Campus Lemons to Gospel Lemonade

One of the largest deposits of my time and talents here at Georgetown has been InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, an inter-denominational group of believers seeking to make Christ known on campus. I first got involved in a small-group Bible study my freshman year, and since then the community has been the bedrock of my Georgetown experience. InterVarsity has been a place where God’s given me the grace to be vulnerable and open myself up, allowing me to share with others the successes and failures of my Christian walk. I've been served and am able to serve others through this fellowship while God has continued to grow me up in faith. This year, for example, I’ve been learning much as the leader of a men’s small-group Bible study.

It came as quite a surprise, then, when I returned from summer vacation to learn that Georgetown had disaffiliated itself with InterVarsity and all other Christian ministries from outside the university. In a letter to the InterVarsity staff, the Office of Campus Ministry said that our community was no longer welcome to have any presence at Georgetown. We could not utilize university rooms, poster or flyer, or have any other representation on campus. Suddenly my entire fellowship was made illegal and forced underground.

After learning of the university’s decision, the IV vision team went ahead with a previously-planned leadership retreat. With everyone back from summer vacation, the retreat had originally been planned to set the vision for our fellowship this year -- growing as a witnessing community for Christ. Instead, we launched into crises mode and began to deal with the fact that Georgetown IV was no longer. At first, the tone of our retreat was one of surprise, shock, and anger. We could not imagine how the people in Campus Ministry were able to eject us from campus in good conscience. The number of participants in our ministries far exceeded their own, and we had seen God powerfully move in IV time and time again. Perhaps it was jealousy, we suspected, or different theological views that had caused the rift. IV had previously been under the authority of Campus Ministry, and the relationship was often very rocky. Campus Ministry was suspicious of IV, warning us against proselytizing and burdening us with draconian measures to limit our activity on campus. Whatever Campus Ministry’s motives, we were certain that they were wrong.

Somewhere in the course of the retreat, though, God changed our hearts. Instead of being cynical about the decision, we became thankful. We came to see the decision as more of an opportunity to witness to the Georgetown community than we had ever been given before. We remembered how, last spring, members of our community fervently prayed for change in the fellowship. We had asked God to shake us up and then settle us more on Himself, and we realized that Campus Ministry’s decision was an unexpected way that He was answering our prayer. We also prayed for Campus Ministry itself, realizing that its Catholic and Protestant leaders love Jesus just like we do. By the grace of God we saw that we were on the same side as Campus Ministry, all of us doing our best to make the Gospel known. The different groups have different methods, for sure, but we serve the same Christ.

After returning from the leadership retreat, there was a firestorm of media. Everyone from the Washington Post to Focus on the Family gave their perspectives on our plight. Most were sympathetic to our situation, portraying the formerly-affiliated ministries as a David fighting against the Goliath of Campus Bureaucracy. While we were reluctant to frame our situation this way, most media did a fine job of demonizing the “other side.” It was quite a struggle during this time not to feel self-righteous or to join in the chorus of accusations against Campus Ministry, but I’m confident we emerged from the debacle with our witness relatively unscathed. We were humble to the point where it seemed like we were bending backwards to respectfully accommodate Campus Ministry’s decision, and our pride took quite a beating as we sought forgiveness for our own wrongdoing from the Protestant chaplains.

Since the original decision was made, Campus Ministry has softened its stance toward us. IV is allowed to have a presence on campus, but we are no longer allowed to be affiliated with the university. We can flyer and rent rooms for our large-group meetings just like any other students, but we have no connection with Georgetown. We have gone full-steam-ahead with all the plans we had for this school year, including growing as witnessing community. The press we’ve received has only managed to grow the number of people we can reach out to, and the perceived difficulties of being a fellowship underground has united us in purpose. Since school began, we have met daily for prayer and praise. We have already begun to see God move in ways that we could have never imagined – friends once hostile to the Gospel are coming with us to visit church, friendships with believers who have fallen from fellowship have been rekindled, and there is a palpable passion for the work that God has us to partner in. We are thrilled with what God has done in our fellowship through the past few weeks, and have come to see clearly how God has used our unexpected circumstances for our unexpected blessing. Our Father has been faithful all along, and His Word is going forth at Georgetown in fresh and spectacular ways.