A Planting Breakthrough @ LMU

LA Greeks gathering this school year for training and vision

As we are planting Greek Ministry with InterVarsity in Los Angeles, we continued to be surprised by a campus called Loyola Marymount. Loyola was not one of the first places we were looking to start Greek Ministry, but as I document in this post, God is growing something there underground. He has made it clear that we need to be there and get something started, so we have been obeying that this year. God took this ministry to the next step last night!

My wife, Kristina, is the one who is planting this work as a part time, 10 hour a week, worker. She has a full time job as a mom and feels really called by God to be at home with the kids. So even though she has stepped back a ton from campus ministry, she is still planting a chapter faithfully with one day a week on campus. This great post by Erna, highlights the tensions that she and many moms feel as they navigate ministry and home life.

Breakthrough at LMU

Kristina Crosetto

But just last night God broke through further at LMU and below is a write up from Kristina about the evening.

Tonight I was supposed to meet with Mary (a Greek at LMU), that I met at an info meeting on campus to talk more with her about what it could mean for her to join our core team. Yesterday she texted me this:

“Basically four of my friends are interested in coming with me tomorrow. Would that be alright?”

As someone planting a ministry on a new campus, of course it is all right!

We met at a house where 5 women in the same Greek Chapter live and four of them wanted to sit in on the meeting. Another girl came from a different sorority that Mary also invited. It was such an amazing meeting.

We began with all of them sharing vulnerably with me their spiritual backgrounds. It really set the tone of the meeting and I was so thankful for their honesty. One of the women there, Sally, shared that while the others are Christian, she actually doesn’t have much of a background. She said she actually prays sometimes but often wonders about God a lot and would like to know more. She ended by saying, “So I just don’t know if I will really be able to bring much to the table.”

Her sharing was a perfect place to begin talking about why we have to start something like Greek InterVarsity at Loyola Marymount. I told her that we are trying to create a space on campus where Greeks like her could come and ask questions, learn about Jesus, and grow in their faith and relationship with God. We all then spent some time talking about what that could look like. It was a very fun and exciting discussion. It was so fun being with such amazing women leaders that also were craving something on campus for Greeks to “go deeper” with one another and to “experience the love of God.”

The best moments for me though came as we were wrapping up the meeting. After we had thought about next steps and felt excited about what God could do, we were sharing our last thoughts with each other.

Mary’s Moment

Mary shared how she almost didn’t come to the info meeting we had on campus. She only came because she had just gone to the on campus ministry to see if she could be a leader for freshmen in the fall and they had turned her down, saying that they don’t really like Seniors to take on those positions because they are leaving. She was bummed but then remembered a random email she had seen about our meeting and she was near us so she just thought she would pop by. I might not have ever met her and in turn, I wouldn’t have met these other awesome women. God was bringing her to this ministry. He was really answering a prayer I had been praying, because I have two great girls that I have been meeting with but I was praying for a partner for them that was a recruiter type. Mary is definitely a recruiter.

Sally’s Moment

Then Sally wanted to share. Through tears, she told us that she feels like this group is “for her.” She shared how she wanted to figure out more about God but she just doesn’t know anything about Him and she has so many questions. I felt God’s presence literally flood into the room, as I said, “isn’t it amazing that God doesn’t wait for us to come to him, but that he comes literally into our house?” We all laughed as we thought about it, and some of the other girls grabbed her and hugged her. This vision meeting wasn’t just talking about the vision. We were seeing it happen right in front of us. She wants to learn more about Jesus and I am excited that we are going to create that space for her.

I am convinced we are following God into his plan for the Greek system at LMU. He is leading each step and it is so exciting to watch and experience. Pray for us as we are going to meet again in July to plan more for the fall. God is moving!

For all the challenges that planting and starting new ministry presents, this is why we do it! What a joy when we step into the things that God is clearly growing.