MITACF is a community of students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology devoted to bringing the whole Gospel to the whole campus to impact the whole world.

Statement of Purpose

The purpose of MITACF is to establish, assist, and encourage students who attest the Lord Jesus Christ as God Incarnate. Our major objectives are:

• To lead others to a personal faith in Christ as Lord and Savior.
• To help Christians grow toward maturity as disciples of Christ through the study of the Bible, through prayer, and through Christian fellowship.
• To present the call of God to the world mission of the Church, and to help students and faculty discover God's role for them.

Leadership Structure

ACF is a student-lead fellowship that is supported by a staff team trained by InterVarsity. Our leadership structure changes from year to year, but in general, three teams, Exec, Small Group Leaders, and Staff, have remained the same. There is an Exec team, composed of students, that leads the whole fellowship in carrying out the vision and goals for the year. The staff team provides teaching, training, support. This year, we also have an Outreach team whose goal is to learn more about and help our fellowship grow in the way we share our faith with others.

ACF as an Ethnic Specific Ministry

InterVarsity's stance on multi-ethnic vs. ethnic-specific ministries has long been "both/and" (not "either/or"). That is why you will find campuses such as MIT and Harvard that have multiple IVCF chapters in partnership with each other. Find more of IV's constantly developing thoughts in the IVCF document library. If you're wondering about the "vs." question, try a two-author debate paper. The tail end of one document is excerpted below.

Excerpts from a paper by Collin Tomikawa (IV staff formerly at Harvard, now at Berkeley)

. . .

A common question asked about ethnic specific ministry is one concerning unity. Are we not all Christians and is this not the central commonality we should focus on? To this one responds with a resounding Yes. We are all disciples of Jesus and inextricably of the same body. This is indeed our common call. However, within the diversity of the body there is a unique call and place for ethnic specific ministry to minister, teach, train, heal, challenge and reach a generation of people in the context of their culture and experience.

In conclusion, Unity is not as simple as gathering diverse believers in one room singing the same songs together. God calls us to a process that goes much deeper than "diversity". He asks us to fully engage in wrestling with the root issues that lead to racial reconciliation. God calls us--as different ethnic groups--to struggle to understand the fullness of who we are in the context of culture, institutions and power. He engages our hearts in acknowledging and grieving our ethnocentrism, our silence amidst injustice, and our participation in "the game of assimilation" with the dominant culture. In the pursuit to eradicate racism, our commitment extends not only to the present with this student generation, but to our family circles, social arenas, and institutional structures. With God's grace and mercy, because of the work of Jesus at the Cross-, and through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit we strive to build reconciliation and forgiveness, a central mark to our community.

ACF as a Parachurch Ministry

"We partner with churches in campus ministry and equip students, faculty and staff to be active lifelong members in local congregations." -- InterVarsity's twelve Core Commitments

Excerpts of a statement from Alec Hill (President of IVCF/USA):

. . .

"Parachurch" ministries like InterVarsity are sodalities - expressions of the local church, but not churches in themselves. "Para" means "along side" [e.g. "parallel"]. Historical examples of such extensions of church ministry include first century mobile missionary bands and medieval Catholic orders

. . .

As a sodality, InterVarsity works in cooperation, not in competition, with local congregations. Former president John Alexander wisely wrote: "InterVarsity is not a church. It cannot take the place of the church in students' lives. We are part of the missionary arm of the church." As such, we partner with particular churches to carry out their--and our--mission to campus

. . .

See the complete statement.