Reflections
INTERVARSITY’S MARKETPLACE MINISTRY: ITS JOURNEY
By Pete Hammond, Director, Summer 2002
InterVarsity’s Marketplace venture began in 1980 as a result of some review of our Urbana Student Missions tradition. Concern had developed about what message we were presenting students and staff about calling and career during their campus days and after college. How could we better equip all InterVarsity students for ministry in all of life?
Shirley and I had just returned from a sabbatical in the Phillippines and I was without any specific work assignment. President John Alexander and VP Jim McLeish asked me to work on this growing concern about how we shaped and guided students into life-long kingdom service. We initially thought we ought to offer an “Urbana for the rest of our students” who were not entering mission or pastoral careers. What followed were three national conventions over seven years focused on career, church and city issues and needs - Washington ‘80, San Francisco ‘83 and Marketplace ‘86 in Chicago. Each conference was co-sponsored by an InterVarsity host region and included several partner organizations. The Chicago event reflected how much we had learned along the journey with its tag line - “Marketplace: Jesus’ Call to Service, Witness and Righteousness.” We also realized that one way to describe this venture was that we were renewing InterVarsity’s historic commitment to a “World and Life View.”for every follower of Christ. This was the understanding that Jesus Christ is the Lord over all of life and that every believer is called to obedient service in every area of life - family, work and citizenship. InterVarsity’s growth and increased organizational complexity had diminished that emphasis, and it needed to be refreshed.
Right after we finished the ‘86 event, InterVarsity had a sudden presidential transition and alumnus Tom Dunkerton became our interim leader. He had recently retired as a senior vice-president in advertising in New York City and had served as a leader in the Marketplace ‘86 conference. Tom charged me to establish an ongoing Marketplace Department (MP) that would assist our campus staff in equipping all students for ministry after college. Over the next few years a team of MP staff, campus staff associates and volunteer mentors emerged. We sponsored scores of MP events, developed new resources and communication tools including a national daily radio program Marketplace Voices (nine years on 300 stations) and a bi-monthly “newzine” called Networks which was later named Metier (seven years with nineteen issues). Other outcomes included books, Bible studies, directories of MP organizations, consulting services and MP speakers. We were really in business and very involved on campus, in churches and with alumni.
Along the way, two campus staff veterans began to focus on ministry to-and-with graduate students on America’s campuses. In 1988 Randy Bare and Cam Anderson launched what would become our Graduate Ministries team which merged with InterVarsity’s long-standing Faculty Ministries. Graduate & Faculty Ministries (GFM) now has staff teams focused on major research campuses alongside others serving graduate business schools, faculty fellowships, religious and theological schools as well as at schools of law and medicine.
As I reflected on this activity, I realized that InterVarsity was part of a much broader movement in the western church. Renewal initiatives about the ministry of every believer in daily life was gaining momentum across the Christian church. As I traveled, listened to the church and consulted, I wondered what else might be helpful to this renewal. My seminary studies in Church History suggested that much of the activity was not yet rooted in deep biblical convictions as much as it was triggered by hunger in the pew and curiosity about individual significance for every pew sitter. I sensed we needed to recover the daily life experiences and stories of everyday people in the Bible as a guide to Christian living and working in the world. This idea led to a seven year partnership with Thomas Nelson Publishers to develop the Word In Life Bible. It has been well received among veteran Christians, pastors and seekers as we used modern communications technology and formatting to close the gap between the “then and there of Bible times and the here and now of Christians in the world.”
In 1999 president Steve Hayner (1987-2001) suggested that the Marketplace Department should move away from being one of several small departments within InterVarsity and make the marketplace/ministry-in-daily-life (MP/MDL) vision part of the fabric of our whole organization. I accepted his charge and we closed down the MP department that year. By then we had developed a network of associate staff on most regional teams across the country and scores of mentors and alumni who were coaching students. Many staff campus teams had developed life-after-college, senior seminars or campus-to-career transition programs to serve graduating seniors. I moved into a vice-president’s position serving on the Executive Office Team and as a member of the Board of Trustees. Other MP department staff moved into careers in marketplace callings in finance, graduate studies and church management. I formed a new service called InterVarsity’s Ministry In Daily Life Resource Group. DeAnn Franklin and I continued to resource staff, alumni and sister marketplace ministry organizations with products, referrals and consulting. We also developed InterVarsity’s <www.ivmdl.org> website to serve the growing movement. Another growing edge was to provides services to students, staff and alumni in our sister student ministries in the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) which has over 140 indigenous national campus ministries around the world. At this juncture, we have provided teaching, mentors, products and consulting to over thirty-five member movements.
I continue consulting on these issues both inside and outside InterVarsity. The marketplace movement has gained momentum, breadth and depth in recent years. The flow of organizations, study sources and books is very diverse and gaining traction. Our most recent product is the new Marketplace Annotated Bibliography released this spring by InterVarsity Press.
Now president Alec Hill is asking me to re-invigorate our MP/MDL efforts with one of its services being to InterVarsity’s new Alumni start-up under incoming VP of Advancement Andrea McAleenan. As I focus on the final years of my career with InterVarsity (Shirley and I joined staff in 1966), I am very motivated to continue to help InterVarsity staff, students, alumni and donors become more confident and competent agents of the kingdom of God in all walks of life - family, jobs and community.
Soli Deo Gloria in the church and the world!
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