The History of GCF

This section of the website is under construction and constant revision. Please check back later as more details are filled in.

Before GCF

Graduate Christian Fellowship first began as a dream and a prayer in the heart of Neil Livingstone in the 1980s. Neil was an IVCF staff worker on Homewood campus, working with the undergraduate group Hopkins Christian Fellowship from 1984 to 1990. At that time, there was no separate fellowship for graduate or professional students, and he interceded for such a group to start on campus.

In the Spring semester of 1989, a group of about six Christian graduate students and friends began meeting in McCoy Hall, in the apartment of C.Fr. and W.Kn. (Back then, graduate students were allowed to reside in dormitories, believe it or not.)

The Early Days

The next semester, the group had doubled in size to twelve or thirteen. They began meeting in The Marylander and took on a format that would be followed for over a decade — meet together for singing and announcements as a large group, then break up into smaller groups for Bible study. As today, some studies were thorough journeys through books of the Bible, while others were topically based. Oftentimes, one of the studies available would be intended primarily for those having English as a second language.

It was around this time also that the group selected a leadership team and began to call themselves Graduate Christian Fellowship.

IVCF assigned a part time staff worker to serve the group named Kevin Kummer. Kevin took time out of his position at Penn to visit with the group once a month.

Growth continued, to the point that up to 45 students were regular attendees, with even more on the complete list, and the Marylander graciously opened up its common room and library for use.

For 1993, Penney Stackhouse was sent to work with GCF....

[Communicating with so many students would have been a challenge, and K.L., a Computer Science grad student, used his department's resources to establish a e-mail list server for GCF.]

[Sometime after this, GCF wanted to establish a Back-to-School Barbecue for incoming students and scholars. As this would be a large ordeal, we wanted to obtain campus recognition and funding. So, in ???, we approached the GRO, the group appointed by the University to recognize graduate student campus groups. The BBQ was a huge success, and this perhaps inspired the GRO to run their own the next year.]

[Our website was first developed by E.A., from Physics & Astronomy....]

[Around this time, GCF also produced its first “publication”, the GCF Songbook. This project was begun by T.Ch. A Christmas edition was also completed. For years, these blue and ??? songbooks were used at nearly every GCF gathering.]

(Re-)Affiliation with InterVarsity and After

Thus, in April of 2003, Dwight and Maria Schwartz came to serve us, and since that time they have ceaselessly sacrificed time, effort, and money to minister to the scholars on this campus, in Baltimore, and the greater Mid-Atlantic region.

In the Fall of 2006, L.P. came up with an idea of having a lunchtime Bible study for incoming students. Over time, this naturally developed into a small group of sorts and became part of the inspiration for the current model of GCF.

In [2007], without any warning, we learned that The Marylander was going to renovate and convert the common room into more apartments. We had to quickly remove our song books, food, utensils, Bibles, and other items, thus ending nearly two decades of studies held in that location at no cost to us.

Today

In the Fall of 2010, we had a welcome ice cream social and also discussed the direction in which to take GCF. It was decided based on feedback from this meeting to cease meeting every week in a large group setting and experiment with a small group setting. Currently, we have three separate groups meeting throughout the week, one over lunch on campus and the other two in the evening at the homes of members.

Timeline

1989
- Spring
  - A graduate student Bible study begins with six members in McCoy Hall.
- Fall
  - The study group — now doubled in size — moves to (an) apartment(s) in The Marylander.
  - The group is named Graduate Christian Fellowship.
1993
- Spring
  - Penney Stackhouse begins her ministry with GCF.
2003
- Spring
  - Dwight & Maria Schwartz begin their ministry with GCF.
2006
- Fall
  - The first-years' lunch Bible study begins.
2010
- Fall
  - GCF switches to a small group format.

See also our archive of previous activities.

Updated: 2011.03.22:18:33