise up a generation of people like Howard Guinness.”
“This is where the action is in InterVarsity,” he said, “on campus.” Without a growth initiative, InterVarsity risks becoming stuck on a plateau. Even though InterVarsity has many good programs, they sometimes take the focus off of the vital work on campus. He said the movement needs more people who take risks in order to accomplish ambitious goals, like Howard Guinness.
InterVarsity president Alec Hill agreed. “This is the heart and soul of who we are,” he said, as he brought the presentation to a close that included a prayer time for the chapter planting and chapter growth initiatives.
