This year we had a vision to run some extended times of mission across the nation, in university cities and, in partnership with local churches. In November we spent a whole Friday and Saturday in Bristol. There were 7 Churches involved which included students, student workers and church leaders. There were also students who had travelled from Loughborough, Lincoln and London to be there and give two days to evangelism in another city.
Only a few weekends later, we ran another weekend in Manchester. Again, churches gathered, students traveled from other cities and we gave a whole Friday and Saturday to sharing Jesus with students.
There are so many stories to share of Bibles being handed out, students saying yes to being invited to church and wanting to meet up with others to explore faith, there were even stories of students giving their lives to Jesus then and there on the street.
One story that stands out, was on the Friday night of the Manchester weekend, we had just had a time of prayer and worship, praying for God to move in the city. Afterwards, at 11pm, we went back onto campus having been out all day. We set up tables outside one of the hall's campuses and handed out free tea, coffee, biscuits, sweets, Bibles etc.
There were loads of conversations and many were receiving prayer. One student was cycling past fairly quickly and someone on our team shouted at him, ‘Do you want a coffee?’
Immediately he slammed on the breaks and, narrowly avoiding a crash, he said ‘yes, I’d love a coffee’.
Within a minute, he was praying and giving his life to Jesus.
I asked him how that conversation happened so quickly and he said that he had been thinking about giving his life to Jesus for the last 4 weeks, he was just waiting for an invitation.
We’re seeing so many stories of students who are waiting to be invited to church, to be offered a Bible or even just asked to hear the story of Jesus. What does it look like for you and your church to be part of this story? If you’d like to get involved, we’d love to be in touch!
