Olli is the student worker at Ivy, Manchester. He has a heart for mission, the lost, loves a good laugh and his guilty pleasure is listening to Beyonce's Greatest hits. Here are some thoughts from Olli...
Have you ever had one of those weeks where you constantly meet amazing people? When you get to hang out with people you click with who share similar ambitions, drives, your sense of humour. People you basically just click really well with.
That was my week when I went to Soul Survivor in August. I was helping out on the Fusion stand, linking up future uni students and helping to prepare them for the adventure ahead. The team got on really well and by the end of it, having only known each other for 5 days, we were like old friends. On top of that, I was meeting so many other awesome people working for various different organisations across the country.
It dawned on me from time to time, though, that Soul Survivor is not the real world, it is very much a Christian bubble.
That’s not a bad thing in itself, but we can’t let the things we experience when at the festivals stay in the festivals. I don’t want to be detached from what it means to take Jesus home and share him with others.
The ‘festival season’ is an opportunity to soak in God’s presence and be filled up in order to take it back out and fulfill the mission that God has for us.
In light of that thought, on the train on the way back to Manchester, I asked God to give me more of his heart for the lost. When I got off the train, I immediately began to see people through God’s eyes. It was strange, I was almost in tears as I was walking to the bus stop!
What would happen if all these people knew God’s love for them? If their brokenness could be restored, if their sickness could be healed and their lives given a purpose? What would it look like if these people experienced the love and joy and friendship that I experienced over the festival period?
I want to live a life where I am so filled with God’s love and joy that the overflow of that is not just to bless me and my life but that it reaches the people around me who don’t know Jesus.
Can I encourage you to do the same? Pray that you start to see people through Jesus’s eyes, love people like Jesus loves and serve people like Jesus served.
University is an incredible opportunity to do this. To live out Jesus day in day out to those around us. To show our mates, his love for them, his forgiveness, his plan and purpose for their lives. To show them that they can live with peace, and joy and a relationship with him. Maybe you’ve been ‘filled up’ this summer at an event but now want some fresh ideas in how to live it out?
Why not check out ‘living mission’. Packed full of stories and the theology behind mission. It gives great advice, ideas and tips on how to live a missional life in university.
Chloe works for Fusion as Fusion Wales Developer.
Email her on chloe@fusion.uk.com
Follow her on twitter @chloerichards18 
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