InterVarsity Southeast Regional Conference

Friends, I write to you from InterVarsity Regional Staff Conference. Annually, staff and volunteers and administration from across several states in the InterVarsity Southeast Region gather together to celebrate what God has done in the SE Region and to train and dream together about what God is going to still do. I am currently on day two of the conference, and my heart is swelling to the brink with thankfulness toward God. I mean I am overwhelmed with newness and curiosity and awe at how God has been working in staff worker's lives outside of the state of Georgia.

Will you pray for students in the Southeast Region?

I am also amazed how God has appeared to move in one gigantic sweep among the hearts and minds of not just our region, but our nation. This - TODAY - is an exciting time in the history of collegiate ministry. We are seeing more growth and more decisions to follow Jesus in the most recent 5-8 years than we have seen in several decades. God is on the move connecting us to unreached campuses, providing staff, students, and volunteers to plant new things there, and inviting students and faculty to make decisions to follow and move toward Jesus. Just in our area (Georgia) alone, we dream of seeing the amount of student chapters double in the next 5-10 years. That is just one step in our overall vision of wanting to see every corner of every campus reached. We may have impacted several thousands of students in our history here in Georgia, and we thank God - but we want to see more. We want to see more students cross from death to everlasting life. We want to see every corner of campus renewed - the systems and places of injustice addressed, the places of brokenness and darkness covered in light. We desperately hope to disciple students to go out and reach other students, share the Gospel on other campuses, and eventually plant thriving student-led ministries on unreached campuses in our state. There is so much that God is doing, and he is moving in our hearts and minds and turning our dreams toward that.

One of our vision phrases for our region is "There's Something More..." I think those words describe exactly what the conference has meant for me so far, God is speaking to me in abundance - he is telling me there is something more. He desires something more for Georgia - he wants wholeness, reconciliation, freedom, and he wants every student and faculty person to know his love for them and his desire for a relationship. That is what this has all meant - he keeps whispering new dreams into my heart, new hopes and new burdens for the students and faculty I am just now starting to work and live alongside at Georgia Tech. He is telling me that he wants something more for them... He wants to give them life in place of death, and a seat at his table - and he is asking me to hand out the invitations.

This was hastily written, I'll admit. And I was supposed to be in a retreat of silence while I gathered this words - but they are from deep within me. Friends... I am excited by what God is up to in InterVarsity and college student's lives. And I am thrilled he has invited me to be a part of it. And I am thankful you have partnered with me in so many ways - through prayer, encouragement, financial support. And I can't wait to see what God is going to do at Georgia Tech and in the world... Because it's clear, there is something more.