Growing up is hard.

At InterVarsity, we aim to support young people through the crucial years of growing up by helping them meet and follow Jesus. We provide mentorship and community through our high school, university and workplace groups and camps. We long to see young people emerge into adulthood with growing faith and the confidence to take on their next steps in life.

Having spent the past 30 years investing in the lives of young people all over the world through the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, it is a privilege to focus this next chapter of leadership and service in Canada.

All over the world, students are facing similar challenges. They are highly informed but not always thoughtful, widely connected but often lonely, well supported but struggling with mental health and resilience. Young people today are influenced by a broader range of cultural influences than ever before and this gives them enormous opportunities to make an impact for good with the Good News. Young people are engaging, passionate, concerned to make the world a better place, hungry for authenticity and looking for love.

Please pray for our mission as we seek to engage young people with the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ.

In partnership,

Nigel Pollock

President

Our ministry with emerging generations is anchored to these five aims:

It all began with one student.

At 25, Howard Guinness followed God’s call to put his medical studies on hold, leave his home and friends in Oxford and sail across turbulent waters for the sake of reaching out to university students in Canada.

It would have been easier for Howard to say no. To stay where he was comfortable. But he said yes. And with the help of a few friends, he raised funds for a one-way ticket to Canada.

He spent the next year travelling the country, urging students to see the campus as a place where God would capture the attention—even the very lives—of their friends. Broadening their strategy beyond the university, Howard and a group of student leaders organized the first InterVarsity camp for high school students. Going further, they took part in forming the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, a mission determined to introduce Jesus to students all over the world.

Through it all, they pursued Jesus with unwavering conviction. And because of the risky obedience that Howard and countless others have shown through the years, we can continue their work today, helping thousands of students across Canada hear God’s call. Almost 90 years later, they’re still saying yes.

It’s the five-year-old going to summer camp for the first time, and the parents who entrust her to us. The teenager who leads worship night at his high school, and the university student who’s unsure about how God relates to her studies. It’s the exchange student who’s never been part of a Bible study, and the recent grad who agrees to come on staff after a year interning with us on campus. No matter where they come from or what their background is, we’re eager to serve Canada’s youth, students and graduates so we can help them follow Jesus.