Packed streets due to students moving in, social media posts buying (and selling) freshers wrist bands, and time spent desperately trying to think of a better ice breaker than “So where are you from?”- it’s obvious that freshers season is back on.
For Fusion, part of freshers season includes joining in with local churches at Freshers Fayres to invite the 99% of students who don’t engage with faith at university to try church. This week I joined churches at Winchester Freshers Fayre. We surveyed students about their views on the world, purpose, and faith. It is amazing seeing how open students tend to be about these topics, but one conversation stuck out to me in particular.
Two girls approached the stand and struck up a conversation with one of the church reps. I joined the conversation and we each agreed to go through our survey together. It turned out that one of the girls was a Christian already and very involved in a local church, whereas her friend didn’t have a faith yet.
“Are any of your friends Christian?”
The students laughed and told us about how they prayed as a team before their sports matches because there were one or two Christians on the team.
“Has your Christian friend ever told you why they’re a Christian?”
They thought for a moment, and the girl who didn't have a faith spoke.
“Well, no I don’t think so”
After a moment of shock, her friend began to apologise and we had a bit of a laugh about how their whole society went along with the pre-match prayers but no one had asked why.
“Would you try church if a friend invited you?”
“Yeah, definitely!”
The moment of shock seemed to last a bit longer this time.
“Well, we are doing a pizza night tomorrow if you want to come along?” Stumbled the Christian student.
“Yeah maybe that could be fun” replied her friend.
“Would you be open to hearing the story of Jesus?”
“Yes, I think so”.
The shock had worn off a little by now. The two girls agreed to go and get coffee after they were done in the Freshers Fayre so that they could chat more about faith, Jesus, and church.
It’s a simple conversation and one of many that we had that day. What really struck me about this story (other than the fact it wouldn’t have happened if the church wasn’t on campus that day) was that we had a Christian student just waiting for an invitation to talk about her faith. She didn’t realise how eager her non-Christian friend was until the right questions were asked. We have to step out and ask those questions, and we might be surprised at the result.
Last year, we surveyed students of all faiths and none and found of those who don't currently attend church, 74% of students would go to church if a friend invited them. What if this year was a year of Christian students growing in confidence to invite all their friends to church.
