Student Organizations

Mission and Vision: To heed the call to live out our faith by being the hands and feet of Jesus through building habits of service and coming alongside on and off campus communities to listen, work with, and love our neighbors. 

Campus and Community Partnerships: We partner with hospitals, nonprofit organizations near Wheaton, and other clubs and organizations on campus. 

For more information or to get connected email ministry.evangelism@wheaton.edu.

Ron Chase, a graduate of the Class of 1956, spent the summer of 1957 in Mexico assisting some Presbyterian missionaries. He was so moved by this experience that he went back to Wheaton College in the fall of 1957 to share his vision. Chase shared what God was doing in his life as a result of his experience in Mexico. He urged [Foreign Missions Fellowship] to consider doing something similar with Wheaton students. The Student Missionary Project was born.

In the fall semester of 1957, Lee Ballard and Jim Muir initiated the plans. When the project was presented to the student body, forty-seven students applied for the summer of 1958. A careful screening process was followed, and twelve students were selected. Throughout the spring term this group, who became known as ‘The Wheaton Twelve,’ met weekly for orientation, bonding, and spiritual growth. They went to Guatemala, Honduras, and Costa Rica in three different groups.

SMP sought to help missionaries in practical ways in their ministry on the field. SMP also hoped to expose students to the realities of a cross-cultural experience for their own growth. Finally, SMP wanted to challenge the entire Wheaton College campus with the responsibility to take the Gospel to the whole world. When The Wheaton Twelve returned to campus in the fall, they all reported having been positively and personally affected by this new experience. They said they had a new understanding and appreciation of missionaries and missions in general.

For more information or to get connected email smp@my.wheaton.edu. 

It was an electrifying moment. Wheaton College was in the midst of special services held twice each year in chapel.

It was February 1936. The speaker, Dr. Robert McQuilkin, founder and president of Columbia Bible College, had been taken ill with the flu and was unable to speak. Dr. Walter Wilson of Kansas City filled in for him that day. As the chapel hour drew to a close, song leader Homer Hammontree was about to dismiss the meeting.

Suddenly a senior male student, Don Hillis, stood up and inquired what Christian students who truly love the Lord, should do to receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit's power. He deplored the fear of emotionalism that he saw among many Wheaton students. He said he believed such fear was hindering the work of the Holy Spirit.

Students responded to his earnest concern, and the chapel service became a prolonged period of confession of sin and praying to God for forgiveness that lasted until the evening service.

Thus, began what came to be known as the Revival of 1936. By the final day of the week Dr. McQuilkin had recovered and brought the closing message. He gave a ringing challenge for missions to which scores of students responded, committing themselves to overseas service.

Wheaton students returned to the campus in the fall of 1936 with a new enthusiasm to follow through on what God had done in their hearts during the revival of the previous February. What had been the SVM (Student Volunteer Movement) chapter at Wheaton now became a charter member of the SFMF (Student Foreign Missions Fellowship). Students held weekly meetings of missions emphasis with outside speakers. Prayer groups based on geography were organized again, so that students concerned for a specific area of the world could pray together. Teams of students from Wheaton fanned out to colleges and Bible institutes in the Chicago area to share their vision for fulfilling the Great Commission. 

For more information or to get connected email wcf@my.wheaton.edu.