“It’s not all about numbers!” said the exhausted student leader. “It’s about faithfulness and whilst there are hardly any of us, we are all really faithful.” The church leader looked understandingly through kind eyes and explained, “Your right, it’s not all about numbers. But it is a bit about numbers! There are 8 of you and 10,000 students in your uni. Something isn’t working. The thing is, there is nothing wrong with the gospel. It’s not broken. It tends to be us that gets in the way of Jesus reaching students. So we have to ask ourselves, what can we do to not get in the way of Jesus?”
As I watched the student leader’s penny drop, I learned a profound lesson too. That small numbers of students in our churches is often an excuse for lack of or unhelpful activity in our church.
I visited a town last week that has 12,000 students and only 50 students in all the churches put together. I refuse to believe that only 0.4% of the students of that town have responded positively to the gospel. Loads of students would respond, given the chance, but the churches I chatted to were just too busy to really invest in students. Frank Skinner says, “Football stadiums are the cathedrals of today. Their walls are soaked in prayer.” Students are designed to worship something, the question is which direction are they facing when they worship?
How many students are in your church? How many have responded to the gospel for the first time at uni? How many more would respond if they were given the opportunity? How can you get out of the way so more students can encounter Jesus? Because it’s not all about numbers, but it is a bit about numbers – because the gospel is not broken.
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