I was listening to a talk recently and the speaker shared this thought and it sparked multiple thoughts in me, tangents springing from tangents. Needless to say, I think I missed the next few points from the speaker because I was enjoying playing thoughtful fireworks with the quote above!

It made me start thinking about my vision, my dreams, the vision for the church and dreams for our generation. When we open up the Bible, it races through story after story where God gives outrageous vision and dreams to Joe Bloggs, ordinary people. 

You might be reading this and thinking I’m talking to those visionary types of people, hippy dreamer folks, but I’m really not, I’m talking to you! You in your tiny room in halls, eating copious amounts of toast because it’s the end of year and the loan has run out.

I have been challenged by this quote, and the countless stories of students who are leading the way in pursuing big, audacious dreams of transformation of the world, nations and local community.

Hannah wanted to help her community in Belfast to engage with and fight apathy toward the world. The outcomes of her dream this year involved equipping hundreds of people to pray, speak to their MP, give and remember the hungry in everyday life. This started out with Hannah’s commitment to prayer for people outside of her bubble.

Chris wanted Christians in his university in Manchester to be known for being positive and relevant to the world we live in. This resulted in a big group of students walking from halls, to uni and back each day for a week. The group walked to lectures together with jerry cans full of water, and made a stand for the millions of people who don’t have access to clean water. Christians in that university had a great reputation for being relevant, engaged and deeply passionate about the world. This started out as Chris’ shock at the injustice of people dying of curable water-based diseases and a firm choice that his shock would not become apathy and not allowing himself to forget.

This year thousands of students had a dream to be the generation that sees the start of the end of world hunger. Seeing the end of hunger is a huge dream that was intimidating when you’re faced with statistics about 1 in 8 people going hungry, but was a dream that was definitely not insulting to God.  Over the last few weeks, David Cameron has carried the message of ending world hunger to the G8 discussions, with hundreds of thousands of UK peoples’ voices in his ears, pushing to see a day when hunger is no longer an issue. There are significant changes and promises that these countries have committed to which, if kept, will make significant difference to people living in poverty. This started as individuals signing postcards and being counted.

‘If your vision is not intimidating to you, it might be insulting to God.’ The challenge I would like to leave us with is this; what is your vision for transformation in your uni, city, nation or world? If your dream doesn’t scare and intimidate you – dream bigger! If you already have a dream that scares you, start something, do not let it pass you by. Start small and start now.