Chapter Planting at Chico State

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This document is part of a larger cluster of articles about InterVarsity
chapter planting at https://www.intervarsity.org/mx/page/chapterplanting

The Campus

Chico State is a public school of about 15,000 undergrads. Chico is a
northern California college town of about 80,000 people. The school is
primarily known for its party scene and alcohol use. Alcohol-related
tragedies are all too common, and because of this, Chico has made a name
for itself. The campus is very white and majority-culture. About 70 percent
of students are white. The campus struggles with embracing diversity. There
is a strong presence of International students (seven percent). The Greek
system is active, and so is the athletics department. Most freshmen live in
the dorms on campus and then move off campus for the remainder of their
college years.

The Challenges

The two biggest challenges to ministry with students are apathy and the
party scene. Many students are complacent in their current views about God
and won’t put any effort into going deeper. Also, many students come to
college with a desire to experiment with their new-found freedoms by
partying excessively, and they often distance themselves from God in the
process.

Campus Contacts

Chico has an amazing group called “Christians on Campus” made up of the
staff leaders from InterVarsity, Campus Crusade, Asian Christian
Fellowship, and four local church college groups. These contacts were very
helpful for planting a chapter, and continue to be a healthy picture of the
body of Christ on the Chico State campus. Two local college pastors were
especially helpful and excited to have us.

We don’t have any faculty actively aiding the ministry in any way.

Our 14 student leaders are key contacts. We have three students in
particular who have shown amazing initiative and ministry abilities, and
have loved and served our fellowship in great ways this year.

What We’re Doing

Our structure is pretty common. Small groups meet for Bible study in the
dorms and off-campus. There is a weekly large group meeting where all those
groups come together for worship and teaching.

GIGs are happening here and there, some by staff and a few by students. We
have a weekly campus outreach time that the staff team is committed to and
we usually have two to four students joining us to grow in evangelism by
going around and starting spiritual discussions. We often try to lead those
discussions into an invitation to an event (small group or large group) or
invite them to read a short story about Jesus (doing an on-the-spot-GIG).
This has been an effective method for witness.

About once or twice a semester we have an outreach event in a dorm TV
lounge based on a movie or a talk on a spiritual matter that would be
interesting to the average college student. The purpose of these is to meet
people and spark interest for GIGs. They aren’t typically “harvest” events.

The Vision

My vision for effective planting and building a fruitful fellowship is a
healthy and passionate team of student leaders. What gives me the most hope
is seeing students actively choose to love and serve their campus and their
fellowship by being a part of the leadership team. Three students in
particular have done so much to shape the face of our fellowship. As the
staff team develops the ministry skills and spiritual health of these
leaders, they are equipped to reach the campus in great ways, and to lead
others to embrace the vision and mission of our fellowship.

God is Working

Two of the three students mentioned above are sophomores who were active in
dorm small groups last year. After being devoted to our fellowship for the
fall semester, we invited them onto the student leadership team for the
spring semester. One led worship for our large group meetings, the other
was leading a GIG in the dorms and was our emcee at large group. At the end
of the school year, these students took initiative to get a house together
and create a space close to campus that could be used for ministry. We
currently have worship rehearsal and our leadership meetings there every
week. In addition, it is a common place of gathering to hang out before or
after small group and large group. The students are modeling Christian
community in great way for our fellowship. They also take initiative, and
are often coming to the staff with ideas they would like to see included in
the programs we’re helping to establish. They created a “missions team” to
collect an offering once a month at large group and use the money for God’s
purposes in the world. They are passionate about urban ministry and have
initiated weekend trips to San Francisco to serve the homeless and learn
about poverty. In my opinion, they are the best thing that has happened to
our fellowship, and they still have at least two more years of ministry to
lead other students into healthy and passionate ministry to their campus.

Help Needed

We need encouragement in seeing evangelism take off in our fellowship. The
staff has done a lot to teach, model, encourage and exhort students to be
witnesses. But we haven’t seen the harvest that we hear God telling us to
search for. We want to see growth happen through adding more Christians and
seeing new Christians come to Jesus.

Our average student is a white middle-class student with some church
background. We need help in learning how to reach corners of the campus
that we don’t normally connect with. Specifically, we want to reach the
ethnic minorities, Greeks, and athletes.

Chapter_Planting_4yr_Lrg_Chico_State.doc