What? They want me to be the speaker-guy at Family Camp? In my former days with InterVarsity it was a very big deal to be invited to be the expositor for a week of camps at Cedar Campus. For a couple of years before I left IV staff in 06 I got to be on the teaching team for Chapter Focus Week. A group of staff would meet and prepare the same expository series happening at multiple sites, multiple weeks throughout the summer.

My assignment this summer was expositor for Family Camp – Week 4. We jumped on the opportunity as a family to go. I jumped on the opportunity to do a Jesus series and continue developing Bad Company. Check out the previous post if you’re wondering why I’m so excited about the theme of Jesus and Rejection. Here’s a quick snapshot of where the series went:

1. Sunday: Homeboy Rejected – Jesus nearly stoned at Nazareth, Luke 4
2. Monday: Un-follow Me? -Many of Jesus’ disciples opt out after tough message, John 6
3. Tuesday: Power Clash – Jesus rejected by religious power systems, Mark 12
4. Wednesday: Jesus Saves…Not! – Jesus turns away a prime candidate, Mark 10
5. Thursday: Rejected Victor – Jesus the Suffering Servant, Isaiah 53

This is a very deep, untapped source of Jesus story-telling. I selected these five rejection narratives as an onramp to an audience of people very familiar with Jesus stories. We know many of these stories well.  But they aren’t the ones we usually use in telling the Gospel. I think that’s a huge problem. And I think we can change that. People struggling with belief in Jesus are longing to hear something other than felt need as the rationale. I’m afraid consumerism is about to burn itself out as a vehicle for the Gospel.

Where is Bad Company headed?

Look for Bad Company articles to float through the blog now and then. I’ll be eventually off-loading Bad Company to its own tab on this site. There are so many rejection stories to explore – each one packed with new challenges for Christians on mission in an intensely consumerist context. I keep telling friends I’d like to develop Bad Company into a book! But meanwhile, jump in with your thoughts about Jesus and Rejection. Am I really onto something legit?

“Jesus is that huge kid at the other end of your teeter-totter. What are you going to do when your will to follow is out of scale with Jesus’ identity claims?” A diagram here and a few application questions in light of Jesus’ own followers opting out (John 6). Becoming a disciple integrates belief and the will to follow. When disciples couldn’t grasp the implications of Jesus’ identity claims, their will to follow flagged. Today many have the opposite problem. They’ll just fake the beliefs and do what it looks like Christians have to do to fit in.

Following Bad Company Jesus is soooo much harder. And so much more rewarding. I dare you to try it yourself. More to come.

Ever had one of those moments when your brain latches onto a new idea? Or a new course of action? Something new just grabs your attention and won’t let go. When I was a kid and first discovered windmills, I was obsessed. I wanted so badly to build my own small scale windmill to match the one on my grandparents’ farm. What would it take to actually make one? Where could I get some sheet metal? How could I cut it out, put it together and make it work?

Little by little, I stopped thinking about windmills. I stopped noticing them everywhere. Stopped scheming about building one of my very own. I moved on to airplanes. I never looked back.

Highly addicting dictionary for word-nerds like me.

Sometimes however, that idea or plan just won’t leave you alone no matter how much you ignore it. Let me introduce you to Ecaballium Elaterium. Otherwise known as The Squirting Cucumber! Ever seen one? Far from dying on the vine, this weird plant has seed-pods that actually explode when they get bumped, pinched, plucked or chewed by an unsuspecting herbivore.

The seeds erupt from their pod at speeds up to 60 miles per hour! Each pod spits out 20-40 seeds like a vegetarian machine-gun! Here’s the most fun, least worthy-of-your-time video you’ll encounter online. The squirting cucumber video – from Earth Unplugged. Before I completely lose my reader, why in the world am I talking about exploding cucumber seed pods? Here’s the back story…

Unconvinced

Two and a half years ago I was teaching a class while on staff at Christ Community Church. It was for seekers, skeptics and the unconvinced. The pilot for my idea was a series I designed for my crowd that paralleled a church-wide adventure in the book of Exodus. Our lead pastor was teaching through Exodus in the weekend messages. I was taking my tribe through what I called Exodus for the Unconvinced. Each week we presumed unbelief and explored all the critical problems we could find. This is about when the squirting cucumbers started sprouting in my garden!

After Exodus for the Unconvinced, I started writing material for a new study in the Gospels. What would happen if I took the same approach from Exodus and applied it to the book of Mark or John? What would a skeptic see looking at the public ministry and teaching of Jesus – if viewing the NT documents strictly on their narrative merit? I was surprised what people actually noticed. It was different than what the eyes of the already convinced typically see. Different. And better – for skeptics!

I had always felt the pressure to make sure people see the incredible healing miracles of Jesus. Skeptics need to get it – how someone claiming to wield that kind of power always used it in such selfless ways. People with great power today are far from selfless in its use. I was equally adamant that unconvinced seekers really need to hear what Jesus taught – the brilliance and uniqueness of his message.

Jesus got rejected… a lot!

People started noticing Jesus’ actual lack of popularity. He absolutely refuses to be slick – to the point of repeated rejection from audience after audience. I’d want people to notice how he chose to heal a man’s hand in the synagogue. Skeptics weren’t that impressed with the display of compassion. They were struck by Pharisees who were plotting Jesus’ death! And why would Jesus’ own hometown want to lynch him on his first day of public ministry among them? Why the intense rejection? If Jesus were sooooo powerful, why didn’t he use his power in ways that would guarantee belief? If the Gospels were mere legend, why put the hero at the mercy of people who didn’t care about miracles even when they witnessed them?

The idea that just won’t die is this: The believability of Jesus’ identity claims rests more on his suffering and rejection than on his crowd-making miracles and compassion. The miracles don’t need to be taken out of the story – they just don’t carry the whole weight of what Jesus was attempting to do. Taking the unconvinced by the hand and showing them the theme of Jesus’ rejection is actually more attractive than constantly showing them how Jesus met felt needs. Everything else in a consumer culture is trying to prove it can meet a felt need. Jesus has to be doing something more consequential than that in order to keep getting rejected like he does.

Commercial Church Jesus

The impression most get from commercial church today is that Jesus is the thing you need for what is hurting you most about life. Most “industry best-practice” evangelistic communication skilfully stages Jesus between a seeker and his or her felt needs. Felt-need consumerism. It works. All you have to do is throw in the right coercive emotional word-picture and people will respond right on cue!

The Jesus of the New Testament is larger and different than the specially formulated one branded for the unconvinced. There’s something freeing about helping seekers unhook from commercial Christianity and connect more directly with Jesus through simple bible reading. Jesus for the Unconvinced became a new channel to explore an unfiltered Jesus. Each week my hunch got stronger. “Stop pitching the therapeutic Jesus. Seekers need to see the Suffering Servant. Stop hiding the disconnect between the power of Jesus and the suffering of Jesus.” It wouldn’t leave me alone. Solving that disconnect with the help of my unconvinced friends was a challenge that wasn’t dying on the vine over time. It was exploding on the vine. Like a comical squirting cucumber! The rejection of Jesus is more compelling than what we would call a successful public ministry. A crucified Messiah has to be taught somehow without poisoning the well with consumerism.

Yes they do.  Just not as much as undergrads.

NSO.  New Student Outreach.  That’s what we used to call it in my former IVCF career. My glory days wear me out to recall. Staff teams would get our student-leaders to return a few days before classes. We’d cover every bulletin board with publicity. We’d pack all-campus events and niche events into the first week.  “Move over credit card venders!”  “Excuse me, that’s our table, Mr. ISP-Modem-Man.”

Visibility. Connections. Meeting people. Getting people to sign information cards.  Follow-up.  The world of grad students I now serve isn’t completely different. The first month of the semester is still the least impossible one for getting people to show up at a gathering. Food still seems to make it happen. I’m convinced even busy grad students like making new connections before the semester bites down hard!

Emily (student leader) and Kathy (faculty member) were a blast to be with on Creighton’s campus. We met dozens and dozens of students filing past the information tables. About 20 stopped to engage us and find out more about GFM at Creighton. A possible change this year will be moving to weekly gatherings. Every other week, Kathy will host a meal in her home. On the off-weeks Emily will lead a bible study on campus. It’s an ambitious  time commitment.  We’ll see how the group sustains throughout the semester.

When I worked with undergrads, it was a given that a student would show interest in a small group, would come to a weekly gathering for teaching and worship, and volunteer somewhere in the group. That’s just not reality for grad students. The biggest difference is selectivity.  Grad students are much more selective.  Much less included to sign up for everything and sort it out later. It’s a very big deal to have 35 grad students at your kick off barbecue (Wash-U this past week).  I was surprised to learn that at the involvement fair at Creighton two weeks ago, all 300+ new students in Pharmacy and Health care were required to attend the orientation!  Required to walk through the entire room full of displays!

Faculty Groups starting back up this fall.

Mark Hansard works with faculty members at K-State. He tells me there are two faculty groups meeting regularly. One is a book group this fall reading and discussing Augustine of Hippo, a biography by Peter Brown.  Mark writes for The Compass – the blog for ESN, Emerging Scholars Network.  Check out one of his posts at this link.

The other group is a bible study working through Colossians. Faculty groups are amazing to me because these are perhaps the busiest of busy people on campus, yet they carve out time to be together. Sometimes it takes me weeks to just get an appointment with a faculty member. When they decide to spend time in a study group, book group or a missional prayer gathering, they’re not looking for a way to burn free time. They’re intentional. Pray for Christian faculty members at my school. Ask God to keep them focused, refreshed and engaged in the kingdom of God right in the midst of their departments.

Recent and Upcoming…

• Connecting with Dr. Peter Szto at UNO this fall and Shelby – one of his new MSW students.  Thinking and praying about a possible group among other MSW students.
• Campus visit to St. Louis coming up Sept 18-20.  Three campuses.  Three staff.  I’ll also connect with two staff potential folk.
• Planning a trip through Iowa Sept 25-28 – University of Iowa, possibly meeting some Drake faculty in Des Moines a friend of mine is colleagues with, and a visit with the undergrad ministry Central Regional Director.
• My link to the 2030 Calling now plays the video.  Click here to watch if you didn’t catch it from my previous post.
• Wait.  I almost forgot! My daughter Phoebe’s wedding!  Yikes that one is sneaking up on us.  September 9th.

 

 

When you look at this guy’s picture what goes through your mind?  Probably not “Oooo, that’s the guy who invented that catchy cheer they use down in Lawrence!”  That’s the dude!  Looks more like a chemistry professor.  That’s because that’s what he was.  According to his granddaughter (and KU librarian) Prof. E. H. S. Bailey and a group of students in the science club  devised the cheer circa 1886.  It’s unclear if they invented it for sporting events or interscholastic science fairs!  Check it out for yourself if you’re a KU fan!

My first campus visit to KU.

I’ve never been to Lawrence, KS.  People who’ve lived there absolutely love it. We once had next door neighbors who moved to Omaha from Lawrence. It’s all they could talk about. Lawrence. Lawrence. Lawrence. They lasted about 5 years in Omaha, and decided they had to move back. Was it us? Was it Omaha?

Jake Evans is our staff member at the University of Kansas. He’s beginning his fourth year with GFM. I’m excited to have Jake show me around campus and introduce me to the cool town he lives in. We’ll cover a bunch of stuff in our conversations tomorrow. Supervisors typically want to know how life and ministry are going for staff.  I’m convinced the best way to encourage a team mate is to spend time with them in their context. This is my second campus visit since taking this role with GFM. I’m amazed at the way my team serves. We’re very spread out geographically. We’re potentially very isolated. Yet, we’re united by InterVarsity’s passion to reach every corner of every campus. Face to face time is so sparse it’s like gold to me!

Jake and I will have some time to talk about strategy for growing GFM. What could our 2030 Calling look like moving forward on his campus? Our work at the University of Kansas is a wide open field at the moment. What will it take to gain momentum with Grad Students? How can we expand our network of known Christian faculty members? Jake has conducted his first Veritas Forum last spring [link] how can we build on that? When we dream of InterVarsity’s ministry expanding in Kansas more broadly, what role could our work in Lawrence play in that?

It’s a balance. What is God doing at the grass-roots level right now? What does he long to do through his people into the future?  Pray for Jake and I have a great day together.  My rental is in the driveway waiting to take off at 6:30 in the morning!

From KU Jayhawks to Creighton Jays

Thursday I’ll be helping a Creighton faculty member with a New Student Outreach event. We’re going to have an information table at a back to school involvement fair for the School of Pharmacy and Health Professions.  Kathy Padilla and her husband Rene have been faculty sponsors for InterVarsity’s undergrad work for many years. Recently, God has been bringing some terrific Christian grad students to the Occupational Therapy program. Kathy invited me to help her meet people and gather contact information.  Last year there was a group of over 20 OT students involved in a monthly study-group the Padillas hosted in their home. We’re eager to reconnect with some of them and even more eager to meet new people interested in GFM at Creighton.

After I get back in the office next week, I’ll have to catch you up on the past few weeks.  I attended Regional Staff Conference with the South Central GFM team in North Carolina then headed to Cedar Campus for a week of vacationing and teaching Bad Company Christology!  Catch you later.  Thanks for reading.

 

Click to open Piktochart in new window.

Pretty straightforward.  Being called to serve with InterVarsity means you step into two worlds at the same time.  You have a job.  Mine is to supervise and build a staff team for Graduate Faculty Ministries in Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri.  You also have a budget.  A budget that you are responsible to find by building a team of supporters.

Why I’m so grateful for my support team.

Eight days from now IVCF will close out it’s 2017/18 fiscal year – my first full financial year in terms of budget building.  As of today, since starting this adventure in Spring  2017, supporters have contributed $97,414.  That’s the work of 66 giving partnerships joining my team steadily over the past 15 months.  Most reading this are on that team.  I can’t tell you how thankful I am for you.  You’ve paved the way under my feet on a path I thought would be bumpier and more hazardous than it’s turned out to be.

It’s been a joy to talk to so many people this year.  It seems like I’ve drank a water-tower of coffee.  Traveled over thousands of miles of highway.  And pitched my ministry case  into extra innings again and again.  The people-time has been so rich.  I’ve been listened to, prayed for, fed, and cried with by friend after friend after friend.  I feel full.  Ready to do my job.

Point of no return – July 1st

Remember that first time you took the family car out by yourself with your freshly laminated driver’s license?  I do.  It was our 1968 Chrysler Newport (we called it The Sled – because of it’s tired rear leaf springs).  My maiden voyage was to youth group on a Sunday night at Faith Baptist Church in Decatur, IL.  I was about 10 blocks from the church when I got stopped by an officer.  “42 in an 30, young man.”  Crap!  What was I going to tell my Dad?  I reached for my wallet.  Double Crap!  No wallet.  “I’m probably going straight to jail for this.”

My hope is that my first year with my new team won’t turn out like my first solo drive.  Starting July 1st I’ll be the Central Team Area Director.  The training wheels are off.  We’ll see how the job takes shape after that.  In terms of funding, I do still need to keep finding resources.  If you clicked on the PiktoChart above, you noticed I do have more work cut out for me.  I need to keep finding donors.  Some of my initial gifts last spring were jump-start donations that probably won’t repeat.  Those gifts were monstrous!  I now need to replace some of those monsters with annual and monthly giving that will repeat into the future.

Click here to be taken to Tim’s donation page at InterVarsity.

I’m doing “Summer of MPD” currently (feels a little like summer school – just a little).  MPD is Ministry Partner Development.  The summers are a great time for staff to make calls, schedule appointments, etc.  My goal this summer is to find 15-20 more ministry partners who’ll each be able to give $100-200 monthly or $1,000 to 2,000 annually.  Please pray for my success in finding these last few support team members.

Thanks!  Hope you are having a terrific summer.  Our summer fun just arrived from Illinois for a visit – Poppy Nora!  Oh, she did bring her parents with her!

Be blessed and stay well!

 

I’m sitting at my first national staff director meetings since joining GFM.  A wire basket of rocks sits under the seat in front of me.  “How cute, we’re going to do something gimmicky with these before the night’s over – I just know it.”  I keep having the same on-ramp experience:  the first Mundelein meetings since I left IV in 06, the first Regionals since Great Lakes West meetings in Wisconsin.  Management meetings used to be in Madison, now they’re in Milwaukee.  Tom Lin had just given us a stirring call to the 2030 Vision.  It was now process time.  All heads bowed.  All journals open.  Nothing but the sound of pens scratching paper in a room of about 200 IV staff directors.

“Take a minute to sit with your rock.”

OK…rock-sitting.  Check.

“Just like in the days of Joshua, think about God’s leadership of your life and ministry here at the outset of our 2030 Calling.  This is an Ebenezer moment everyone!  At some point, you’re going to look back over how far the Lord has taken us as a movement and your particular path in that journey.  Can you begin to imagine it?”

“Now.  Consider giving your rock a name.  What word comes to your mind when you think about what 2030 will require of you to pursue?”

Courage.

Courage is what I thought of right away.  Courage, because our 2030 Calling is very ambitious.  It’s a revival-proportion longing for God to expand ministry everywhere on every campus.  Courage, because with Graduate Faculty Ministry, the land to be taken can seem like it’s swarming with giants.  I have a territory that covers 4 states with groups needed at multiple campuses, and multiple tier one institutes with no GFM staff member living in the community.

I filled about a page in my journal.  Praying.  Questioning the Holy Spirit.  Asking God for the empowerment to lead well.  Will GFM even take off in the very community I live in?  We have a fledgling group of Occupational Therapy students at Creighton University who aren’t yet affiliated with GFM.  That’s it.  I personally know about two dozen Christian faculty members at Creighton,  UNO and UNMC combined.  How do I begin to recruit more GFM staff?  How will I get staff placed in Lincoln, Columbia, Ames and beyond?  This will be one of those posts I hope my team and I can drag out a decade from now and have an Ebenezer moment with.

For the past 14 months I’ve been working on three teams.  The support team of ministry partners who fund me.  The team of Area Directors I’ll be leading with under my Regional Director.  And the team I’ll be leading and building – the Central Area Team – Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Missouri.

Left to Right:  Keven is in Iowa City at the University of Iowa, George is at K-State in Manhattan along with the guy next to him – Mark.  Carrie has been leading this team till I can get myself funded and installed.  She and her husband Randy Bare were early leaders in framing up Graduate Faculty Ministries regionally and nationally.  Jake is at Kansas in Lawrence.  Keli and her husband Ryan Weed are building graduate student groups at Wash-U.  George Stulac is working with faculty in St. Louis at Wash-U and two other schools.  Here we were at a three day retreat at the St. Benedictine Center in Schuyler, Nebraska.

So…I stole some left over rocks.

I brought them from management meetings to my team meeting.  Ipsissma Petros! (the ones at our Milwaukee meetings just got piled on a table at the back with nothing written on them – what a waste of good rocks).  We had a great morning together in the scriptures looking at some witness-rock-passages.

You can download our study at this link:  Stones Will Cry Out

I then invited our team to the same exercise staff directors experienced in Milwaukee.  These are the names they were drawn to.  Each time I intercede for my team I grab up a different rock and pray for their leadership.  It’s exciting to think about the trajectory this group will take.  Pray for us as we long for God’s work on every corner of the campuses we serve, and the many more campuses we wish we could cover.  Seek God with us that he’d make these stones come alive in our leadership in the years ahead.

Thanks so much!

tim.perry@intervarsity.org

For me the first casualty of a frantic schedule is losing my grip on what I care most about.  It takes serious reflection to fully appreciate even half of life’s best events.  Just think about this time of the year and how many students are graduating.  Graduating from college.  From high school.  I even have a FB friend who recently celebrated her child graduating from preschool (with a 4.0 I might add).

My kids have been dropping milestones on The Perry Timeline left and right this spring!  Let me talk about two.  First, our nuclear family graduated from one generation to two.  Poppy Nora Perry graduated from the coziest classroom ever into the big, bad world on April 8th –  just a few minutes after midnight.  Talk about showing up “early on your birthday”.  This child is going to be punctual I predict. My son Aaron and his wife Savannah graduated from the world of couple-hood into the world of parenthood.  Silas and Phoebe are now Uncle Silas and Aunt Phoebe (both are amazed at how much older their names sound with uncle and aunt in front of them).  Tim and Cheryl graduated from parenthood to grand-parenthood.  I can’t begin to tell you how cool it is to be grandparents (when the word itself sounds so cringy from the outside).  Actually we did what all other rebellious first-time grandparents do.   We subverted the stodgy “Grandpa” and “Grandma” by renaming ourselves.  I shall be called “Pops” by my offspring’s offspring.  Cheryl will become “Amma”.  Pops and Amma.  Pops and Poppy!  I really like the sound of that…

A second defining moment happened last week.   My awesome fine-arts daughter who has been training since age 6, got her first serious offer from a ballet company.  She’s been applying and auditioning for over a year.  I once saw the four-page spreadsheet of companies she sent her reel to.  129!  The tenth company down the list on page four was the winner:  San Diego Ballet.

This is huge.  This means Phoebe has graduated not only with her BFA from University of Missouri Kansas City, she’s also graduating from living with her parents, living in Omaha (in fact, living anywhere near extreme corn fields).  She has got a shot at life on the coast, in a big city, where things are far more diverse, expensive and admittedly exciting.  Way to go Phoebe!  I’m not going to talk about how much our home and our town are going to feel your absence when you leave.  Not.  Going.  There.

However, if you know of people in the San Diego area who could be of help with Phoebe moving there, give us a shout.  Her contract starts in mid-September.  She’ll need to find a place to live and somewhere to hang her massage therapy shingle.  Oh, did I mention she’s graduating soon from Midwest School of Massage here in Omaha?

 

When a new generation is born whether in the arts, in a family or in education, a profusion of life and energy stages a fresh display of God’s creative being.  We are made in his image to constantly germinate truth, beauty and goodness everywhere.  These incredible family milestones push me to expect more from the mission God has called me to.  Cultivating the Kingdom of God in every corner of the university is a lot like training in fine arts.  A lot like parenting.   Hard yet rewarding work, nurturing vast potential over many years.  May God’s creative power pour out from his people so his glory can been seen on campuses today.  Thank you for partnering with me.  Thank you for how your investment in InterVarsity blesses my family and enables me to serve GFM staff, students and faculty.

Click here to be taken to my donation page at InterVarsity.

 

For the past four days I’ve been with a group of 30+ Evangelism Champions here in New Orleans.  I was selected to be an Evangelism Champion (yes that’s the official title) for my region in Grad and Faculty InterVarsity.  We’ve been exploring ways to intensify and improve evangelism in our movement in light of a renewed commitment nationally to planting new groups.  Staff from all over the country are here – staff from a variety of ministry groups (Greek, Undergrad, GFM) are at the table.

Yesterday we took a break from all the analysis and conversation to actually make campus visits.  E-champs divided into three groups and headed out for a day of interaction on campus using a tool called a Proxy Station (a visual, interactive Gospel communication station positioned in a visible, high-traffic area on campus).  One group went to UNO (University of New Orleans) another went to Tulane and the third was sent to Louisiana State – up the road in Baton Rouge.

I got to be with the LSU group.  An outdoor proxy near the student union.  Most of the team made contact with students passing by the proxy or took off for fraternity row looking to connect with greek students.  My teammate and I headed across campus to connect with a Christian faculty member in the Department of Mass Communications.

By the end of our day at LSU we’d had a really helpful conversation with our faculty member who was delighted to learn that InterVarsity would be coming to her campus.  The groups reaching out to undergrad students had generated over 40 contacts and visited 17 fraternity/sorority houses.  Before returning to NO, every student we made contact with was invited to a vision casting follow-up session at the campus chapel.  A small but promising group of students gathered to explore next steps for launching Greek IV at LSU.

I’m really grateful for my Regional Team freeing me up to be a part of E-Champs.  The idea this tactical team is to join E-champs, get oriented to what they do then engage in an assignment that’s funded from national resources.  Tools, strategies, groups, events are all generated in a climate of careful experimentation and development.  More on E-champs in a future post.  My last morning session is about to get started.

E-Champ Team of IV staff at the end of our planting-day at LSU.

I came to this event 12 years ago when I was first contemplating a change in direction with InterVarsity. At the time I was nearing the end of seminary and nearing the end of my first 19 years with IV. I was a guest that spring.

This spring was my first experience with GFM National Staff meetings as an appointed staff member. It was great connecting with some familiar faces. Several staff I once knew from undergraduate ministry are now with GFM. By far the nicest surprise was bumping into Marcia Wang- a member of one of my Downstate Illinois staff teams way back in the day. Marcia is now the Associate National Director of the ministry division I work for.

Mundelein was also the first National Staff gathering since the announcement of the 2030 Calling. The 2030 Calling is the outcome of InterVarsity’s most recent National vision campaign and it reads like this:

Longing for revival, we catalyze movements that call every corner of every campus to follow Jesus.

Numerically,  2030 aims to see movements raised up at 2,500 campuses across the U.S. by the year 2030.  Three broad initiatives undergird the vision -1) Become a thriving organization of thriving people (a great work of God should start with staff who are flourishing and growing from the inside out – not just people who generate more work) 2) Mobilizing more effective ministry partnerships (this won’t be solely InterVarsity’s thing – the scope is just too great) and 3) Planting exponentially (not additive, not incremental – based in the past decade of planting cohort work).

At Mundelein GFM was able to unpack 2030 and begin wrestling with its implications for reaching grad students and faculty. GFM can be thought of as a IVs top shelf contextual challenge. The true test of a vision aimed at reaching every corner of every campus may ell be:  “Will it connect at the Grad-Faculty level?” Every corner includes every department, every program, every professional student, every researcher, every professor, every instructor, every adjunct. Every administrator? The whole university as a community and as a structure. That’s overwhelming to think about.  The claim of the Gospel is that Jesus is Lord over everything – what does it look like to scale our mission comprehensively?

I’m excited to help my team grab a hold of 2030. I think some of our craziest stories are ahead of us. Do we really know what we’ve gotten ourselves into? If 2030 is genuinely from the Spirit of God of course we can sink our hopes into remarkable happenings in the days ahead.

In this post I want to introduce you to one of my GFM staff and tell you about a very cool event happening at Washington University next month.  I think you’ll not only want to know about the event, but if you’re not too far from the St. Louis area you might want to go!

Here’s a quick look at the event and a link  to more details including registration.  Its a free event, but you have to register.  They’re anticipating a full house!

https://www.carverstl.org/the-carver-conversations-event/

Our staff member with Graduate Faculty Ministries at Washington University is George Stulac (photo).  George joined GFM in 2014 after a 33 year long tenure as the senior pastor of Memorial Presbyterian church in St. Louis.  George is a deeply thoughtful pastor and scholar.  GFM was blessed to welcome his maturity and undimmed energy for the mission of Jesus.

In one of our team’s zoom sessions a number of months ago, I remember George saying that he was excited about an initiative at Wash-U involving Christian faculty members coalescing around an outreach strategy.  Dr. John Inazu is one of the faculty George was talking about.  You can read about him on the Carver Project website.  More about Dr. Inazu in future posts, but for now, I’ll say I was thrilled to find out that he’s on the Board of Trustees for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA.

I was also excited to discover his book.  I’ll have more to say about Confident Pluralism and John Inazu – but for now wanted you to be aware of the event and to be praying for George’s GFM faculty group at Wash-U.  This will be a terrific event that will help propel InterVarsity’s ministry on a pretty challenging campus.  If you have questions about GFM at Wash-U or how the Carver Project connects with InterVarsity’s ministry there, feel free to email George.

george.stulac@intervarsity.org