Ivy Fallowfield in Manchester meets next to a large hall of residence and counts a number of students amongst its members. Luke Smith caught up with Anthony Delaney, Leader of Ivy Churches; Nick Duffy, Team Leader at Ivy Fallowfield; and Olli Davis, Ivy’s Student Worker.
Tell us a bit about your student work
Olli: We meet students where they’re at. We run bottle drops, giving out sweets and bottle of of water with messages of hope on them to students who’ve been on a night out. Rather than trying to get them to church the challenge is to be out there on the streets in their context. Our Alpha course has seen a tight knit community develop. One girl had been searching for a community and she’s now found one she can really get involved in.
Nick: We want to take students out of the student bubble. We have projects feeding the homeless and students who visit brothels. We ask students to not just come (to Manchester) and consume, but to give something to the area and be a blessing.
This is capturing the imagination of students who are not yet following Jesus. We ran a project collecting coats for the homeless and people who aren’t Christian brought their coats. Students tell us all the time they have mates who are by no means following Jesus but they love our church and they ask questions about their life because of what we are about. We’re sowing a lot of seeds.
What is your hope for students in Manchester?
Anthony: There’s obviously potential for them to be people of influence in the future. The enemy wants to take them out of the game and have them live an unproductive, selfish life full of regrets. But Jesus said he has come so that people can have life in all it’s fullness, so that’s our hope.
We have the choice about whether we’re about people we can keep or people we can reach. If you focus on the people you can keep you’re going to be in a spiral of decline. Ivy Fallowfield is all about who we can reach, then people who get the mission of Jesus want to be involved anyway. With student work there has to be a balance between the two because you want to keep Christian students from falling into a prodigal life that they may or may not come back from. There are many ways to do that but one of the best is to model a sacrificial, evangelistic life. Then people see that Christianity is not going to church, it’s being the church.
What has God been saying to you recently about your student work?
Nick: God’s really been challenging me to put myself out there a bit more and say ‘I’m coming to your house,’ like in the bible when Jesus goes to Zaccheus’ house. Let’s not pull people straight away into what we’re doing - like inviting them to things we’re doing - but let’s go to their place, to their work, to their hall. Let’s try and equip them in their world. I’ve been doing that with a guy and we’ve seen him come to faith recently.
Anthony: I’m beginning to believe that the question ‘how do we get people, particularly students, into church?’ is the wrong question. It’s really about how we empower people to be in the small, medium and large missional communities that change the culture for Jesus. How do we empower people to be the leaders of 10, 50 or 100,000 people and exercise spheres of influence?
What advice would you give to a church starting out in student work?
Anthony: You might get some people to come to your church on a Sunday if you give them free pizza. You won’t get them to stay as part of your community unless what you’re doing meets their questions about life and the hole in their heart for community. Establish some missional practices that help your people to have the joy of seeing people coming to know Jesus, because that’s what gets more people coming to see what’s going on.
Nick: Get involved with Fusion. When student work is tough, Fusion reminds us that mission can be glorious and tough and that we shouldn’t give up.
