CCIV...

"We are... CC!!!"

When I first came on staff with InterVarsity, one of the first things that my Regional Director did was take me out to breakfast. We went to Bob Evans. I'd never been to Bob Evans before. It was nice. =0).

I remember very distinctly that while at breakfast, the RD gave me a vision for all of Mid-MO. He said, "Mizzou is going to be the flagship campus for Mid-Missouri, stretching to all parts of the state." My job was to be start at Mizzou and eventually branch out to other campuses. Thankfully, there were 3 other campuses within walking distance of Mizzou so I figured it wouldn't be that hard.

2012 rolled around and we still didn't have anything to show for our planting efforts beyond Mizzou ACF. I'd tried planting a Black Campus Ministry (BCM) chapter at Mizzou but I couldn't gain enough traction to make it go. Still, ACF was thriving and I felt pretty good about where things were. We had our first official volunteers on staff and one of those staff was charged with leading our apprentice group. She decided that to grow the soon to be leaders, she wanted to have them plant a chapter at Columbia College. After that apprenticeship program finished, the volunteer staff asked if she could actually stay at Columbia College and continue to plant there instead of with ACF. I was more than happy to grant that request and Columbia College InterVarsity (CCIV) was born.

To say that that Columbia College is a different beast from Mizzou would be an understatement. Instead of the 30-35,000 students on campus at Mizzou, Columbia College most recently just doubled it's residential dorm space to 850. While there are over 40 different evangelical student organizations at Mizzou, Columbia College had none. Instead, there were small groups run by campus staff from Mizzou who would then bring the Columbia College students to Mizzou for Large Group. What our volunteer decided was that Columbia College needed a group that was created by CC students for the CC campus.

CCIV has had its ups and downs the past few years, as all chapters do. Some years leadership is great. Other years, the students aren't as invested as we'd like. Still, the chapter plugs along. As I head into Sabbatical, I'm really excited about the crop of leaders we have who will be leading the charge in my absence. We're still hoping for a staff to come in and fill in some of the gaps but even if that doesn't happen, I'm proud of the work that we've done to create a campus group at Columbia College that will serve the campus as a whole. I am, and forever will be, proud to be... CC!

~Adam