Our History

Before the existence of the CIFC, small, bare-bones campus ministries proliferated at NYU and had little, if any, impact on non-Christian students. Many people often felt like their best evangelism efforts would often result in wasted time and energy. During the early stage of his undergraduate, Jeremy Del Rio (Class of ‘95), who then served on InterVarsity’s executive leadership team, noticed that the one common goal of all fellowship leaders was not to recruit “seekers” who would challenge the strength of their convictions and require them to stretch their faith, but rather to find reinforcements who would allow the ministries to live to see another day after the current leaders graduated in May. Thus they competed for the same handful of self-motivated, already dedicated Christians who were pre-determined to get involved in campus ministry.

Then something happened during the spring semester of 1993 that revolutionized the way ministries thought about their role as salt and light at the university. At the time, Jeremy served on the student council and was responsible for producing an unspecified event. Instead of proposing another beer-guzzling bar crawl or Saturday night dance-a-thon, he proposed that the student council sponsor a production of Bruce Kuhn’s The Gospel of Luke, a one-man show taken directly from the Scripture. The proposal was eventually approved by the student council, but with much skepticism.

The opportunity to produce Luke with the student council’s funding finally galvanized the fellowships to collective action. Eight organizations representing Catholic, Protestant, multi-ethnic, ethnic-specific, denominational and interdenominational affiliations, rose to the challenge. While no single group acting alone could pull it off, acting collectively forced them to combine the few resources they had so that God could multiply the effect.

Luke was a huge success. More than 250 people attended. The university named The Gospel of Luke “Event of the Year” and awarded the various Christian clubs for “Best Co-Sponsorship.” More importantly, for the first time in NYU history, evangelism at NYU took on a kingdom focus rather than a fellowship focus, and non-Christian students were engaged by their love and not by the competition between each ministry.

After the show, Jeremy and a group of Christian leaders decided that if God could use them to produce one event with a university-wide impact, He might want to use them on an ongoing basis. Over the next semester, they formalized their relationship for the purposes of securing campus credibility and funding and adopted a comprehensive mission statement: “The CIFC exists to unify the body of Christ at NYU in all of its diversity without regard to denominational, ethnic, or racial affiliation, and to engage the campus with Jesus’ message of love, salvation, and repentance.” In fall 1993, CIFC officially registered as a university club.

During Jeremy’s Junior and Senior years, the CIFC continued to engage the campus with holiday outreaches, community service projects, evangelistic theme weeks called “A Taste of Agape”, now Agape Week.

The CIFC is now officially recognized by the university serving more than 40 Christian organizations representing the full face of Christianity including Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox undergraduate and graduate believers. The school regards “Agape Week” with the same status afforded Greek week, women’s history month, pride month, and other university-sponsored cultural events.

Please see this article written by Jeremy Del Rio for a more comprehensive history of the CIFC.