Campus ministry with

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Northern Michigan University

Our Mission Field: NMU

8,451 undergrad students 586 faculty 637 admin/staff

Our Goal: A Year of Student Initiative This past school year we had no guest speakers at our weekly meetings as we usually would. Instead we spent whole months on the topics of: being satisfied in Jesus, missions, following Jesus on campus, how to pray, service, apologetics, our testimonies, and testimonies from scripture. A team of us met to plan engaging meetings that involved Bible study, active learning, prayer, and vision casting. At one meeting we had over 12 students involved in leading parts! The ownership of our vision to see students and the campus transformed by the gospel grew. Students took more risks. During our apologetics month we researched in teams answers to questions students have. At talks in dorm lobbies the teams presented the information and shared how the Gospel message related to the question. Another week during our month on prayer we set up our meeting room with prayer stations highlighting various areas of the campus and spent the evening rotating through the room praying for faculty, the administration, the spiritual lives of students, etc. This atmosphere of student leadership was also helpful as visitors got to see fellow students leading Bible study, sharing their testimony, or doing some scripture teaching.

Develop a chapter of missional students and faculty of such size that during a students time at NMU or a faculty or staffs career they have an understanding of the Gospel and a compelling personal witness of Jesus.

Our Strategy: Over the next

several years to train and send students and faculty to lead evangelistic small groups on 30 dorm floors and among other affinity groups such as nurses, artists, native students, fraternity houses, and sports teams.
*statistics from fall 2012

5 Day Missions Conference It takes only 4years for a generation of students to pass through the university. So with the goal of exposing each generation to Gods invitation to global missions; InterVarsity puts on a 5-day conference called Urbana (before being held in St. Louis it was held at the Univ. of Illinois in Urbana, IL). Northern Students took up 4 hotel rooms and were really engaged by the conference. In the mornings at the hotel we studied passages from Luke. Twice daily we met in the dome, home of the St. Louis Rams, for worship and teaching with 15,000 others. There were a plethora of seminars offered daily in the afternoons and an exhibit hall with every missions agency under the sun; set up to answer questions and share about their work. I am particularly appreciative of a dozen NMU alumni who generously provided money to help students with conference and hotel costs. Andrea, one of the freshmen who made a decision to follow Christ this fall attended Urbana and is out on a several week trip with InterVarsity in Kenya this summer. Our chapter at Northern has a real heart for missions, even as senior graduated a majority were seriously considering ways to serve God in other parts of the world. The next Urbana will be in Dec 2015 and is open to anyone who is a high school

God in the City Milwaukee has become the classroom for our students to leave the fairly homogenous setting in northern wilderness to experience the diversity of the city. The theme of this spring breaks Milwaukee Urbana Program centered around experiencing the despair of broken things in the city such as schools, neighborhoods, and families. As we studied Amos and worked alongside ministries we began to have some hope that our God can restore the broken. It was good for the students to feel the weight of the issues and hear them earnestly pray for those we met and the neighborhoods we were in. Next spring break we will work with the same ministries and in the same neighborhoods so that we can build relationships. I really enjoyed getting to spend the week with a couple of new Christians who came as well as bonding with our new chapter president, Christian, who I roomed with. Family Update David 9 is enjoying pitching on his little league team and will be going to the middle school in the fall. Bekah is turning 7 and looking forward to celebrating her birthday at Cedar Point. Anna (3) is about ready for preschool; Karen has left lots of interesting posts about our third child and her crazy activities. Our family is really looking forward to being at Cedar Campus in July at the leadership institute.

Conversational Evangelism The best kind of discipleship happens as people take risks together. Towards that end we are starting to simply go out on campus in pairs and engage interested students in conversations about their spiritual lives and offering to share the message of the Gospel. Although this is not as effective as building friendships it has helped students see the importance of The most encouraging things sharing about Jesus with the campus, and this semester: helped them become more comfortable with Most of our students are trained in sharing their testimonies and the Gospel. It is evangelism and excited to share in wonderful to see how God is often already at personal and group settings. work in a strangers life and that our conversations can help bring them clarification. When We have a great heart for volunteerwe stop taking risks in Christian disciplines ing. Among other things our group such as evangelism it is hard to grow, but when has been regularly involved in hostwe see our God at work even with our feeble ating an area homeless shelter. tempts he can overwhelm us with his greatness. Students are very involved with local

2 Big Prayer Requests:

1. Pray for Bree, Megin, Christian, and Ellie as they all move to the same floor in Meyland Hall. Pray that they form many good relationship s on their floor. Pray for their Bible study. Pray that out of their ministry on their floor there would be new Christians and new leaders to spread this kind of ministry to additional dorm floors in 2014. 2. We have had a lot of key leaders graduate over the past year and will see many graduate over the upcoming year as well. Pray that God would send more faithful leaders, and for transitions of leadership.

churches and have great role models there. Genuine community has formed as we work together and so there is a great healthy atmosphere for receiving freshmen in the fall and actively reaching out to the campus from the very first day in the fall.

Headed to InterVarsity Leadership Institute During the month of July InterVarsity has a very important month long program at Cedar Campus. This will be my 6th time at IVLI (formerly called the School of Leadership Training). Students from around the Midwest experience Christian community as they learn about all the aspects of a leaders life and ministry. We have seen that students who attend have a big impact in the life and ministry of their chapter back on campus. We also see a lot of InterVarsity staff come through IVLI when they are students, so it kind of serves as job training for a possible calling to full-time ministry. Topics covered include: Biblical hermeneutics, leading in the scriptures, leading through conflict, leading in public evangelism, failure, communicating vision, and leading a team. Please pray that the investment of this month with students will have a huge impact on their entire lives and help them discern Gods direction for them. I have added $2,000 to my budget to cover the costs for myself and family, so thank your for giving towards my ministry budget!

To make donations go to: http://donate.intervarsity.org/donate 1. enter Andy Liimatta for the ministry budget (currently $300/month short) Or 2. enter Northern MI Univ. Scholarships to help students attend conferences (currently raising $600 for fall conference