As thousands of students flood university campuses this month, are Christians ready to be bold?

As thousands of students return to universities and TAFE campuses across the country this month, the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students has warned Christians not to be complacent in the efforts to reach out to their peers.
Richard Chin, National Director of AFES, believes Christians at university and TAFE should see their tutorials and campuses as they would the workplace.
“God willing, Christians will want to meet other Christians in the workplace and pray with them. We should also long to see others become Christians,” he says.
“If university is treated much like a workplace in that sense, then there’s ample opportunity to meet with Christians and long for others to be saved.”
Mr Chin encourages students to begin good habits while at university. “Even though they might feel the pressure of time, students have so much more time compared to when they enter the workplace. It’s a great time for equipping for life, not just university.”
Mr Chin believes people make enormous decisions in their young adult years that will be heavily influenced by their time at university. “University is a place of ideas and free speech. As such it can be a place that challenges and also encourages Christian thinking and living.”
“The common goal that all universities share is the pursuit of excellence. This may be in academic standards, sporting abilities, artistic talents or political prowess. Just as universities encourage all students to strive for excellence in these fields, God desires his people to pursue excellence as well,” he says.
“The excellence God desires involves a love abounding in knowledge to make godly decisions, and live holy lives, for his glory. University is a great environment to pursue such excellence.”
The main danger Christian students may face is to not meet other Christians because of the multitude of commitments socially outside university and at church.
“It may be tempting for Christian students not to get involved because of their many commitments to their home church,” Mr Chin says.
“But to fellowship with Christians on campus from other churches across denominations can only enrich and equip them to serve in their churches better.”
“Most AFES groups offer training of some kind such as learning an evangelistic course, or a ‘how to lead a Bible study’ group,” he says.
“I suspect they are also a great compliment for churches that don’t have the resources to run such courses. We also want to equip students to serve their churches.”
The AFES Mid Year Conference (MYC), and the National Training Event (NTE) are two events well known to university students. For the uninitiated, Mr Chin describes MYC as “a conference in which we grapple with thinking God’s thoughts after him on a particular doctrine of Scripture, and living accordingly. These have often been life changing weeks.”
“There are always people who become Christians on MYC, including myself,” he says. “I was a churchgoer, but only really understood the gospel for the first time at MYC.
“People are often gripped by the gospel in a way that was not appreciated before. They realise that you should prioritise things so Jesus is absolutely central. A number of university missions usually take place in the weeks after MYC because people are so gripped by the gospel with the recognition of the need for their friends to be saved.”
National Training Event is the one opportunity where all the AFES groups around Australia can gather together. “It is a training event in which students are especially equipped to understand and teach the Scriptures,” Mr Chin says.
After the training event, campus groups partner a church to proclaim the gospel in various parishes throughout Australia.
“When you partner a church in evangelism you are out there door-knocking, teaching scripture and going to nursing homes. We have the opportunity to share the gospel and see people saved.”
AFES will be running a coordinated evangelistic mission across the country in for the Year of Tertiary Evangelism in 2005.