Visionary

With the ending of this semester, the thinking in IV is beginning to shift to prepare for the new year. Well, for the staff at least that is. I think that the majority of the students are focused more on just surviving the semester at this point, preparing for finals, all of that. In any case, the time has come to begin preparing next year's leadership team for the tasks ahead of them.

To that effect, this last Friday we put on a special leadership retreat at my place, welcoming in the new leaders and drawing up the foundations for the coming year. Since the focus in InterVarsity is on indigenous (i.e. student-led) ministry, these kinds of meetings are incredibly important since they give the students a chance to really determine where the ministry will go in the coming year.

We started with some fun time - ate pizza, played some video games, and spent a good long time with a game of Signs. Then Hans spoke on the history and purpose of InterVarsity as a whole and took the students through a short IV introductory course on visionary leadership. This led to the meat of the evening, a big planning session where we tried to figure out what out chapter is all about and where we feel God is taking it in the coming years. It was actually probably the best planning session I've ever been a part of; the students were all full of really great ideas and really wanted to get at the heart of what makes the chapter great. We came up with a core vision oriented around strong discipleship, community, and Christian living, along with some really exciting ideas of how we plan on achieving those goals. Man, the semester hasn't even ended yet and already I'm looking forward to the upcoming one!

In other news, it looks like the Rio Area (that is, UNM and NMT) will be bringing almost half of the students attending Chapter Camp this year! It's a really great blessing to have so many students going from our two chapters, and it's sure to mean a lot in the coming years. Plus it'll be a whole lot of fun having our chapters together for that fun and powerful week.

Please keep be praying for the students as they prepare for the end of the semester and also for the other staff and me as we prepare for running Chapter Camp. Please also keep Chapter Camp itself in your prayers; it's an incredibly important time for all who attend, and so it's a pretty big target for spiritual attack. Finally, please also pray for me as I make the final preparations for beginning my next round of fundraising. I'm still a little nervous about it, but I'm sure God will provide.

"I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile."
- Romans 1:16