Excerpt from: https://intervarsity.org/blog/intervarsity-ruined-my-life
*Note: This is from the comments section of InterVarsity’s official website.

“I was a part of IV for 6 years of undergrad and 2 years of masters work. I always found that there was a certain culture in IV that I knew was not real life. I saw this in the way that discipleship worked. The guys that were discipled by the IV staff workers or exec. leaders always ended up acting, and talking, and praying, and leading like the person who was discipling them. This had to be a compliment to the character of the leaders because imitation is a sincere form of flattery, but it seemed off, and me being a creative music major who was pouring between 25-30 hours a week into crafting my sound and trying to stand apart, becoming like my staff worker was not my intention or desire. So, I butted heads with my staffworker constantly.

Looking back on this I felt like I was hungry for Jesus and IV was offering Christian agendas and programs, and I wasn’t necessarily drawn to that, because it wasn’t feeding what I was hungry for. And that led to more butting heads with staff workers and exec members, and led to long talks about IV’s vision statement and IV’s plans and programs that would help, “get me on board”…Now if most people had this experience in IV they would quit, but I stuck around and found much value by being apart of IV. I love it and I wouldn’t change my experience in it because it helped shaped me and grow me in ways that would not have happened any other way.

But there are some things I wished they would have done differently…I felt that there was always talk about being a world changer but that you could only change the world if you were on IV leadership or lived in strategically missional communities around campus, or if you went onto IV staff, or if you went to IV training, but if you didn’t do these things you could change the world by supporting IV staff or giving scholarships to students to go to training events. Which are all good things, but they seem so short-sighted. If a student in IV spends 4 years in college but 30 years in the work force shouldn’t more time be spent on preparing a student for life outside of college? Or if a small percentage end up on IV staff and the vast majority end up if professional fields why not devote lots of time and energy or invest in training that would help those more instead of devoting the most time and energy and directed training at the IV junkees.

It just did not sit well with me that the only time we talked about going into the professional world was when we were about to graduate, and that it was too little too late.”