Who Do We Serve?

IV at UNC serves a distinct sub-culture of students. Here's some of what they are about:

1. Many students come from the Southern Bible-belt tradition where church-going is about social contacts and generally developing something called "morality." The gospel we've been talking about this week is about waking those students up to this bigger reality: this stuff matters. It is not just "religious wallpaper"--something in the background of life that doesn't really make any difference. It's a story and a movement and a Person big enough to live for...and die for.

2. Many students come from great churches where they've been taught about the priority and value of a personal relationship with Jesus. To those students, we heartily affirm the glory of a personal relationship with the Living God. And we call them to the glorious reality that life as a Jesus-follower is much, much bigger than just you and Jesus. It's about working out his kind of life, love, power, purposes in every corner of the globe. This is a message worth all the world knowing about because it impacts every corner of every culture in every place all over the world.

3. Many students have grown up in some sort of church but have abandoned it for a variety of reasons: hypocrisy, "church trauma," or they were passionate about issues that the church had no category for or didn't seem to care about. To those students, we invite them into the authentic power of reconciliation, restoration, and revolution. Christ's love and power is big enough to heal and bring reconciliation for them and their Christian community baggage. It's also big enough to speak to all the issues of brokenness in the world.

4. And still plenty more students haven't spent any time in the church at all, but they're plenty ticked about issues of justice, poverty, war, race, etc. It's nearly a requirement at UNC that you have to be angry about something in order to get in. To those students, we say that we, too, are passionate about justice. We know and love the spirit of activism that longs to make things right. We know that spirit. That spirit is the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Let us introduce you to the One who longs to make all things right. Let us introduce you to the One who is making all things new.

And so we speak and proclaim that the message of Jesus is about Reconciliation, Restoration, Revolution. This is a message that both captures the heart of what the gospel is all about AND a message that our particular mission field desperately needs to hear.

Reconciliation:

Joining God’s work of mending broken relationships both between us and God and amongst ourselves

Restoration:

Joining God’s work of bringing healing and wholeness to individuals, society, and its systems

Revolution:

Owning the countercultural nature of Jesus’s message:
that radical transformation is both necessary (because of God’s goodness and our brokenness) and possible (because of God’s power and our redemption), and that this is through Christ alone.