California State University-Sacramento

Believers Who Share Our Love for Campus

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 16:21:27 +0000

April 11, 2017

Gordon Govier

Believers Who Share Our Love for Campus

At the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year, when California State University ��Ƶ chapters were derecognized, students on the Sacramento State campus needed a new meeting place since they no longer had the status needed to formally reserve a room for their large group meetings. An out-of-the-way alcove on the second floor of the University Union was discovered, where they could meet informally.

Audrey Chan, ��Ƶ’s Team Leader at Sacramento State, said that arrangement worked well for a couple of weeks. Then the director of the union contacted the chapter leaders and invited them to his office. Concerned about the future of their chapter’s activities, the chapter leaders called for prayer and fasting.

Once in the meeting, the chapter leaders discovered that the director was a believer. He told them that he had talked with people at his church, located nearby, and they wanted to offer the chapter a place to meet in their building. The students, in response, shared why they thought it was important to continue meeting on campus.

Finally, the director told them that rules for meeting in the union were vague, so if they didn't put up any signs, they would be allowed to continue to use the second floor alcove. “My students came out of the meeting in tears, amazed at how God answered their prayers,” Audrey said.

Meeting informally in that public space was slightly awkward. But Audrey reflected that maybe that was what campus ministry was supposed to be like. “Student life was going on around us and we were right there, an intersection of faith in the space of student life,” she said.

One of the other outcomes is that the director of the union is now part of the faculty and staff fellowship that has begun at the college.

When Audrey arrived at Sacramento State in 2012, starting a faculty and staff fellowship was not one of her goals. She was focused on student ministry. But people kept telling her about professors they knew who were Christians, so she started putting names in a spreadsheet. While playing ultimate frisbee one day, she met another professor who had attended a Christian college, so she added him to the list.

“I would meet with them, hear their story, share ��Ƶ’s vision, and try to connect the dots for them about campus ministry,” Audrey said. She was surprised to discover that five of the professors were already meeting to pray together. Finally, she planned a faculty luncheon and invited everyone on her list. Nine people came and they prayed together and shared stories about praying over their class rosters. “That was incredible,” Audrey said. “It helped me see that they’re not there for tenure; they’re there to see God’s kingdom advance.”

Through that experience, Audrey discovered an enhancement to her own campus ministry. As a self-described high achiever in college and someone who thinks deeply about education, her developing friendships with faculty have felt like an unexpected gift. She enjoys her conversations with faculty in a different way than she enjoys her conversations with students.

Her relationships with faculty have also directly benefited her undergraduate student ministry, as interaction between the two groups began. Some students had never considered the possibility that their professors might be Christian believers. The faculty/staff fellowship sometimes met with the undergraduate fellowship to pray together, and students began to consider whether to invite other professors. An athlete in the chapter discovered that her trainer was a believer and their professional relationship turned to fellowship.

In early March, Christian faculty from Sacramento State and the University of California, Davis, planned and led the first NorCal Faculty and Staff Gathering, with about 30 faculty, staff, and graduate students attending. “I heard at least one other faculty share about wanting to start a prayer group on her campus,” Audrey said.

Audrey encourages fellow ��Ƶ staff to invest in searching out and contacting Christian faculty and staff on their campuses, noting that they are potential allies in ministry who care deeply about the campus and its students. “Partnering with them has changed my ministry with undergraduate students, both in giving my students a larger vision of reaching the campus, and also in the unique partnership that students and faculty and staff can have together,” she declared.

Professors and staff have been on campus, in most cases, a lot longer than the students and the ��Ƶ staff. “They understand the college world,” she said. “They are praying for the same environment that we are.”

As a student, Audrey attended the University of the Pacific, a private school that prided itself on small class sizes and strong faculty/student relationships. She was invited to ��Ƶ Bible studies as a freshman and found that they brought a lot of clarity to her Christian faith. She became a Bible study leader as a junior and enjoyed watching how God used the conversations in the study to change the lives of fellow students.

“Students make significant life decisions in college and they end up in amazing places,” she observed. In 2010, as her days as a student ended, Audrey went to Kolkata, India, as part of ��Ƶ’s Global Urban Trek. Her summer in the midst of stark urban poverty helped clarify her desire to see more lives changed by the power of God’s Spirit and Scripture, and confirmed her decision to join ��Ƶ staff.

Audrey spent her first year on staff as an intern at the University of the Pacific, and then moved to Sacramento State, where she has been for the past five years. Every year at Sacramento has been different, with a lot of leadership turnover that reflects the large commuter population of that campus. At the end of this school year Audrey and her husband will be moving to the South Bay Area of San Francisco and Audrey will join ��Ƶ’s ministry on community college campuses there. Working with faculty will continue to be a key part of her ministry.

News Keywords

California State University-Sacramento

Faculty Ministry

Sacramento State

University of the Pacific

The Importance of Mark

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 22:37:33 +0000

News

March 2, 2012

Gordon Govier

The Importance of Mark

March is spring break month for many college students, which often means a week of warm weather vacation or maybe a service project. For Victoria Meija’s ��Ƶ students at California State University, Sacramento (Sac State), it means Mark Manuscript Study.

When Victoria became a Campus Staff Member at Sac State nine years ago, students spent six to seven weeks poring over the Gospel of Mark for several hours on Sunday evenings. Despite the insights gained through ��Ƶ’s in-depth Bible study methods, some of the students didn’t seem very interested. Victoria was amazed. “When I found out that some people didn’t like Mark Study I thought, ‘That’s crazy; that’s the best thing we do.’”

Why Mark

She wanted students to learn to love Scripture the way she did, to have a clear understanding of the basics of their faith, and to make decisions based on scriptural principles. So she decided to join some other ��Ƶ chapters and schedule the Mark Manuscript Study during spring break.

Selling the idea of devoting a week of vacation to Bible study was challenging. The students were uncertain. But finally she had a group together, and off they went to ��Ƶ’s Campus by the Sea on Catalina Island.

To this day, that first Mark Manuscript camp is one of Victoria’s most memorable experiences as an ��Ƶ Campus Staff Member. Despite their initial hesitance, the students loved it. They said they had never studied Mark so intensely before, and the experience was totally different than studying Mark week by week.

“A lot of times kids who grow up in the church don’t know why they follow Jesus; they don’t have any real depth of understanding. They know the stories, they know Scripture, but when you study it eight hours a day for seven days straight, you get punched in the face with who Jesus is and what it means to follow him,” Victoria said.

This year Campus by the Sea filled up fast and the Sac State students will be spending spring break at a northern California retreat center instead. They will again study Mark. A Sac State alumnus who graduated several years ago recently came back to campus to help lead worship for a Large Group meeting and told the students, “Everybody has to go to Mark. You can’t not go to Mark.”

A Fresh Look

Victoria grew up in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, near Yosemite National Park. Her experience with the church seemed to her to be mostly about following rules, something she didn’t intend to take with her when she left for college. But mid-way through the first semester of her freshman year at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, some friends invited her to an ��Ƶ conference.

“This was the first place where I saw that the gospel was about freedom,” she said. “I learned that Jesus should be at the center of my whole life. That was what following Jesus was about. And that was compelling to me.” Victoria became a follower of Jesus Christ that weekend.

For most of the next three years Victoria led an ��Ƶ Small Group Bible Study on campus. She also served on the chapter’s evangelism team, started a drama team, and was a Large Group leader for awhile. She became more comfortable sharing her faith with others. And she was invited to become an ��Ƶ Campus Staff Member.

Leading at Sac State

Sac State was somewhat familiar to her when she arrived on campus to work with the ��Ƶ chapter. A brother had attended there, and she had considered attending herself. But it was still an adjustment. University of the Pacific is a private, residential school. Sacramento State is a public, commuter campus.

“There were differences and nuances that I had to learn about,” she said. “You have to work a little harder to build a community on campus for students who are coming from all different directions.”

When Victoria arrived, the ��Ƶ chapter seemed to value cross-cultural relationships; but somehow, over the years, that value disappeared. Getting it back has been one of the biggest challenges that Victoria has experienced. But in the last couple of months, she’s been encouraged by what she’s seen, as students acknowledge the importance of being honest with each other about the significance of their ethnic heritages.

Staying student focused can sometimes be a challenge for a staff worker. “It’s easier to either think about what’s ahead or think about what happened before and miss what’s happening in the present,” Victoria said. But as she continues to trust in God she sees Him at work in students’ lives and is thankful for the opportunity to be a part of the transformations taking place on the Sac State campus through the work of ��Ƶ.

News Keywords

California State University-Sacramento

Sac State