IV Nerd
I shared recently about getting more involved in church to call us as a church to get less involved, and as I thought about this point, I recalled my participation in the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship during my undergraduate days at PENN. IV is an interdenominational parachurch organization that has student groups in colleges and universities around the world. The one I was a part of was significant in my spiritual and leadership formation.
It was also one that valued outreach, having an outward focus, meeting people in their circles and not demanding they come to ours. We shunned big events and preferred to have Christian influence via authentic relationships -- in the dorms, in the classroom, and even at frat parties.
With such an orientation, you would think we would have never struggled with this notion of getting bogged down in seeing Christian ministry and group involvement as distinct activities. And yet we did. The very nature of any entity, however decentralized or fluid or outwardly-focused, requires a certain amount of meetings, planning, and administration. And those things took time. Combine that with the rigorous academic environment of an Ivy League school like PENN, and pretty soon you had a new term coined by some of the group's more active members: "IV nerd." An IV nerd is someone who has time only for IV events and studies.
There was some good in this winnowing of activities: too many college students of that day were involved in so many activities that they couldn't really have authentic relationships or experiences in any of them. It was a Biblically-based call that compelled those of us in the group to prune down our schedules to make time for the ones we did keep, and ultimately for the people we were to invest in and reach out to; I don't regret that I and others heeded that call.
And yet, many of us, in uncommitting to various clubs and activities outside of IV and books, lost those genuine points of contact to those outside our circle. Whether it was a formal group like a frat, a sport, or a performing arts team, or just the casual friendships that develop on one's hall or floor or suite, the more we got involved in the leadership and administration of the fellowship, the more we lost those outside opportunities for friendship and influence and witness.
Those that did choose to devote their time in these ways found themselves on the fringe of our fellowship, partly because they weren't as connected to the formal structures of our group and partly because they were people who tended to be more independent and cavalier in disposition. Rare, unfortunately, was the situation in which a committed member of the fellowship was able to engage deeply and authentically in relationships outside the fellowship AND have that aspect of their Christian influence affirmed and supported and nurtured by their brethren within the fellowship.
Again, while I can't speak for others, I don't personally criticize my experience in the fellowship. I do want to point out just how hard it is to foster a group that desires to be the kind of gathering of Christians that the Bible invites us to be: on a mission, having influence outside the circle, having our numbers added to by newcomers on a daily basis. It seldom happens in churches, or even in dynamic and mission-oriented parachurch entities like IV. Really, the best examples I've seen have been in organizations that most people would consider cults, and of course, while they might get the outreach part right, they're very wrong elsewhere.
So are we to just give up? Try our best and settle? Circle our wagons and be thankful for the more inwardly-oriented positives we're living out? Or do we push, ever pushing forward and stretching outward, even to the point where we always feel uncomfortable? For the sake of souls, ours and those whom we can influence, and ultimately for the sake of the Kingdom and the Kingdom's King, may we ever push and stretch.
It was also one that valued outreach, having an outward focus, meeting people in their circles and not demanding they come to ours. We shunned big events and preferred to have Christian influence via authentic relationships -- in the dorms, in the classroom, and even at frat parties.
With such an orientation, you would think we would have never struggled with this notion of getting bogged down in seeing Christian ministry and group involvement as distinct activities. And yet we did. The very nature of any entity, however decentralized or fluid or outwardly-focused, requires a certain amount of meetings, planning, and administration. And those things took time. Combine that with the rigorous academic environment of an Ivy League school like PENN, and pretty soon you had a new term coined by some of the group's more active members: "IV nerd." An IV nerd is someone who has time only for IV events and studies.
There was some good in this winnowing of activities: too many college students of that day were involved in so many activities that they couldn't really have authentic relationships or experiences in any of them. It was a Biblically-based call that compelled those of us in the group to prune down our schedules to make time for the ones we did keep, and ultimately for the people we were to invest in and reach out to; I don't regret that I and others heeded that call.
And yet, many of us, in uncommitting to various clubs and activities outside of IV and books, lost those genuine points of contact to those outside our circle. Whether it was a formal group like a frat, a sport, or a performing arts team, or just the casual friendships that develop on one's hall or floor or suite, the more we got involved in the leadership and administration of the fellowship, the more we lost those outside opportunities for friendship and influence and witness.
Those that did choose to devote their time in these ways found themselves on the fringe of our fellowship, partly because they weren't as connected to the formal structures of our group and partly because they were people who tended to be more independent and cavalier in disposition. Rare, unfortunately, was the situation in which a committed member of the fellowship was able to engage deeply and authentically in relationships outside the fellowship AND have that aspect of their Christian influence affirmed and supported and nurtured by their brethren within the fellowship.
Again, while I can't speak for others, I don't personally criticize my experience in the fellowship. I do want to point out just how hard it is to foster a group that desires to be the kind of gathering of Christians that the Bible invites us to be: on a mission, having influence outside the circle, having our numbers added to by newcomers on a daily basis. It seldom happens in churches, or even in dynamic and mission-oriented parachurch entities like IV. Really, the best examples I've seen have been in organizations that most people would consider cults, and of course, while they might get the outreach part right, they're very wrong elsewhere.
So are we to just give up? Try our best and settle? Circle our wagons and be thankful for the more inwardly-oriented positives we're living out? Or do we push, ever pushing forward and stretching outward, even to the point where we always feel uncomfortable? For the sake of souls, ours and those whom we can influence, and ultimately for the sake of the Kingdom and the Kingdom's King, may we ever push and stretch.
Comments