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.
The cast
Stories have filtered through of students coming to know Christ all over the country, including Huddersfield, Newcastle and Northampton. Durham CU was given a platform to write about their ‘Rescued’ mission week on the BBC website while Heriot-Watt’s Galashiels campus saw its first ever mission week. Speaking before the week began, a member of the Christian Union enthused: ‘This week is such an incredible opportunity on our campus. We need to totally grasp a hold of it for all it’s worth, and remember we are doing this for God’s glory’. At Cardiff, one fresher who had drifted as a Christian offered his musical services for one of the hall group launch nights and is now plugged into that hall group. A Muslim student told Sarah Hewerdine, the Christian Union Staff Worker there: ‘I’m just really searching’, and is now planning to read Mark’s Gospel with a Relay Worker. At Huddersfield a room of ten non-Christians listened to the gospel being clearly explained in response to text-a-toastie.
The sequel
‘My fear is that CUs can tend to put too much emphasis on annual missions and not enough in outreach for the rest of the year.’ The words of Michael Green, who spoke at this year’s Sheffield mission, serve as a reminder that campus evangelism isn’t limited to a week or two in the academic year. Brian Weaver, UCCF’s Associate to the Director, similarly warns against this mindset. ‘We need to ensure that evangelism isn’t solely event-orientated, but a lifestyle pattern and that relationship always take precedence over logistics. That’s why we want to see more students involved in CUs, sent by their churches into the campus mission field, so that evangelism is something exercised by everyone, all of the time, and not just so-called key people at certain times.’
The sub-plot
The CUs who have already hosted missions are reflecting on different lessons learned. For many, the events week was the first real attempt to sow the seed of the gospel message and so the fruit will come later. Others have joyfully reaped the fruit of faithful friendship and witness that has been well established in recent months. Dave Bish, team leader in the South West, puts it this way: ‘Christian students have been helped to know Christ and speak of him more persuasively and warmly, with many emboldened to have conversations with their non-Christian friends. I am praying that this will prove to be a step along the way’. Commenting on how the impact of CU missions can take time to be felt: ‘This is a good opportunity to challenge today’s students, many of whom will be tomorrow’s leaders, with the joy and challenge of the Christian life’.
