On Planting

So like I said, I'm here in Madison for 8 daze learning about how to plant an InterVarsity Chapter on campus (It's Sunday night and I'm ready to go home, but I digress...). As a part of this group, I'll be coaching two young Staff next year down in San Diego. It's been a wild experience so far, with lots of input and concepts. But through it all, one thing keeps coming to mind...

I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M HERE. Or, more precisely, what the $@%# am I doing here?!? Here's what I mean: I think I am the most unlikely planter in the history of InterVarsity. That's because I "grew up in" and hale from one of the most established ministries in InterVarsity on the West Coast, at Cal Poly. We called it "the machine." Built in the mid-80's, what the machine did was create, over the course of 4, 5, 6 or more years, leaders. Just add freshmen! And as Staff, too often (in hindsight) it felt like we were simply mechanics. Change out a part here, oil the machine there. Sure, at times we felt like we made drastic changes, but as I look back they were in reality subtle modifications to the ages-old machine. Don't get me wrong; the machine was amazing. But a machine it was.

And so it's at some level dissonant for me to be here leading/coaching a brand-new Chapter Plant this coming year. No machines. Nothing at all really. But here's what I'm beginning to love about the notion of planting:

1. It's an opportunity to create. I'm learning about myself that I enjoy the process of creation. What fires me up about the idea of planting is the thought of creating a machine, not maintaining it.

2. It asks us new questions. This week we've been taught a planting model that is generally what we will all employ, but this one model has raised countless questions of contextualization. What is our vision for our campus? What is our strategy? How will this general model work where we are? Chasing answers to these (and other) questions invigorate me, inspire me and remind me why I love campus ministry.

3. It takes us new places. As I've moved to Fresno and been involved in a re-plant at Fresno State and now a new plant at Fresno City, I find my heart increasingly burdened for both individuals who are lost and campuses that are without witness. As I think about the future of the Area under my leadership, I am toying with a vision that reads: "a new campus every year." How crazy is that?!? Now we'll see if that sticks, but at it's heart--in my heart--is the concept of all students in our Area having an opportunity to meet Jesus or know him better.

So next year brings lots of planting. Fresno State enters a new phase in the re-plant with new leadership. Fresno City launches. We will "spy out the land" at Alan Hancock in Santa Maria with an eye to a plant in 08-09, and we're praying about what God might do at Fresno Pacific that same year. I'll be coaching Serene and Alan at Mesa College, and, we'll see, but we may just have to start dreaming about InterVarsity chapters at Reedley College and College of the Sequoias in Visalia. More to come later as I and we keep learning...