Photo courtesy of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.
USA (MNN) — InterVarsity Christian Fellowship recently announced James Choung, author of “True Story” and “Real Life,” as their new Evangelism Director.
Choung was involved with InterVarsity as a student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Now he’s coordinating their evangelism outreach on campuses across the United States.
“It’s been in my heart for a long time, wanting to share the Good News with people who don’t know Jesus. It’s the very thing that got me excited about campus ministry in the first place back when I was a wayward college student coming back to faith and seeing how God moved in my fraternity house. [I] really felt that this was something I was called to do,” says Choung.
He previously served with InterVarsity as Divisional Director and then later as National Director of Asian American Ministry. Choung also helped plant a multi-ethnic, urban church called Cambridge Community Fellowship Church and along the way become the pastor.
Choung’s ministry model at InterVarsity is based on four circles. He explains, “Each of them has a title on top. The first circle is ‘designed for good’ and the second circle is ‘damaged by evil.’ The third circle is ‘restored for better’ and the fourth circle is ‘sent together to heal,’ and it really is creation, fall, redemption, mission.”
This ministry model is a little different from the traditional way of approaching outreach, says Choung. “We usually start in the second circle where we start telling people how wrong they are, we need to convince them how bad they are before we can share how good the news we have to bring is for them. And it becomes a bit of a disconnect because that feels like a very hard door to walk through. People get defensive…. What’s at stake is the image of God, because when we start there people feel a God who’s judgmental.”
An emphasis on humanity’s depravity and need for God comes in the second circle. Choung explains why ‘designed for good’ is the start of his ministry model. “We start at the first circle, and when we start there then God becomes a God who actually wants the best for us and loves us and wants it all to be something according to the way He actually designed it for us. But we’re the ones who messed it up.”
The vision is one of cultivating passion for Christ. “We hope that by helping new believers get a bigger picture of the Gospel that we’re actually setting them up for a life not just to wait to die, but to know how to live in His Kingdom now,” says Choung.
There’s an opportunity for churches and groups to partner with InterVarsity’s ministry. Click here to learn about volunteering.
Choung asks for prayer “for strength and courage and wisdom to know how to set things up in order to help us be in a place where we’re not in the way of what God wants to do.”
