Talk:InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Why is the whole article about IVCF USA? There is a thriving and pre-existing branch of Intervarsity Canada .... not everything happens in the US!70.77.48.7 03:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
- This article is about the American organization. You may be looking for Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship of Canada --Jdeboer 15:08, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
The history section was copied, nearly verbatim, from http://www.intervarsity.org/aboutus/history.php. It has been removed and is listed below. --Jdeboer 20:30, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] History
The history of InterVarsity begins with students at the University of Cambridge, England in 1877. There, a group of Christian students began to meet together, in spite of the disapproval of some University officials, to pray, study the Bible and witness to fellow students. Soon, similar groups sprung up on other campuses. Eventually, they formed the British Inter-Varsity (now known as UCCF). (Hence their name, inter - meaning between, varsity - the British term for university level students.) From the very beginning these students had a strong concern to take the gospel to those all over the world who had never heard it - a concern that continues in InterVarsity today.
In response to a plea for help from Canadian students, British InterVarsity sent Howard Guinness, a medical school graduate and vice-chairman of the British movement, to Canada in 1928. Students helped raise the money to provide one-way passage. As the funds became available, Howard slowly worked his way across Canada, starting up and assisting evangelical student groups.
By 1937 the Canadians began to hear requests for help from students in the United States as independent evangelical student groups began springing up. In 1938 Stacey Woods, the Canadian InterVarsity director, met with students on the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor campus. As an immediate result of that visit, students formed the first InterVarsity chapter in the United States.
By May of 1941 InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA became an official organization, with three staff on loan from Canada and Stacey Woods at the helm as Secretary General. In 1947 InterVarsity USA became a founding member of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, a federation of national Christian student movements. The other charter members are Australia, Britain, Canada, China, France, Holland, New Zealand, Norway, and Switzerland.
By 1950 there were 35 staff serving students in 499 InterVarsity chapters across the country. InterVarsity Press had been started to supply quality literature suitable for the campus. And the Urbana Student Missions Convention had begun the tradition of calling every student generation to consider global missions.
[edit] Controversy Subtopic
Removed this for the time being until someone can write a better section/synopsis of the Iowa Controversy than simply providing a link and one sentence. 74.134.228.189 17:27, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
- ==controversy==
Intervarsity's view of homosexuality has created controversy in Iowa.
-
- Unless a link between the incident at Central College and the national organization can be drawn, I suggest this topic be removed from this page. (and maybe sent to the college's page or even the college's IVCF chapter page.) --Jdeboer 03:50, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
