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University Challenge
By Tom Shaw
The City Church, Canterbury, UK
The Vital Role of Church-Based Student Work in Changing a Nation
Contrary to what some may believe, going to university is not something to ‘survive’ but an almost unique opportunity to thrive. If I had a pound for every time I have seen a Christian teenager, fairly committed whilst in their teenage years, blossom dramatically into a mighty man or woman of God, full of zeal, power and leadership potential upon starting university, I would be a very rich man indeed!
The ideal opportunity
The university environment provides the ideal opportunity for school leavers to stand for what they believe. For many, this is the first time that they will have to do so without the support of family and life-long friends. Amidst this challenge however, there is very real blessing. Boys are turned into spiritual men, girls into spiritual women.
We are now seeing many start university with an anticipation of great spiritual adventure, an expectation to take risks for Jesus on a daily basis, an expectation that their time at university counts for much more than simply getting a degree. Unprecedented numbers are entering university determined that this season of their life will have huge, eternal consequences.
Where the expectation of there being churches with a vision for seeing students saved and added was once something of a rarity, it is now becoming the norm. Currently 75 of the 190 Newfrontiers churches in the UK have recognised, established student works and this figure is constantly growing. Again and again, stories of churches being planted with a vision for impacting the local universities are being heard.
Only two and a half years ago I remember sitting with Andy Arscott and seventeen others very near the launch of ‘Frontiers Church Exeter’. Andy was committed to the birthing of this church with a passion and vision for reaching the students of that city with the good news of Jesus Christ and a big vision of the beauty of the local church.
God has mightily exceeded Andy’s and the team’s expectations and has thoroughly honoured them for their commitment to laying scriptural foundations. Currently the church has 70 committed undergraduates within its body and even saw approximately 100 students visit the church one recent Sunday for several baptisms. Gloriously, this story of astonishing growth is far from isolated.
Tim and Vicki Simmonds are leading the team responsible for student work at West Birmingham Family Church. They currently have 50 committed students in their church, yet Tim and the team are far from satisfied that they have seen all that God wants to give them. In fact, he believes that God has whispered the audacious promise of ‘500 students in five years’. Now that’s big vision!
God has also caused exponential growth at King’s Church, Norwich. Student numbers have risen dramatically in recent years as Mark Bullen and his mighty team have brought vision, passion and strategy to the student work. Things have grown to such an extent that coaches are now needed every Sunday in order to ferry all the students from campus to the church building! Minibuses are a thing of the past for these trail-blazers!
Despite the fact that Newfrontiers has planted in Scotland only three years ago, they have already held their first student weekend away where dozens of students from the Glasgow and Edinburgh churches spent time beseeching God and crying out with enormous passion for revival to come to this nation.
Local church student vision
In summary, at a national level we are seeing church after church running with a vision to get into universities with the gospel of Christ. Historically this has not been the case; hence the emergence of para-church organisations that have tried to do what was not being done. However, it seems a new day is upon us where the safety and sustainability of local church is being coupled with zeal and evangelistic fervour that results in a winning recipe for massive national impact. That is, students aren’t just ‘saved’, but also properly ‘added’ into God’s chosen vehicle, the bride of Christ, the local church.
This new pro-activity could not have come at a more vital time. As the UK government looks for up to 50% of school leavers to go on to university, over three million young people could enter into full-time higher education in the next few years. Our government is unwittingly herding millions into the very place where God is dramatically on the move!
God’s agenda
Does this sound familiar? A national leader with his own plans making decisions that aid the advance of God’s agenda? Throughout Scripture we see a God who uses national leaders unwittingly for his purposes, such as Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus and Pharaoh, to name but a few. Although each of these leaders mentioned had his own earthly reasons for making the decisions that he did, we see that behind the scenes the true Author of all history used these situations to bring forth His will.
In the example of King Nebuchadnezzar in 2 Kings 25, for instance, we see that Israel’s enemy, Babylon, takes most of the nation captive. Ostensibly this was a simple case of one nation bullying another. As the story unfolds however, it becomes clear that God had a purpose to chasten His people through the humbling experience of exile, so that they might repent and return to Him. God used a national leader to help facilitate His purposes.
Could it be that a modern day ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ situation is unfolding? Let’s dare to dream a dream that in 25 years, when revival is burning through this land, we will look back and trace its roots to this period in time when crucial decisions were made in high office that led not just to a generation with more degrees, but a generation who were turned around by God whilst at university.
I have a dream that in years to come, the overwhelming trend reported by newspapers will be the startling numbers getting saved when going to university. Whilst primary and secondary schools will be the places where basic education is taught and the fundamental lessons of life begin to be learnt, university will be where, with breath-taking consistency, we see multitudes of cynics turned around into worshippers.
Unique environment
The unique environment that is university, a tight-knit community of people who are asking questions, provides an increasingly conducive environment for the wild-fire of God’s gospel to spread out of control. Oh God, let government fling wide the doors to allow even more people into higher education! Let us BE READY at every freshers’ fair in every university! Let us be the ones who pioneer Alpha courses in even the most resistant of campuses! Let us be the ones who do not give up on those that make a commitment to Christ but actually model being ‘friends that won’t let go’! Let us build churches that serve our students by having accountable relationships at their heart! Let us help to raise up a holy generation!
I genuinely believe that God is calling us as a family of churches to dream big dreams and feel the weight of what is possible if we were truly to give ourselves to not just establishing a thousand churches, but a thousand churches ablaze with a passion to stand with authority in the darkest, most sin-saturated campuses and proclaim the gospel of Christ with huge boldness.
Church truly is the ‘hope of the world’. It is also the hope of the campus. It forms the peak of God’s purposes to declare the glory of who He is to a lost and dying world. The fact that students are being attracted to give their lives to the building of it is not really that surprising. When we build student works that are rooted and established in local churches, we have the ultimate advantage of offering students a chance to become part of the greatest family on earth. No wonder students in their thousands are discovering that life becomes all that God intends not through belonging to an organisation of similar-aged people, but only by giving themselves to a people of diversity! Old and young, rich and poor.
The power of student work in Newfrontiers does not lie in slick marketing or professional strategies. It is found in the fact that it promotes the local church as the centre-piece around which our lives should be built. It encourages the most different of people to become the best of friends. The un-unitable become united through Christ. Students with bank managers, undergraduates with old age pensioners, twenty-somethings with sixty-somethings. When the world sees this, it cannot ignore the fact that something bigger than a society or club is being built. It cannot ignore the work of an amazing Creator.
Tomorrow’s leaders
Moreover, universities are massive reservoirs of leaders of tomorrow. The business world realised this long ago, but it seems finally that the church is catching up. If we are going to have any hope of planting a thousand churches in the UK, there can be no doubt that, of the countless numbers who will form these churches, many will first catch something of this vision whilst at university. It is for this reason that the student-focused leadership conference, Mobilise, is of such massive importance.
Last year, over 850 students and twenties gathered in Brighton for a week of mission-focused teaching and worship. True to its name, Mobilise aims to do exactly what it says ‘on the tin’: mobilise thousands into leadership. The focus is the UK and the ends of the earth. The vision: to express a clear invitation to the next generation that ‘the time is NOW’ for us to get on board with all that God is doing and take our place, particularly in leadership.
By all accounts, Mobilise has got the fingerprints of God all over it. In light of all that has already been said, it’s not surprising that when we have gathered to gain something of the bigger picture, the commissioning of God has been loud and clear. The promises of ‘a thousand churches in this nation’ and ‘changing the expression of Christianity around the world’ have increasingly become part of our DNA. In an increasingly hostile nation, the battle-cry for us to stand together as a people and not shrink back is being heard. The student army of God is assembling to take its place within the cross-generational advance by us as a people. Spiritual fathers are running with spiritual sons and daughters.
The astonishing thing is that, with all that we are seeing, it seems undeniable that this is merely the tip of the iceberg. What a joy it is to be part of a family of churches who are big-hearted enough not just to allow students amongst its ranks, but proactively to seek them out, train them up and release them into all that God has for them. This advance as a family of churches into radical and wide-spread student work truly is a new frontier. And personally, it’s a place I like the feel of! |
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