#intervaristy

InterVaristy Christian Fellowship, one of the largest evangelical Christian groups in the US, with over 1000 chapters nationwide and over 1300 staff, announced that they will be terminating any employees who affirm same-sex marriage. While they are not asking their employees to sign a certain statement of belief and will not be seeking out the individual convictions of its employees, they expect…

Please take the time to read Nathan’s posts-- they are heartbreaking, but so so important. During my time in InterVarsity I struggled a lot with the expectations they held of leaders and the beliefs that the national organization espoused. Thankfully the friends I made through IV and the staff worker at Roanoke while I was in college were more accepting and liberal in their views than the national organization, and so I didn't have many negative experiences regarding beliefs about sexuality, but that doesn't mean those conversations didn't happen. My junior year our entire winter conference was about sex and sexuality and I very distinctly remember being so sad and torn apart about how they addressed homosexuality, etc (essentially forcing members of chapters to go against their feelings and ‘play straight’ or convince themselves they were straight) which is so harmful and backwards and just sad. As a Christian organization InterVarsity should be backing their preaching of love and acceptance by truly doing it; not by hiding their beliefs in contracts and forcing students to change through threats that God will not love them or they will not be allowed to participate in the organization. 

What happened to Nathan could have happened, and probably has happened, to thousands of students across the country, and I am very proud to be a Roanoke alum in light of the student body’s and administration’s actions against IV in this situation. Especially as an ELCA college Roanoke has the responsibility to make sure all organizations on campus are acting as the beliefs of both the church and the students dictate. 

We held our Applicants Orientation last Friday, Feb 6, 2015 for our second semester batch of applicants. Praise God for the many new faces, and the several members that attended and supported the applicants. We hope and pray that they continue with the app process with joy, as we journey with them through it.

Coleen was definitely happy to see so many faces at the Apps Orientation!

Say hi to one of our applicants, Paolo Quiero!

Seems Pao seems happy to attend! :)

Time for an icebreaker! With ice, literally!  By pairs, each person had to hold an ice cube in their hands while answering a question asked by their partner. Then they transfer the ice cube and ask their partner another question. 

To refresh the members, and help the apps get to know Esbi's Mission and Vision statements, Jem and Zeke prepared a game of pictionary/charades.

Anthony, with the help of the Steering Committee Team Heads showcased the "7 Point Pledge" to the applicants.

To get to know the different teams and what they do, we played a classic game like Pinoy Henyo.

Two others who joined the Apps Orientation, Aeron and Ian!

Happy president is happy. #Gideoncares

Another applicant, Jenah, and an awesome SV (LB) friend, Kuya David!

for more pictures, check out our FB page!  or click this link!

Today I'm here to tell you about something that seems easy and harmless that you've probably done many times in your life but is actually pretty terrifying once you have to do it for yourself.

You've helped your mom find all the items on your family's long lists. You've gone in with friends to get a bag a few snacks and sodas. you've gone by yourself that one time when the house ran out of milk. But never have you ever had to do it ALL by yourself! Yes, that's right, I'm talking about grocery shopping!

We had a few days in the apartment before the fridge got there and as soon as it arrived we were eager to fill the kitchen with some food.

Alexis and I did the honors of making the first trip to the grocery store to stock the fridge. Once in the store and armed with a cart and some cash, we realized how terrifying the situation was.

For the first time in our lives we were given the money to buy whatever we wanted to. There wouldn't be any parents to make sure we ate right or a dining hall staff to limit what we could eat. For the first time we had to make the responsible decision to eat right and not spend all of our money in the process. 

Luckily our parents raised us with good values and we filled our cart with healthy choices. But shopping responsibly wasn't our only problem. We realized that we literally had to start from scratch with our kitchen. 

We had no spices, no condiments, no anything! We couldn't just make spaghetti (which was our first meal), we had to buy the oil to cook the meat, the spices to season the meat, and the hot sauce to put on it afterwards (don't judge me; everything is better with hot sauce).

After all of the shopping and struggling to make the right choices we had to deal with the terror at the register. Normally we just fill the carts and our parents pay for everything. We didn't even think to keep track of how much stuff we were buying.

It seemed like the longest check out process ever as we held our breath, hoping that the total would come out to be less than the $80 we were both carrying. 

Of course it all worked out in the end and we enjoyed our first meal in our apartment while having a Psych marathon. Because Psych is awesome.

I don't think I've said anything about this on my tumblr yet, but throughout this summer break I've been in the process of getting a new ministry started on my campus. I've been involved with InterVarsity in the past, but it's never existed at MTSU before. I didn't think it was really possible until a few months ago, when I was contacted by InterVarsity's Acting Tennessee Director, Eric Peterson. He asked if I would be willing to help get a chapter started on campus, to which I responded with a very reluctant "yes." Why reluctant? Because this Fall will be my last semester at MTSU and I already know it's going to be the most stressful semester of my undergrad. I have my internship at World Relief three days a week, and then classes the other two days of the week, not to mention the fact that I'm already the co-president of another, really active club on campus.

But then God started to make things happen.

Another InterVarsity staff member started encouraging the chapter planting. And then out of nowhere, this girl e-mailed them about the possibility of starting a chapter at MTSU. But the most incredible part is that she's never even experienced InterVarsity for herself. She's just heard wonderful things about it from one of her close friends. AND SHE DOESN'T EVEN ATTEND MTSU YET! She's transferring (moving next week, actually) from Liberty Universtiy. This may not sound ridiculous to you, but it absolutely blows my mind. And her bravery! The fact that she didn't wait to be approached by InterVarsity, but she pursued it on her own. Man, that just...that really humbles me. Here I am, established on campus, I know what I'm doing, I've run an InterVarsity group before, I've led small groups before, but I'm too shy/lazy to get anything going. And then wonderful Kelsey Lane comes along and she's just ready to get things started! I love it. I really do.

And then, what I thought might be the hardest part of becoming an organization on campus - finding a faculty advisor - was a breeze. The second person I asked was willing to do the job. And she's actually a professor of mine who is an incredible woman. I thought it would be tough to convince a faculty member to be willing to help us, but she practically accepted the position right after I asked her about it. It was remarkable!

I thought it would be difficult/expensive to get a chapter started. I guess in reality you don't really NEED much (as far as materials go) besides your Bible and a place to meet in order to get a ministry going, but there are material things that help. T-shirts help. A banner helps. Free things to give away at Student Organization Fairs help. DUDE. College kids LOVE free stuff. But that doesn't mean it's free for us. But apparently, IV staff are given some money to spend on the various chapters that they're over. Eric isn't even officially our staff, but he's helping us. He just placed an order for us to get some shirts, pens, fliers, cups, and posters and in total it was $189.00!!! I don't know about you, but that's a LOT of money to me. That doesn't even include how much our banner will be! But when I saw the copy of the order and the price I just wanted to break down in tears because I'm so thankful that there is money built into the InterVarsity budget for that. We would NOT be able to afford all of those things without Eric having access to those monetary funds. I can't even put into words how much I am thankful for all of this.

So we're currently in the process of becoming an official student organization on campus. I have to make some edits to the constitution and then submit that along with our provisional club form that will temporarily allow us to use rooms and supplies on campus. I'm hoping we'll have everything ready to go and be able to get a table and chairs for the Student Organization Fair (which will be the second week of the semester).

God has already done some amazing things. I'm reading through Acts right now and it encourages me so much. Just seeing the missional attitudes of everyone and how the Holy Spirit really guides the process. I've underlined and made so many notes.

Please be in prayer for this group. In my research on what's already available at MTSU, I found that there are already 23 ministries on campus. 23! That blew my mind! But I've only seen maybe 5 of them in my 2.5 years or so that I've been there. You may be wondering something like "well, why don't you just join one of the other groups on campus?" My personal response is that I've seen what InterVarsity can do before. It played a CRUCIAL role in my ability to keep my faith while in college at my first school. Honestly, I probably would have strayed from God if InterVarsity hadn't been there. Some of my closest friends on earth are people that I've met through IV and they remain my closest friends even though we live in different states now. I also believe that IV has the ability to reach a portion of the campus that has been previously overlooked and/or forgotten by other Christian groups on campus. I have yet to discover what portion of the campus that might be, but I know God wants to redeem and restore MTSU so I believe He'll use us to make that happen. Please pray that God would show us where to go. Pray that God would prepare Kelsey and I as we embark on this journey of reaching the campus. Pray that God would bless Eric and Scott, our unofficial, but officially awesome staff leaders. Pray that God would begin to stir the hearts of those who we'll meet on campus. Pray that God would open doors for us and that we would approach the mission with bravery and humility. Pray that we would be obedient to the Holy Spirit.

If you would like to keep up with us and how things are progressing, we have a Facebook page that you can "like" if you want: https://www.facebook.com/InterVarsityatMTSU

Christians are like glow sticks: in order to shine they must be broken.

This is a photo of glow-sticks and each represents 1 person who has given his/her life to Christ in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Each vase represents a year.

1st vase from 2006, 2nd from 2007, 3rd from 2008, 4th from 2009, 5th from 2010 and 6th from 2011.