United States (MNN) — Partnership is an emerging theme in missions and for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Earlier this fall, InterVarsity announced their 2030 Calling. It’s a vision to see every college campus in the United States have access to the Gospel by the year 2030. Partnership is a key ingredient for this vision.
InterVarsity’s R. York Moore explains, “InterVarsity is committed to partnership more than ever because we began to realize that there’s only so much that one organization can do. So, as the National Director for Catalytic Partnership, I have been guided by one question and that is, ‘What can we do together with others that we could never accomplish by ourselves?’”
(Photo courtesy of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship)
Moore says this one question brought InterVarsity together with other influential evangelical organizations like CRU who were asking the same thing. What could their ministries do better together? Their answer — spark a revival.
A Time of Partnerships
InterVarsity is in a golden age. Its employee base has doubled and the collegiate ministry is seeing more students than ever come to a faith in Christ.
Yet, Moore says the ministry isn’t satisfied. Despite the fruit the organization is seeing, InterVarsity hears God’s call on them to seek revival, and they are chasing after the Father’s voice.
“If you take every single collegiate ministry and every church network and every church denomination, there is still roughly 50 percent of American college campuses that have absolutely no Gospel witness.”
For Moore, partnership looks like sharing resources, data, budgets, and even raising money together. Partnership means sharing money too, and Moore sees these things happening with ministries right now.
“[It is] exciting because I’ve been in ministry for 23 years and I’ve never seen the appetite for risk and trust around partnership like I’m seeing today.”
By partnering with other organizations to reach the 2030 Calling, InterVarsity is engaged in an approximately seven-year commitment with CRU. In fact, there are many other collegiate ministries involved in reaching the calling too.
While partnership means sharing, it can also mean working towards the same goal from different angles. This includes discovering how to best deploy resources, assets, and people to places where other partners cannot reach.
“In 2019 at Urbana, we are going to launch ‘Every Campus’ officially. We’ll have an interactive prayer map, a website, there will be digital resources backed up with human resources, coaches for churches, denominations, [and] church networks,” Moore says.
“We don’t want this merely to be a para-church thing. We believe that if we’re going to get to every campus in the country, we’re going to have to rely heavily upon the local Church.”
Join the Movement
The local Church includes you. InterVarsity is asking tens of thousands of people to partner with them and commit to a year of prayer.
However, don’t just pray from the comfort of your home or car. Walk around local campuses, lay your hands on the walls of their buildings, and do a prayer walk. Be bold and meet faculty, staff, and peacemakers. Pray for them, too.
(Photo courtesy of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship via Facebook)
In 2020, InterVarsity wants to start planting a Gospel movement on every campus in the United States, which includes about 5,000 campuses.
Take the chance and partner with InterVarsity! You can commit to a year of praying for revival on college campuses. Open yourself up and see what God has planned for His Church when it acts as one unified Body.
Sign up for a prayer commitment here!
Do you know college students who are yearning for revival, too? Then help send them to Urbana 18.
Urbana is InterVarsity’s triennial student missions conference. It is held in St. Louis, Missouri from December 27-31. At Urbana, students will be challenged to decipher God’s call on their life and be mobilized for Christ.
Purchase tickets and learn more about Urbana here!
Header photo courtesy of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship — Greek InterVarsity.
