As Barron and I reflect along with the leadership team, we noticed that although it is good to have 5 small groups full of Christian students studying scripture, we realize that that might also be a bad thing. Past years, we have had the joy and privilege of studying scripture with a majority of students who aren't Christians. Skeptics, Out on Campus (GBLT Community), ones who left faith but are trying to find it again are a few of these people. In fact, the past few years, we have had a great deal of trouble recruiting Christian students! The things that we are concerned about is not having too many Christian students, but not going out and reaching the lost on our campus.
I find that we as North American Christians are not easily freed from this North American dream and pursuit of comfort. We go to church every Sunday, we go to fellowship once a week and maybe we're involved in a small group at church too. In many ways, we are more witnesses at church than we are outside. We are more lights within our churches than outside of our churches. This piece has always been weighing VERY heavily on my heart and often, I have very little tolerance for ones that are Sunday Christians. Now, God has been giving me a little bit of grace and mercy for these people, but only a little. This is my constant Holy Discomfort and it motivates me to challenge and empower my students and the people I am mentoring.
With that little rant, both Barron and I are starting to see ourselves and IVCF @ SFU be "comfortable" or are very quickly heading in that direction. The mindset that we often fall into as Christians and as a ministry is, "We have people studying scripture and that is good. So lets keep studying scripture." Although studying scripture is good, this is only half of what we should be doing. We should be going out into the SFU Campus and be building intentional relationships and loving our classmates and peers as Jesus loved. Scripture is used to shape and form that. If we were serious about sharing the gospel and being witnesses to our friends, the reality of our small groups would be VERY different. We SHOULD have at least 1/2 of our small groups with people who aren't Christians who are interested in studying scripture whether it is for seeking or just even education.
With this challenge, Barron and I are hoping to approach ones in our small groups who are grounded enough in their identity and faith to consider leading an Evangelistic Bible Study with their friends. The invitation to some of these students may be a high call because some of them have only been in our small groups for 3 weeks and also they probably have never done it before, but if we don't instill the value of constant invitation to our friends, classmates, and peers into the Kingdom of God early, it will not be a strong value in the future. Basically, we are going to shake things up. So please be praying for us as we continue to follow-up on these students to take charge and lead these small groups.
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