InterVarsity Christian Fellowship is a student Christian movement that was started by students in England in the late 19th century. Back then in England universities were called “varsities.” Groups of Christian students at Cambridge and Oxford had started meeting together for prayer independently of one another. At some point they heard about each other and decided to form an “inter-varsity” (or between universities) Christian fellowship.
From England, students were sent to Canada to start InterVarsity groups there, and from there it spread to the United States in the late 1930s. InterVarsity is the oldest existing campus ministry in the United States, having been on campus serving students for over 70 years.
InterVarsity is known nationally for its excellent leadership development of students, developing “inductive” ways of studying the Bible, making small group Bible studies mainstream structures in churches, training in relational approaches to evangelism, and pursuing social justice and racial reconciliation.