Staff Conference Day One Recap

Yesterday was day one of Staff Conference 2011.

What does it take to set up for the conference?  Here's a few pictures of the set up process: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/album.php?fbid=172922536078349&id=124088484295088&aid=29821

While Matt was busy in St. Louis setting up, I for the first time made good use of my last name and was the bus captain for the trip down from Madison.  I was grateful the only reasons we pulled over were to clean off the windshield, check the door that was slightly ajar, and reset the bus computer system. 

Once at the conference it was fun to reconnect with several Southern California people from my staff day's there.  It makes me so proud that so many of them are still on staff and thriving in their current roles.

I was pretty exhausted for the first session that night, but was still encouraged by a few things that were said from up front.  Alec introduced the theme of the conference, "campuses renewed, and related that idea to Jeremiah 29.  He quoted how Jeremiah commands the Israelites to settle down in Babylon and seek the peace and prosperity of the towns they lived in.  Often staff today work on campuses that feel foreign and unknown.  There can be a tendency to just seek the peace and prosperity of the Christians on those campuses.  But we are called to do much more...we are called as a movement to minister to the entire campus since that is our movement's home.  Alec mentioned how in many ways, God's purpose in this world not to bring just you and me out of exile, but the whole world." and we need to work at broadening our focus.

In all, it was a good start the the conference.  Ready for day 2.

Staff Conference 2011

Today is the start of Staff Conference 2011 and I'm excited to be here.  Every three years InterVarsity gathers all our staff together together for training and teaching.  It's a great time to hear what God has been doing in and through our movement and to catch a vision for where we are headed.

This year some of the people we will hear from are Mary Poplin, Andy Crouch, William Tate and more. My hope is to post some of my favorite quotes and notes each day as we go along.

It'll also be fun to finally see some of the videos Matt has worked on this past year. I actually haven't seen any of them yet, but have heard a lot about them so it'll be interesting to see what actually materialized. You can actually see a teaser of one of the videos below.



Staff Conference 2011 Teaser - University of Oklahoma from InterVarsity-twentyonehundred on Vimeo.

The Calling

Watch the full episode. See more Independent Lens.

Flipping through our 10 TV channels last month, we stumbled upon a documentary called The Calling by Independent Lens. It’s an ambitious documentary that follows seven different individuals from various faith backgrounds as they pursue their calling into religious service (Muslims, Catholics, Evangelical Christians, and Jews).


I’d highly recommend watching it if you ever have four hours to spare.  It's actually worth it.

A few things I was struck by:

This was not a documentary about the differences between the various faiths. It does however focus almost exclusively on the idea of a “calling” and how each of these individuals relates to the calling on their lives. I was a bit disappointed they didn’t get into some of the differences between the faiths, but I think that would have distracted from the power of the documentary if they had done so.

The Catholic Church was portrayed in a more positive light than what I’ve become accustomed to in the media. It was refreshing to see.

I’m not entirely sure why, but I came away thinking about religious traditions and whether the Evangelical/Protestant church has thrown out to many.