Bringing New Life to Every Corner of Every Campus
(Madison, WI) -- InterVarsity’s ministry vision includes not only transformation for students and faculty but renewal for the college campus.
“Universities bring life-changing wisdom, insight, and discovery to the world,” said Tom Lin, president of InterVarsity. “We long for Christian faculty and students to contribute their God-given gifts to these efforts. As this past weekend at University of Virginia demonstrates, universities also serve as the backdrop for ideas and idols that deface and destroy life. We believe the Gospel calls us to confront and denounce sins like white supremacy. We also want to offer the transforming hope of repentance and new life to the people who propagate these ideologies.”
With a new six-member Executive Leadership Team and 10 new vice presidents assembled over the past year, InterVarsity has reaffirmed our commitment to our vision of transformation and renewal. “We are longing to see God bring new life in new ways on campuses across the country, and to catalyze movements that call every corner of every campus to follow Jesus,” Lin said, as he reflected on his first year as president. “We want to see systems and structures, ideas and idols change. These leaders will help us steward our values even more closely, respond to God’s invitations more nimbly, and lead God’s mission on campus more joyfully,”
To meet the challenge of reaching every campus, InterVarsity also has a record number of staff serving a record number of colleges, with 1341 staff ministering on 687 campuses. At the same time, the number of people coming to faith through InterVarsity’s campus ministry is at its highest ever in InterVarsity’s 76-year history—up 12 percent from one year ago, up 130 percent from 10 years ago.
To reach more campuses, InterVarsity is pursuing new partnerships: “How can we best partner in reaching the approximately 2,600 campuses currently unreached by any major campus ministry?” Lin asked. “Could we empower more churches and other ministries to work alongside us to reach the campus? Beyond U.S. partnerships, what could God do if we more intentionally sought out best thinking and practices from our sister movements in the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students?”
In his travels during his first year as president, Lin said that he has heard regularly from people he meets about how InterVarsity staff and InterVarsity Press books have changed their lives. But he stressed that student-driven ministry is the heart of InterVarsity’s mission. “Our chapter planting leadership team has done an amazing job creating a planting culture in InterVarsity,” he said. “Not just staff but student leaders are catching the vision and reaching out to neighboring campuses. These students are not simply sheep to be gathered, but seed to be scattered.”
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA is an interdenominational ministry to students and faculty on U.S. college and university campuses, working with more than 41,000 core students and faculty on 687 campuses nationwide. InterVarsity is a founding member of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, advancing Christian student work in 160 countries. InterVarsity is also a charter member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.