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The Third Degree

Gospel Project 2008

Today’s university is a dangerous place for young students. In the marketplace of ideas, secular relativism is the unchallenged king, ruling with the strong arm of tolerance.

The gospel is frequently squashed out and silenced, as in the case of the recent ruling against Exeter Christian Union (CU) by Mark Shaw QC, which maintained that an atheist should be allowed to run the CU. The knowledge of the Living God is suppressed, just as we read in Romans 1, and subject to distortions and dubious personal interpretations. Today’s students are a generation without Christ and without hope in the world; taught to ignore him, indoctrinated to deny him.

Imagine

Imagine the Gospel of Mark in the hands, heads and hearts of this generation. Imagine 400,000 gospels handed from student to student at over 250 universities and colleges in Great Britain. Imagine 15,000 Christian students presenting their course mates and friends with the opportunity to hear and respond to the life-changing claims of Jesus Christ.

Imagine UCCF’s 2008-09 Gospel Project. This year is our fifth Gospel Project, and our vision is bigger and more daring than ever: we’re planning massive nationwide operation to distribute copies of Mark’s Gospel on every campus where there is a Christian Union. UCCF students, staff, and supporters are convinced that the Word of God is the only sword sharp enough to penetrate to the heart of a sin-dulled humanity. Just as Martin Luther was able to say of the Reformation, ‘I did nothing, the Word did everything’, we are confident in the gospel alone as ‘the power of God for the salvation of those who believe’.

Previous Gospel Projects

During our previous four Gospel Projects, thousands of students have had a real encounter with the God as they’ve met with Christ through his word. Since 1994, hundreds of CU missions have been based on the themes of the Gospel Projects, hundreds of follow-up courses have been run, many thousands of students have received a gospel, and many testify that these events were part of the story of their conversion.

Gospel Projects provide CUs with an accessible and contemporary-looking gospel, which is ideal for both personal evangelism and large-scale events. Gospel Projects are a perfect platform on which to build missions; great to be read with a non-Christian friend and, vitally, are a completely free resource for students. One student commented about a previous Gospel Project: ‘The Identity Gospel Project (2000-01) gave me real confidence in using the Gospel of Mark in my personal evangelism. During the Identity year, I was trained in how to use Mark’s Gospel evangelistically, and since then I’ve met with a number of non-Christian friends who I’ve been able to sit with and read the Bible. One of these was a good friend who recently passed away. I am so thankful to the Lord that I was able to read Mark’s Gospel with him before he died.’

The work begins…

Work is just beginning on this unique project, and we covet your prayer and support. We hope that many EN readers will be praying for this Gospel Project as it gathers speed. Please pray for UCCF Field Director Tim Rudge as he steers the work, and pray for the practicalities of design, printing and distribution. Especially pray for the CUs that receive gospels, posters, and training material: that they will use these resources to proclaim the good news of Jesus boldly on their campuses. Pray that many students will hear, believe, and respond to Christ with repentance and faith.

The 2008-09 Gospel Project is as yet unnamed, and we are inviting students to suggest a name for the initiative. If your name is picked as the winner you will receive an iPod Nano, containing talks and sermons from previous UCCF conferences and events. The name needs to be snappy, interesting, and reflecting the thrust of Mark’s Gospel as he writes to help his readers understand who Jesus is and what he came to do. Please send entries to webmaster@ uccf.org.uk by November 23.

If you would like specific information on how to pray effectively or if you feel you can give financially to this project, please contact Jema Ball in the Leicester office on jmb@uccf.org.uk or 0116 204 7649.

Daniel Hames,
Communications assistant & theological web administrator