Sharing Your Faith

What comes to mind when you hear missions or missionary? Does it conjure up images of rural living in straw huts in underdeveloped Africa? Is it a life devoid of all knowledge of American pop culture, technology, and internet? I’m a missionary, and I live in Madison, WI.

Recently I’ve talked with a number of peers who (like myself) have one or more parents who are not Christians or who are nominal Christians, showing little desire to read Scripture, pray, pursue community, or discuss anything spiritual. We've expressed to one another doubts that we, as "just their children," have the ability to affect change.

Because it’s the human thing to do. That is, it’s the image-of-God thing to do. When we walk into the studio or theater and start talking with artists, we enter a world of creativity that represents the other half of God’s design for our lives. 

This fall, InterVarsity is seeing dozens of students across the country make decisions to follow Jesus—from 39 students in New York and New Jersey to 20 students in Texas to 47 students at the University of California Los Angeles.

As I drove to school to start our week of New Student Outreach, I prayed for divine encounters. God was listening and I did not have to wait long for a response. As I passed a guy on a moped, I felt God say to me, “You are going to talk with him today.” I glanced at the guy’s brown shirt so I’d know what to look for.

Since we change so much at college, the old patterns of home can create friction when we try to bring the two worlds together, especially when it comes to witnessing to our friends. We want to start by hearing their story and sharing our story.

Returning home after a year at college can be a challenge. Now that we’ve experienced God’s work in our lives, we want to introduce our friends to him. But how can we witness back home when we never did before?

Want to know what’s creating the buzz on the University of California—San Diego campus this week? It’s a secret. InterVarsity’s Divisional Director Ryan Pfeiffer reports: “From 10am to 10pm our students are hosting an outreach where students anonymously post a secret they have never told anyone before in their life. (I was raped. I had an abortion. I’m having sex. I am gay. I ran over a cat. etc.)