CU students welcome newbies

Up, down and across the country, university students have been welcoming fresh faces to campuses, with the Christian Unions (CUs) seizing what has been coined as “Welcome Week” to invite young adults to CU and church.

Elly Lane is Co-President at the University of Manchester (UoM) CU and told en: “We were out on the street every single day doing evangelism, with fun and interesting activities and did some worship in the street joint with some local churches. Someone even gave their life to the Lord while one of our members was telling them about God one of the afternoons – praise God! We saw a high intake of freshers who are all very keen to get stuck into CU, as well as meeting many other people in different years who were also interested in being part of the Christian Union.

“We started each day with prayer and had some wonderful evening events: an international food event, a grub crawl, and a ceilidh. And to end off the week on the Friday, we joined with the other Manchester Christian Unions (The University of Salford; The Royal Northern College of Music; Manchester Metropolitan University) in a big joint worship night which over 200 people came to. It was so beautiful to hear about how God has been working at the other universities, and to praise God for all that He did during Freshers’ [Welcome] Week!”

On its Instagram page, The Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF) shared more testimonies, such as that of Sheffield Hallam CU, whose society doubled in size! Southampton CU parked a bus on their university’s campus, named “Miracle Street” – with a huge QR code emblazoned on the front – to spark conversations, as part of its Welcome Week outreach.

Bethany Houghton, another UoM CU committee member told en: “A personal highlight was during a time of outreach on the streets asking people where they get their comfort from. One girl stopped and we spoke about Jesus, ending in her filling out a contact card where she wanted to read the Bible with someone. Since then, we have been working through the Uncover Luke resource [an evangelistic UCCF publication] and she has been an incredible encouragement to me. She is so open and told me at the end of our study today that she wants to thank God for His greatness. It’s such a blessing to see someone start to find the joy of salvation.”

In other news, the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) hosted “Immeasurably More” – its 2025 “World Student Day” during which thousands across the globe united in 48 hours of prayer. Thousands of people in over a hundred countries and territories reportedly joined in praying for students worldwide, and to “celebrate all that God is doing through local IFES ministry in the world’s universities.”

IFES writes: “Let’s pray with expectant faith for countless more lives, campuses, and communities to be transformed through God’s power at work within us.”