7/4/23 - Tom Lin: Reaching Every Campus for Christ

Intro: Welcome to the iWork4Him podcast. I'm Todd T. Reilly, producer of the iWork4Him radio program, the voice of the faith and work movement. Our mission is to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: This episode of iWork4Him was previously recorded for the Christian Leadership Alliance's Outcomes Conference podcast, where leaders come to invest the best of what they know into other leaders.

Martha: Remember, if you have influence over just one person, you are a leader. Together, let's listen to this podcast and learn more about leading God's way. Enjoy!

Jim: We have an incredible conversation today coming up with Tom Lin, president and CEO of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. We're going to be focusing on how Tom leads and strives to create a culture of belonging at InterVarsity and how they do that to all the organizations and the campuses and everywhere else that they spread the ministry of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship across the country and around the world.

Tom Lin, welcome!

Tom Lin: Thank you. Great to be with you, Jim and Martha.

Jim: You know, Tom, before we get started talking about your leadership role and perspective of how you created culture of belonging at InterVarsity, tell us how you keep your faith strong and your leadership Christ centered.

Tom Lin: Thanks. Great question.

I mean, I think when I think about keeping faith strong and keeping Christ centered in, in a very difficult, complex world today there's really, I think about the ways that I'm able to connect with people. And they connect with the Lord. So I think I would say two of the ways that that happens for me anyways, is making sure that I have input from a global community.

So I'm often in today's world challenged and inspired by the majority world, my brothers and sisters in Christ, who in other parts of the world and making sure that what, what their lives are about, the ways they're following Christ, what they're learning. that I'm learning those things as well. You know, my faith is inspired and strengthened when I look at brothers and sisters in other parts of the world.

And so that global community input is so crucial, I think. And I'm glad to have spent some of my, my years abroad and Having being a part of a global movement as well help. So, so I think this global community is really key for me anyways, and keeping my faith strong. Then I'd say that other area is connecting with the Lord.

So I do try to commit regular rhythms of retreat. And right now my team sets aside a day, every quarter for a retreat. I have an annual multi day retreat where I just make sure I have that time of solitude away. I have a great mentor who meets with me and those regular rhythms of retreat are so key to keeping my faith strong and Christ centered.

Jim: We've had many people tell us that. We haven't figured out how to just walk away, though. You have more staff, maybe, at InterVarsity, but I love that. You mentioned mentor. I want to jump onto that, because this is a question we haven't asked a lot of the leaders on the Outcomes Conference podcast recently.

Talk about your mentor. How many years of your leadership have you had a mentor? And how important has a mentor been in your walk with Christ?

Tom Lin: Yeah, great question. I've had different types of people walk with me at different seasons of life. The current spiritual mentor that walks with me is Leighton Ford, Dr. Leighton Ford. Leighton generally is a great mentor to me in these retreats that I take. He's also helped me start a mentoring group myself, actually, and that's one of his Ministries as part of Leighton Ford Ministries. But I do have a multi day retreat every year in North Carolina. And we meet together beforehand.

We meet together after. We meet during, and this is one of a time to process things that God's doing in my life and things that I'm hearing, things that I'm challenged with. So that's, that's, I would say one area of mentoring that is really important to me, probably about the last 10, 12 years with Leighton.

But certainly in different seasons has been different types of mentors, different things that I've needed.

Martha: Very good. So I want to talk about what are some of the key ways that you are creating a culture of belonging at InterVarsity?

Tom Lin: Wow. I mean, this is a broad topic. I think maybe just to give you a snippet of just a couple things that we're doing to create a culture of belonging I think the first area would be making sure we create safe spaces or group spaces where a variety of our staff can be heard.

I think in today's day and age, you know, with so many diverse voices out there. How do we hear? Well, how do we listen well to our staff? And when you have a diverse staff team like we do it takes a lot of work. And so we want to make sure we create these, look, we call them affinity groups.

And so whether it's our black staff or our staff who work with international students or Our our moms that are on staff or you know, whatever group it may be, We create these spaces where we can hear well. We've launched employee resource groups, Which is very common in the for profit sector. So we've got a variety of employee resource groups where Those staff can gather together.

They feel like they belong because they're connecting with like minded people with like minded struggles. And then me for me as a leader, I get to hear their concerns, their solutions, what would help them feel like they belong as well. And so, so that's one way. It's just making sure we have these kind of spaces for people to connect with each other. To be heard to be celebrated. That kind of thing.

The second thing maybe I'll mention is this is what I call - and I'll talk about it at the CLA conference - opening our eyes to the confederate flags in front of us. And so I was with a major ministry leader, leads a mission organization that you'd be familiar - with a couple thousand missionaries as part of it, and they wanted to see their workplace be more have more of a culture of belonging.

And and so he asked one of their one of the trustees on his board, you've been with us for a few years. What do you observe? And the trustee said if you open your eyes, you will see in your office, there are confederate flags everywhere. Of course, he didn't literally mean confederate flags, but we said if we, if you open your eyes, you see symbols, artifacts, things that are happening, things that are said that make certain people feel not welcome or not belonging.

Right. And it could be signals that say those of your political persuasion are not welcome. It could be signals that say those of you who are women are not welcome here. It could be other symbols or artifacts that say, you who are a staff of color, this is not the right place for you. And so I've kind of latched onto and said, and challenged our staff, like, what are the areas when we walk through the office, when we walk through our organization, where are those confederate flags?

What do you see? And opening our eyes to seeing, perhaps, in ways that we've never seen before, so opening our eyes to see is, is a huge thing.

Jim: And what a great way to describe one of the most, one of the biggest challenges to creating a culture of belonging. If people feel alienated, they're not going to feel like they belong. And identifying those things that make them feel alienated, that's powerful. We're talking with Tom Lin today from InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. We're going to take a break. We'll be right back with more from Tom.

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Jim: Hey, welcome back. As we talk with Tom Lin today, CEO of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Tom, what are the top two core principles that guide you daily as a Christian leader?

Tom Lin: Oh, that's a great question. A top two. I think as a chief executive, I'll just speak from being a CEO of an organization.

I asked the question, what is the unique purpose and vision of the organization that I lead? What is the unique purpose and vision of the organization I lead? And secondly, what can I do as a leader uniquely? So how do I allocate my time, my talent, my energies in a unique way? So those are two key questions that guide me each day as a Christian leader in terms of what I'm what am I supposed to do.

Right? What's the unique purpose and vision of the organization? And what can I uniquely do that perhaps others cannot? And that helps guide some of those actions for me each day.

Martha: So to give a little bit more context, let's talk about InterVarsity in terms of how big the culture is like paid staff, volunteers. What is the reach that you are ultimately leading?

Tom Lin: Yeah, we have about 1600 employees, 1600 all American, you know, based in the U S. 1600 employees. We're on about 800 university campuses across the country. Reaching, you know, anywhere from 50 to 70, 000 students, depending on you count undergrads, graduate students, PhD students, professors.

So that's, that's our mission and that's our unique mission, you know, purpose as an organization.

Martha: And the 1600 employees that are in the U S, they're all in all 50 states, roughly?

Tom Lin: They are. They're, they're in all 50 states, everywhere, wherever there's a university campus, we try to be near them.

Martha: Wow, you know, I just, I think it's so good to have that perspective because we're not just talking about, you know, I mean, we still need to very intentionally lead the culture if you're in an office with three people, but the challenges that might come your way when you are dealing with 1, 600 plus that all the volunteers and And everybody that you're dealing with, you know, is quite amazing.

So in that process of leading them, what does the role of listening play for you as a leader?

Tom Lin: Yeah, it's absolutely crucial. As I shared before, I think making sure we connect with these affinity groups, listening to staff is so crucial. So I think of how can I best listen to others and then there is the listening to the Lord as well, listening to the Lord and discerning, which is probably the most needed skill today. And leading through complexity, I would add, is how do you listen to the Lord and discern well? It's a very tough skill.

Jim: So leading through complexity, I like that. I like that. Listening to the Lord and leading through complexity. That that's good. I want to make sure I emphasize that.

Tom Lin: That's right. Yeah. And so I do what I can to, to find those spaces again, where I can listen to others and then find those spaces where I'm listening to the Lord.

Right. And, you know, I can share more detail if that'd be helpful. I mean, I think yeah. It's it does take a lot of intentionality to, you know, engage our 1600 staff. We'll do that formally through like an employee engagement survey. So what are our staff really saying out there? So what does the data tell us?

I'll do that in terms of inviting. I invite about a dozen of our staff to my living room every year for three days and I just listen to them and they're, they're kind of of a strategic group, right? And, and what are these 12 staff have to say that I need to listen to? And I try to listen to my board members.

I try to listen to other trusted leaders of other organizations. So I'm listening, intentionally going to people and trying to listen. And then of course, Those retreats I mentioned to be intentional to listen to the Lord.

Jim: What do you do when you hear something that you didn't like to hear?

Tom Lin: Well, you know, honestly my first reaction is probably the natural human tendency to to defend myself to say wait I don't know, But you don't know this or you don't know that. Right? And then when, when that kind of defensive posture has passed I asked questions. Can you tell me more? What am I not getting here? What do I not understand? It's hard. Certainly as, as leaders hearing critique, it's difficult. You know, we've invested so much in the organization, so much in leadership.

But as my staff always remind me, it's not just about the effort, you know, it's the outcome. Right? What's the outcome? What's the impact on others that you're having? Your effort could be great. Your intentions could be great, but what is the actual impact on the individual? And that often can only be answered by the individual. And so I need to hear it well, listen well, ask more questions to understand, and then respond.

Martha: As you lead the organization InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, how do you, as a leader, continue to learn? Like, are you intentionally putting yourself out there for learning opportunities, and what does that look like?

Tom Lin: Yeah, great question. I'm a big believer in continuous, lifelong learning, and I do that for all of my executives on my team as well. And, Certainly it should apply to the CEO as well. For me again, as I mentioned on the mentoring part, so making sure I have mentors, but I do engage in everything from formal program...

so about a decade ago Harvard Business School executive education program, right? So there's formal programs. For some executives, it's some seminary and I had my seminary degree a little bit earlier in my leadership career. And then yeah. One of the most, I think, practical, informal ways to keep learning is to serve on boards.

And so, serving on boards where you're interacting with others who you can learn from. You're learning from other organizations at the same time. I've joined some CEO groups as well, so. I actually have a group of five other CEOs that I meet with twice a year. They're the heads of the five other largest campus ministry organizations or youth organizations.

And we meet together twice a year to pray, to learn, to share what we're learning, to ask each other questions, to keep each other accountable. It's a wonderful group. And so, instill that lifelong learning.

Jim: Everybody always thinks they know everything about InterVarsity because it's, you know, it's a common household name. Tell us one thing about InterVarsity that most people don't know.

Tom Lin: Well, you know, yeah, InterVarsity has been around for about 80 years. What people may not realize is that InterVarsity is just one movement as part of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, we are the U. S. movement of an international fellowship. Over 160 countries have their own student movement, and what they might not realize is InterVarsity is actually not the largest in the world. The largest is arguably either in China, or in Nigeria, or in Kenya. They, depending on how you count, again, they might have larger movements.

Ethiopia actually has a campus ministry on every single campus in the entire country. You know, they're a little bit smaller country than the U. S., but that tells you something about the size of their ministry. And so I don't think a lot of people realize the global nature of campus ministry and, and how so many other majority world countries have significant ministries bigger than the U. S.

Jim: Wow. We're talking today with Tom Lin, the CEO of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. We'll be right back.

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Jim: Hey, welcome back. We're talking today with Tom Lin from InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Tom, when you consider InterVarsity Christian Fellowship today, what are you most enthusiastic about in terms of pursuing your mission and your impact?

Tom Lin: That's an easy question for us. We're fully focused on and fully excited about what we call our 2030 calling today. Our 2030 calling is a longing to see revival on every single campus in the country. It's a... Ambitious goal is to see some kind of movement of God established on every campus. There are actually about 2, 500 campuses, university campuses in the U S with over a thousand students.

And when we started this four years ago, when we launched this, more than half of them had no campus ministry, no witnessing communities. We don't say that there's no Christians there, but there's no Christian community on that campus. And so we, this vision just captivated us and what I love about this vision - and it's really just exciting - is that there is great collaboration happening.

So when we set this vision, around the same time, we called our friends at Cru asking them what they were hearing from the Lord and both Cru and InterVarsity together are the two largest campus ministries. And so when they said, actually, we're hearing a similar thing, and then we started talking to each other about what would it mean to pursue this together to begin forming a coalition of campus ministries that would say, we want to see a ministry on every campus.

So what can we do to help each other do that together? Right? Together, we launched EveryCampus.com. It's a coalition, a place where you can see a variety of groups. You can, you can see actually the data on that website of every campus. You can pray for every campus there, you can log in your prayers, and you can see what campuses are currently not being reached.

And so this kind of kingdom minded collaboration, it's so exciting for us. That just gets me up every morning. I'm really excited about that. And the goal we have is ambitious, but I believe God's in it and and we're working together with a variety of our partners.

Martha: You know, what a great example you are setting for just ministries everywhere to see that we're not in competition with each other. We may have different lanes that we play in or different ways that God is asking you to walk that out, but working together for the good of the gospel is what it's all about.

Jim: Yeah, and I love the way you guys are driving that back into the high school youth groups, to be able to connect the kids who are seniors in high school with the ministries that they can get plugged in before they get on campus, so they don't get lost and become part of the lost generations of kids on campus.

I've been following this for several years, and that's very exciting. Both our kids made it on the college campus, but it was one of those things where you're praying and I'm like, please get connected those first two, three days, such a big deal.

Tom Lin: That's right. We hope, you know, anyone who's watching or listening today, I hope if you've got children at that stage of life, please ahead of time, look at every campus, look at any campus ministry ahead of time and connect your children to these ministries.

Martha: And you know, I even just had a thought as an aunt and an uncle or a friend, you may have actually better influence over that teenager than if mom and dad do it. If I say to my nephew, Hey, I heard about this, you know, maybe, you know, anybody that you care about, let's get the word out there. Everycampus. com is a simple way for people to start that journey and getting connected, and we're so excited that you guys are doing that in a collaborative way.

So I want to ask this last question for the show today. Tom Lin, what is something today that you can share with the leaders that are listening to this podcast that you can invest into their lives?

Tom Lin: Great question. You know, I think if I were to share maybe what I've been thinking about more recently, sort of a leadership idea. that I've been pondering. I think it has to do with data. Data today. So, and the word that I'll use is disaggregation, disaggregation. So we live in a world that focuses a lot on aggregate data. Trending data, right?

You look at social media, it's trending data. We have a lot of surveys that give us data that we want. But I think the skill of a leader today is both being able to use that data, analyze it, trust it, you know, make decisions based off it, but also the skill of disaggregation, being able to say, you know actually sometimes we need to disaggregate and say, things are not always like that.

And so the example I'll give is We look at especially the negative news on social media. We look at the trending data that says the church is in decline. We look at the trending data that says People are losing their faith, that young people no longer believe in Jesus. Right? But as a leader, I've got to say, you know, actually, that church down the street, that local pastor is doing amazing things.

That ministry over there on that campus. Actually, people come to faith in droves and hundreds and hundreds of people are coming to faith. How can that be? You know, the data doesn't say that. So I think as much as possible, I've been encouraging other leaders to pay attention to both the aggregate data, you know. Certainly we need to analyze the data, but also utilize the skill of disaggregation to say, you know, all things are not like this, right? Whatever that data material may tell you because it's just an aggregate of A lot of different plot points. So how do we pay attention to the stories where God is at work?

How do we pay attention, even if it's not trending data, to that unique story, that bright spot where someone's doing something very innovative? What can we learn from that? So how do we disaggregate at times and take a step back? That's, that's kind of the thing I've been chewing on recently.

Jim: That's a great word. I love it. Disaggregation. You heard it first right here. Tom Lin from InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, thanks for being here on the podcast with us today.

Tom Lin: Thank you. Great to be with you.

Jim: Thanks for joining us today. We hope and pray that this podcast inspire you to think about how you can create a culture of belonging from what you've learned today from Tom Lin.

Break: Did you know that God has a calling on your life? It's true. He's called you to bring Jesus to the world. For some that may look like a pulpit or a foreign mission field, but for most of us, it looks like a construction site, a cubicle, a hospital, or a classroom. Wherever it is that you work, live, volunteer, and invest - that is your mission field.

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