Jason and Andrea, the answers to prayer your region reported in Gleanings are remarkable. What motivated the Regional Directors to pray these “big” prayers at the January 2009 Regional Leadership Team (RLT) Meeting?
At our RLT meeting in January, we did a thorough assessment of our year and where we were in our four-year strategic plan. We were extremely pleased with the progress and accomplishments from the fall semester. We simply cried out to God to keep answering “big” prayers. He did! It helped that we had a Regional Staff Conference in December 2007 where our pastor came and spoke from his book entitled Pray Big.
A few of our prayer goals and answers included:
- 90 new believers by June 30…God answered with 106 new Christians
- 84 more students to hit 15% growth goal…God gave us 104
- 325-350 participants in spring training events…God provided 335-360 participants at Breakthrough, on Spring Break projects and in STiM
- 35+ staff for the 2009-2010…God gave us 40
Can what God is doing in the Red River Region be duplicated in other regions?
Absolutely! If there is one thing we can point to as a tool, it would be our four-year strategic plan. It took us 14 months to complete, and it focuses on three main areas: prayer, evangelism and numeric growth. For each area, there are a few focused strategies and measurable benchmarks.
The plan is simple and clear, and since most of the Region’s staff were part of the planning process, all the staff in the Region own it. Our students also own it because we post it and refer to it at all Regional events.
Conversions, answered prayers and numeric growth are ultimately nothing we can “make” happen. Only God can do it. So we celebrate every little step forward, we watch and wait for God to show up and answer prayer, and we labor in the harvest fields.
How is your region engaging students in evangelism?
We host a number of proxe stations on campuses all around the Region. Quaerens has been used for years. Most of our fellowships do some form of conversational evangelism on campus. Our students get experience talking with seekers around spiritual discussions in some context.
We also make evangelism one of our lead values in the Region, and then integrate evangelism training and evangelistic calls to response at all our Regional events. We bring in great resource people from the movement—like York Moore—to teach and train our staff and students. We have tracks at our spring Regional Staff Conference and our weeklong camps to train our students in evangelism. Every chapter is challenged to host campus-wide harvest events. Staff Conferences include training on harvest events and emphasize generating creative ideas for evangelism. We hire evangelists. Verbally sharing the Gospel regularly is an expectation for every staff member.
What models are the students using in their evangelistic conversations?
We teach James Choung’s evangelism model, as well as more classic Gospel outlines like the Bridge Diagram. York Moore taught our students to “pivot through the Gospel.” From our perspective, students need a solid grasp of the Gospel.
Are these faith decisions primarily generated through contact, proxe station, friendship or invitational evangelism?
We have to say all four. However, various fellowships have strategies they’ve focused on that are producing fruit: At Texas Tech, it’s through the life of a very missional fellowship staffed by a gifted evangelist; at University of Houston, through large-scale evangelistic events; at UT-Austin, through friendship evangelism and in the context of fellowship events; at Texas A&M, it’s through Groups Investigating God (GIG).
Are the 106 new believers integrating into the life of the fellowships?
Yes, primarily because most of them came to faith in the context of our fellowships. About a quarter of the students in our fellowships are pre-Christians. So we create lots of places to invite them to cross the line to faith. At our Breakthrough spring conference we offer a track for seekers, and we make a clear call to respond to the Gospel in our main Saturday evening session, with prayer ministers ready and trained. We do the same at RecWeek (chapter camp). Having said that, there are certainly some of these students who professed faith at campus harvest events and may not be plugged into fellowships.
How were you able to raise funds at the Houston Banquet when the economy seems to be in crisis?
Josh Howell, first-year AD, and the Gulf Coast staff team pulled off the banquet. Typically, it brings in $10,000. This year, Josh and his team decided to pray “big” and ask God specifically for $33,000. They made the goal very clear, invited many to pray, and saw God provide $34,600 ($1,000 more than we shared in our “answered prayer”)!
Here would be a step-by-step…
- Let the need be known. The clear financial goal of $33,000 was communicated before, during and at the end of the event.
- Get the right people in the room. Alumni were encouraged to invite people with means to give to the region. One donor gave $10,000 of the $34,600.
- Do a top-notch program. Alec Hill spoke with vision and included a great testimony of the Veritas Forum at Rice U where Francis Collins spoke. A student shared a powerful transformation story.
- Make a bold, unapologetic, clear ask. This was done well at the event as Josh slowly and deliberately walked through the pledge card.
In many ways this huge gift, along with the 33 conversions this year at the University of Houston, are the product of years of faithful prayer that span back 60 years. There is a group of IV alumni who gather one Monday a month to pray for God’s work in Houston, and have been doing so for over 40 years!
The South Texas area prayed for years that there would be a connection between dollars raised and lives reached. This past year they saw a great increase in converts, and Ana Graves—the staff member who took the greatest risks—is the person who’s been the most blessed with resources.
What is the Lord teaching you and your staff through this experience?
To keep praying and to watch and wait for God to show up.
What would you like to say to encourage staff across the country about prayer, evangelism and what God is doing in your region?
We keep track of specific prayers, and the specific ways God answers them. Praying with faith for everything is something our staff worker, Carla (Henry) Bieber modeled well. She used to tell us, “Prayer isn’t what fuels the work, prayer is the work.” We were on the leadership team together at Western Michigan University, and there we watched God do amazing things in response to our daily prayer meeting requests before God. We learned that praying big is exciting. Also, that we don’t want to be in ministry and working in vain. He must be the one who builds the house. We just get to be along for the ride. | 
