Campus Ministries Report (2009)

Campus Ministry Report

Background
When Anchor was founded in 1999 we did not have a vision for campus ministry. Under new leadership since 2004, Anchor was both “re-founded” and “re-shaped”, and a vision for reaching Muslim students was incorporated into the scope of its ministry priorities. The main reasons for that were two-fold:
1) The Detroit Venture campaign of 2003 included several campus outreach events focused on Muslim students at WSU (and UMD). Pre-existing relationships enabled those events to be conducted in cooperation with IV and were deemed to be very purposeful, especially at Wayne State. Through those events we gained a new exposure to the university milieu as well as a growing awareness that there was minimal attention being given to reaching Muslim students at these campuses (and others). Through this awareness the Lord stimulated our desire to address this void.
2) At the same time it also became clear that the God had stimulated this desire within campus ministry circles to some extent. Thus we began investing time into developing a more intentional approach for reaching Muslim students at WSU from the IV platform.
In late 2004 that lead to an invitation for part-time campus ministry staff at WSU. I have continued to invest time into this pursuit at WSU. At first I spent only a few hours a week on campus, and now I spend up to 20 hours per week for various reasons which I’ll describe later. Over the years I have spent most of my time at WSU because that was where I was originally asked to serve. But later I transferred much of my time over to UMD.

Description of Campus Ministry Activities
There are many ways in which we have engaged in ministry at WSU/UMD within the IV structure, and other things that I’ve done independent of IV. One could learn from my frequent email reports that these include many forms of evangelism; training and mentoring; planning, coordinating, and promoting ministry events; attending events conducted by other groups or partnering with them; I’ve done several weekly Bible studies and prayer meetings, helped with Alpha, provided teaching in the large group, and provided much support for the chapter’s general priorities. Off the campus I’ve participated in many IV conferences, and provided teaching and leadership for about half of them. I’ve had the freedom to try many new things, and I’ve found most of my endeavors to be rewarding. The following segment is part of a broader report that I wrote last year for a similar purpose (edited):

“My involvement has become much more extensive since I started doing campus work with five years ago. I’ve had have numerous opportunities to provide leadership and mentoring for Christian students at WSU/UMD chapters and, more widely, within the Metro-Detroit Area and the Great Lakes East Region of IVCF. I have often been called upon to lead small-group Bible studies and discussions on various biblical topics, short talks to the whole chapter in a large-group setting, and larger presentations to mixed groups of IV students from multiple chapters. In November of 2007, for example, I was asked to present a one-hour seminar on “Reaching Muslim Students” at a regional conference at Michigan State University called Compelling. And last year I was asked to conduct several more trainings of this nature: 1) at UMD two one-hour sessions of an “Engaging Muslim Students” component as part of a larger evangelism training program; 2) a one-hour discussion at Oakland University on “Developing Relationships with Muslim Students” (the content of which I hope to put into a book on this subject along with contributions from other staff and students). Most recently at Compelling ‘09, Nov. 13-15 I served as a small-group leader and did a one-hour talk on handling objections and building trust as a piece of an evangelism track. This was not especially related to Muslim students, but I was still able to integrate a role-play with a Muslim and related principles into my talk. All these are especially desirable opportunities for obvious reasons."

"As a campus ministry worker I seek out opportunities to equip students in more focused ways for ministry to Muslim students. Admittedly, many of the activities in which I engage are not specific to reaching Muslim students. But I value these opportunities nonetheless because God has given me a heart for all students. In addition, interactions with students who are not Muslims lead to other interactions with students who are Muslims. University culture is a web of relationships and social networks, and one never knows which of them will lead to opportunities to interact with Muslim students within their social webs. Further, one never knows which Christian students will become engaged in witness relationships with Muslim peers, or which will become active in evangelism to Muslim students in particular. (In fact, it was because of the personal influence of just such an IV student—Scott Balesley—that a new staff person to serve in this niche was sought out for the WSU chapter; this is me.) Ironically, some students who have this special interest are not a part of IV, but part of other groups such as Campus Crusade or Christian Challenge which overlap with IV in certain ways. Another related dynamic is this: mentoring students for evangelism in general also contributes to my specific goals. Several students whom I have mentored still have no specific concern for Muslim students, but when they do evangelism they invariably encounter them, and, having been mentored by me they are better prepared to have constructive conversations with them."

Stories and Anecdotes
"Further, my presence on campus at WSU/UMD gives me ample opportunities to pursue relationships with Muslim students myself. One of the best ways to interact with Muslims is to attend their planned events such as Ramadan iftar dinners and many other occasions. The university arena is one that has abundant opportunities for interacting with Muslims, and there are many relevant stories that I could share. (In fact, many students have similar stories.) Consider these:
· "I have personally maintained several meaningful relationships with Muslim students from WSU. Perhaps the best one has been with a Saudi graduate student named Abdullah, whom I met through his younger brother, Ali, who is an undergrad student. Abdullah and his wife and daughter live in a Dearborn neighborhood near mine. Ali has always been a bit stand-offish toward me and would not attend a campus event, but he and his friend Qassim eventually did accept my invitation to attend the 2007 Easter Oasis dinner at a local Dearborn church. They, in turn, invited Abdullah and two other of their friends. Abdullah and I have spent many hours together since then. Later I asked my believing friend Chris to join us, and the two of them have become fast friends. Most of our talks have eventually lead to topics related to the nature of God , the identity of Jesus, the content of gospel and the purpose of religion in our respective cultures.
· "Patrick is an African American student at WSU who is not part of InterVarsity, but with whom I often interacted last year. As our relationship unfolded he revealed that he has a burden to reach out to Muslims. We interacted many time on campus, and last summer we began to spend time together off campus due to our mutual interest in Muslim ministry. Since then I’ve been exposing him to the Dearborn/Detroit Muslim community and including him in as many ministry activities as possible. I have found him unusually interested and available for a broad variety of evangelistic endeavors, including door-to-door neighborhood evangelism. Once we were distributing bilingual tracts when we walked into a café with about six Iraqi men inside. When we gave them some tracts they immediately began asking for Injeels (NTs) as well, which we then delivered the next day. In late September Patrick and I visited the nearby Grand Mosque to observe Muslim prayers. There I saw a handful of people I know, including my next door neighbor and one Iraqi-American student from WSU. (This young man is one who first approached me on campus at a “Are You a Muslim?” conversation table that I was conducting one day, and since then we’ve had several face-to-face meetings and many purposeful email exchanges.) We talked to him there for 15 minutes about true worship and the purpose of suffering, after which we gave him a gospel of John. Patrick believes the Lord may be directing him to visit a Muslim country, and possibly a life-long ministry to Muslims somewhere in the world. He has said he considers me a mentor and is asking me for my guidance in these matters. It is disappointing to me that, for whatever reasons, he has never become more involved in IV, as he could have benefited from the community and had more influence within the WSU chapter. But I’m thankful that the Lord has given me this relationship with him. And the Lord has given me other relationships with students similar to this one.
· "This past year I have noticed with pleasure that InterVarsity students at both WSU and UMD have been meaningfully interacting with Muslim students independent of me. Thankfully, this has been happening with increased regularity and frequency. Though I could give many examples I’ll only give a few. Last year a Christian IV student named Ema wrote sent me this text message: “Please, please pray for a Muslim guy who is searching 4 the truth. His name is Ali and I got a chance 2 share the gospel with him today. I challenged him 2 pray and wait 4 the Lord to answer. Let’s pray that God will speak to him in a way he can understand and be filled with peace of mind.” I later learned that Ali was in one of Ema’s classes; that day he turned to Ema and asked her, “What is the purpose of life?” He was dead serious. So Ema took the opportunity to share the gospel with him and invite him to a Bible study on John that she was leading the next week. He came to the study and they vigorously discussed the woman at the well in chapter 4. Because of that Ali and Ema became friends and they had other spiritual conversations. A little later he came to an IV fall hayride where I met him, and still later he attended an Oasis Thanksgiving event at my invitation. He even registered to go to the IV Compelling conference that year, but in the end he did not go. Finally, I invited him up to the Café on 7 for a Christmas party on the 7th floor of the WSU student center where we had an unusually philosophical conversation in which other Christian students were involved. Significantly, through our interactions I also learned that Ali has been a lifelong resident of Dearborn and was a student at Fordson High School in our neighborhood. Through his experiences and secular education he had become disillusioned with Islam and was searching for meaning in life. Sadly, Ali has since distanced himself from Ema and me and the IV community.
· Other Examples:
- "Many IV students have had productive conversations with Muslim students using an evangelistic strategy called a “proxy station”—an artistic display painted with this provocative message: “Religion—Why I love it; Why I hate it.” (There are also versions called “Extreme Heart Make-over” and “How has evil invaded your space?”) Our IV chapters regularly conduct these proxy stations on campus several times a month, and on numerous occasions Muslim students have approached the stations to share their opinions and hear a gospel presentation by IV students. Following that, it is not uncommon for Muslims to give their follow-up info, though it is fairly uncommon for them to respond to follow-up. Not all Christian students are adept at conversations with Muslims, however, and there is usually a need for some intentional training. This is something that Area IV leadership has been reluctant to build into the chapters’ scope of priorities. Still, through a measure of their own personal interest, their teachability, instruction and modeling from me, and other factors, some WSU (and UMD) students—such as Thierkeld , Amir (Italian-Iranian descent), Sam (Syrian-American descent), Dwight, Samuel (Hispanic descent), and Evan—have become fairly competent at having gospel conversations with Muslims. This is an important part of my role with IV.
- "Last week a pair of rather unsavory Christian evangelists appeared on campus at WSU to preach their version of the gospel. As I was listening to them one afternoon, and trying to sort through my mixed feelings about them, a Palestinian student named Amin whom I knew approached me to ask me my opinion of these preachers. This initiated a 2-hour conversation with Amin and several other Christian students in which we thoughtfully discussed the claims of Christ and shared His message with him, reading from the gospel of John (3, 15, 16, & 17). When we were finished he received a copy of this gospel before leaving for class. God willing, that encounter will most lead to future conversations with Amin. Further, since then our IV/WSU chapter has conducted two of our own open-air preaching events on campus, as recently as two months ago. Through this means we’ve found that we can always expect there to be Muslim students in the audience, some of which linger to hear an authentic and intelligent presentation of the gospel message. *Since I have a particular passion for open-air ministry such as this, I have been the primary stimulus for both events. I was exceptionally pleased with the second one (10/1) which I wrote about separately. Most of all it seemed to me that God orchestrated it as only He could, and the gospel presentations were all compelling in their own uniquely personal way.
- "I am told by my staff counterpart at UM Dearborn, Christy, that some comparable things involving Muslim students have been happening there as well. One example is this: She was about to lead some students through a study of John 4 in an open area at the University Center when a female Muslim student approached them and asked if she could join them. That particular study was a training time for student leaders and not meant for “outsiders” as such, but they knew better than to turn her away. The next full hour was a glorious discussion about the text—Jesus and the woman at the well—involving this young lady who was from Somalia. After the discussion the she gave her email address before she left. The students were amazed at what had just happened, and spent the next 15 minutes processing and thanking God for what He had just done. What a perfect training module that the Lord provided for the IV students that day!"

Those I could give many more examples, for the sake of brevity I will close this report with one last anecdote from the recent Compelling conference that happened in mid-November from a short email account that I sent on the 19th.

"There were many facets of Compelling ’09 and each participant would give you anecdotes from different vantage points. For own my part, I loved being part of the "Evangelawesome" track and contributing to it. It's so important for students to learn the principles and practices of Christian evangelism. Jessica and Teresa both preceded me and did very well connecting with students… My part began with a short role play of a conversation with a Muslim student involving a brother from a Muslim background from Azerbaijan who was helping with a different track… After that I asked the 55 students, "How many of you have had significant interactions with a Muslim student?" Do you know how many of them raised their hands? ...Yep, pretty much all of them! Then I asked, "How many of you feel that you've had purposeful or fruitful conversations with a Muslim student?" About half of them raised their hands that time. That's an impressively high number. ...Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

Conclusion:
On behalf of Anchor Minisitries, we are grateful for our partnership with Ann Beyerlein and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in the Metro-Detroit Area. I believe my involvement with InterVarsity has been purposeful and beneficial to them, to Anchor Ministries, and to the kingdom of God. However, there are many things that could be done to strengthen our partnership and the intentionality of IV’s witness to Muslim students. But these things I will save for another report if it is deemed necessary.