Over the last eight months, we have been running what we call ‘Ignition Nights’ in various cities across the UK. The vision was simple. It was based on the idea that mission is closely linked to worship and prayer as seen in Pentecost in Acts 2 and the Great Commission in Matthew 28. Our dream was that, in the context of worship and seeking the presence of God, students would be ignited with a passion to share the Gospel with their friends at University. Alongside worship we would share testimonies at these events of what God had been doing in other Church student groups in other locations to try and help them catch the fire and vision of what God could do in their lives. We visited seven different locations (Falmouth, Bristol twice, Bath, Southampton, Loughborough and Sheffield) and these are some of the stories that came from those nights.
In Falmouth, before we even knew what these nights were, we saw just over fifty students from different churches gather to worship and pray over the city for a move of God among students. On arrival, some locals from an older generation mentioned that they had been praying for an event like this for the last twenty years (most of these nights, if not all, had similar stories were someone said they had been praying for an event that would gathering students across a city to pray for God to move among students). By the end of the night, students were taking out their phones in the worship to invite friends to church or to meet up to talk about faith. As we were packing down the venue students were coming up to us to tell us that their friends had responded ‘yes’ and wanted to come to church that week.
In a similar way, after the first night in Bristol, the student group decided they needed to start going out on the street to share the Gospel with people. The first time they did, a student led someone to Jesus. This was the vision, that the presence of God would ignite students to go and share the Gospel.
Unity was a key marker of these nights. We wanted to gather people from multiple churches to contend in prayer together for the student generation. In Southampton we saw over a hundred people gather from fourteen different churches. The vision of the second night in Bristol was to unify culturally separate communities where a BAME church hosted over a hundred students from different ethnicities. Only five minutes into the night, the whole room was dancing because of joy in the Spirit.
Lastly, one thing we never planned for when starting these nights was that they would be missional events as well as events which would ignite students to be missional. Towards the end of the first night in Bristol, the student worker turned to me and said, ‘I think we need to do an altar call’. I was caught off guard as I wasn’t sure if there were even any non-christians in the room. About three minutes later, ten students had made commitments to give their lives to Jesus. In the second Bristol event we saw just over ten more students make commitments. In Loughborough someone who didn’t have a faith walked in at the end and has now attended every church event since. Similarly in Sheffield, another student decided to give his life to Jesus at the end of the Ignition Night.
Next academic year we hope to run more of these nights, in new locations as well. If you have a passion for unity, prayer and the Gospel why not get in touch? We’d love to come and help grow a greater passion for mission in your student community.
