God continues to work powerfully in our campuses around the world. Our campus movement saw several key victories this year…
* The North American ICMC. Chicago hosted the largest assembly
of campus disciples in our history (Marty Fuqua confirmed this). The
Chicago attendance was roughly 2100 students, up from 1450 just two
years ago in Baton Rouge. Chris and Meegan Zillman did a fantastic job
directing the conference.
* One highlight was the Day of Service. HOPEww organized a day
of cleaning up and helping in Englewood, Illinois. The students were up
and on the bus by 6:30am and the mayor and city aldermen came out to
thank the students.
* Our total North American campus disciples now number approximately 3000. We have in fact doubled in North America in the last 3 years, in spite of many students graduating.
* We expect to see conference attendance jump closer to 3000 at the two
conferences next year when the ICMC North America splits between Denver
in the west and Athens, Georgia, in the east.
* All of this is breathtaking when you remember that our attendance in 2005 was only 300 in San Antonio.
* We anticipate hundreds of these students wanting to enter the ministry full-time over the next few years.
Churches who are able to train these students up for the ministry will
see huge growth as the students marry, enter the job market, become
Bible Talk leaders with the married ministry, and enter the full time
ministry.
* Academic Training. In light of the huge harvest of campus
souls, we need to discuss the academic training we will offer these
young ministers in the years to come. While ministry training should be
done via discipling in the church, everyone agrees that academic
training is useful and helpful.
* We are sending our proposal for the Academic Training of young
ministers in our churches to the other Service Teams. We know that
there are many ideas floating around out there, and we appreciate the
Teachers Service Team and their thoughts. We are simply trying to
advance the discussion with our proposal. Our opinion is that we need
to act.
* The One-Year Challenge. The committee feels that the one-year
challenge is an excellent opportunity to both mature the young
disciples, as well as help local, domestic, and international mission
points. (Thanks to Tom Brown for your vision for the OYC!) Lots of
our campus disciples are eager to serve overseas. The campus committee
is in the process of coordinating this. We have begun to identify
mission points that could train and manage the students effectively. We
are going to be asking the Evangelist and Elders committees to give us
their advice on overseas churches that could receive and train these
young students. We clearly want to help export this campus revival
overseas as much as possible.
Sub-Committees: In order to help us reach some of these goals, sub-committees were set up to tackle the separate challenges we are facing.
* The North American OYC Sub-Committee will handle our USA and
Canada one-year challenges. They will work to find and approve sites,
and to develop a screening process. Future plantings like West
Virginia, Portland Maine, or College Station Texas were discussed as
places where 6 or 8 students from across the country could help during
the first year. Students are currently serving in Nevada and Utah.
Troy & Kim Criss will chair the sub-committee. Tom & Kelly
Brown will co-chair; Vince Hawkins, and Alex & Danielle Whitaker
will help.
* The International OYC Sub-committee in the same way will handle
the international one-year challenges. They will work to find and
approve sites, and to develop a screening process. South Africa and
Turkey are currently soliciting students. We anticipate much good news
from these first few sites. Future potential sites that we envisioned
include Milan, Stockholm, India, Singapore, London and Birmingham,
Barbados, Kiev, and Novosibirsk. We will seek advice from the
evangelists and elders in Miami. Steve Stevenson will chair the
sub-committee. Mike and AB Taliaferro, and Forest and Mandy Versele
will help.
* The Directory Sub-Committee will be created to develop a
directory of all our campus ministries around the world. Since over
half our students are in North America, we divided it into Domestic and
International sub-groups. Chris Zillman(Chairman) and Marty &
Daonna Wilkinson will work on a North American directory. George
Irungu, Alexey Kravets, and Ariel Lastrado, will work on the
international directory.
* The Directory Committees will keep an email/phone/web site contact
list, a list of campuses where we are present, and the number of
disciples. The directory list will help us target future campuses as
well. They will also tell us where we do NOT have ministries, helping
us to get there.
* Kevin and Elizabeth Thompson will be helping us to write up what
qualities we require for a domestic or international ministry to qualify
as a one-year challenge site.
* New Chairman: Mike Taliaferro was requested to serve again as
chairman. He declined due to his responsibilities as Director of the
2012 World Discipleship Summit. The Campus Service Team recommended
Kevin Miller of Boston who was elected by the Delegates as the new
Chairman.
* Other odds and ends…
* We hope to produce a video explaining the one year challenge
* Use www.HereAmISendMe.net on Disciples Today to communicate locations and explain the process.
* Offer training each year for one week before the ICMC in order to go on the one-year challenge.
* Send them out 2X2.
* Have the One-Year Challengers stand on the stage and have a send off
each year, as well as a welcome home for those finishing their challenge
year.
Finally we await news from our international campus ministry sites.
Committee members will be following up with news and photos from the
following possible 2010 sites…
* Barbados
* Dominican Republic
* Kiev: 115 participants.
* Nairobi August 19-21
* Lagos August
* Abidjan August (412 Students expected)
* Johannesburg.
* Australia
* London
* Berlin 55 attended. May 6-9.
* Budapest
* Norway
* Beirut 60 attended.
* Mexico
* Guatemala City August 21-22.
* Philippines. August 21.
* Japan/Korea
* Indonesia, Malaysia?
* India October 1-3 800 expected
* Siberia: 95 students in May.
* China: Hong Kong sent people to a mainland meeting.
* Brasilia
* Chile
The Campus Service Team Members
Mike & Anne-Brigitte Taliaferro San Antonio, USA
Tom & Kelly Brown Atlanta, USA
Alex & Danielle Whitaker Seattle, USA
Ariel Lastrado Manila, Philippines
Christopher & Meegan Zillman Chicago, USA
Forest & Mandy Versele Roanoke, USA
George & Anne Irungu Nairobi, Kenya
Kevin & Melissa Miller Boston, USA
Kevin & Elizabeth Thompson Athens, USA
Alexey Kravets Kiev, Ukraine
Marty & Daonna Wilkinson San Antonio, USA
Steve & Carrie Lounsbury Los Angeles, USA
Steve & Shonda Stevenson Los Angeles, USA
Troy & Kim Criss Gainesville, USA
Written by Mike Taliaferro