From Aberdeen to Plymouth over 80 CUs have been holding mission weeks up and down the country in the early months of this year, and thousands of students have been hearing about Jesus.
At Exeter, each evening over 200 students, mostly non-Christians, crammed into a caf? for the CU’s ‘Reality’ week’. Many heard the gospel proclaimed for the first time and over 20 made professions of faith. In Edinburgh, 183 seeker questions were answered by the CU. Over 100 students turned up at Lancaster CU’s lunchbars and at Nottingham Trent. So many came to one entitled ‘What is true love?’ that they ran out of food before the talk began! In London, Roehampton usually gets eight at lunchbars, but this year averaged over 40 and Kingston saw a similar growth.
The snacks
From well-established CUs like Oxford, which had to relocate to a bigger venue to accommodate those wanting to hear about Jesus, to small ones like Thames Valley, who usually only see two or three at lunchbars yet fed 35 students this year, it appears that across university campuses there is a hunger which goes beyond the food on offer. Provokingly titled lunchbars have once again proved to be an effective way of inviting students to hear the gospel, but other ways of reaching students have included music, drama, online video testimonies, cleaning kitchens and text-a-toastie where students can text a question with their location and receive a toasted sandwich with an answer.
