As winter turns to spring, it has become my custom, over the last three years, to focus my energies on student evangelism. This year it has been my privilege to be involved in four universities. My first trip was to Aberystwyth (my alma mater) to speak at a special Globe Café; after that I joined others to speak and help out at events weeks in Dundee, Newcastle, and Utrecht in the Netherlands. As in previous years, I was invited to these events especially, but not exclusively, in order to help the students with their outreach to international students.
As I experienced in 2017 and 2018, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and tired myself out in equal measure. I was impressed again with the hard work and dedication of the students in each of these universities. A significant core of leaders were joined by others pitching in to help with the many practical jobs that make an event like this work.
These students were ably supported by their staff workers (UCCF in the UK, and IFES, Ichthus, and CFSR in the Netherlands). One or two decisions that were made by the students might have been better had they consulted their staff worker or experienced guest speaker more closely, but it is easy to see this in hindsight, and I am sure the CUs will learn from experience for future years.
In each place, the students created an atmosphere of warm hospitality; there was a true community feel, which a number of guests remarked on. This is surely very significant. By doing this they are creating a ‘plausibility structure’, as Newbigin called it, for the gospel: as people are welcomed into a room or tent by a group of students who share a love for the Lord Jesus, they are presented with an apologetic for the gospel even before anyone opens their mouth. And as public life becomes increasingly rancorous and nasty, such honest friendliness stands out all the more.
I was struck again this year by the importance of the development of ongoing long-term relationships by CU members with their unbelieving friends. So many students I talked to told me that they had been brought along by a friend and in some cases by one with whom they were already reading the Bible. It is lovely to see the patient plodding of CU members rewarded with the acceptance of an invitation to a special event.
The Utrecht mission – Passion Week, as they call it there – was the first for me in Continental Europe. It was only the second Passion Week they had run – the idea is still quite new in the Netherlands. The week was run by a few keen students who worked well together.
The student scene in the Netherlands is complicated: not only do you have Agape (Campus Crusade) and the Navigators operating on campus (just as they are on a few campuses in the UK) but there are also multiple organisations affiliated to IFES. Ichthus, the group that was mainly running the Passion Week has about 120 students in Utrecht but only about a dozen were really involved in the events. The Passion Week has the potential to make a big impact on the university, but it needs to be brought front and centre of what Ichthus are doing, rather than continue as a side show for a special interest group. The result of the lack of wider involvement was a poor turn out for the most part, although, and I don’t know why, the last night was unexpectedly packed.
One of the key issues for the events is the venue. In recent years many CUs in the UK have hired a marquee. In both Dundee and Newcastle, the marquee was pitched bang in the centre of campus. Handing out flyers and inviting students along was easy. The sheer fact of the tent was a draw, but the value goes far beyond that. The CU make it their home for the week – the hard-core sleep in it overnight to keep any equipment from being nicked – and there is always coffee on the brew so people to drop in for a chat. It comes at a high price – Dundee paid £3.5k for theirs but the Student Union paid for Newcastle’s – but it is well worth it.
In Utrecht the group hired a large open room in the main campus building – a sort of balcony of the refectory – for the lunch bars, which also worked well. I was surprised to find, however, that some students struggled to find it. Such venues need to be well sign posted. In the evening we met in a welcoming church building in the city centre, which I thought worked fine.
I am impressed with the quality of the talks in these events. This year was no exception, though one talk I heard mixed psychobabble with gospel creating a confusing message in my opinion. How important it is to ensure the speakers are up to the challenge of appropriate engagement with faithful content. When the message is clear and true and warmly delivered it is dynamite. I lost count of the times I heard a student say something like this: “I have never heard anything like that before!” How easy it makes the job of the student friend or CU guest as they seek to answer questions and urge them to consider the claims of Christ further.
We had quite a few interviews in Dundee and Newcastle and I was involved in some myself, as the interviewer. These were a mixed bag. CUs need to be careful who they ask to be interviewed. A guest interviewee who has a dramatic story may get carried away and give precious little for the interviewer to grab a hold of. Or the student might be so nervous he is constantly looking down at his script and it all looks so stilted and wooden. As the majority of guests these days are not from believing families, it is best to carefully limit the number of interviewees who have parents who took them to church from their infancy. It simply doesn’t connect with the experience of the listeners. The best interviews I listened to this year were of two students who, just a year before, had been invited along to an event and had trusted Christ. What a testimony!
Enough for now. In the coming days I shall comment on the students I met – national and international, secular and religious.
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