Campus focuses on love

More than 50 students, along with the Intercultural Student Services (ISS) Office and the Dean of Chapel Office, have worked for over a year to create this week’s campus-wide focus on love.

It’s called Love Revolution – a five-day event devoted to loving God, yourself, others, enemies and community that is based on 1 John 4:12, “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” (ESV)

According to its mission statement, Love Revolution aims to draw students out of darkness, expose struggles and equip them with the abilities necessary to love one another more unconditionally.

Jeanette Jain, (jr), the student intern for ISS, has played an active leadership role in coordinating Love Revolution. She explained that those involved with Love Revolution saw Indiana Wesleyan University students dealing with issues that their peers did not know how to handle; a lack of understanding of authentic love was part of the problem.

“[There is a] façade that we have to be perfect,” said Jain, who continued to explain that the aim of perfection forces students to hide, while creating a false sense of community that keeps them from loving like God.

Love Revolution’s schedule of events said, “We’re all dirty and messed up, but God has redeemed us and uses the mess in our lives to grow healing not only for ourselves, but for the purposes of sharing it with those around us.”

“We want real people to know that we serve a real God, with real issues,” said Latrese Moffitt, director of ISS.

The vision behind Love Revolution began over a year ago at the National Christian Multicultural Student Leaders Conference hosted by Eastern University.

IWU diversity coordinators and members of Doulos were challenged to create an event that educated students on culture and God’s love, according to Moffitt and Love Revolution’s Web site.

Jain explained that the students sat in a dorm room, unsure of what to do. But according to Jain, “[the] whole vision completely came from God.”

The group did not win the competition, but Moffitt saw potential for the change the event could make on campus and brought it to IWU.

When Dr. Jim Lo, Dean of the Chapel, heard about the idea for Love Revolution, he said there was no way the DOC office could not get involved. The DOC office partnered with ISS and created the chapel services along with creating a spiritual accountability system for the student leaders.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 8:00 AM and is filed under Frontpage.
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