InterVarsity Head: Millennials Want to Change the World

In the midst of a bustling young crowd of more than 22,000 college students making their way to Bible studies and seminars at Urbana 2006, InterVarsity President Alec Hill spoke enthusiastically of the Millennials – the next generation of missionaries. Although not an “Urbanaite” himself, Hill sees a global generation ready to put “legs” to missions.

CP: The first Urbana conference was held right after World War II, with missionaries reaching out to countries devastated by the war. What would you say is the WWII of today that calls for the need of these students to mission works?

Hill: One of the differences is the folks who came back after World War II were the first InterVarsity leaders. So a lot of those students were 25, 30 years old who had seen the world. So there was a maturity about those early Urbanaites who came. The comparable is that this group – this generation of students – really is global in their orientation. They’ve traveled; they’ve been overseas. So I would say compared to the 70s, you have a much more sophisticated audience with the students.

In terms of the parts of the world, clearly after World War II you have a ravaged Europe. Today, of course, you have Muslim countries, Africa with the AIDS pandemic. … Part of what’s going on is partnering with what we do overseas. Let me give you an illustration out of Mongolia. Tom and Nancy Lin, for five years, went over to Mongolia and partnered with South Korean campus workers there. They went to Ulaanbaatar and they planted a new student movement there. And I think, as I understand it, they have three or four campuses; they’ve spread to different cities, and they now have indigenous campus staff.

CP: What’s the trend of missionaries going out of North America? Are they getting younger?

Hill: I don’t have the demographics on missionaries in terms of ages. I would like to think there are a lot of second career people and people who make decisions later in life. What I can speak to is the enthusiasm of this generation. At Urbana ’03, we had a speaker and the line waiting to go and serve was amazing. Clearly the response rate is very high. I think we had in 2003 the highest the number … of students signing up for [a decision card]. Millennials want to change the world. They want to go.

I worked for World Relief years ago and the example I gave [at a seminar] was I went to a pastor in the states and I was talking about doing work with refugees in his neighborhood. He said ‘No, that’s not part of the gospel that we do.’ And I pointed out that his brother, who is in Calcutta, ran an orphanage, a medical facility and a school. And he said that’s overseas. And I walked out totally discouraged. I do not see that with this generation. I do not see a sense of an artificial divide between proclamation and justice and service. It is absolutely fabulous. So I love the Millennials – the idealism and the “do it” sort of feeling. They want to put legs to it. They’re not just theoretical.

I’m asked sometimes about this generation and you hear all these woe stories. I’m just the opposite. I’m really excited.

CP: A lot of the students aren’t too aware of what’s going on with global Christianity. So they’re largely focused on aid work especially with poverty. Do you think after becoming aware of the global issues, they might shift their missions focus?

Hill: My guess [is that] last night – if the students were listening carefully with Oscar [Muriu] – was a shocking moment when they realized that we are in the declining church in the West, although it’s less pronounced in the United States than in Europe or Australia. … In 1900, 90 percent of Christians were in the West. Today, it’s 30 percent. The center has shifted. Americans, we tend to think we’re in the center of the world of everything. The reality is that we are not the center. The center has moved to Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia. And I think for a lot of our students, that is an awakening.

I kind of held my breath when he (Muriu) said, well, does this mean we shouldn’t go, that we don’t need Western missionaries? How is he going to answer this? And he said, ‘Of course, there’s so much need in the world. There’s so much hurt.’ So clearly, whatever we motivate all these students at Urbana and InterVarsity will certainly not be enough to address all of the need, so there’s certainly no shortage at all.

CP: Did you have an Urbana or Urbana-like experience before?

Hill: I did not. I came from outside in year 2001. I came to Urbana in 2000 but I was being interviewed. When I came in 2000, I was stunned.

Is this your first [Urbana]?

CP: Yes.

Hill: Isn’t it just remarkable? You walk in and you just go; it’s like an oasis of people. We call it discipleship of the mind …. Then there’s just the ethnic diversity, there’s the global diversity. There’s also within InterVarsity an appreciation of the complexity with the issues. You won’t find a lot of simplistic answers. You’ll find people who are very thoughtful and reflective and who bring the gospel to bear on the particular problems. We really are a university culture.

CP: Are you looking to draw more international students?

Hill: One of the things that Jim Tebbe was clear to say is that this is a North American missions conference, this is not a global missions conference. This Urbana has spawned like 20 other conferences like Urbana in other countries. That would be antithetical to our value to make this the global convention for missions. We are doing a North American student missions convention. And we’re glad to have the guests come in. We’re much happier to see Brazilians in their context do their event and we then send our representatives there.

CP: Can I get an update on the new expansion model for InterVarsity?

Hill: We’re in the first phase and we have 12 “chapter planters” – what we call them – who went on campuses this fall. The idea is that they will work rather quietly in this first phase and they will find missional Christians, as we call people who want to build and grow, and disciple them and train them. And then in the second phase, that can come either later this year or early in the second year, they go public and do the large group. So far, we’re very pleased.

You heard Nick [last night]. When he was an undergraduate at Western Michigan, he started Bible studies in his dorm and he had 30 guys. Then he moved to another dorm and did the same thing and then he had 60 guys. This was a student. So when Nick is 23, he goes off way away from home and starts this chapter at this school that didn’t have a campus ministry.

We hope to do 100 of these over the next five years. So it’s a major initiative for us. But we’re in about a quarter of the campuses that we want to be on and this is a step in that direction.