Over the course of the last week, Southampton University Christian Union has been hosting their annual events week. I spent some time on the campus chatting to students about the events and faith and found that most students very quickly warmed up to a chat about faith and purpose. I asked Lucy, a missionary to students in Southampton, for her reflections on the week. She spoke to me in particular about one day.
"I was out on campus to do some cold-contact evangelism with a student during the CU events week. It was the first time we went out together, and it was tipping it down raining. We paused to pray, and felt led to go into a specific building.
We approached a guy waiting for a lecture to start. He didn’t look like he wanted to chat. But as we asked him questions about his life, he became increasingly open. He told us that he was a Muslim.
The more we spoke, I could see he was realising how little he had thought about his faith! He didn’t know why he believed what he did, couldn’t say whether he thought it was true or not, or whether it even mattered if his religion was telling the truth! Students filed past us into the lecture, but he stayed to talk with us. He knew someone who was a Christian, and had already been invited to the event.
We spoke to 10-15 students that afternoon. All of them either had a Christian friend, or had attended a CU talk that week! God was using us for follow up!"
There are two key big encouragements that I drew from this experience!
I was out on campus to do some cold-contact evangelism with a student during the CU events week. It was the first time we went out together, and it was tipping it down raining. We paused to pray, and felt led to go into a specific building.
The first was that it seemed like a day where no one would want to talk. It was raining, it was just before lectures started, and Lucy was out with someone she didn’t know. Her response was to pray, and as a result God sent them where they needed to be.
We spoke to 10-15 students that afternoon. All of them either had a Christian friend, or had attended a CU talk that week! God was using us for follow up!
The second encouragement was that God was using Lucy and the student she was with to continue to water seeds that were sown by other students. Every single person they spoke to had a mate who knew Jesus, or they had come along to some of the events. It can be hard to trust that God is still in control when you have put out the invite to a friend who doesn’t know Jesus yet, but Lucy’s experience reminds us that God will use every opportunity to keep inviting students to him.
