 | |
| Founded | 1947 |
|---|---|
| Type | Christian interdenominational student association |
| Headquarters | Oxford, United Kingdom |
Area served | 180 countries |
General Secretary | Tim Adams, since 2021 |
| Website | ifesworld.org |
The International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) is an interdenominational association of 180 evangelical Christian student movements worldwide, encouraging evangelism, discipleship and mission among students. The headquarters is in Oxford, England.
In United Kingdom, the Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, founded in 1879, was a founding member of the Student Christian Movement of Great Britain (SCM) in 1892. [1] [2] Then in 1928, students left SCM due to differences over liberal positions and founded the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. [3] This movement was established in Canada in 1928 and in the United States in 1941. [4]
In 1947, the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students was founded. [5] Representatives from Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, China, Netherlands, Norway, France, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United States came together in Boston (USA) to strengthen evangelism, discipleship and world mission among students all over the world. [6]
It was present in 180 countries in 2023. [7]
Group meetings are held each week to discuss the Bible in universities. [8] These groups are Evangelical, but not attached to any particular confession. [9]
Representatives of all the member movements gather once every four years at the "World Assembly", where the General Committee meets to conduct official business of the fellowship. [10] IFES's General Secretaries have included: [11]
Christian literature distribution is also a feature of this ministry. InterVarsity Press (USA), Inter-Varsity Press (UK), Presses Bibliques Africaines (Francophone Africa), Harmat (Hungary), Andamio (Spain), and Ediciones Certeza (Latin America) are examples of regional publishing houses.
Tyndale is a Christian publishing house, publishing Christian fiction, nonfiction, children’s books amongst others. [14] Tyndale has supported IFES since 1967, through Tyndale House Foundation and helps establish IFES-affiliated publishing programs in other countries including Pakistan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Brazil, Uganda, India and the United States. These programs enable students to write and publish their own brochures, books and curriculums, and to serve their local campuses. [15]
Parachurch organizations are Christian faith-based organizations that work outside and across denominations to engage in social welfare and evangelism. Parachurch organizations seek to come alongside the church and specialize in things that individual churches may not be able to specialize in by themselves. They often cross denominational and national boundaries providing specialized services and training.
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA (IVCF) is an evangelical Christian student movement with affiliate groups on university campuses in U.S.. It is a member of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students.
Edward Michael Bankes Green was a British theologian, Anglican priest, Christian apologist and author of more than 50 books.
Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship of Canada, or InterVarsity is an evangelical Christian student movement with affiliate groups on university campuses in Canada. It is a member of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students.
Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship is an evangelical Christian student movement with affiliate groups on university campuses in the United Kingdom. It is a member of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. The UCCF endorses a conservative evangelical form of Christian theology.
The Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, usually known as CICCU, is the University of Cambridge's most prominent student Christian organisation, and was the first university Christian Union to have been founded. It was formed in 1877, but can trace its origins back to the formation of the Jesus Lane Sunday School in 1827 and the Cambridge Prayer Union in 1848. CICCU's stated purpose is "to make Jesus Christ known to students in Cambridge".
Christian unions (CUs) are evangelical Christian student groups. They exist in many countries and are often affiliated with either the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students or the Campus Crusade for Christ. Many Christian unions are one of the societies affiliated to their universities' students' union. As a broader term, Christian union may refer to any Christian student society, such as SCM and Fusion groups.
Founded in 1947, InterVarsity Press (IVP) is an American publisher of Christian books located in Lisle, Illinois. IVP focuses on publishing Christian books that discuss influential cultural moments, provide tools for mental growth through a Christian framework, and equip pastors, professors, and ministry leaders in their work. It is a subsidiary of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.
L'Abri is an evangelical Christian organisation which was founded on June 5, 1955 by Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith in Huémoz-sur-Ollon, Switzerland. They opened their alpine home as a ministry to curious travelers and as a forum to discuss philosophical and religious beliefs. Today, L'Abri houses in various parts of the world continue to offer people a place to stay when they travel.
The Austrian student mission is an evangelical Christian student movement with affiliate groups on university campuses in Austria. It is a member of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students.
Douglas R. Groothuis is an American Christian philosopher who is a professor of philosophy at Denver Seminary. Groothuis was a campus pastor for twelve years prior to obtaining a position as an associate professor of philosophy of religion and ethics at Denver Seminary in 1993. He was educated at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Oregon. He was married to Rebecca Merrill Groothuis until her death on July 6, 2018.
Richard Thomas France (1938–2012), known as R. T. France or Dick France, was a New Testament scholar and Anglican cleric. He was Principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, from 1989 to 1995. He also worked for the London School of Theology.
Donald George Bloesch was an American evangelical theologian. For more than 40 years, he published scholarly yet accessible works that generally defend traditional Protestant beliefs and practices while seeking to remain in the mainstream of modern Protestant theological thought. His seven-volume Christian Foundations series has brought him recognition as an important American theologian.
David Howard Adeney was a British Protestant Christian missionary and university evangelist in Hunan, China and East Asia. He served with the China Inland Mission (CIM), InterVarsity Fellowship, and International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES). In 1968 he founded the Discipleship Training Centre (DTC) in Singapore.
Inter-Varsity Press (IVP) was previously the publishing wing of Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship. It supported the publishing or distribution of well over one million books each year to over 150 countries, including the translation of titles into over 90 different languages. Following a UCCF-wide strategic review in 2005, IVP was divested. It was intended that this would reduce the financial burden on UCCF. By 2015, IVP was nearly insolvent. The trustees transferred its assets and liabilities to religious publisher SPCK, with an agreement to use the imprint for evangelical Christian publishing.
John White (1924–2002) was an evangelical Christian author and international speaker who worked with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students of Latin America and published many books through InterVarsity Press.
Oliver Rainsford Barclay was a British academic and evangelical Christian. Originally a zoologist, he later turned his attentions to widening the influence of conservative evangelical Christianity within universities and theological colleges. He was General Secretary of the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship from 1964 to 1980, and also Chair of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students from 1971 to 1979. In 1989, he co-founded the journal Science and Christian Belief.
C. René Padilla was an Ecuadorian evangelical theologian and missiologist known for coining the term integral mission in the 1970s to articulate Christianity's dual priority in evangelism and social activism. He popularized this term in Latin American evangelicalism through the Latin American Theological Fellowship and through the global evangelical Lausanne Conference of 1974.
Chua Wee Hian is a Singaporean Evangelical, known for his longterm role as General Secretary of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students from 1972 to 1991.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
