What Does it Mean to be Part of the InterVarsity Family?

Definitions to know:
Inner reconciliation:  the pursuit of restoring our identity by allowing God to shape who we are.
World changer:  someone who establishes the kingdom of God where ever they go and who teaches others to do the same.  A world changers is salt and light no matter what career or life pursuit God calls them into.

Have you ever wondered what it means to "be part of" InterVarsity.  It has to be more than just showing up to events, right?  We all are part of families but being part of a family doesn't mean we just show up to dinner every night.  It is more than that.  So what does it mean to be part of InterVarsity in St. Pete.  This short explanation is meant to help us answer that question.  If you are new, this will be helpful to know what you are getting into.  And trust me, its a good thing to get into.  If you are a core member this can help us explain to others what kind of community they are joining allowing them to see what type of community we are.  We are not a sports group or a youth group.  Jesus asks His disciples to leave everything and become fishers of men.  He is up front with what he is calling these young followers to and I believe it a wise thing to follow His example.  So what does it mean to be part of InterVarsity?   The heuristic below is a great way to explain this. 

 

Figure 1.  Yes!  We are on a boat!

Being part of InterVarsity means that you will engage and learn scripture study, prayer, coorperate worship, evangelism, intentional discipleship, and so much more.  What does this produce? A community of surrender, reconciliation and sacrificial living.

Surrender
We are first a community that is Surrendered to Jesus.  Without surrender you go nowhere or our direction is not God’s direction.  Surrender allows God to direct our lives.  Being part of InterVarsity means you allow God to direct the sail of your boat.

Reconciliation
Next, being with us on the boat means we you are pursuing reconciliation with others and inner reconciliation.  If we try to follow Jesus without pursuing reconciliation with others and inner reconciliation we will sink or it means that you will feel left out and not on board.  Though we are reconciled to God we must learn what that fully means and so there is a repeated cycle of exposing our weaknesses, repentance by turning to Jesus, and relentless restoration back to God and community.

Sacrificial Life
Surrender and reconciliation is done within the context of a sacrificial life like that of Jesus.  As you learn to live a sacrificial life there will be constant resistance (academics, peer pressure, life tragedies, etc.).  Being part of InterVarsity means that you have staff and students who have gone before you and who will walk with you in this and we believe the end result will be a sacrificial life that grows you into a world changer where you will find that, in Jesus, we were made to sail through resistance and hardship.

We are those who surrender totally to Jesus, pursue reconciliation with others and inner healing, and who do it within the context of a sacrificial life that we are both learning and pursuing.

“A ship in a harbour is safe, but this is not what a ship is built for.”  –John A. Shedd

Studying Scripture in With Fresh Eyes

After we studied Mark during our Common Ground core meeting it lead me to reminisce about my journey in studying scripture(still in progress).  I've found that the most dangerous thing to do when studying the Bible is to allow it to always affirm or reinforce my values.  The problem with this is that if I believe that the Bible is the living, inspired word of God then these words, with the help of the Holy Spirit, should lead me to know more about Him every time I read them because God is always speaking.  But, if my own thoughts are never challenged can I say with integrity that God is speaking?
In my few years of studying the Bible I've learned that reinforcement and affirmation are often the outer disguise of pride and immaturity.  Pride because if every time I read the Bible I ONLY discover what I already thought about the Bible, it implies that God really just speaks the same thing every time and I already know most of it.  Immaturity because if everything I read is just a reinforcement of what I previously knew then I gain nothing knew and my mind, heart and soul are never challenged to grow.  I am pretty sure this ain't how God operates.
What does this look like?  At a very young age, I remember learning "Jesus loves me" from John 3:16.  As a young disciple I needed to know that, I needed to know God himself gave his son for me and saved me from my sin and the sin condition of the world.  I needed this to be instilled in my heart and never forget it.  It was good.  
This verse became toxic in college, where I believed that God loved me and other Christians and everyone else needed to get on board or burn.  I never told anyone this or acted on it but it was a pseudo-truth that resided in my heart.  It was in an InterVarsity Bible study that I learned how to look at the Bible with fresh eyes.  This meant looking at the Bible expecting to learn something new every time.  In doing this I finally realized that a key part of John 3:16 is that "God loved the world".  He loved the WORLD!  I learned that Jesus loves the world and calls me to this same love.  How immature and prideful of me to think "everyone else", i.e. the world, needed to just jump on board, excluding myself from the love of Jesus they needed to encounter.  I came to realize that not only did Jesus love me, but wants me to follow his example in loving the world exactly like He did.  And this left me knowing that I had a lot to learn because loving people who have different values, different beliefs and different ways of living is hard.
This is what scripture study leads us to.  It leads us to more awe, more curiosity, more pathways of maturity and ultimately how to love more.  Studying the word of God will show us how big he is by showing us how much we don't know.  But trust me, you will be eternally grateful for the little you learn.
So the next time you study scripture, confess to God that you don't know everything about him and then ask him to to show you something new.