InterVarsity @ SDSU

The Last Four Years

Kristina and I have been on campus for the last four years, so that is the history that we can best give. When we came to campus four years ago, InterVarsity at SDSU was in the midst of a re-launch as staff prior to us had to pretty much

start over. Therefore, when we got to campus in the fall of 2005, there were about 30 students involved in the ministry and 8 studetns who wanted to be on the leadership team. We would carachterize the ministry as not very evangelistic and pretty inward. It was a hard situation to come into.

But in the last four years, God has taken an inward ministry of 30 to an outward pressing ministry of 182. We know numbers are not everything, but God longs to see people know him and follow him deeper into his mission. Keep reading to see more detail about how this ministry has transformed the last four years.

Dorm Ministry

Beau came to campus to reach the freshmen in the Dorms. In the fall of 2005 there were zero Bible studies meeting in the dorms, and actually one staff said, “it is too hard to reach them. No one wants to come.” Other excuses were that the dorms were too locked down, and because it takes so many swipes of the card (6) to get onto some floors from the front door, there is just way too much hassle. Because of this, no InterVarsity presence existed where freshmen lived.

This bothered Beau deeply and he believed God wanted to reach the freshmen right where they lived. He believed that if a conversation could get started right on the dorm floor, students would show up. He was compelled, so he went alon his whole first year of staff trying to break into the “unpenatrable” area. Because no students in the ministry would go with him, he started building

friendships and partnerships with students that were on the fringe or not involved at all with InterVarsity. That first semester Beau was able to make a friend in one of the dorms who let him up to start Bible studies on Tuesday night. As the Holy Spirit continued to lead Beau and open doors for him (literally), conversation just started popping up everywhere. Soon enough a Bible study of anywhere from 5-20 was happening weekly. Out of this group God gave Beau three leaders for next years firt dorm team, and two men came to faith!

Over the next three years (2006-2009) God has grown the dorm ministry to amazing places. We are happy to report that after three years of constantly pursuing the dorms, InterVarsity has a Bible study in every one (6)! We now have a team of 10 leaders who know God’s vision of reaching the dorms, and this ministry plays a vital role in what we do.

The Vision is Born

After watching the dorm ministry take, and finding more corouge from the Lord to witness, the InterVarsity staff team kept dreaming and dreaming about the unique vision God had for them at San Diego State. One day at Divisional meetings, Beau, Chizu and Danny came up with the current vision and purpose for InterVarsity on campus at San Diego State.

Vision: Students and Faculty Transformed, The Campus Renewed, World Changers Developed.

Purpose: Press into every campus culuture, Gather skeptics to world changers, Celebrate God and life.

As they allowed this vision and purpose to sink deeper and deeper into the ministry, Beau actually had a vivid dream of the Lord showing him how this worked. In the dream, Jesus was walking Beau through the Luke 15 passage of the shepherd leaving the 99 for the l lost sheep. As they were walking together through the pasture, Jesus was saying to Beau, “You press after the sheep, gather it up, and take it home to celebrate“. Jesus was giving Beau and the ministry the scripture that was to shape the ministry for the future. The Lord was saying to him and had been saying to the team in other prayer times, “leave the 99 for the 1″. Go after the lost, leave your comfort, rescue those who wish to be found, but are helpless. In that same dream, the Lord gave Beau an image of a ball in the center with many spokes jetting out of it. As he processed the dream with his team and continued to wait on the Lord for direction, this is the diagram that was born that now shapes the ministry:

The Diagram

As you can see from the diagram, there is a clear center section and an outward flowing section. The center section, containing (Fuel, Leadership, Prayer and Worship) are meant to be things that heat us up, or help us to grow stronger in Christ, so we can go out and witness to the outer parts of campus. Fuel is our weekly large group where we have music, fellowship and teaching. Leadership is our team of student leaders who are being trained how to witness to their friends. Prayer and Worship is a monthly “prayer and worship” night where we get together for 2+ hours just to be in God’s presence and to hear from Him. All the outer spokes are the communities on campus that student leaders are following Jesus into inorder to share His love. Our hope is that both the “outer spokes” of witness will meet the “inner circle” of worship and that is where we will find community on campus. We neither want community defined by “in here” or “out there”, but right in the middle.

Ethnic Specific Ministry

One area that God has blessed us in is ethnic diversity. Our organization on campus is not perfect, nor diverse enough, but we definitely are the more diverse club on campus. Just this last year our group was 45% white, 30% Asian American, and 20% Latino, with 5% other. We definitely desire to grow in our diversity, especially with African Americans, but God is doing a work here.

Because of this, we feel God has called us to reach ethnic specific clubs on campus. San Diego State is one of the more diverse campuses in California, and this leads the campus into having manydifferent homogenious clubs. There is a club for almost every kind of ethnicity you can think of on campus. As much as we believe ethnicity is a gift from God and he has given us these differences to reflect Him more, we also believe his will is to see a communityof people who worship Him and follow Him together. We believe God is a reconciller and wants to see renewal in this area of seperation. Because of this we have a whole team (Campus Team) that is dedicated to getting involved with specific ethnic clubs on campus so that they can help these students know Jesus cares about them and their culture; that Jesus is the one who created them and he has something to say about their life. Many of these students wont come to InterVarsity, let alone a church. Some of them believe Christianity is a white man’s religion. If we dont have people that are their culture meeting them on their turf, we will never reach them. This year we have a team of 8 students pressing out in this unique way.

Greek Ministry

This has been one of the most exciting ministries to watch explode onto the scene. This has also been the place that both Beau and Kristina have been able to work together most closely. Just two years ago (2007), Greek ministry did not exist on San Diego States campus. For two years prior to 2008 we had been trying to get Greeks to sit down with us and hear the vision God had put on Kristina’s heart to see the system reached. Year after year we leave empty handed with no one willing to lead with us. We were crying out to the Lord to give us any fraternity or sorority student who would take a risk and step out with their faith.

In the Spring of 2007, a 19 year old woman in a sorority died of an overdose. Both Beau and Kristina were at the memorial held on campus and it was one of the most depressing things to watch. No mention of God, no hope. It was at that time, Kristina heard God speak to here, “what ever it takes.” Kristina felt in her heart, “I’m in!” and she felt like her fire to reach the system was stoked in the midst of this dark situation. We both felt that someone had to reach this place.

The very next year we were given a $20,000 gift by a generous donor to take students to Greek Conference and give them vision for ministry in the system. Miraculously the Lord called 17 students to go with us and it was out of this conference and that group that five students caught vision and started a launch team with us.We continued to meet the rest of the spring and plan what it would look like to create space just for Greeks to explore faith in the system.

April 23, 2008

This is the day we launched our first Greek IV. This is the day the Lord with His mighty hand broke into the greek system and set forth a movement of renewal. That night, April 23, is the night 62 fraternity and sorority students showed up at the first Greek IV. We held our meeting inside the living room of the Gamma Phi Beta house. Kristina and Beau were shocked and brought to tears at how God did this. To this day that can believe the first meeting of a start up ministry had 62 students coming to study the Bible. Just four months before there were none!

By no coincidence, the following week was the biggest drug bust in American College history. Police raided campus and fraternity houses while they filled a bus full of drug dealers they had been monitoring for a year. This “sting” by the DEA started a year previous out of the death of the 19 year old woman who died of the overdose. Kristian and Beau believe that God spoke to them, “what ever it takes” while the Lord spoke to the DEA “purge the system of drug dealers”. It is no coincidence in their minds that God set in motion both a spiritual and physical renewal in the same year.

Currently Greek IV has a team of 18 leaders and is reaching into 14 different houses on campus. InterVarsity continues to be the only ministry that is actively witnessing in the Greek system at SDSU.

Ministry Now

Here is a graph that shows how our ministry has grown in the last four years.

For More information on InterVarsity @ SDSU check out our website:

www.sdsuintervarsity.org