On the Way Home

ashlye.vanderworp@intervarsity.org — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 20:23:40 +0000

July 9, 2018

Drew Larson

On the Way Home

When Taylor started college at the University of Rhode Island, she had one goal: to be a normal college student. She wanted to make friends, get involved on campus, and learn to impact the world after she graduated.

There was only one thing she wasn’t interested in: having anything to do with God.

“I grew up nominally, culturally Christian, and it all meant absolutely nothing to me,” Taylor said. “Faith didn’t seem relevant at all, and I had no intention of exploring it when I went to college. I considered myself done with church.”

A Noticeable Faith

That intention lasted a semester and a half, until Taylor realized she was hungry to serve others with her spring break. She agreed to go with ��Ƶ, whom she had met during one of their outreaches when they knocked on her door months earlier, on their annual service trip to New Orleans to help those affected by Hurricane Katrina.

While there, she couldn’t help but notice the faith of the people she served with—and the people she served.

Taylor’s curiosity was piqued.

“I started thinking that this couldn’t just come from nowhere,” Taylor said. “I had never been given a reason to believe in God, but I wanted to know where this kind of faith came from.”

One evening of the trip, Taylor’s small group leader encouraged her to pray. She agreed and experienced the presence of Jesus in her heart for the first time.

Then, on the way home, she gave her life to Christ.

“I gave my life to Jesus,” she said with a smile, “somewhere on a bus in the middle of Georgia."

A Broken Heart for Others

After that, Taylor’s life changed dramatically. As she became more involved in her ��Ƶ chapter, she discovered a community of friends who encouraged her and invested in her relationship with God.

She had always had a passion for helping others, but as a new Christian, Taylor’s view of service changed. She began to view her whole life as an extension of Jesus’ mission, and her enthusiasm for sharing the love and patience of Christ to others on campus was ignited.

“[Because of Christ] I have felt love for people that I don’t really want to love sometimes, and I’ve had my heart broken for people and campuses that could not have possibly come from my own heart.”

Taylor eventually became a student leader of her chapter and now works on campus full time as an ��Ƶ campus minister. Her eagerness to lead others into new life in Christ has only grown since that day on the bus, and, having seen what God did in her own life, her hope of what God can do in students’ hearts is almost limitless.

“I’ve seen that when I submit myself to him and open my hands in surrender, he shows up in bigger ways than I could have imagined.”

��Ƶ chapters across the country provide spaces for students like Taylor to experience the love of Christ in community and serve others through that love. You can be a part of creating more communities on campuses without one by giving to ��Ƶ's 2030 Calling. Click below to find out more.

Give to the 2030 Calling

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Sharing a Vision for Campus Ministry

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 20:56:22 +0000

February 13, 2018

Gordon Govier

Sharing a Vision for Campus Ministry

Both Kyle and Danielle VanEtten entered their respective colleges with career visions that included the possibility of becoming a missionary in some far-off land. They were both invited to get involved in ��Ƶ, Kyle at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) and Danielle at Smith College. They both learned how to lead small group Bible studies and share their faith.

Kyle ended up leading the UNH chapter as a junior, when the chapter was without a staff minister for a year. By that time he already knew he wanted to apply for ��Ƶ staff. As for Danielle, “When it came time to think about what to do after college, and I realized ��Ƶ staff was an option, it seemed like a dream job.”

Kyle and Danielle met at Toah Nipi, ��Ƶ’s Retreat and Training Center in New Hampshire, at the New Staff Training day that preceded their Regional Staff Conference. Danielle was impressed by Kyle’s vision for campus ministry. Kyle remembers thinking that Danielle was tall.

They became friends and started dating about a month later, as Kyle became a campus intern at the University of Connecticut (UConn) and Danielle began planting an Athletes ��Ƶ chapter at Smith. They continued dating and got engaged as Danielle temporarily left ��Ƶ to become a Fulbright Scholar and teach English in Brazil for nine months. They got married ten days after she returned from Brazil, and settled in Connecticut.

Kyle and Danielle say a shared vision for ministry—of seeing students become lifelong disciples of Jesus—is one of the strongest bonds of their marriage, since their ��Ƶ jobs are quite different. Their experiences as ��Ƶ students were also somewhat different.

As a high school senior, Kyle was encouraged by friends to check into ��Ƶ when he got to UNH, so he made contact with a staff worker before he arrived. He was invited to Summit Week, a retreat at Toah Nipi the week before classes started. He had attended family camp at Toah Nipi as a child, so he was familiar with the venue and the events of the week held up to his expectations. “After that retreat I was pretty much sold on being a part of ��Ƶ in my time in college,” he said.

Danielle also connected with Smith Christian Fellowship (as it was called) right away but didn’t discover its affiliation with ��Ƶ until her junior year. And because she was on the crew team with a heavy schedule of practices and regattas, she missed just about every ��Ƶ conference that she might have attended.

A variety of skills are needed for campus ministry to thrive. Kyle likes to teach and disciple students; building the chapter at UConn is his main goal. He’s also nurturing a chapter replant at the University of Hartford.

Danielle likes to talk with strangers and invite them to activities. Four years ago she started planting a chapter at Eastern Connecticut State University. Now she’s leading chapter plants at Eastern plus four other area community colleges. “All of these other campuses came from open doors, her natural gifting as a planter, and God making a way for her to make connections,” Kyle said.

Danielle finds it ironic that on community college campuses, community seems to be the thing that students hunger for the most, and is so hard to find. “Students really don’t know each other,” she said. “When we go around to invite them to join us for a Bible study, a lot of times they just say yes because they are eager to get to know other students on campus.” Even though it may be comparatively easy to get students to sit down for a Bible study, coordinating meeting times with students as they balance classes, jobs, and families is challenging.

At the UConn campus, Kyle works with a chapter of about 60 students. “The thing that has made the biggest difference in my career on staff has been learning to develop student leaders and empower student leaders in their callings on campus,” he said. Val Gordon, now ��Ƶ’s Program Management/Strategic Planning Officer, coached him and helped him identify that developing a team of trained student leaders to partner with him would be his most effective ministry.

The wisdom of that decision grows more and more evident with each passing year. “It’s really cool to see the “world changers developed” part of ��Ƶ’s Vision Statement come out of that,” Kyle said. “And more than that on campus to see students owning the vision, owning the mission, and recruiting their friends.”

Last summer Kyle and Danielle bought a house in Hartford to extend their ministry by living in intentional community. Their new home opens up opportunities to minister to students after they graduate, as well as host meetings of their ministry teams, ministry partners, and church groups. As they visit in the home, current students have an opportunity to see modeled ways that they can continue to live lives of mission after they graduate. Three of the four people who live with them right now are ��Ƶ alumni or current students.

Kyle and Danielle are eager to see campus ministry grow in central and eastern Connecticut. There are 17 colleges in the area but only four staff. They are looking for partners who will share their vision of reaching all 17 campuses with the gospel message. To donate towards helping to spread the gospel to more campuses in Connecticut, follow this link.

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