Jessica* joins the family!

"Can you tell me more about Expedition? I'd like to go."

That was one of the many questions Jessica* asked me during our conversation when we first met earlier this semester.  It took a little while for her to make a decision about going after I told her about the InterVarsity Fall Conference, but I was excited to see later on in the following weeks on Facebook that after her Small Group leader asked if she had registered yet, she wrote, "I'm registering right now!"

We were both in the same track called 'Gearing Up,' except I was a small group leader and she was in a different group.  The students in our track listened to speakers who taught us about Lordship and quiet times and being in a relationship with God.  We studied passages together like Luke 15 about how far away we can be from God and how he welcomes us with open arms; or like Luke 5 that challenged us to think about what risks we needed to take and what was holding us back from leaving behind the things we knew in order to follow Jesus; and even Luke 7 that gave new light to what faith in Jesus looked like.

I sat with Jessica during brunch yesterday (the last day of Expedition!) and without any prompting she said, "Tammy, I have to tell you something."  I had no idea what she was going to say, so I kept pressing and after worrying about how she was going to word this, she asked, "Would you be interested in discipling me?"

My eyes must have popped out of my head.  "Well..." I said.  "Does this mean you're a Christian?  Because I can't help guide you in your life of following Jesus if you aren't following Jesus."

She looked at her small group leader, Nathan, who sat on the other side of me.  "We were going to pray together some time today."

"Well," she said, "I didn't know how or what to pray."

So I explained to her the basics of what it meant to follow Jesus and accept Him as your Lord and Savior, while making a couple of connections to the Lordship talk we had heard earlier during the weekend, things like how whenever people encountered the holy and mighty God they didn't get warm and fuzzy feelings but instead fell to the ground in recognizing their sinfulness.  And since she still didn't know what to pray but wanted to, Nathan led us in prayer and Jessica repeated him.

So we prayed together.  And then we cheered and whooped so loud that half the 350 Expedition attendees in the dining room at Expedition cheered and whooped with us.

And even though she was completely nervous and didn't know what to say or how to say it, she was willing to stand before her new brothers and sisters in Christ from the Binghamton chapter and tell them in a simple few sentences how she came to make her decision to follow Christ and allow Him to be the Lord of her life.

It was a beautiful privilege I had to take part in what God was doing.

*Not her real name

I'm fully supported for the year!

Why I love InterVarsity Conferences

As I grew up going to church, I enjoyed attending and hearing about retreats and conferences, but as time went on my trust in them to serve the purpose I hoped wore down.

I enjoyed the concept of retreats.  I've been a good share of church retreats, ski trips, youth retreats, and so on, and I liked how I had a chance to really get to know the people I saw each Sunday on a deeper level.  Being away from the church building and the usual routine of things brought people together to really get to the nitty gritty of learning something together.  And they were all usually fun and created great memories, and who doesn't want those?

The other part I liked about the concept of retreats was when I got to witness walls being broken down.  Sometimes it would be in one or two people where they would recognize their brokenness so deeply that they would make hard decisions or commitments or experience an intense emotional response that I had never imagined would have happened before.

Or I'd witness people bond with others outside of their usual circle of peers, or the process of reconciliation between a few people would commence.

But my trust wore down because retreats would be temporary, and the experiences within them were temporary as well.  I'd be disappointed to find the people would fall back into their usual social and spiritual places of comfort, and over time everything experienced at those retreats would become a faded memory that I'd question if they really happened at all.  It would get harder and harder to remind people to hold on to what we once had.  I began to associate retreats with a sense that they were spiritual highs on a mountaintop that should be taken with a grain of salt.

For me, joining InterVarsity challenged me to change the way I saw retreats and conferences.  In my opinion, InterVarsity conferences:

1) Challenge students to take what they've learned and live it out.  I remember at my first Basileia, our summer conference, Greg Jao saying, "If we stayed here, continuing what we've been doing, then we have failed."  InterVarsity sends out their conference attendees, not shelter them in.

2) Help students recognize the reality that their own chapter wasn't the only group of people seeking after the same vision.  Being at a conference provides a visual representation of the bigger picture of what it means to build God's kingdom on campus.

3) Become markers for personal and fellowship growth, not just mere faded memories. Of course, you can't force students to change or apply what they've learned, but they're properly equipped, so they have the tools to do something with them.

4) A chance to have fun and build deeper relationships.  I've seen how key conversations or experiences with different people come about,

Expedition is InterVarsity's Fall Leadership Conference for the Upstate NY/NJ Region.  It's coming up this weekend from Oct. 21st to Oct. 23rd.  I'm really excited about it for three main reasons:

1) Binghamton's chapter went from 4 people registered to 56 people literally overnight.  That's about half of our chapter attending this conference!

2) Binghamton's chapter is in a place of "throbbing discontentment."  We are not satisfied with where we are and want to be agents of change.  Ever since the beginning of the semester there has been something different about this group.  I want to see how Expedition will propel us forward and into prayerful action.

3) It'll be a marking point in my journey as a staff worker.  I've been working and learning about the dynamics of our NY/NJ staff team from separate experiences of working with students doing campus work.  This conference will mark how those two dynamics will come together.

I'm really excited!  I hope you'll join me in prayer as we expect God to do some pretty amazing things in the hearts of our chapter members and our NY/NJ region.

Jessica's* story continues

If you haven't been receiving my email updates, you may not have any idea of the story I'm about to continue.

In that case, bear with me a little bit as I'll try to catch you up briefly, but feel free to sign up for my emails on the tabs above so you won't be left out of the loop!

So if you remember Jessica's story, she is the freshman non-Christian that started coming to our InterVarsity Friday night meetings (Large Group) and one of the weekly dorm-based community Bible study groups (Small Group) this year.  We met at one of the Large Group events but had a chance to talk while we were waiting for the church bus together one Sunday.

It was so encouraging to see how curious she was about getting involved in InterVarsity and what it meant to live a Christian life.  She asked me about church service, told me how much she enjoyed the Large Group and Small Group meetings, and asked me for more information about our upcoming Fall InterVarsity conference, just for starters.  It had been a long time since I'd encountered anyone who would ask me so many of those kinds of questions.

Jessica isn't the only one - I've been hearing stories from others and meeting other non-Christian students who have been hanging out with us and coming to our meetings because they have questions and comments that are similar to Jessica's.  It's exciting to see how God has been bringing them to us, and so if you haven't already started, please join me in praying for Jessica and the other non-Christians students as they learn more about Jesus and are challenged to step out in faith.

Here's where Jessica's story continues:

I told my older sister Pam, who's back in NYC about my encounter with Jessica, and she suggested that Jessica come to her church plant fellowship meeting on the Saturday of their Rosh Hashanah break a couple of weeks ago.  I told her I wasn't sure what Jessica would do, but I'd bring the idea up to her.  I quickly emailed Jessica and gave her Pam's contact info, not sure what to expect.

But Jessica emailed me back later to say that she had contacted Pam and that they were going to meet up to go to the fellowship together!  Gratitude filled my heart because Jessica had only just met me and Pam was a complete stranger to her, but she was willing and eager to go seek the Lord in an unfamiliar place.

Jessica returned to campus telling me she had a positive experience, so I'm excited to see how God will continue to work in her life.  Please continue praying for Jessica as she walks on this journey in discovering who Jesus is and what it means to follow Him.  Pray that as the Lord reveals some difficult decisions she may need to make that He would provide the courage she needs to take steps towards Him.

*Not her real name