More Transfers Than Ever

Coming into this school year I was excited about reaching out to transfer students.  Transfers can have a hard time getting plugged into campus life and InterVarsity, so I felt led to try something new by creating a small group aimed at transfers.  After one of the leaders stepped off leadership during the summer, we were down to just one leader for the small group, Mallory.  I committed to helping her lead the group and coach her until we could raise up a new leader.  When school started, we went around, met many transfers and invited them.  At our first gathering over 20 people showed up!  This was awesome, but was going to be too big to meet weekly in a dorm.  So we shared a vision and challenged the group by saying, "We are excited that there are so many of you here, and since there are so many of you, our hope is that in the next couple weeks that we would be able to multiply into two groups, and that some of you would step up to help lead it."

Me, Kelsey, Mallory, Nick

Within a week, Kelsey (a returning transfer) and Nick (new transfer) expressed interest in helping lead.  So, by the third week of school, we had two transfer small groups, with Nick/Mallory leading one and Kelsey and I leading the other.  To be honest, coming into the year, I was hopeful but not certain of how having a transfer small group would go, but more transfers were interested than I imagined, and new leaders are being developed within the group!

God Provides!

In my last update I shared about "Audacious Goals" that we had coming into the semester, and for the first two months of this semester we feel as though God has been providing an abundance.

At the beginning of last school year we met around 200 students who filled out interests cards, so this year, we set an audacious goal of meeting 400 students in the first two weeks.  Well, we not only surpassed 200, we met about 400 in the first week!  The student leaders stepped out in boldness to be a witness on campus.

This influx has led to growth in the rest of the ministry.  Specifically...

- Small Groups: We started the school year with 12 and wanted to grow to 18.  We already have 17.

- Fall Camping Trip:  Last year we had 44 students go, this year 69 went.

- Large Group: Last year's first gathering had 87 people, this year 164.

Campus Access Update

This is an update on the campus access issue, from my colleague Bethany,  "Currently, our fellowship has been granted affiliation through school administration.  This means that we can continue serving and functioning on campus as normal.  We are grateful, humbled, and appreciative of the favor we have found with campus administration.  However, the CSU Chancellor has yet to give any exception to religious organizations on the order.  Therefore at any time we could lose our affiliated status because we are not in compliance with the order.  While the conversation continues between IVCF and the Chancellor, SSU administration has said that we can continue as a campus club.  Pray that the conversation will continue to remain open until a resolution comes about in our favor."  Our fellowship is very fortunate, so please keep praying for the issue and for all the other CSU fellowships that have been derecognized (Chico, Sac, Fresno, etc.)

Audacious Goals

In my last update, I shared that we had "unprecedented growth" last semester.  We are praying, hoping and planning for the same thing to happen this school year.  While we know that numbers aren't everything, they also help us set goals, and each "number" is a person that God cares deeply about.  Our staff and student leadership team has set some audacious goals, that will only be met with God's help.  Would you be praying for the following goals for this school year!

Overall students involved:

- To grow from 149 to 200

Number of Small Groups:

- To grow from 12 to 18

Students Coming to Faith:

- At least 15 new believers

Unprecedented Growth!

Our chapter applied and was selected to take part in an exclusive Chapter Building program put on by IV national.  The program runs for 18 months, gives us a growth coach who gives us feedback, advice, challenges and coaching.  He has a lot of experience in helping chapters grow across the country and is giving us a lot of good coaching. (One of our fun diagrams is above)

Since starting the program this semester, we've experienced unprecedented growth.  Normally in the Spring semester we see the amount of students involved slowly dwindle until the school year ends.  This regression is normally due to older students focusing on graduation, people getting jobs and people just losing time and energy as the school year wraps up.  Across the board we've seen growth overall in our small groups and at Large Group.  This is unprecedented because I cannot recall a time in my 11 years at SSU, as a student or staff, that this has happened.

We've also seen six people come to faith this semester! One transfer student, Stacey, quickly stood up when I gave a call to faith at the end of one of our Large Group meetings.  She said that she had known that God was real, but finally wanted to make the step of giving her life over to Him.  And after hearing about God's love through the Prodigal Son story, she was ready to make that decision.  Since making that decision, it has been a blessing to see her get more involved in the fellowship; she has been growing through her small group community and by connecting with some of the student leaders in our fellowship.  Please thank God for and pray for Stacey.

CSU System Derecognizing InterVarsity Chapters

Some of you may have heard about how some schools in the California State School system are derecognizing their InterVarsity Chapters, including Sonoma State. It is an important and complex situation, so I wanted to keep you all in the loop.  My colleague Ryan White recently wrote this up summarizing the situation and I've added an update at the bottom of it.

"Some of you may remember a few years ago when a case called Christian Legal Society v. Martinez was before the US Supreme Court. In a 5-4 decision, the court decided that Hastings College of Law in San Francisco had the right to de-recognize CLS, an evangelical campus ministry, because the club had violated the school’s discrimination policy by requiring the club’s leaders to sign a written statement affirming Christian beliefs and committing to live by Christian principles. The Supreme Court did not find this to be an abrogation of the campus ministry’s First Amendment rights to religious freedom and the chapter was de-recognized and kicked off campus.

The California State University system is now feeling the implication of this decision. Prior to his retirement in May 2012, the outgoing CSU Chancellor Charles Reed signed Executive Order 1068, an order intended to ensure non-discrimination in membership and leadership requirements for all CSU campus clubs. Someone within the new chancellor’s office has chosen to strictly enforce EO1068 on all CSU campuses and has pushed a strict no-requirement policy for campus clubs. Since InterVarsity’s constitution requires that student leaders in a chapter “to indicate their agreement with InterVarsity’s Doctrine and Purpose Statements and exemplify Christ-like character, conduct and leadership” by signing a statement of faith, InterVarsity has been targeted in particular. (While this executive order affects all religious organizations on campus as of right now InterVarsity is alone in the crosshairs.)

At the beginning of this year, Fresno State’s InterVarsity chapter was targeted and de-recognized and as of last week InterVarsity groups at the Cal State East Bay, San Marcos, Chico, Long Beach, and Sonoma State were informed that we had two weeks (until March 8, 2013) to change our constitution or be de-affiliated as a sanctioned club on campus.

As a movement InterVarsity has decided to refuse to comply with the requested constitution change. There are several reasons we feel compelled to stand by our leadership requirements: 1) leadership requirements are required by Scripture and are consistent with 2,000 years of church teaching; 2) our leadership standards describe necessary skill requirements for our leaders to accomplish their tasks; students who cannot affirm our core beliefs are not able to lead our group; 3) many colleges, including the Ohio State system, Florida's state university system, UT-Austin, University of Minnesota, etc. explicitly permit religious groups to use religious criteria in leadership selection; 4) we desire to have diversity and tolerance on college campuses which would enable and make room for differing viewpoints and opinions.

So though we are risking de-affiliation, InterVarsity is appealing this reading of the non-discrimination rules and pushing for a religious exemption within EO1068 for all religious clubs and organizations on CSU campuses."

Update: Our fellowship's student president and our staff team leader met with a campus administrator right before our deadline.  The administrator was very gracious and positive towards our club and is going to keep IV recognized for at approximately the rest of this semester, while the appeal process continues to play out.  Also, the President of IV and others from the legal team have been working hard on connecting with the Cal State School system higher ups, as well as building partnerships with other college religious organizations that can stand with us.

What You Can Do:

- Right now the most important thing you can do is pray.  Pray for the Cal State School system leaders, pray for IV's President and legal team, and pray that our fellowship will grow even stronger during this mild persecution.

- In an effort to not make the situation more dramatic and polemic, please don't respond strongly to the State system, or with social media posts.  There may be a time and a place for that in the future, but right now IV's national leadership is trying to gracefully solve things before it needs to get taken to that next level.

- Let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns you have to me.

What Are You Thankful For?

The week before Thanksgiving, we had an outreach week on campus in which we asked the campus, "What Are You Thankful For?"  Over the duration of the outreach, we were able to ask hundreds of people this question, and then share with them how we are thankful for the things that God has done in our life. We would then ask people if they thought God had anything to do with what they were thankful for.  The most common responses were either "yes" or "I've never really thought about that before." Obviously every person is in a different place, but if people were open to talking more, we got to dialogue with them about God, invite them to a small group, and/or share the Good News with them.

The Family Grows...

On November 18th at 9:47am, Evan Daniel Johnston came into the world at a generous 9lbs 3oz and 22". The labor and delivery lasted for around nine hours and I was so proud of Erin, she even did it without an epidural.  I was blessed to have three weeks of paternity leave and vacation to be able to spend time with my family and take care of the baby.  But, as you can tell by me writing this, I am back at work.  Evan has been good to us so far, doesn't cry too much, hasn't gotten sick, and doesn't spit up often! Please keep us, especially Evan and Erin in your prayers.