2013 Highlights
Here is this year’s annual report. Enjoy!
In the Works
As the semester winds to a close, and I spend time with my team debriefing and reflecting on ministry this fall, my mind begins to dream and vision for 2014: the ministry on campus, the invitations to be part of some conversations that will shape some aspects of the larger organization, and the continued visioning and planning for the 2014 Bangladesh GUP. Here are some things that are “in the works”:
Kingdom Calling
Before the year closes, I have been invited to be staff at InterVarsity’s annual winter conference, called Kingdom Calling from December 27-31. It’s a conference designed for third and fourth year students who are asking and discerning what’s next as they pursue what God may be inviting them to do after they finish university. As a student, this conference and its predecessor are a huge reason why I decided to intern and then later come on staff with InterVarsity. It’s one of my favorite conferences run by InterVarsity, and even in the years when I haven’t been staff for this conference, I’ve been excited to volunteer my time and host people in Toronto. This year, I’m excited to journey alongside some of my students (many of whom I’ve been in relationship with for years) as they encounter what God will say to them during this conference as a small group leader. Please be praying for them as they prepare themselves for this conference, and as they are present. Also, please pray that they would be open and willing to trust the community that gathers at this conference (some of my best friends in the organization are people I’ve met through this conference, and I’ve found there to be something providential in gathering with peers asking the same questions as they often become to community that go with you when you say yes). In addition to being a small group leader, I am also serving as the Hospitality Coordinator, which basically means I’m responsible for helping welcome and orient people to Toronto, as well as, come up with some fun mid-week city exploration activities.
2014 Bangladesh GUP
I am excited to be directing this year’s GUP. I, in no way feel 100% ready to take on this task, but as my “mental tape” (the loving term a former housemate gave for my memory) rewinds, I remember that those who went before me also were not 100% ready to take on this task. But, as God has been leading and guiding me in the process, I am grateful as things fall smoothly into place, and I manage to meet most deadlines in time. I am excited for the fellowships partnering this year, and I am really excited about my staff team. And as more pieces come together I am eager to see those who follow the promptings of the Spirit to go. Please keep me in prayer as I take some time this month to vision and plan for the upcoming months, and pray for the invitations that will go out to students and for them as they process with Jesus and loved ones if this is the right invitation to accept.
Speaking Tour
“You’re young, you’re still finding your voice,” were the words spoken to me by a stranger this summer at the Wild Goose Festival followed by an invitation to take risks to find and reveal my voice. At the time, I was mildly miffed at the condescension of this statement. But as I thought about my year, I saw the ways I was struggling to claim my voice. I thought the invitation was more of the exhortation I’d been hearing for a while to write, but now I see it was more of an all-encompassing invitation to use my voice.
The first time I did a talk this fall, I cried. In front of a room full of people. Which came as a surprise to me, as I’ve never lost my composure during a talk. The topic of my talk was about living out the beatitudes in a community, and why choosing to seek and dwell in a community is worth the costs it may pose. I chose to be bold and share some of my own story, and the depth of what I was sharing hit me in a deep way, while I was speaking, which led to the tears.
It’s often been hit or miss for me when I speak to a group of people. I have studied in theory, the best practices and procedures, but then I find an odd thing happens when I actually stand in front of a group of people, and all that I know to do goes right out of my head, and though very composed, I come across as robotic. In any case, I wasn’t eager to speak to a large group of people following this talk. But with the new title of director of the 2014 Bangladesh GUP, the invitations to speak came in.
I found myself on a bit of a speaking tour, which was both exhilarating and terrifying. My strengths as a campus minister lie heavily in the mentoring and discipling that happens in small groups, and I tend to do best when I spend time with those in my care so that I truly know their context and can discern the best next steps to lead and advise them toward. But, the anonymity of the those in attendance for these speaking invitations, was freeing and a new dynamic with which to work. My first invitation was to speak about redefining love, and how love calls us to love people on the margins and cross barriers and how it relates to crossing ethnic and cultural barriers at the University of Toronto Mississauga campus fellowship. I had the freedom to choose whichever text fit this theme and was encouraged to share stories of Bangladesh, so I spoke out of John 4 and invited the students to do the same prayer mapping activity that we did at Ryerson about loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us.
My next invitation was to speak at the University of Toronto St George Korean Christian Fellowship. I followed a number of stories shared by students in the community who had gone to Bangladesh this past spring. I shared a few reasons why GUPs are a good thing to do, the long term impacts and some loose details about this year’s upcoming trip. I also shared a few of my own stories. And I realized, as I tried to channel some of my good friends and mentors who I deeply respect as public speakers, how it becomes super easy to share more than you intend.
Afterward, as I was walking home, and realized my brief speaking tour was on hiatus until the new year, I reflected on the ways that God chooses to invite those in their weakness reveal His glory. Though, I’m still a little wary of these invitations, and often feel ineffectual, I know ultimately its not me or my words that matter, but what is revealed of Him. And like most things I encounter as a campus minister, I will never truly know how deeply things take root and grow until much later.
Scattering Seeds
He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.” Mark 4:26-29
Early in November, the Toronto regional Undergraduate Student Ministry, International Student Ministry, and High School Ministry Staff got together for a time of fellowship and training. We started this time studying the above passage of scripture and spent some time reflecting on where are the places we have faithfully scattered seeds in our ministries. We focused more on the places where we have been faithfully scattering as opposed to paying too much attention to whether or not things have grown. As my staff partner and I reflected on how we were scattering and wanted to celebrate the following:
Tube Duels
A google search of “obscure sports” brought up the discovery of cardboard tube duels, where people duel in homemade cardboard armour with cardboard paper tubes! My staff partner, leadership team and I thought that this was a ridiculous idea, but one that could be a lot of fun to attempt as a new student outreach event, so we did. It was a lot of fun, brought in a bunch of new and old faces, and we had reporters from one of the campus newspapers come and participate and do an article about it! We began the event by putting people into teams and asking them to create armour that represented their team (there were 4: ninjas, robots, pirates, and knights). Then the dueling began! After a number of individual and team wounds, we announced a winner who won a cardboard replica of Thor’s hammer. After a quick clean up, we invited everyone over for burgers at the McGill house, where we had a pinata strung up across our driveway. 80% of the people who came to the duel came back to the house, and a few signed up to come to our fall retreat!
Fall Retreat
For the first time in 4 years we had a fall retreat (which happened outside of the city)! We took the students to a retreat centre at Jackson’s Point, and had a great time studying Scripture, growing in friendship, worshipping by the campfire and enjoying the outdoors! We had a good mix of new and existing group members and felt very blessed and refreshed by our time together!
Teaching Workshops
Responding to a need for more teaching and training, Lauren, a student leader who is in her last year on campus, and I developed some workshops to equip students with tools to grow in their leadership and spiritual development. These workshops include scripture study, an interactive art piece, prayer and a time to learn and share from experiences. We led 3 this term on invitation, being a welcoming community and how to discern calling and listen to God’s voice. We’ve been amazed as we have seen students come from different clubs on campus and different campuses to receive and be blessed by these workshops!
Vision Fulfilled
By the end of September, I was ready to dub this semester, “the best fall ever”, and now at the end of November, I can claim that title with more fervor!
What’s been different about this year than other years? That’s the question I’ve been trying to answer. A lot of it has to do with the mysterious workings of God and his timing. And during the fall reading week, in mid-October, it hit me, God had been answering prayers I (and some of my student leaders) had been praying for years now.
Here’s a few:
- In 2009, God put ministry to South Asians on my heart, and gave me vision for the ways he had uniquely made me for this ministry. In the years that followed I have seen places and circumstances where I’ve come closer and gone farther from fulfilling this vision. I’ve been in seasons where I’ve felt blessed by the larger organization to advocate for and pursue this ministry and seasons where I’ve felt my voice and opportunities limited. And in the midst of my place in the larger whole, I’ve continuously prayed for God to bring South Asians to be part of the ministry at Ryerson. I’ve seen some students come and go, but this semester brought 2 male South Asians who continue to blow me away with their commitment and willingness to step up in leadership and responsibility! Both have expressed interest in leading manuscript studies, both are actively applying the Scripture in their lives, both are sacrificially making choices to be part of our community despite the long hours of commute and the challenges of balancing time with our community and schoolwork (both are engineering students). In addition to these two, we have seen a number of South Asians come and be part of some of our New Student Outreach events, and on campus our office is situated near the South Asian Alliance and the Bangladeshi Students Association which has led to some great conversations and possibilities of hosting events together!
- At Urbana 2006, a speaker challenged the crowd to pursue ministry by taking stock of activities and hobbies that you love to do and inviting non-Christians to do them with you and find ways to naturally talk about your faith while doing these things. This challenge has been at the heart of many of the ideas that formed our new student outreach events and specialized small groups. In 2011, Lauren, a student leader studying Nutrition, and I began a Cooking Ministry. One that she could widely invite her Nutrition classmates to and help bridge that community with her faith community on campus. In December of that year, we debriefed the semester and talked about how we longed for better partnership with the Christian students who attended that they would bring their friends and not force their faith on the non-Christians who attended but be able to share in natural ways that could provoke curiosity and opportunities for deeper conversations later. We would cast vision for Christian students to partner with us, and model what we were hoping for and had what seemed like endless group and individual conversations about inviting friends to be part of the ministry and the purpose for our gathering together. In the 3 years since this ministry began we have seen a steady stream of Christians and non-Christians gather, we have had a non-Christian step up and co-lead the ministry with us, and we have had the Nutrition Course Union and the Campus Community Garden advertise our group and pursue partnership with us (and have been blessed to watch a representative of the course union become a believer through seeds planted in this ministry)! This semester, we had 16 students gather for our cooking ministry (the largest gathering we’ve had), and we found out that even though our usual door for wide invitation had been temporarily closed, we had our biggest turnout because all of the Christian students who had been attending since the beginning each brought 2 friends! Praise God!
- As I mentioned in a few posts already Scripture has taken root in students lives in ways that we haven’t regularly seen, in addition to this happening we have seen deep community grow as people study scripture together. Last year, in one of the manuscript studies I attended, the leaders longed for our study group to close to one another through studying the Word and have that inspire spending time together outside of the study. They would often suggest fun activities to do outside of the study that were often met with lukewarm receptions at best. However this year, we’ve seen students choose to spend time having a meal together, commuting home together and even pursue housing close to one another!
- As I’ve seen our ministry on campus grow, I noticed that many of our key student leaders were women, and there was not as much ethnic diversity in our ministries as one would expect given the demographics of our larger campus community. As I continued to observe “who was in the room”, and asked who was not, I realized we had a surprising lack of diversity in programs of study represented. So I (and others) prayed for more diversity. This year we have seen a large diversity in students from various ethnic backgrounds, religious experiences, and programs of study. We have also seen a growing number of male students deeply commit themselves to our community and step up when leadership opportunities arise!
- For the past couple years, we have spent time developing ministries that help meet students where they are in their journeys. We have some ministries that focus on helping people trust and develop relationships with Christians (perhaps for the first time ever or the first time after having a large trust-breaking experience). We also have some that meet students who are seeking to learn more about Christianity. And we have a few that minister to Christians who have grown up in the church or have been following Jesus for a significant portion of their lives and long to grow deeper in their understanding or in how they express their faith. And we have a few ministries that help student leaders grow in their leadership. Of all the above listed, it was often the leadership ministries that were sparsely attended. It was not for lack of content, and it left my staff partner and I baffled. So we prayed and we opened up our leadership training ministries to anyone who would be interested in growing in leadership and we have seen a huge number of students choose in! Some we wouldn’t have guessed, and we have seen what was once a small ministry grow to influence students from various communities on Ryerson’s campus, as well as students at George Brown and OCAD!
The Arch 