Christian students looking for a social meeting might consider InterVarsity, a Christian group that welcomes all students to gather and discuss God and other topics involved in the Christian community.
InterVarsity began six years ago with only one weekly Bible study. The president of WSU, F. Ann Millner, realized that there were no Christian organizations on campus and contacted the youth pastor at Washington Heights Baptist Church. After a few phone calls, Brad Bertleson, InterVarsity’s area director, started commuting once a week from West Valley to have a weekly Bible study on the WSU campus.
InterVarsity has doubled in size since 2010, making it the largest student organization that meets on campus. It has more than 75 students involved, and tries to bring any and all who are interested.
Along with the weekly meetings on campus, InterVarsity also takes a number of trips throughout the year.
“Last year, we took 11 Weber students to China for five weeks,” said InterVarsity co-leader Cindy Fjell.
There is also Chapter Camp, which happens at Catalina Island over spring break. Their first large group meeting of the fall semester was Thursday, Aug. 25, and there were more than 130 students in attendance. The night began with some pop tunes to get the students excited for the night. The worship band played the song “American Dream” by Switchfoot to keep up high energy in the crowd.
Mac Smith, the current leader of InterVarsity, introduced himself by making a few jokes and detailing InterVarsity’s agenda and purpose.
”College is the time of your life where you really decide who you’re going to be, who you’re going to follow and what you’re going to believe,” Smith said. “I really think InterVarsity is crucial to have on campus because of that. You get thrown all these world views and ideas about who God is, and InterVarsity was crucial for me to have in my college years because I could have easily gone a different way and ended up doing something else.”
Kristen McCarthy, another co-leader, became involved with InterVarsity while she was in college, and started leading a Bible study while still in school. She moved to Utah from Nevada to co-lead with Smith in 2008.
“This job is like . . . the most life-giving job that I could have ever imagined,” McCarthy said.
InterVarsity encourages all students who might be interested to see what they’re all about. They have a number of Bible studies that happen during the week so that students can coordinate these sessions with their own schedules. Students can also find them on Facebook under the group name “InterVarsity@Weber State” to get connected as well.
