(This is a snippet from a prayer letter. Want to learn more? Sign up to receive my prayer letters here.)

I’ve mentioned that my role up until this point was primarily focused on MESC12. But now that it’s over, what’s next?

Well, we’re still working on that. But here are a few things we know for sure:

• I’ll be working with the Multiethnic Ministries Leadership Team to develop a strategy for social media for the department. But this isn’t just geek talk (although that’s surely a part of it); rather, it’ll involve learning to understand how we can partner in ministry with other groups that aren’t in the same physical location as us, how we can resource staff around the country, and how we can develop a community of likeminded people through social media.
• I’ll be helping develop resources for campus staff and students. One of my great passions is taking the amazing resources that exist across our movement and finding ways to make them available to the rest of the movement. That’s why I started Staffhacker, and now I have the opportunity to do that with some of our racial reconciliation-related resources.
• I’ll be working with staff at many different stages in their journey. I have the opportunity to work with IV staff (and people outside of IV) who are veterans of the racial reconciliation conversation, deep thinkers, pastors, leaders, philosophers, and overall incredible human beings; I also have the opportunity to work with staff and students who don’t even know what the phrase “racial reconciliation” means (who are also overall incredible human beings  ). I love this! I can learn from those with more wisdom than me, but share what I’ve learned with others; also, I’m not just hiding in an enclave of people who think like me, but being given the opportunity to interact and share and develop relationships from people all across the theological and philosophical spectrum.

(This is a snippet from a prayer letter. Want to learn more? Sign up to receive my prayer letters here.)

Thank you so much for your prayers and concern about the Multiethnic Staff Conference and our Virtual attendance program. The conference was incredible–from the preaching and exposition from Acts, to the prophetic voices speaking to our movement, to a continued exhortation to understand and meet our students in their contexts.

A few statistics:

• 125 staff registered to attend the entire conference virtually
• 204 unique viewers watching a total of 138 hours of live content
• 20 videos, including sessions, video blogs, and virtual host recap videos
• 1,549 video plays of the recorded videos (so far–the numbers keep growing!)
• 1,332 tweets (short little bursts of text about the conference on Twitter)

And a few quotes:

• From a special guest from another organization: “[Our] Diversity Journey has once again been impacted by the transparent example of InterVarsity. I’ve collected some great new ideas […] including some unexpected insights into the power of manuscript Bible study in a diverse community[… P]ersonally, I was stretched and affirmed and challenged and admonished…and I head back [home] tonight with a renewed commitment and vision for what we must keep at.”
• Special guest from Canada: “I left encouraged […] and was enriched by the depth of the wrestling of pertinent issues. There were some significant prophetic echoes heard in this gathering. Be assured that this gathering’s impact will continued to be a catalyst in re-charting the course of the InterVarsity movement.”
• Virtually attending staff: “It was great. I am thankful for that opportunity to participate in this way even when attending wasn’t a possibility for me.”
• InterVarsity leader from outside the Multiethnic Ministries Department: “As I sat with many of our national staff in Long Beach, I was struck by the engagement of the group with those not physically present. The emphasis was not on the golly-gee technology of streaming video or projected tweets of prayer. The emphasis was on welcoming, hosting, loving, caring and partnering.  The ME staff seem to “get” virtual ministry. There is a lot to VM, but the emphases on relationship and channels of communication are most important.”

The virtual attendance, video, & social media team:

• Maureen Huang, Jenn Ikoma-Motzko, Michael Motzko, Barney Lin, and 2100‘s David Hui, Laura Li, Glenn Griffin, and Steve Falk

Thank you for your support–you helped make this happen! Your support enabled each of those statistics to become reality, each of those experiences to come to fruition.