Today’s college student is tomorrow’s leader. InterVarsity is passionate about training students for servant leadership today on campus and tomorrow in their chosen professions.
We train students for servant leadership by equipping them through small group Bible studies, community fellowships, mentoring programs, and missions projects.
Maria Finkbiner, an InterVarsity staff member in northern California, believes leadership training is an integral part of equipping students for ministry. “Each Sunday night the staff team spends time training our student leaders in different areas of leadership and ministry. It’s a productive time of listening, learning, and praying.”
Equipping World Changers
“We yearn for our students and faculty to make a difference not only on campus now, but also in the world for decades to come,” said InterVarsity’s president Alec Hill.
InterVarsity desires to see this world changed for the better. Our vision about social change is not derived from a particular school of political theory or cultural ideology or even popular theological emphasis. Our ministry on campus is a response of gratitude for the love God has given us through Jesus Christ. We desire to love and serve people because God first loved us. By expressing God’s love in word and deed, we hope to draw people to Christ and change the world for the better.
Developing Women and Men
We develop both women and men as leaders. Our founder C. Stacey Woods insisted that women be given the same assignments as men. As a result, we have always developed both men and women to serve as leaders at every level of InterVarsity. Today we have women serving on our Executive Cabinet and on our Board of Trustees. And these days many of our alumni women serve in leadership capacities in business, education, government, and the arts.
Envisioning Global Ministries
InterVarsity alumni have a reputation for applying the principles they learned within our witnessing communities to contemporary social problems around the world.
Beza Threads, a ministry to children in Africa, began after several InterVarsity students from Iowa lived one summer in Ethiopia, working with an Ethiopian Christian ministry. While building relationships with former child prostitutes, these InterVarsity students observed the disastrous effects of child sex slavery.
The idea for Beza Threads arose after InterVarsity students walked through a prostitution district. Seeing the social injustice and abuse of young girls, our InterVarsity students’ hearts grieved for children living in sex slavery. The students devised a plan to help the children. The following school year, they purchased handmade scarves from girls rescued by the Ethiopian Christian ministry and sold the colorful scarves on campus. All the profits they sent back to Ethiopia. Today Beza Threads continues as a successful ministry to vulnerable African children.
Training for the Future
For sixty-nine years, InterVarsity staff, student leaders, and faculty advisors have dedicated themselves to helping students follow Jesus Christ and to advancing God’s kingdom. Today on over 569 campuses in the United States, InterVarsity staff encourage students and faculty to conform their whole lives—body, mind, and spirit—to the character of Christ.
InterVarsity staff teach the members of their campus witnessing communities how to integrate biblical values into their daily lives, sensitively share the gospel with people of every ethnicity and cultural background, and participate in God’s mission of love and justice. Through InterVarsity, students and faculty are learning that leadership begins with service.
