Until relatively recently, I confess that I had started to think that the era in which fruitful first-contact evangelism took place had passed.
However, in a recent CU events week at which I was speaking, half of those who professed faith across the week or in the following weeks had been first met through first-contact evangelism. CUs have hit upon a form that is opening conversations, growing relationships and allowing students to encounter Jesus.
Maryam’s story
This past week, I heard the encouraging story of Maryam*. Maryam isn’t yet a Christian but is hearing more of the gospel each week. She belongs to a midweek church Bible study based in the city in which she studies, and is currently working through the book of Romans. In the most recent study, she described how different following Jesus is to the Islam of her youth. She feels increasingly at home in this group and now considers the church family her very own.
Beginning journeys with questions
Maryam’s contact with Christianity began when members of the Christian Union at her university stopped her and a friend as they were walking through campus last autumn. The CU had set up a large blackboard and were asking passing students to contribute to it whatever they considered were the biggest pressures of university life. Maryam ended up talking to these CU members for a long time. She was impressed by the interest they evidently had in the wellbeing of students on campus, and the idea that Jesus might speak into these pressures.
When the members of the CU invited Maryam to an evening themed around mental health, she eagerly accepted the invitation. She found the evening so helpful – and the honest stories of trusting Jesus amid mental anguish so refreshing – that, the following Sunday, she followed the CU members she’d first met along to church: the same fellowship which has now become ‘her’ church family.
Asking the right questions
Maryam’s story includes several of the hallmarks of this kind of approach. Instead of leading with overtly theological questions – questions that most students haven’t ever given any thought to, and which they consider largely irrelevant – CUs start by asking questions that obviously relate to us all. A visual approach – posing a question on a big board or screen – allows students to start engaging about the question from a distance. Asking them to then vote for an option or to write down their own answer on the board allows students to compare their response to others on their campus.
CU members will often ask some further questions, gently allowing the respondent to flesh out their answer or to tell the story of how they’ve come to see the world in this way. Very often, the conversation then opens up. Christians are regularly asked how they’d answer, or what difference being a Christian makes to this issue. There’s probably a special opportunity here amongst emerging adults: the latest research tells us that they hold fewer negative stereotypes of Christians than those even slightly older than them – and so they’re often grateful to chat.
Students want to talk
Many students have told me that, in a world in which it’s hard to find opportunity to talk about the things that they really care about, they appreciate the forum Christians have created.
Some go on to make friendships with Christians, or – like Maryam – come to further events themed around the question first posed. They begin to see that the Christian story explains how life really feels, and are opened up to explore its truth claim.
One of these was Esme*, who has asked about what she thought about love. She said that it was very important – but that love was wholly determined by chemical reactions in the brain. Later that day, she came to a lunchtime event considering whether there’s more to life than what we can see. She was so engaged that she conversed for three hours afterwards. That evening, she came to a performance of The Mark Drama – a production depicting Mark’s Gospel – which moved her to tears. She professed faith later that evening!
These dramatic stories are unusual. But the stories of Maryam, Esme and others remind us that there are plenty of students out there – and probably many of other demographics too – who are only too willing to engage with the questions that ultimately only Jesus can satisfactorily answer … if only we’d ask.
Peter Dray is Head of Creative Evangelism at UCCF: The Christian Unions.
