Blog

Over the last 18 months we have been hearing an increasing number of stories of non-christian students feeling compelled to start reading the Bible. Most of these students have made this decision by themselves, without invitation from a friend or external source. It feels like an unprecedented moment in student ministry. God is on the move. Going into this academic year,...

As a new academic year begins, students are returning and starting University. As Fusion, over the last few years, we have noticed that the spiritual openness among the student generation seems to be increasing. From the incredible statistic that 74% of non-Christian students would be open to trying church if a friend invited them, to even hearing stories of students...

At the end of June, we closed the academic year by hosting Wide Awake, the annual Fusion gathering. In Loughborough, 100 students and student workers gathered to pray and dream for a move of God in this nation. We spent time in worship, seeking God. We also heard amazing talks, which raised our faith, asking what it would look like...

On May 9th, we hosted our final Wide Awake Night of the year in Newcastle. These nights have been a space of catalysing mission, seeing students say yes to Jesus and celebrating the testimonies of what God is doing around the country. We are seeing students awaken to the call of Jesus to go and make disciples. These nights have...

At the start of the academic year of 2022, we started surveying students to try to get a sense of what values they have, what drives them and how they feel about the world they live in. The survey turned out to be an incredible tool for creating missional opportunities to share the Gospel with students and invite them to...

Josh is a 2nd year student in Bristol. A few weeks ago one of his friends, who he has been praying for for a long time, reached out about struggling with mental health. They suggested connecting the following week to discuss the situation in more detail. They had an evening catching up and then the conversation began to focus on...

In early March some of the Fusion team went to Manchester to run a Wide Awake night. Churches and student workers from across the city got involved to make it happen. We started the evening in worship and prayer, creating space for God to meet with us.  We shared a picture of people running towards a river made of gold. Some...

Last year we ran a conference called Wide Awake. Our vision was to gather people from across the nation who are wide awake to the call of student mission. We had an amazing two days in Loughborough and this year, in June, we’ve decided to do it again.  But we know there is more to seeing local churches respond to the...

In the last year, Fusion has launched the Worldview Survey which has been a great opportunity for having meaningful conversations with students on campus. It’s led to lots of missional conversations and the big question we’ve been asking is, what do you do after the survey? Imagine this, you’re walking around campus with your friends, doing the Fusion survey and you...

Community is a crucial part of being a disciple of Jesus. We’re not made to do this whole thing by ourselves. We’re made to be in community with other Christians. It’s not always easy either! There’s often conflict and learning how to forgive and love one another but there’s also joy and deep friendship that is formed too.  There’s only really...

In this five part blog series, I’m looking at different ways to disciple a non-christian. Often a natural thing to do with someone is to read the Bible but it’s helpful to step back and ask the question - why? What are you trying to achieve?  I think there are a few ways of answering that question which might help you...

The Spirit can sound like a mysterious thing that gets talked about in Church because you can’t see it but somehow it’s moving all around us and filling us up… You can imagine trying to disciple a non-christian in understanding this could be quite hard.  But it’s one of the most exciting parts of following Jesus. Because of the Spirit we...

In all four Gospels there is only one thing the disciples ask Jesus to teach them - ‘One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray”’ - Luke 11:1. The reason the disciples asked Jesus about prayer is because he modelled it. He would pray in...

I’ve put community first and mission last in this five part series because often that’s how we disciple non-christians. We take them to church, try and get them to understand everything and follow Jesus properly and then, when they’ve been doing that for a while, we suggest that sharing their faith with others might also be a good idea.  Jesus didn’t...

As you approach the Christmas holidays you might be processing lots of different things. You might be finishing 2023 with a sense of joy as you reflect on some of the wins and celebrations that happened this year. It might be a different story and you feel relieved that this year is finishing.  If you’re a student you might have just...

One morning, during the Bristol Uni freshers week, I found myself praying for international students. I didn’t really know what to pray for but I felt led to ask God that international students would find church communities and settle well into university life. While this was happening, a random bakery came to mind that was in the main ‘student area’...

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...

Throughout my time at University I’ve had one particular friend, and now housemate, who has been resistant to faith. She hasn’t wanted to know anything about it, come to any church events or take an interest in my personal journey following Jesus. In fact, when the topic of religion has come up, she has always responded critically and harshly.    Unfortunately, she...

Over the last few months I’ve been able to see some incredible stories of God working in the South West region. I wanted to record some of the testimonies and, hopefully, paint a picture of what’s been going on. For the last year I’ve been gathering students in various cities to worship and pray for student mission believing that worship, prayer...

I was chatting about unity among churches with Hattie, one of the student workers in Bristol, a few months ago. Something that kept coming up in our conversation was a call to pray and gather students to cry out for campus. We wanted to know how we could explore this further. The University of Bristol has shown a lot of openness...

Matt is a 3rd year student, studying in Manchester. He’s passionate about seeing his friends find hope in life through meeting Jesus. Last year, he felt God gave him a big dream and took a bold step to make it a reality. This is his story… In the summer of 2021, I felt like God was asking me to start a...

When I studied at  Westminster Theological Centre they sometimes summarised different perspectives on Jesus using one simple question: How close can God come?  As we approach another Christmas you might be bouncing up and down with excitement, maybe you started eating mince pies and listening to Mariah Carey in September. You might be someone who is less keen on the holiday...

Student Linkup is an app we created to help students connect with church during their time at university. Starting university can be overwhelming and finding a church can quickly become another item on a never ending list of things to do. Whether you’ve grown up going to church or you’re just interested in trying something new, the app is there...

I was on campus a few weeks ago with some friends, offering to share the Gospel and pray with students. One student asked me, ‘So, what’s the goal of this afternoon? What are you trying to achieve?’. I loved the question. It’s one I’ve been asking myself for the last 5 months. You might be thinking it’s a fairly simple question....

"and the day of vengeance of our God..." (Isaiah 61:2) Throughout the Old Testament, there are many references to a specific day. A day when the Lord, the mighty God, would come to earth and pass judgement on humanity. The Old Testament writers describe this as a day of destruction for wicked people, a moment when all the enemies of God would be...

Sung worship is a great way of entering into God’s presence. But sometimes you may not have the finance to invest into smooth sounding online worship or your very own professional band for live music. That doesn’t mean worship has to be put on hold, here are just a few ideas to help you engage with worship in other ways: Write...

You can’t overshare. I was having a conversation with a friend recently talking about what it feels to be a student when going home for Christmas. We both remembered studying for the most part, even on Christmas day a couple of times! We discussed that feeling of not being fully present with all that information crammed into our brains and trying...

The Bible gives us some really helpful models of how to share the Gospel creatively. Let's start at the beginning of John’s Gospel to get started. In the first verse of John’s Gospel, he calls Jesus the ‘Word’. This might sound a bit odd. The word was a Greek philosophical concept for the eternal, unchanging truth that has existed since the creation...