What is the IFES?
by John Criswell
AIDS Bible Studies
About this project
About IFES
Some have referred to the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) as “the best kept secret in missions.” Quietly ministering on campuses around the world, this network of student ministries in 141 countries has some unique characteristics which warrant examination and duplication.
It’s a worldwide network of student ministries.
This collection of student ministries has banded together to achieve common goals and to provide mutual encouragement. A chief goal is to pioneer cooperatively indigenous student ministries in every country. Once a movement is established, the IFES also exists to strengthen and equip the national student ministries. The IFES does not sit in a hierarchical relationship over the student movements. Rather, the IFES exists to serve student movements and to help them achieve their goals.
It emphasizes autonomy and indigineity.
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA® is the IFES member movement in the United States. The IFES assumes that Americans are best suited to minister to other Americans. Accordingly, InterVarsity is free to identify needs, develop styles and emphasize certain elements according to unique American cultural or theological realities. Certainly, InterVarsity draws on the resources of other student movements, but as an autonomous, indigenous movement, it is responsible for its own government, funding and propagation.
It relies on student initiative.
The IFES depends on no master plan or individual with a grand vision. Most of the member movements can trace their origins to student prayer groups who took the initiative to reach out to their fellow students. This pattern has become the cornerstone of strategy for the IFES. When one realizes that the emerging student movements in the former Soviet Union were pioneered by 22-25 year olds and that indigenous student leaders are already assuming significant leadership, one cannot but give credit to God, who alone could make such things happen.
Its goal is the transformation of societies.
The goal of the IFES is not the establishment of student movements. The goal is societies which thoroughly reflect biblical truth. This broader goal leads the IFES to focus on developing students’ worldviews, their lifelong commitments to the Church, career choices, lifestyle options and a deep knowledge of and experience in the Christian faith. The IFES has seen that believing students will express their faith in and through their lives. Their salting of society, in government, education, business and the church, promotes truth and justice in the world.
It’s an example of “multi-directional” mission.
A common understanding of mission, uni-directional mission stresses the resources we have to send to someone who needs our help. On the other hand, a multi-directional approach to mission emphasizes relationships and partnership among equals. The key to its effectiveness is enhanced cross-cultural communication and mutual submission. For example, many Americans are concerned with how to minister in North Africa, a region with many needs, but not particularly open to missionary activity by Americans. In a multi-directional strategy, the question becomes not “How can we get in there?”, but “Who should be primary and who should be secondary in ministry in North Africa?” And, in fact, the Kenyan and Ugandan IFES movements are leading the way in ministering to students in North Africa. In this day when partnership is a trendy concept, the IFES has been practicing it for more than 50 years.
John M. Criswell is former director of InterVarsity Link & IFES Relations. Article orgininally published in Student Leadership Journal, Spring 2002.
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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