With the long summer break almost over, many students are about to start tertiary education for the first time. For Christians, the time between school and TAFE or university can be a hard one. Pressures to conform rather than to stand for Christ can be strong upon starting at a tertiary institution. How can the church help Christian students remain strong in their faith during this transition period?
STU (School to TAFE and University) Ministries exists for this precise purpose. Its aim is to ‘ease the transition’ by connecting students who are leaving school with evangelical Christian groups on the campus which they will be attending.
“Times of change can be potentially damaging for the Christian life,” says STU director Patrick Benn. “Finishing school is one such change point, and starting tertiary study is another. STU is about connecting secondary students into tertiary networks before they arrive on the campus.”
Over the last decade it has directly placed thousands of students into groups connected with the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students (AFES) and the TAFE Bible Workshop. These groups aim to nurture Christians, strengthen them in their faith and witness, and train them to become active members and leaders in their churches in the future.
One such student is Rachelle Gilmour, a third year Arts/Science student at Sydney University. As a Year 12 student, Rachelle was involved with her Crusader group and was keen to join a Christian group at her future university.
“I was keen to find out everything I could about uni generally, and about the EU in particular,” she comments. She attended a STU seminar at her school, run by an ex-student who was involved with the EU at Sydney. “It was good to see someone who survived, who was doing stuff at uni and knew what it was really like,” she says.
The seminar connected her not only with an older EU member, but also informed her about the EU’s Orientation Day, giving her a chance to see the campus and meet more people studying her course.
Three years on, Rachelle is a keen member of the EU. Having joined up in first year, she started attending public meetings and small group Bible studies, went to Annual Conference, and joined the Science faculty committee. She is now the Science faculty leader, a job which she says has taught her much about leadership and people, and has given her great skills for future ministry.
While there are many stories like Rachelle’s, many students are missed by STU seminars and find out about groups on their campus during their degree, if at all. “We aim to contact as many school leavers as possible, to share with them opportunities arising from University and TAFE Christian groups,” says Patrick Benn. “In 2004 we’d love to directly place 4000 school leavers into Christian groups.”

If you know someone who is starting study on a tertiary campus this year, send them to www.stu.org.au. The site contains info about groups on campus and a registration form.