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“IFES and its movements are above all a fellowship of evangelical students joined together in witness to other
students; rather than a missionary organization of professional outsiders
sent in to witness to students. This is basic both to IFES-linked groups’
evangelistic attractiveness, and to their ability to produce future leaders. As
Rene Padilla observes, ‘There is no better evangelist among students than those
who are students themselves.’
Obviously,
that does not mean that the campus fellowship exists as a self-sufficient unit.
It is usual for IFES-linked groups to enlist the aid of local church leaders
and graduates for major evangelistic presentation or Bible exposition. But the
principle of student leadership means that a pioneering staff seeks to raise up
Christian students who – like Christians in any other place – will take
responsibility for active witness where they are, rather than relying on an
outsider to do it for them. It means, too, that the gifts that God has given to
every believer amongst them – as to every believer anywhere (Ephesians 4:7-16) –
should be given the fullest opportunities for development, rather than
concentrating the planning, organization and implementation of all activity in
the hands of an indispensable specialist.
This is, of
course, one aspect of the fundamental Reformation principle of the ‘priesthood
of all believers’. It is visible in Acts 11 where Barnabas visits the young
believers of Antioch,
and instead of seeking to bring them under the strict control of a centralized
organization, he commits them to the Lord and encourages them to get on with
the work. It could be said that Barnabas was exercising a ministry similar to
that of a traveling IFES staff-worker today!
In IFES
groups, then, leadership is usually taken by students. Orders are not sent down
from the administrative office in Harrow or
anywhere else! And it is undoubtedly because of this development of the
leadership gifts of group members that so many go on to become pastors and
Christian leaders. Senator Mark Hatfield has commented that in IVCF-USA the ‘basis
in Scripture combined with student leadership produces top quality people to be
leaders in our society’. Even radically liberal theologian Harvey Cox, who
considers IVCF’s biblically-based theology ‘indefensible’, nevertheless wrote
in The Secular City that he would not
attribute the movement’s ‘strength and tenacity’ to ‘its appeal to the stupid
and closed-minded’(!), but to its student-led nature. ‘On the campus where I
was an undergraduate… IVCF sponsored scores of student-led Bible studies, where
the discussions were often hotter and more valuable than those carefully
supervised by clergymen… IVCF was a lay-led, highly visible, and extremely
mobile organization which did not have enough money to erect separate
facilities so was forced to live in the same world with everybody else.’ In
short, it was genuinely indigenous.
This does
not always work instantly, as we have noted in our section on Latin
America; sometimes the student leadership takes a long time to
emerge. Noor van Haaften has speculated that the tradition of Catholic
cultures, for example, discourages lay participation in religious matters, and
creates a mind-set that expects everything to be done by specialists. The
underlying socio-cultural factors have not really been adequately research as
yet; what is clear is that in such situations a great deal of input may be
needed from a staffworker if effective student leaders are to be raised up. (This
is particularly so where there is a lack of strong evangelical churches and
high-school groups giving good Bible teaching and mobilizing their members in
active, participating discipleship.) That in turn has implications for the
extent to which such staff can be itinerant. As Ross Douglas of Brazil indicated,
a ‘necessary minimum’ of staffworkers (and graduates) must be available.
And of
course the emergence of student leadership does not mean tha the staffworker’s
role is purely passive. There will always be a need for student leaders to be
backed up by staff who model discipleship and also can serve as a fund of
resources, ideas and relevant biblical principles. Many staff are actively
involved in programmes on a regional or national level where the decision
making may be done in partnership with a representative student committee, but
the implementation requires full-time personnel. As John Bowen of Canada has
remarked, ‘We believe in student initiative, and we believe in staff initiative
too.’
It might
seem that the activity of staff compromises the principle of indigenous student
leadership, since by definition staff are not students! But the distinctive
thing about the IFES working philosophy, compared with other organization active
on campus, is that it has chosen to live with this tension. Instead of accepting
the drift of decision-making into the hands of professionals, it has sought
always to keep responsibility in the hands of students whenever possible. This
is something that requires a more deliberate effort as movements grow. Its
original ethos has been maintained because it has had many leaders – people like
Stacey Woods, Chua Wee Hian, Doublas Johnson, Oliver Barclay, Samuel Escobar –
who have been marked by a determination to lead in a way that safeguards this
principle. The heavy emphasis on Bible study at every level, combined with
constitutional safeguards obliging leaders to be committed to the doctrinal
basis, has tended to produce an environment where student leaders will not
drift away from the original vision, but instead become permeated by Scripture
and hear the voice of God speaking into their decision-making.
The whole
subject was summarized in an interview with Oliver Barclay in the Singapore
magazine Impetus. Asked if doctrinal
weaknesses necessitated more staff supervision, he replied, ‘I don’t think it usually
necessary. It’s partly a question of how we train our leaders. A question to
ask is, have we enough stable people with good Bible knowledge amongst the
leaders? …So long as we can ensure that they are studying the Bible, then even
if they come up with strange ideas, they’ll eventually grow …I want to say to
students, “Before God you’re responsible for what happens here on your campus.”
I believe it’s a very important training-ground. I want to take the sort of
risks Paul took. He ordained elders in every place he went, even though they
were young churches…I still find his leadership very real. He says, “I urge
you, I encourage you.” He was persuading even as he laid down the law of the
Word of God. But if you don’t give students responsibilities you don’t develop
people who carry responsibilities later on.’” - The Day of His Power, Pete Lowman (1983)
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