Introducing... The New Executive!!

From January 10-12, Barron, myself, and six students went to Galiano Island to receive vision and plan for this upcoming semester.  This is the first time since Barron and my arrival to SFU that we had an Executive Leadership Team.  This team holds the overall vision for the ministry, does the administrative work (planning events, etc.), is in charge of our core leaders team (training and passing of vision), and focuses on continued relations between IVCF and SFU.

Back Row:  Abraham, Justin
Middle Row:  Edward, Anika, Lida
Front Row:  Barron, Esther, Catherine

Introducing our Executive (In alphabetical order):
Abraham - Teaching & Small Groups Development
Anika - Spiritual Development, Pastoral Care, Minute Taker
Catherine - University Relations/Support & Partnership Development, Developing Emerging Leaders
Edward - Logistics, Outreach Development, Grant Requests
Esther - Generosity Development
Lida - President, leader of Executive Team.

During our time in Galiano, as part of our visioning process, we studied the life of Moses.  The idea of a man who was straddling the gap of so many identities and also one who was most unlikely to be a leader, God called him to lead what was the most glorious points in Israel history in the Old Testament.  We were amazed and shocked at this and we saw that Moses was also a man of incredible vision.  Our team took hold of this and after studying this, we felt far more empowered to go into our planning process and assignments knowing that God has chosen each and everyone of us to lead.

Praying after studying Exodus

The planning process in itself exhausting and tiring, but out of it came life and a leadership structure of what we can expect from each other and the hopes and dreams for the campus.  Specifically, a vision around our Clubs Days and New Student Outreach.  Clubs Days/New Student Outreach is primarily a place where we advertise our club and hopefully recruit and invite more students to be a part of IVCF.  We spent about an hour going back and fourth trying to determine what was going to be the "hook" for SFU students to come be with IVCF but we couldn't land in it.  It was then that Lida spoke up and invited the team to stop, listen, and pray.  After a few minutes of this we came back and in that short period of silence, we all felt the Holy Spirit say that the hook was "Us".  The hook was for us to be present there and for our fellow students to see what type of community we are.

The result of this prayer and planning?

Welcome Back Event

35 people crammed in mine and April's basement suite.  Both returning SFU students (~25) and brand new students (~10).  The biggest difference is that we had students leveraging their invitation power and inviting their own peers.

Emerging Leaders "Small" Group

Another new development is our Emerging Leaders "Small" Group (formerly Core Leaders Group).  This group we have decided to open it up to students who want to take their leadership to the next level.  Over this past semester we only had about 7 students coming out, this semester we have around 15.

This indeed has only the start of the new semester, but from the looks of it.  It's a VERY GOOD start =).