[a blink of an omnipresent eye] student news

Despite the cold, freezing fog and occasional blizzard this is one of my favourite times of year. A time for new beginnings, fresh starts, big ideas, resolutions and aspirations.

I went for a walk on New Year’s day. Wandering through a park near to my house, I had a chance to reflect on the last 365 days and look forward to the next. I was struck by two things; how much life can change in the space of one year and how quickly time moves. In God’s grand scheme our lifetimes really are just the blink of an omnipresent eye. Whilst this is true, one of the things which excites me most is the fact that God considers our lives to be so significant, so precious and so powerful. A life pursuing God and his will for your life is a life well spent.

So what are your dreams for the coming year? It’s all too easy to get caught up in the day to day grind of revision, coursework, dissitations and ever more creative ways to avoid them. If you need to take a break, why not spend some time listening to God and find out what plans he has for you in 2009. Set some faith targets, friends you want to see become followers of Jesus, lives that you want to see transformed, maybe your own life transformed. We don’t know exactly what the next 12 months will bring but one thing is certain; God wants to work in and through you. There’s a fantastic verse in the first chapter of Philipians. “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus”.

Here at fusion we have some great plans and things to look forward to in 2009. I’m really looking forward to telling you all about them but more than that, I’m excited about how God can use you, changing your life and the lives of the people around you. In a world that’s moving faster than ever, in a life-stage where things are changing constantly, I want us to have life and have it to the full.

Happy New Year!

[Tony Blair Foundation] Faiths Act programme: Get involved

(photo courtesy of ifyc.org)

This week the Fusion team’s very own Hannah Bowring went along to a ‘Faith Acts multi-faith breakfast meeting’ in our nation’s capital. The purpose: to find out more about the Faith Acts campaign and how students can get involved.

Tony Blair launched the foundation in Los Angeles this September, coinciding with the ‘midway point’ for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). “The purpose of the Faiths Act programme is to provide an opportunity for diverse people of faith to campaign together for the achievement of the MDGs”. Tony Blair’s foundation has identified that health care improvement, particularly halting and reversing the spread of malaria, is an immediate priority for the programme and believe that young people of faith have a particular role to play.

So how does this involve you? The Foundation is starting a ‘Fellows Programme’ in 2009 led by the Chicago-based Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) for 18-25 year olds and initially seeking candidates from the US, UK, and Canada. “Candidates must have the potential to become accomplished leaders, have completed at least their secondary education and be able to demonstrate a firm commitment to work for justice in their own faith community. They will need to be able to commit a year of their life to this work as MDG ambassador, ten months of which will be hard work, travel, workshops, speaking engagements, presentations in a well-planned project devised by them in conjunction with the IFYC.”

Does the sound of mobilising your community, promoting the Millenium Development Goals, recruiting other young people to increase awareness and raise life-saving funds for the struggle against malaria appeal to you? The programme begins with an induction in London followed by advanced training and an educational exposure to either Malawi, Tanzania or Mali. This opportunity sounds like an inspiring opportunity for development and a springboard for your future career. For the application forms and more information visit www.tonyblairfaithfoundation.org or www.faithsactfellows.org. Closing date is January 15th 2009!

[awakening london] bring life back to your winter fingers and toes

A couple of weeks ago I heard about a tour called ‘Awakening’ that’s holding gatherings in Sydney, New York and will be coming to London in January. I’ll let their team explain. “In taking the Awakening conference abroad, how could we miss one of the most established cities in the world - London. Ancient in age, first-class in culture and influence, London leads the Western world in religion, literature, politics and thought. Awakening 09 London will melt the snow from your clothes and bring life back to your winter fingers and toes.”

“[Awakening is] a mandate, to awaken every young adult to the reality of Christ, that they would live to give complete glory to God, causing a worldwide relationship revolution of faith, hope and love, break free from the religiosity of Christianity, bring glorification of the Father and alter the lives of every 18- 30 year old on the planet. God changes us for his Glory.” Sounds good doesn’t it!? Awakening is a Young Adult's conference, “setting the pace in reaching a modern generation of believers” for anyone from 18 to 30-something. First launched in the February of 2007 in Sydney, Australia, Awakening is now on a world tour. Kick-starting in London, moving to New York and then concluding in Sydney. Some of today's best communicators are taking part in the “Young Adult revaluation”.

Dave Gilpin, Senior Pastor of Hope City Church will challenge how you see church and play your part in it, while also inspiring you to action within your community. Also contributing will be James Herbertson (the C3i regional director for Europe) and Josh Kelsey (the Young Adult's Pastor at C3 Oxford Falls), Dylan Thomas from the Hillsong Next Gen team, Tom Smith from Holy Trinity Brompton as well as the Awaken worship team from Sydney.

In conclusion, "’Awaken this Love’ is simply this: the prayer and passion of young adults all over London and the world who desire that the little-'g' gods in our life be replaced by the all-satisfying, all-consuming, great God - Jesus Christ. For more information and to find out how to get involved check out www.awakenthislove.com or call them on 02 088 706 045.

[christmas shopping and solomon] report

 
The other day I was walking through a city doing some Christmas shopping. As I was wandering around I thought about that fact that I’ve probably read more about financial systems in the last six months than in the last six years. All this in an effort to understand what’s going on in our economy. The voices crying ‘financial downturn’ and ‘end of the banking system as we know it” haven’t seemed to have reduced the number of people crashing in to me with shopping bags whilst I weave my way through department stores trying to find the ideal present for my mum/dad/sister/brother/in laws.

One of my questions in the midst of this new economic season has been, ‘how are students affected?’ Unless you’ve declined a student loan and are relying on a hedge fund based on US sub-prime mortgages, you probably haven’t felt too ‘crunched’. Student finance is pretty well insulated, £1000 interest free overdrafts are a sure bet on student accounts and student loans are still rolling in. The only blip on the radar seems to be the cut in student grants as a consequence of a government ‘miscalculation’. This mistake has made 90,000 students worse off according to the student loans company.

I’ve often thought that the challenge in Matthew 6 “You cannot serve both God and money” was directed at rich people. However, I’ve found that in times when I’ve had the least money that it has dominated my thinking. In the midst of uncertainty and media hype we have an opportunity to live in a counter cultural way. As students and followers of Jesus, whether we’ve been ‘crunched’ or not, we can live with the sure hope that we have a God who is ultimately in control and has promised that he’ll provide. We can also provide some wisdom and comfort to friends who are feeling the pressure.

Being the richest man in the world, Solomon had an interesting point to make; “Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless.” Good one.

[find out who Jesus is] new loveyouruni.org

After a long wait, we’ve finally got both streams of loveyouruni.org online. You might remember that a couple of months ago, we decided to redevelop the loveyouruni pages.

A lot of people have been using the loveyouruni banner around the country and we wanted to create a website that reflected this. On one hand, it provides a place to be equipped and inspired, share and hear stories from around the country, find out about where loveyouruni came from and access some useful resources.

The second purpose was to provide a stream for people who have come across the website after encountering loveyouruni. This element of loveyouruni .org explains what it’s all about as well as providing a place to discover more about Jesus. We’ve also provided links to help people find a local church and explore more about God and the Christian faith.

If you’re finding loveyouruni a useful banner, we hope that loveyouruni.org will help you and the people you come into contact with. We’d love to hear your reflections and loveyouruni stories so please get in touch.

[brussels, westminster, the media and more] care leadership programme

In your final year, the prospect of no more student loan and the big wide world looming? It’s around this time of year that a lot of students start to wonder what’s going to come next. The post-Christmas rush on graduate training schemes begins in earnest but do you really want to dive straight into the world of fringe benefits and index linked pension schemes?

CARE’s vision is to see the transformation of society into one that has a greater respect for the sanctity and value of human life from conception to death. From modest beginnings in 1993 with two Interns in Westminster, CARE's leadership programme has gone from strength to strength and seen over 150 young people pass through its corridors. In the last few years it has expanded and now, in addition to the parliamentary placements in Westminster, Brussels and Edinburgh, also offers several media placements and placements with a number of leading UK charities and Third Sector organisations.

Are you right for their leadership programme? CARE have produced a detailed guide to what they are looking for in applicants. With the closing date for this year’s intake less than a month away (8th December), the time to act is now. Find out more.

[loughborough students just ask john] loveyouruni

 
Saul, AKA Paul was born in Tarsus, incidentally, home of a temple to the god Baal as well as a university. He studied under the Rabbis, trained as a tent maker and embarked on a career as Chief Persecutor. Following a dramatic conversion he became a missionary and prolific writer but of all the accolades attributed to Paul, one thing is certain; he was a man who knew a lot about love, a lot about grace.

More on him later.

What’s the point in handing out 1000’s of bottles of water? I asked myself that question whilst standing outside the student union at 2:00am in the freezing cold. We were a group of students from a church called Open Heaven trying to love our uni. Someone had the idea to buy a few crates of water and hand them out to students after a night out, to bless them and reduce the severity of their headaches in the morning.
Is that it? Headache reduction?

No.

There’s more to it. Because in order to love, we have to be loved first. Just ask John if you’re not sure.

Handing out free water was just one way we could think of loving our uni and showing students God’s love for them.

But what’s the point? More often than not people don’t even hear that I’m a Christian when I hand them the water never mind sticking around to listen to me explain penal substitution?

But there’s more to it because Loughborough Student Union loves the free water thing. It encourages students to drink more responsibly. They help us get water at a discount price and talk to the security to give us a place to stand. So we keep handing out water and the SU is happy. Then we help them clear up all the rubbish after a big outdoor concert and the Student Union starts to think these Christians are OK.

I look at the Bible again and see what John says, and I can see something starting to happen; a command is being fulfilled:

“The old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in Him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.”

So a year or so later we’re student workers and not always the ones standing in the freezing cold at 2:00am, but the students still are. A girl walks up to one of our students and says, “What are you doing this for?”.
Our student removes her balaclava, gloves and ski goggles and explains that we want to show people God loves them and we love them too. The girl is intrigued so she comes to church. She keeps coming back. Now she’s made a commitment to Jesus and she’s starting to get to know the God that first loved her.

There’s a girl in our church who loves clubbing and she’d spend hour after hour in the toilets of the clubs with her friends, holding back their hair as they puke into the toilet. She started thinking about all the girls like this on nights out. So she got a group of other students going out in the union to pray and care for people having a rough time. Before we know it the SU gets involved. A guy in our church starts a team called ‘Club Mission’. Now the union’s given us a room, made posters with our church logo, given us a water cooler, branded t-shirts and every other Friday on the biggest night out of the week we pray and talk to students and show them love from the God that loved them first.

And this is just a snapshot.

So now what? What can we pray for students around the country, waking up with headaches, puking up in toilets, collapsing in the freezing cold and looking for the answers in the bottom of a shot glass? I look back at Paul, the former persecuting, grace filled, loved up, tent making Benjamite and I can see he’s said it for me.

Pray that you, the students, student workers and church leaders being rooted and established in love, may have power, together will all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ is.

(See this article including photos of what's been happening in Loughborough in the latest edition of fuse.)

[student unions open doors] loveyouruni

 
In 2007 the fusion weekend had a message to share; loveyouruni. The conference was a rallying cry for students to love beyond themselves, with dirty hands and a clean heart, demonstrating God’s love to a generation crying out to belong, to know and to be known. One year later we have an opportunity to reflect on what has happened as students from churches all over the country have been engaging in student mission.

When I first heard about the loveyouruni challenge, I hoped that it would take off, but never expected it to happen in such a big way. Students and student workers have taken the initiative to get things started. Consequently, it’s only as I look back over the last year at the stories I’ve heard that the extent of student mission and loveyouruni activities have started to emerge. There are twelve sites for regional loveyouruni groups, spread across web pages, facebook groups and blogs. Various loveyouruni activities have taken place from Chichester to Liverpool. Students have tried bag carrying for freshers, free tea and coffee before ‘early’ morning lectures, cocktail bars, prayer rooms, prayer tents and prayer chairs, given out thousands of bottles of water, stuck sofas in the middle of towns and listened to people chat. The list goes on and on so for now I’d like to share some emerging themes.

When I was a student a couple of years ago, I heard a lot about some pretty ropey relationships between Christians and student unions. Back then we were enjoying a good relationship with our SU, giving out free water, helping to clear up after their annual music festival and holding church gatherings in the main room of the student union building. Our churches’ relationship with the student union has continued to grow. The encouraging news is, we’re not the only ones.

The Journey church in Royal Holloway have set up a project called ‘The Tent’. Their vision is to provide a place to show God’s love through hospitality, right outside the student union building. “God has blessed us so much with a great relationship with our Students’ Union, and it is only because of this that we are able to do The Tent. They not only allow us to do this, but actively support us and encourage what we are doing. The Tent has been advertised in the SU magazine and on their radio station, all with our input, so that the message of God’s love is being spread around the campus” says Emma Ward from the student team.

For more stories and testimonies, check out the new loveyouruni.org pages. If you’d like to read the rest of this article, have a look at the latest edition of fuse magazine. It will be available at the fusion weekend or you can sign up to receive a free copy.

[places of significance] From Windsor Castle to Oxford

I have just arrived back from a ‘round table’ at Windsor Castle where just under 100 senior leaders gathered out of a concern for the nation and what it is that God is doing in our day and how we as the church should respond.

[kissing makes me uncomfortable] loveyouruni

 
Remember the first time you went to kiss someone you really liked? How do I go about it? Go in full on? Take it slow? Ask them first or sneak up? Is it going to be reciprocated? What if they pull away and freak out? Kissing in general is a bit of a minefield. It takes commitment. You have to be prepared to take a risk. Why bother? Because of the potential. If that commitment pays off, if the risk becomes a reward; the potential is massive.

Don’t you love hearing stories about how God is working and changing lives? I love hearing about them. Students are getting their hands dirty, figuring out what it means to love their uni. Churches are out praying for and seeing healing on the streets, relationships are flourishing between Christians and student unions from the north to the south of the country. Heaven kisses earth but behind every kiss, a commitment was made, a risk was taken. Sometimes the kissing wasn’t great. It was hard to kiss because the people didn’t look very kissable. For every time someone stepped up, sometimes it paid off, sometimes it didn’t but when it did, wow. Captives are released, chronic back pain is cured, legs grow, hearts are healed, love is sown into dry, arid hearts.

This year has been amazing so far; people in churches all over the place have been ushering something of heaven to earth. Great, I love hearing about it, but actually doing it, committing, taking the risk is something else. Sometimes kissing makes me uncomfortable.

We’ll be exploring more about this kiss at the fusion weekend. It’s going to be a fantastic opportunity to hear some teaching, get equipped at seminars and meet students from all over the country. We’ve also lined up a great band lead by Nick Herbert from St. Mary’s London along with a guy called Jon Mann-Smith. He’s got some crazy rock/progressive/experimental style that basically creates a spine tingling environment – in a good way. If you’re a guitarist, and you want to find out how to use the most extensive pedal collection known to man, it’s worth coming just for that.

I love this stuff, but I’m still hungry for so much more. Ephesians 3:20 talks about “him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us”. What does that immeasurably more look like? I think one of the highlights of the weekend could be from Andy Au and his team. They’re going to be sharing some of their experiences in Brighton. They’ve seen hundreds of people healed and coming to know Jesus in the last few months. Hundreds! On Saturday afternoon they’ll be an opportunity to get some practical advice from them, seek God, then get out on to the streets of Oxford and put it into action. To be honest, it scares me a bit but I know this is the kind of risk taking, out of the comfort zone action that we need to be taking in pursuing God.

If you’re hungry to see heaven kissing earth, come to the fusion weekend. Yes it might take some organisation and a bit of commitment but it will be worth it. I’m looking forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks time!

Book now for the fusion weekend