Catalyst

Last Friday marked the end of a week long leadership retreat for the central region called "Catalyst". The retreat was by invite only for students in Iowa, Missouri and Kansas with leadership positions in their chapters. The idea being, to lead this group through an experiential 5 day course on practical leadership, chapter development, and teamwork. Instead of just one or two staff planning and running an entire retreat, Catalyst was planned and run by the entire central region staff, taking advantage of all the staff's independent giftings.

I, as a newcomer to IVCF Staff, was very impressed with not only the quality of the teaching and programs but the quality of the students that were at the retreat. These were definitely students who shared a passion to serve in God's kingdom and were readily engaging each other in idea-storming and troubleshooting as well as shaping each other into more mature believers. Together they spent the week learning things such as spiritual disciplines, vision development & goal setting, evangelism planning and more; yet they soaked up all that like a sponge and seem eager to get back to their campus to apply it.

In addition to all of that - one of the staff experienced God's healing hand via some prayer late in the week. God healed her of some chronic hearing problems as well as her asthma!

This was the first of hopefully many collaborative retreats run by the central region. I can't wait to see what God will use us for in the future!