As Freshers’ Week approaches I’ve been putting together a series of posts looking at how University Christian Unions’ can be most effective during the first few weeks of term. You can check out Part 1 here, but now it’s time for Part 2:

2. Create a CU culture that loves the local church

As well as wanting Christian freshers to catch the vision of Christian Union (see Part 1!), it’s crucial that they also see the importance of belonging, serving, and being pastored as part of a local church. But if there isn’t much of a culture of being part of a local church amongst returning students, then it’s unlikely that freshers will be any different.

In the New Testament church isn’t an event you attend, neither is it a building you frequent. The biblical model is a gathering of people to whom you belong, and who are together and through the means of each other being transformed into the likeness of Christ. In my first year at Uni this just wasn’t on my radar, and I think my Christian growth stuttered as a result. I’d thrown myself into my college CU, but I didn’t have belonging to a church high on my list of priorities. As a result I was a consumer, a passenger, who simply turned up to a church on a Sunday night to get stuff out of a meeting. I had no commitment to the people around me, no real sense of accountability to the leadership, no sense of being pastored by them, and in no way was I serving that church. I attended pretty much because it was the done thing for Christians to do but to use Joshua Harris’ phrase, I was dating the church. In the summer holiday after first-year, I realised that come September it had to change.

What kind of culture do you have in your CU when it comes to church? Are you helping other students to have a biblical vision of church, and showing them how being part of a church is different to being part of a CU? Why not have a slot on ‘getting stuck into church’ in your first few meetings. As 2nd & 3rd years are you modelling using your extra time and energy to serve sacrificially at your church, or are you simply modelling a consumer ‘date-the-church’ mentality?

September’s just around the corner, and that’ll means for thousands of new students Freshers’ Week is fast approaching. As a result it’s an absolutely crucial time for University Christian Unions (CUs), both in encouraging Christian freshers, and in giving a whole new intake of students a chance to hear about the good news of Jesus, maybe for the first time. If you’re part of a CU, here’s the first of a handful posts putting together some tips on making the most of the opportunities you have as a CU in these crucial first few weeks…

1. Keep the main thing the main thing: you’re a mission team to bring the gospel to your Uni.

There’s an old story about a large city’s transport organisation who received a load of complaints that their buses were driving past customers leaving them standing at the bus stops. Bizarrely the organisation responded to this by putting a notice in the local paper that read: “It is impossible for us to maintain our schedule if we are always having to stop and pick up passengers.” Ridiculous, I know, but it’s become a classic example of not keeping the main thing the main thing. But it’s something that we can all do, CU’s included.

CU’s exist for evangelism, to give every student the opportunity to respond to the amazing news of Jesus Christ. That is our main thing. We come together as Christians from different churches to encourage each other in this task, and to make the most of the great opportunities there are to run events on campus where the gospel is put out into the public sphere. You may feel all this is stating the obvious, but don’t underestimate how easy it is for CU’s to be distracted from this goal.

If you’re involved in leadership in CU, then just think about it: you’ve actually been delegated responsibility to ensure this glorious vision is steering all that you do. Whether you’re a secretary, treasurer or the president, you have a responsibility to keep the CU on track for this task. I can distinctly remember visiting a CU in London a few years ago and hearing the CU president open the meeting by explaining with great clarity and passion that the CU was all about being a ‘mission team on campus’. It left a mark on me, because on the one hand it was such a simple thing to do, yet it also gave real focus both to our identity as a CU and the point of that meeting. We weren’t just a bunch of individuals who had come together for an hour and a half that evening; we had a task, an aim. Here’s two ways to help you evaluate how you’re doing as CU leaders on keeping the main thing the main thing: