Youth churches?

‘The best of times and the worst of times’: most of us can associate with Dickens’ words at some period.

For me it was my three years at Durham University. The amazing highs of new experiences, friends, and opportunities all sadly twinned with lows of wasted time, missed chances and wrong decisions. Without a doubt they proved vital in my Christian discipleship. I owe a huge debt to those of an earlier generation who decided CUs should be student-led.

I am now anxious, with many others, that student-led ministry appears to be under threat. This threat is not because of restrictions imposed by Students’ Unions and Guilds. The threat is coming from well meaning, gospel churches!

The present situation

For the last 130 years, Christian students have worked hard among their peers in evangelism. CUs have, with the help of UCCF, provided the chance for students to study the Bible together, and helped students in their evangelism.

Through hall groups, CU meetings, evangelistic lunch bars, carol services, and mission weeks, CUs do an admirable work. Even in small colleges where there are few Christians, a witness has existed because of a CU.

In CUs, students put aside their denominational ties. This leads to growing mutual respect as well as lively discussion, as they think through their own theological stances. Unconverted students are frequently drawn to the interdenominational CU, where they hear good teaching and come to real faith in Christ.

Christian students do not work in isolation. They participate in church life, attend Christian conferences, and receive guidance from UCCF staff, often on a one-to-one basis. Increasingly, students are not only reading the Bible but developing a discipline of reading Christian books, often studying them with friends.

The perceived ‘problem’

Students can be na•ve and inexperienced, and have more fervour than wisdom. But they have only been on earth for 19 or 20 years, and Christians for even less time.

Mistakes always have consequences and some students’ mistakes have led to witness being harmed. Sadly, the same can also be said in churches. However, some church leaders feel students are too immature to lead such important ministry. They conclude it is better to encourage the large churches in the university cities to begin their own student work led by more ‘experienced’, ‘reliable’ people.

The church programme for students, run often by ordained staff, then replaces or at least provides an alternative to the student-led CU. It can give the impression that only those who have received theological education are eligible to teach the Word. As one who holds to the priesthood of all believers, I cannot agree with this. Churches can, however, have a helpful involvement, as Hugh Palmer explained to me recently. He said, if churches focus on ‘investing back into the campus’, the church and the CU can work together with great blessing.

History

We must not forget what students have achieved for the sake of Christ. Think of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego — students who stood for God. Or of how Luther’s discipling of students led the way, as many believe, to the start of the Reformation. John Calvin was first discipled at university. Charles Simeon, Howard Guinness, Helen Roseveare, and many of today’s Christian leaders, like John Stott and Jim Packer, were allowed to ‘practise’ despite the potential for error.

The church has a rich history of influence, but to disregard the role of the CU is short sighted. Dr. Roseveare, for example, was converted at Cambridge through the witness of CU girls, and then trained by IVF (now UCCF) in principles of leadership. She feels she ‘cannot try to quantify what it has meant. The training was invaluable, and certainly character-forming, however many mistakes we made. I can only see it as grievously regrettable that churches “want to do it better” and are seeking to take over the leadership of CUs, out of the hands of the students’.

Experience

Some advocates of church-led student work argue that Freshers arrive at university knowing so little that to let them take leadership is irresponsible. Many do arrive knowing very little, which in itself is a shame on their churches, but we need to give ‘hands on’ experience. It is great to have ‘spiritual brainiacs’ but true spirituality not only knows but does. All Christians need to put into practise their learning. Christ himself sent out the disciples while they were still learning and untested.

Each year in the UK alone there are literally hundreds of new graduates who have already gained two or three years’ first hand experience in leading. How many Christians look back in gratitude for their service in the CU! Susie Goodall, who graduated in 2005, expresses this well: ‘We could work together for the gospel, no matter how young and inexperienced we were, even if it was just making sandwiches for a lunch bar. I’m sure we made lots of mistakes — but God has a habit of building mistakes into his plans.’

Effective mission

Universities and their students’ unions are getting more restrictive about presence on campus. Christian students are already there, and have a vital and unique voice as ‘missionaries’ to their fellow students — crucially, sent by their churches.

It is worth noting that most evangelistic missions in the UK are prepared, planned and run by 18-to-21-year-olds on campuses, with minimal resources. Many are reaching literally hundreds of unconverted students. Very few churches are able to put on similar evangelistic missions, despite their resources and Christian maturity.

Christians at university are part of the body of Christ; they need the variety of age and experience and the blessing of caring, pastoral Bible teaching that only a church can provide. This is biblical ecclesiology. Churches play a vital role in caring for the international and British students who worship with them.

They nourish (physically and spiritually!), care for, and encourage the young ‘stranger’ in their congregation. The value of this work cannot be over estimated.

To stand with students in their work on campus is great, but to draw them away from the CU to be solely involved in the church’s ministry is both un-strategic and selfish. If we continue the trend of church-led student work we will lose campus-based ministry.

While many churches host Christianity Explored/Alpha courses as their prime means of evangelism, teenage students are ‘rolling up their sleeves’ with consistent and persistent evangelism that goes beyond any six week course — and are seeing much fruit. As churches do not tend to have sustained mission periods, most students arrive at university with no experience of them. So their first encounter of evangelistic mission is eye-opening and exciting. That is one reason why so many want to use their summer vacations for short-term missions.

One evangelist, with over 80 weeks of university mission experience, remembers his first university mission when he was 21 years old: ‘Christian students have few resources, little experience, yet a youthful vision that puts most churches to shame. As a result university students have the greatest opportunity in the land of hearing the gospel, which is partly to do with CUs reaching out to fellow students, and churches failing to effectively reach their mission field. So why transfer interdenominational missionary endeavour to a denominational church, when CUs are doing the work effectively?’

Mistakes

We must be careful not to create a false idol of student-led ministry — I am the first to acknowledge mistakes I made during my time in my university CU. And I am still making mistakes!

To sum up: churches, especially in the large university cities, have ‘muscle’ because of their members’ finances and resources. Those with strong student ministries can unintentionally weaken the CU, and thus weaken the Christian presence on campus.

A CU is not a church and is never going to compete with the vital role of a church. It is most helped when churches support students witnessing on campus, not the other way around.

The argument I heard while at university, that churches developing their own student work are actually helping the CU, isn’t true. There are a growing number of CUs (including those which UCCF would class as ‘flagship’) which have found it increasingly hard because churches have competed for Christian students’ attention and commitment. Rather than assisting the CU they are detracting from it.

Paul tells Timothy not to allow anyone to look down on him because he was young. Perhaps, as Hugh Palmer suggested to me, it is time UCCF re-instated their ‘Christian Leaders in Student Settings’ groups, to help church leaders assist rather than hinder Christian work on campus.

Conclusion

As one now in church work, I know how tempting it is to want to get involved in the work of CUs. CUs need advice, guidance and support, but what isn’t helpful is churches carrying out the work for them. To quote Dr. Roseveare again: ‘The old IVF slogan about the Christian Unions “for the students, by the students” was good, and must not be sacrificed’.

As with children growing up, it may sometimes be painful to just keep watch as you see them making wrong choices. The experience they will gain will provide greater fruit in the long run than church leaders who want it done in a particular way. I believe this worrying trend is neither biblically or historically God’s way.

Jonathan Carswell,
youth pastor at Hamilton Road Baptist Church, Bangor, N. Ireland