Ambition - South San Diego 1.22.2018

“The time of professional clergy is done and the return of the church as a movement is now.”

1087 people attended the InterVarsity Conference Ambition, selling out all the seats in the House of Blues. Ambition is a national level conference which meets every three years.

There we had a number of excellent speakers empowering the students to find places not yet reached on campus (and in some cases whole campuses that are not yet reached!). My role there was to coach students in mapping out the networks God has called them to reach.

A major theme of the conference was to reduce our reliance on the “professional” ministers and to empower the lay people, or in this case the students.  Not longevity, but legacy.

Not to say longevity is bad, quite the opposite! Longevity is having a ministry that survives. Legacy is a ministry that impacts people. It’s not enough to pass on a ministry, but a mission. By passing on the mission of God we can find more people being reached as people discover the communities they have a heart for.

We saw this manifest in our own students. A leader who found InterVarsity for the dorm ministry discovered his calling with fraternity and sorority students. He has received the mission, but not the ministry he started in, and it is good.  I hope that this is the start of more students reaching places still untouched.

Please pray for:

Students to be sent: Let God reveal people on campus we have not yet seen. Let leaders receive hearts to seek out communities that are hidden or in some cases, feel unlovable.

Our second week of NSO (New Student Outreach): Momentum in the second semester can be difficult to work with, but it is nonetheless important! Ask God to encourage us in our conversations with the campus and for students to have an open heart in taking their next (or first) steps with God.