President

��Ƶ Remembers Tom Dunkerton

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Tue, 10 Apr 2018 16:05:35 +0000

April 10, 2018

��Ƶ Remembers Tom Dunkerton

Tom Dunkerton was a member of the Board of ��Ƶ during a difficult transitional period, and stepped in to become interim President in June 1987. He had just retired as Senior Vice President of the Saatchi and Saatchi Compton advertising agency in New York City and was available to devote his full attention to ��Ƶ. He was succeeded by Steve Hayner in the spring of 1988.

Tom met ��Ƶ founder Stacey Woods as a child, when Stacey visited his home, and he worked with Jane Hollingsworth to plant a chapter as a student at New York University in 1946. He became actively involved in ��Ƶ as a volunteer and mentor several decades later at the invitation of then Regional Director Janet Luhrs Balajthy. He is remembered as a champion of women in ��Ƶ ministry.

“Tom had a deep faith in God and a strong commitment to service,” Janet said. “He had a soft and generous heart.” He also appointed Samuel Barkat as ��Ƶ’s first Vice President and director of Multiethnic Ministries.

��Ƶ endured a series of difficult leadership transitions in the 1980s. Jim Lundgren, who was a mid-level leader at the time, said of Tom, “It felt like a dark hour when he stepped in with Barney Ford and Bob Fryling to pull us out of the mire. Thinking back on it now, I see how much we needed his frank and humorous style to get us on track and moving. It is great to remember him with thankfulness this Easter weekend.”

Bob Fryling, who was directing ��Ƶ’s campus ministry at the time, said, “Tom was a New York marketing executive without guile. He was a faithful and generous man who loved the Lord and ��Ƶ and was an outstanding crisis president."

��Ƶ was in a precarious position in 1987 (as reported in chapter 15 of For Christ and the University, “Revolving Door Leadership”). Our future looked tenuous but Tom quickly stepped in to offer bold, decisive, and good-humored leadership. He is fondly remembered by the staff and leaders of that era.

After his passing on Easter weekend, a short graveside service was held on Tuesday, April 3 at Mt. Paran Baptist Church, Vesuvius, Virginia. A memorial service and celebration of Tom’s life was held April 28, 2018, at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville.

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Tom Lin Commissioned as President

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:09:03 +0000

Press Room

August 10, 2016

Tom Lin Commissioned as President

For Immediate Release

(Madison, WI) --- Tom Lin was commissioned as the eighth president of ��Ƶ on August 10, 2016. Tom enters his new role as ��Ƶ prepares to celebrate 75 years of ministry and experiences growth that is unprecedented since the earliest days of the Fellowship.

In brief remarks at the commissioning, Tom focused on honor and hope. “It’s an honor to be a part of something so important in the world of students,” Tom said. “Everywhere I go I hear about the impact ��Ƶ has made. We offer hope in a world that often feels hopeless.”

��Ƶ currently has 1,730 staff, working with more than 1,000 chapters on 667 campuses. The number of ��Ƶ chapters has grown by 20 percent over the last ten years. In the last year, 4,072 first-time professions of faith in Christ were reported by ��Ƶ staff members, double the number from ten years ago.

“The turning point in my college experience came when I found a community of people who were committed to following Jesus together: the ��Ƶ chapter on my campus,” Tom recalled. “That community gave me hope for my college years, and my passion for God and his mission grew. My goal as ��Ƶ president is to create deep opportunities like that for more students on more campuses across the country.”

Tom is 43 years old, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, and the first full president to be chosen from ��Ƶ staff. He became a part of ��Ƶ as a student at Harvard University and served with ��Ƶ or an affiliated ministry from 1994 to the present. He planted new student chapters at Harvard and Boston University, helped establish an evangelical student movement in Mongolia, led ��Ƶ’s ministry in the Central Region of the U.S. as the Regional Director, and most recently served as Vice President for Missions and Director of ��Ƶ’s Urbana Student Missions Conference.

Tom is the author of Pursuing God’s Call (2012) and Losing Face, Finding Grace (1996), both published by ��Ƶ Press. He has served on the boards of a number of organizations, including Wycliffe Bible Translators and Missio Nexus, and he currently serves as the North American Regional Director of the Lausanne Movement. He has a B.A. in Economics from Harvard University, and holds an M.A. in Global Leadership from Fuller Theological Seminary.

Tom succeeds Jim Lundgren, who became interim president in June 2015, after Alec Hill stepped down for health reasons. A broad cross section of local church leaders attended the commissioning service, which was held at ��Ƶ’s National Service Center in Madison, Wisconsin. Tom, his wife Nancy, and their two daughters currently live in Madison, Wisconsin.

��Ƶ was officially incorporated in November of 1941. ��Ƶ is a founding member of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, advancing Christian student work in 160 countries.

For more information:
Gordon Govier
ggovier@intervarsity.org
608-443-3688

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Tom Lin

President

Commissioned

Tom Lin Named ��Ƶ President

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Mon, 16 May 2016 17:42:02 +0000

Press Room

May 16, 2016

Tom Lin Named ��Ƶ President

For Immediate Release

(Madison, WI) --- ��Ƶ announces that Tom Lin has been selected by the ��Ƶ Board of Trustees to become the next president of the campus ministry. He will start on August 10.

Tom has been vice president and director of missions for ��Ƶ since February 2011, and also director of Urbana 12 and Urbana 15, ��Ƶ’s triennial student missions conference. He succeeds Jim Lundgren, who has served as ��Ƶ’s interim president for the past year.

In ��Ƶ’s 75 years of campus ministry on U.S. college and university campuses, Tom becomes the first ��Ƶ president who began his ��Ƶ career working in campus ministry. After graduating from Harvard in 1994, he planted a chapter for Asian American students at Harvard, and another chapter at Boston University. He led numerous student missions projects in the U.S. and overseas, and helped design national training for ��Ƶ staff.

In 2002, Tom and his wife, Nancy, left the U.S. to answer God’s call to go to Mongolia to help launch and direct a new student movement with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. In their four years there they saw 500 people become Christians, when there was only one known believer in the country just 15 years earlier. Tom then served as the regional director for ��Ƶ’s central region, leading a team that covered four states, and planted 16 new chapters between 2006 and 2010.

Tom has leadership experience with a number of Christian ministries, serving the Lausanne Movement as the international deputy director for North America, and serving as a Board member for Missio Nexus and The Crowell Trust. He has also served as vice chairperson for the Board of Wycliffe Bible Translators. He is the author of Pursuing God’s Call and Losing Face & Finding Grace, both published by ��Ƶ Press. He has a master’s in Global Leadership from Fuller Seminary.

Tom and Nancy live in Madison, Wisconsin, with their two daughters, Abby (11) and Olivia (9).

��Ƶ Board president Ron Williams made the announcement of the appointment and noted that ��Ƶ has much to be thankful for as the ministry enters its 75th year. “We have seen record numbers in evangelism, we’ve seen growth nationwide, we’ve been able to lead important conversations in society, and we’ve seen God’s action through us in the lives of hundreds of thousands of people,” he said. “I believe God has cultivated wisdom in Tom that will be used to lead ��Ƶ into even more fruitful ministry on our ever-changing mission field, the college campus.”

��Ƶ 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 649 campuses nationwide. ��Ƶ is a founding member of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, advancing Christian student work in 160 countries.

For more information:
Gordon Govier
ggovier@intervarsity.org
608/443-3688

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Urbana

President

Missions

Leadership Transition

Alec Hill – ��Ƶ’s President Emeritus

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 15:20:27 +0000

News

February 11, 2016

Gordon Govier

Alec Hill – ��Ƶ’s President Emeritus

Jim Lundgren, ��Ƶ’s interim president, is pleased to announce that Alec Hill returned to work on February 1^st in a new role — president emeritus. The return comes fifteen years to the day since Alec was first announced as president in 2001.

Alec announced his decision to leave office last May in order to begin cancer treatments in Seattle. He received a successful bone marrow transplant from his brother on August 15, 2015.

“Alec’s recovery process will allow him to work by email, phone, and video conference,” Jim announced. “Due to risk of infection, his doctors recommend no travel and limited face-to-face contact until this fall. We celebrate God’s goodness in Alec’s healing process and welcome Alec back to work.”

As president emeritus, Alec’s responsibilities will include:

mentoring staff directors in the western U.S
cultivating relationships with ministry partners
working on projects as assigned by the interim president

“Mary and I are deeply thankful for the support we’ve received from so many friends over the past nine months,” Alec said. “In the Lord’s providence, it appears that my life has been spared. To be able to contribute to the Fellowship once again is incredible.”

More reflections from Alec Hill.

��Ƶ’s board of trustees continues the search selection process for a new ��Ƶ president. A decision is anticipated later in 2016.

PHOTO: Alec Hill (left) and Jim Lundgren, June 2015.

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Presidential Search

President

��Ƶ Enters Leadership Transition

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Thu, 14 May 2015 19:03:54 +0000

Press Room

May 14, 2015

��Ƶ Enters Leadership Transition

For Immediate Release

(Madison, WI) -- We are deeply saddened to announce that ��Ƶ President Alec Hill has been diagnosed with myelodysplasia, a cancer of the bone marrow, which requires rigorous treatment. As a result of this news, Alec will enter cancer treatment on June 10.

The entire ��Ƶ Christian Fellowship family laments and joins together in prayer for Alec’s complete healing.

The ��Ƶ Board of Trustees will meet in early June, at which point an interim president will be appointed.

Alec had originally planned to announce his departure from the president’s role this November and then to stay in office until the selection of a new president in the spring of 2016. The Board has already formed a Discernment and Search Task Force to begin the process of finding a new president.

��Ƶ is deeply thankful for Alec’s 14 fruitful years of service. Through him, God has led us to a clarified vision and a more focused strategy to see students and faculty transformed, campuses renewed, and men and women sent into the world to serve God.

Ron Williams, ��Ƶ’s Board Chair, expresses his appreciation: “Alec has played a key role in encouraging and shepherding us. And we pray that he will experience God’s shepherding and grace as he faces the unexpected journey ahead.”

Please join us in praying that God will bring him complete healing.

Alec gives thanks for the community he has led since 2001: “I am so grateful for the truly remarkable people—trustees, vice presidents, staff, faculty, students, and supporters—that I’ve had the honor to serve with. The Lord has blessed our campus mission in ways that I couldn’t have imagined possible. I look to a future guided by His hand.”

UPDATE: Alec Hill returns to ��Ƶ as president emeritus.

Information contact:

Gordon Govier
ggovier@intervarsity.org
608/628-8609(m)
608/443-3688(o)

��Ƶ
635 Science Drive, P.O. Box 7895
Madison, WI 53707-7895

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transition

President

Remembering Steve Hayner

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 21:12:57 +0000

News

January 31, 2015

Remembering Steve Hayner

Steve Hayner, former president of ��Ƶ Christian Fellowship, and most recently the president of Columbia Theological Seminary in Georgia, passed away on Saturday, January 31, 2015, after a nearly year-long battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 66 years old.

Steve became president of ��Ƶ Christian Fellowship in 1988, near the end of a turbulent decade in which ��Ƶ had five presidents. “Steve brought pastoral care, healing and hope to a community that had undergone much trauma,” said Alec Hill, Steve’s successor and ��Ƶ’s current president.

Both Steve and Alec came to ��Ƶ from Seattle Pacific University — Steve had been Vice President of Student Affairs and Alec had been Dean of the School of Business and Economics. They had been friends, attended the same church, and even co-led small groups of students together. (Photo above, Steve Hayner and Alec Hill in 2001)

“When Steve was thinking of leaving ��Ƶ, he contacted me regarding my possible interest in succeeding him,” Alec recalled. “Once I became president, he fully supported my leadership. When I ran into bumpy situations, I would often call him for advice. Once—at my request—he stepped into an old situation that needing addressing. He didn’t have to do that. Steve is one of the kindest and most authentic people I’ve ever known.”

Barney Ford, former executive vice president, was Steve’s closest associate on staff and remembers well that ��Ƶ was in need of a firm but gentle leader when Steve arrived.

“He chose to say yes to a ministry that in the preceding seven years had experienced great difficulty and was not in good shape,” Barney said. “Steve brought great gifts to ��Ƶ through his pastor’s heart, intellectual brilliance, love of students and the university and servant leadership. Some of those gifts included personal and relational healing for a great many staff, steady high-quality leadership that created greater trust and focus for the ministry, and a strong and healthy board of trustees.”

Barney said that ��Ƶ’s Urbana Student Missions Conferences, ��Ƶ Press, national training facilities, and campus ministries were all strengthened under Steve’s leadership. “When Steve elected to bring his ministry with ��Ƶ to a close in 2001 it was as one of the most loved and respected leaders in the organization’s sixty year history,” he said.

Jim Lundgren, ��Ƶ’s current senior vice president, remembers a president who worked tirelessly to listen to staff frustrations, and address their concerns.

“He was quick to apologize and slow to attack,” Jim said. “His love for God came through in the way he taught the Scriptures and in the way he walked what he taught. When he left we were poised for a season of growth and advancement in our work with students and faculty. He united us around our purpose and mission to the campus, and all the growth we have experienced in the last decade stands on Steve’s shoulders.”

Judy Johnson was conference director for the staff conference that drafted ��Ƶ’s Purpose Statement. “The part Steve stressed, and that would not have been there without him, was the preamble: ‘In response to God’s love, grace, and truth.’ That is how Steve saw his life” she said. “He was strong in teaching us that our purpose isn’t about what we bring and own but what we do because God has initiated with us and poured out his love, grace, and truth into our lives and our movement. It was important to him that we deeply believe that and minister out of that posture.”

Bob Fryling, the publisher of ��Ƶ Press, remembers Steve as not just a president but as a pastor, teacher, and friend who provided rich biblical counsel, theological depth, and relational integrity. “Steve was never as interested in the trappings of leadership as he was in encouraging and supporting others in their leadership development,” Bob said. “He was a mentor and friend to so many throughout ��Ƶ. I particularly enjoyed talking with him about books and ideas and Scripture and how they all related to both our personal lives and the work of God through us and others. Steve had a wonderfully bright and generous spirit and I am tremendously grateful for his part in my life."

Long time ��Ƶ staff member Jeanette Yep was part of a three member staff committee that interviewed Steve and his wife Sharol when Steve was applying for the president’s job. They had pages of questions which they had gathered from staff from around the country. “Steve answered each question, thoughtfully and truthfully, letting us know when he wasn’t sure and answering with conviction if he was,” she said. “As Steve got to know people, he had an uncanny ability to see our strengths and our potential. He would speak into our lives with pastoral clarity and kind authority.”

Jeanette recalled that one of Steve’s great gifts was his ability to keep diverse people working together in unity. “He was good at defining the edges and then working hard to have people listen respectfully to one another’s perspectives,” she said. “We were held together by ��Ƶ’s doctrinal statement and a deep and abiding commitment to see students won to Christ in the university. Steve provided leadership that allowed the staff and students of ��Ƶ to become increasingly multiethnic and thus more accurately reflect the ethnic diversity of the university world.”

“Finally,” she said, “Steve had a gift to make those he met feel special. This was an intangible ‘soft’ leadership skill, but what a gift to a movement filled with younger, often insecure and hurting staff members and students. He helped us embrace our brokenness, trusting God our great healer to restore and redeem us so we would look more like Christ.”

Karen Mains was invited by Steve to become the first woman chairperson of ��Ƶ's board of trustees. It was, she recalled, the last thing on earth she wanted to do. But it became one of the better acts of obedience she exercised in her whole life.

"Some of the reason for that is the journey that Steve and I took hacking out what it looked like for the president of a well-known evangelical organization and a woman chair to work together to create a model infrequently (or never) employed that displayed the holy dynamic of how men and women of equal strengths could show forth the full nature of God.

"Meeting face-to-face once a month in addition to a weekly phone call gave us (man and woman) enough time to take a measure of one another’s character, disposition, response to stress and crisis, godliness in word and practice, vulnerability and authenticity. For those who have never had the opportunity to establish a similar cross-gender working relationship such as this, they have also missed the rare and beautiful opportunity to step into a trusting and mutually affirming spiritual friendship.

"Others will more aptly tell the extraordinary qualities of this rare man, but I can affirm that Steve’s exercise of holiness in inviting me, an evangelical woman (who couldn’t read a financial statement) to walk beside Inter Varsity leadership was unparalleled in my life, healing to me on the deepest of levels. I am still filled with joyful laughter as I think back upon it."

_________________________________

As a student, Steve was president of the ��Ƶ Christian Fellowship chapter at Whitman College (Washington) and was invited to join ��Ƶ staff when he graduated. Instead he opted for graduate school at Harvard and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, but he was never far from ��Ƶ and student ministry. He joined the staff of University Presbyterian Church in Seattle, working in student ministry and leading groups of students to ��Ƶ’s Urbana Student Missions Conferences. Later he served as vice president for student affairs at Seattle Pacific University, the position he held when he was recruited to become ��Ƶ’s president.

His commitment to the whole campus as a mission field was reflected in his statement, “The university is not just a fishing pond to take fish out; ��Ƶ is concerned about the nutrients and the pollutants in the pond as well.”

After leaving ��Ƶ, Steve remained in Madison for several more years, as senior associate pastor at High Point Church and as associate pastor at Fountain of Life Covenant Church. Alex Gee, the pastor of Fountain of Life, was a member of ��Ƶ’s board of trustees, and Steve the founding board chairman of the Nehemiah Corporation, a social service agency started by Fountain of Life church.

“I learned SO much from him about my strengths, my gifts, servant leadership, and trust,” Alex said. “He helped me to create an in-house urban leadership training program for developing our folks. Steve’s brilliance is only eclipsed by his humility! I’m a better man because of my accountability to Steve and his love for me.”

After a short transition in these pastoral roles, Steve moved to Atlanta where, in 2003, he became the Peachtree Professor of Evangelism and Church Growth at Columbia Theological Seminary. In 2009 he became president of the seminary.

In a 1988 article introducing Steve to the ��Ƶ community, he said, “I tell God I don’t care if I’m ever great. But if I have the privilege of touching people who can be, I’ll be a happy man.” Steve touched a great many people and the outpouring of affection for him since his battle with cancer became known has been effusive, on the “Thanks to you, Steve” web page, on Facebook, on Caring Bridge, in magazines such as The Presbyterian Outlook, The Christian Century, Commentary, Leadership Journal, and elsewhere. Christianity Today published an interview with Steve from last fall by Fuller Seminary president Mark Labberton. Steve was also remembered for his volunteer work with other ministries, such as World Vision and International Justice Mission.

If you would like to donate to ��Ƶ's Steve Hayner Memorial Fund, you can do so here.

A service celebrating Steve's life will be held at Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta on February 23, 2015. More on Steve’s life, the impact of his ministry, and funeral arrangements, at the Columbia Seminary web page.

We rejoice in all that God has done through the life and ministry of his servant, Steve Hayner. We are sad because we miss him, and we rejoice in God’s promise of eternal life.

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Seattle Pacific University

President

Columbia Theological Seminary

President

������Ƶ Remembers Tom Dunkerton

������Ƶ Remembers Tom Dunkerton

Tom Lin Commissioned as President

Tom Lin Commissioned as President

Tom Lin Named ������Ƶ President

Tom Lin Named ������Ƶ President

Alec Hill – ������Ƶ’s President Emeritus

Alec Hill – ������Ƶ’s President Emeritus

������Ƶ Enters Leadership Transition

������Ƶ Enters Leadership Transition

Remembering Steve Hayner

Remembering Steve Hayner

��Ƶ Remembers Tom Dunkerton

��Ƶ Remembers Tom Dunkerton

Tom Lin Named ��Ƶ President

Tom Lin Named ��Ƶ President

Alec Hill – ��Ƶ’s President Emeritus

Alec Hill – ��Ƶ’s President Emeritus

��Ƶ Enters Leadership Transition

��Ƶ Enters Leadership Transition