As a student worker, every year freshers week comes around, we wrack our brains as to how best to interact with students. For many years we have gone for a method of all fun and games resulting in lots of interaction but this was often mainly centred around the games rather than the gospel.
This year we decided to pioneer something different…
Rather than trying to battle it out against fresh domino's pizza and ‘high end’ nightclub freebies, we decided instead to go straight in and chat with students about Church.
We set up a blackboard with a giant X on it and then as students walked by, we handed them a sticker and asked them to put it on our board. At the far right end we had ‘have been to church before’ at the far left was ‘have never been to Church before’ then at the bottom ‘wouldn’t try Church at Uni’ and at the top was ‘would try Church at Uni’.
We were astounded by the amount of interaction we got!
We had conversations with more students than ever before about Church, faith, and the gospel. We spoke to students who had been hurt by the Church, some who would call themselves spiritual but weren't sure what they believed, and many students who had previously had some interaction with the Church through school or grandparents but had never been back.
Most encouraging of all was that the quadrant most populated with stickers were those students who
Have been to a Church before at some point in their life and would be up for giving it a go at University! In fact, overall there were more students willing to try Church than not!
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Of the 400+ students who we interacted with & who put a sticker on our board:
50.4%- Have had some experience of Church before & would try Church at Uni
- It’s amazing how many students are curious and open to trying Church.
- Many students have previously been to a Church whether for a wedding/Christmas carol service or a youth group.
13.5%- Have never been to a Church but would try Church at Uni
- Even with little prior experience of Church, many students seem to be open to coming and giving Church a go.
- Those in this section who hadn’t been to Church still had a positive enough view of the Church that they would be willing to give it a go.
26%- Have been to a Church before but wouldn’t try Church at Uni
- Many of these students here felt very strongly about their answer and we ended up in several more pastoral conversations around being hurt by the Church
- We still invited them to Church and other events and can continue to pray that the prodigals return.
9.5%- Have never been to a Church before and wouldn’t try Church at Uni
- Some students said they had never been to Church before because they were raised as part of another religion
- We still invited these students to social events (Church) and Alpha
To top it all off, two students turned up to our evening service this last week who had never been to Church before other than for an occasion. When we asked these 2 freshers how they ended up coming to Church that evening they said ‘Someone from here chatted to us about Church at the freshers fair- they had stickers?’
Students are curious about faith and interested in the Church - the question is, who is inviting them? How can you play your part in helping students come to know Jesus?
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If you’re working out what mission looks like in your context at Fusion we would LOVE to help!
Get in touch with us and we’d love to chat more about how we can resource and equip you to reach students so that every student can have the opportunity to find Hope in Jesus and a Home in the Local Church.
