God has answered our prayers at ISU by bringing together a new leadership team and a new core group of leaders to replace those that will be graduating, moving into new phases of life (i.e. marriage), or who have chosen to invest themselves elsewhere.  At the start of the semester, three of our core leaders began discipling 11 freshmen and sophomore students and four of those students have felt the push towards becoming core members in the ministry.  A current junior has felt the call as well and these 3 guys and two ladies have begun to take over leadership of the ministry.  It's been a very long time since a full leadership team has been present for two straight years at ISU and it wreaks of the power of God that the entire leadership team has been overhauled!  Praise God for this work he has done in our chapter!

 

Conferences have been a strong suite for the ISU Chapter in my four years with InterVarsity and this year's Chapter Focus Week appears to be yet another with the fingerprints of God.  Though we're still actively...uh..."pressuing" students to attend, I fully anticipate that God will send upwards of 10 or 12 students to CFW this year.  We have the potential to take the most students to CFW from ISU in at least 5 years and we need your prayers that God will move in the hearts of students who are on the edge.  I think it's possible for us to take at least 12 or 13 students, two of which are not committed followers of Christ!

 

We have much potential for growth as individuals and as a body at ISU but God is doing a great work within us.  Pray for this new leadership as they take over in day to day leadership and pray that they will be convicted to be strong men and women of intergrity and character as they seek to lead those in our chapter to the cross of Christ.  It has been a pleasure to serve as chapter president for the last two years...to God be all the glory for what he has done.  I am more excited about this new group of young leaders than perhaps anything else that God has used me for in my four years on ministry in InterVarsity.  I can't wait to see what God does through them and the future small group leaders at Indiana State!

 

Andrew McCarty

As I mentioned in our last post, this semester has been one of serious transition for our chapter.  It's an odd place to be in because our core leaders are preparing to exit due to graduation or marriage yet we want to remain in a place where we can really impact our campus and build a new set of leaders.  It has truly been an exciting semester of discipleship though, and thus far, God has really been blessing the work that we've done.  Our core leadership team has gone through something of a transition but really provided up with the time we need to plan and the grace to make our sometimes less than stellar plans work for him.  We have been reminded that it is God who brings the harvest and it is God who is in control of the ministry...no matter how much time and energy we put into planning.

 

The biggest fruit we've seen of our efforts so far this semester has been the launching of 3 discpleship groups with our brightest future leaders.  11 freshman and sophomores have answered the call to be invested in over the last 6 weeks of school and they are praying through two major questions:  "what is God calling you to as a leader" and "how does God want to use you in Intervarsity next year?"  Pray for these 11 students and they seek the calling of God in their lives.  We have set a goal to have a new set of core leaders and small group leaders by the time we come back to campus from Spring Break.  This means we have two more weeks of school and two more discipleship group meeting.  We have 3 leaders and 11 disciples so getting 14 people together for a single vision casting meeting is not easy task.  Please pray for God's grace in this as we seek to get us all in the same room to cast vision for God's mission for ISU's campus.

 

So far, I have been very encouraged as we've talked about Chapter Focus Week in May.  On May 8th, we'll take a group of leaders straight from the end of the semester and into CFW.  For some, this is a big committment as they won't get to debrief from the semester and some students go straight from a final on Friday to CFW on Saturday.  Some of our key future leaders who are in these discipleship groups have already answered the call by committing to attend CFW and I think God may send 15 or 20 ISU students north this year!  This would be a monstrous step for our ministry as we continue to grow and see more students answer the call of being involved.  Pray that the hearts and minds of these students would be made ready to answer the call to attend and invest a week in themselves as leaders at CFW.

 

Andrew McCarty

I've shared this story many times when talking about my ministry with Intervarsity but God has been so good through it that it's worth sharing again.  When I first attended Intervarsity three and a half years ago, I took my friend Peter Struck with me and we totaled about 6 people in Dede 3 for Large Group that night.  All year long, are group was relatively stagnant at about 10 or 12 people and the only new people who are still core people today were Pete and myself.  At the encouragement of Paul Bertsch, I began leading a weekly Bible study for the bulk of the second semester of my freshman year and I have continued to lead a weekly study to this day.  My sophomore year was spent mostly observing how two senior leaders planned LG as well as casting the vision for small groups through the platform of my own SG.  My junior year saw the beginnings of a real leadership team as my fiance (Steph) and good friend (Andrew) met regularly to plan outreach, large groups, and small groups.  Those two years saw tremendous growth in the average attendance at large group and we continued to see an increased interest in SG ministry.

 

As I think about the last three years, it truly is amazing to look at the ministry the God himself has grown and developed here at Indiana State.  To him alone be all the glory for what as come and only through Him will growth happen and fishers of men be developed.  The IV climate at ISU is so much different today that it really is pretty staggering for me to step back and think about.  Our large groups average around 45 or 50 people most night and we have had at least 5 LGs with over 50 people...3 over 60!  What a blessing it has been to experience ANY Intervarsity meeting that had 10 times as many people as when I first began attending IV!  ISU has gone from one Bible study my freshman year to seven this year...most of which truly are healthy and impactful to those involved.  We offered GIG (Groups Investigating God) training a little over a month ago and 10 IV members not on leadership team showed up for training!  Two sisters launched a GIG out of that training with 3 friends of different ethnicities than their own and they have just wrapped up a GIG that shook the foundations of the beliefs these friends had.  About 3 weeks ago, we offered a SG leader call out meeting and we saw 18 people come!  18 people interested in at least thinking about leading a SG...that's three times as many SG leaders as were in the entire ministry at my first LG!  God is good...all the time He is good.

 

The good news is that God is moving at ISU and He is consistently having an impact in the lives of students on this campus.  The news that must be followed with consistent prayer is that new leaders must be developed!  For the first time in 5 or 6 years, ISU IV has a true leadership team of five students (president, LG coordinator, SG coordinator, Outreach, and Evangelism) but all 5 of us will be stepping out of leadership next year for various reasons.  To some extent, we will all have a hand in the ministry next year but not in the same capacity as we do this year.  In the same fashion, four of our eight small groups leaders will have a potentially diminished role or will be stepping out of that ministry as well.  Our leadership team has helped to grow a solid ministry at ISU but the time is quickly coming where the torch will need to be passed.  We are beginning to make invitations to future leaders into discipleship groups and leadership development so we are in need of prayer that these groups will be successful in casting the vision for Christian leadership through the ministry of Intervarsity.  God has brought us a great flock of core members and young leaders and we must be faithful to develop them now.  In addition, we are planning to begin a "wave model" of LGs that will lead us away from more traditional LGs but will give us the opportunity to really invest more deeply in the Christian growth and indoctrination of our core.  As we are in a time of need for leadership development, pray that these ideas will reap a harvest as we seek to invest in our younger brothers and sisters in Christ.

 

Andrew McCarty