STUDENT MINISTRY IN MISSIONS

Jan 1

STATEMENT

University student ministry plays a vital role in missions by reaching and mobilizing the next generation with the gospel. Students are a diverse group of people who have availability during a formative stage of life. Students reached with the gospel during these years have often become leaders and laborers for the church. Key elements of healthy student ministry include bold evangelism and faithful discipleship.

Student ministry leaders should promote the primacy of the local church through practices such as serving as members in a local church and discipling believing students toward meaningful church membership. Student ministries should not act as a substitute of the local church and refrain from carrying out practices exclusively given to the church (e.g. baptism and the Lord’s Supper). Churches would be wise to fully embrace student members as important co-laborers in the ministry of the church.

Article Written by Stephen Peterson

A Brief History Of Student Ministry

We begin in France. The earliest instance of university students on world missions can be traced back to the 17th century, when a group of seven German students studying in Paris committed themselves to take the gospel overseas. Three of them ended up in Africa, where one of them, Peter Heiling, stayed as long as twenty years working hard to translate the bible into Amharic.

Then we move to England. Who can forget the wonderful work of God through the Wesley brothers—John and Charles—who gathered with fellow classmates to read the Bible! From that small gathering came the start of the outreach to the poor, the needy, and the imprisoned, and later led the brothers to take the gospel to the colony of Georgia.

But no history of student ministry is complete without the influence of Charles Simeon. As a minister at Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge, Simeon faithfully gathered university students for weekly Bible study and prayer. Many came to faith, joined the church, and were moved by the Spirit to reach out to the lost on their campuses. In his 45 years of ministry there, the preaching and teaching of God’s word gave rise to the Jesus Lane Sunday School, the Foreign Bible Society, and the Cambridge Prayer Union, all initiatives that began with students.

A similar story can be found in North America, when Samuel Mills gathered with a few friends to pray for the gospel to go forth amongst the nations. This has been known as the “Haystack Movement.” That gathering gave rise to the first student missionary society in America, from which men like Adoniram Judson and Luther Rice traveled to India with the gospel. [1]

History is replete with wonderful evidence of God’s powerful work amongst university students. Today, in almost every continent, one can find a gathering of students to study the Bible and pray. [2]

In my years serving in student ministry, I have had the joy of hearing stories of God’s work around the world through university students. In 2016, three student leaders from Portugal grew in a deep conviction for world missions. They graduated and moved to Montenegro because there was no gospel witness on campuses there. Similarly, in 2022, a young French girl fell in love with French Guinea while on a church mission trip. She realized there was no gospel witness on the campuses there, so she left her home to single-handedly gather students. In 2023, a young East Asian man who heard the gospel while in university in Australia moved back home and started a church next to a university. Through his faithful work, a new gathering of students has begun. These students are taking big risks to read the Bible and share the gospel with their peers.

What Is Missing In Modern Day Student Ministries?

And yet, mingled with all that great work around the globe, I have witnessed a major problem. Here are some of the kinds of things I hear:

When an Arab student asked a missionary what to do now that he has come to faith, the missionary said, “Don’t worry about going to church. It will distract you from the real ministry of God—your university campus. I will baptize you, train you to read the bible, to pray, and to share the gospel. You put your focus on sharing the gospel with your friends on campus.”

At a conference breakout, the speaker declared, “Muslims and Hindus will find the church to be confusing! Why waste their energy on something that is dying? I would rather have them focus their attention on where the Spirit is really present—on the university campuses!”

At another conference a speaker said:

“Many of our converts have graduated and don’t know what to do and where to go! So we have formed graduate fellowship groups across the nation. Churches are not as passionate as their old campus ministry. Why not get people who have a like-minded commitment toward evangelism and have them just commit to a life of prayer, Bible study, and evangelism.”

Student ministries are meant to function as “para-church” organizations. Unfortunately, they tend to de-emphasize or marginalize the church. Sometimes they even avoid the church altogether and replace it with their ministry. In conversations with my Western student ministry missionary friends, I'm often told that an emphasis on the church is evidence of Western Christian ideology. They see it as a distraction or a hindrance to gospel ministry rather than a means of displaying the glory of God amongst the unbelieving world. As an Asian, this strikes me as odd. The is not how Western it is, but how biblical it is. Their approach teaches students to disobey clear teachings from the Bible about the importance of the church in the life of the believer. It also leaves them stranded, with nowhere to turn to for true Christian fellowship after they graduate.

We at GCC see the need for many missionaries to go and set up student ministries that seek to promote the growth and establishment of local churches around the world.

Student ministry leaders should promote the primacy of the local church. They should be members of churches themselves and push believing students toward meaningful church membership. Student ministries should not act as a substitute for the local church and refrain from carrying out practices exclusively given to the church (e.g.. baptism and the Lord’s Supper). Churches would be wise to fully embrace student members as important co-laborers in ministry.

Why University Student Ministry?

As we say in our statement, University student ministry plays a vital role in missions by reaching and mobilizing the next generation with the gospel. Universities are a subculture of people from different walks of life. And with more open access to visas, universities are filled with students from other countries, many from countries that have no access to the gospel.

At the same time, students are setting intellectual foundations that will set the trajectory for the rest of their lives. As such, there has always been a sense of openness, to ask questions and find answers. Generally speaking, university students have a lot more time and fewer responsibilities than most people. All these factors present a wonderful opportunity to read the Bible, share the gospel of Jesus, and disciple university students. There is often an eagerness and willingness to grow in their faith. Christian students get the chance to grow in cross-cultural skills by learning how to share the gospel with people from other countries – often countries with little to no gospel access.

Furthermore, when students become Christians during these years, there is often a sense of zeal for the gospel and evangelism. Healthy student ministry includes Bible study and opportunities for students to discipling other students. More often than not, young Christian students grow to become leaders in business and of God’s church and even missionaries. Because universities are strategic places for gospel proclamation, it is critical to understand the mission of a student ministry.

The Mission Of The Church And The Mission Of The Student Ministry

The church is to be the representative of Jesus on earth until his second coming. Jesus Christ promised his disciples that He will build his church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matthew 16:19).

The New Testament writers assume that Christians who are part of the universal church will associate themselves with local churches. There is no way for Jesus’ disciples to obey all that Jesus commanded without being united with other people (not on the basis of ethnicity, social status, age group, or personal preferences) with whom they regularly gather. Put simply, the church is the means and the goal of missions. [3]

So Jesus intends to build his church, not a student ministry.

A student ministry derives its mission from the mission of the church, particularly from one aspect of the great commission. The mission of a student ministry is to teach the gospel (through evangelism and discipleship) to a specific age demographic (university students). But where the church’s commitment is to obey all that Jesus commanded, student ministries make a commitment toward a very specific cause: reaching the next generation with the gospel.

Because a student ministry is only committed to one aspect of the church’s mission, they cannot see themselves as the church; they function as partners with the church in the Great Commission. Which is why university student ministries should be closely tied to the church.

What Are The Marks A Church-Centered Student Ministry?

In order to clarify the distinction between the church and the student ministry, here are four things that mark a church-centered student ministry.

Commitment to the gospel

The history of student ministry is filled with ministries that have derailed because they have turned away from the gospel. But student ministries ought to take Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15:3 to heart:

“3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures”

There is no other message that they should share because there is no other way to be saved but through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Their entire ministry should be shaped not just by the proclamation of the gospel to unbelievers, but by modeling the centrality of the gospel for all of life. In so doing, they prepare students to find churches that have a like-minded commitment to the gospel.

Bold evangelism

University student ministry must work hard to share the gospel with non-Christians. Many people have come to faith because a university friend committed to read the Bible and share the gospel with them. Students will learn all kinds of things in university, but without a gospel witness, they will never hear that they are sinners who deserve God’s wrath because of their sin, and yet this holy and loving God made a way for sinners to be forgiven through Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Faithful Discipleship

Christians get to spend years with a student ministry on campus, which opens up the avenue to teach them how to be a faithful follower of Jesus. I remember my staff worker teaching me how to read my Bible, to pray, to fight sin, and to love my church. What I learned then formed the way I seek to live now. When student ministries commit to faithful discipleship, they enable a student to grow in Christ and look to establish themselves in churches that seek to further their faith in Christ.

4. Meaningful Membership in local churches

For some reason many students, church members, and even pastors, do not expect university students to become members of a local healthy church. But in many ways students need meaningful membership more that your average church member. They need people in their lives who can give them loving instruction in the way of the Cross.

5. Servants of and partners with local churches

A church-centered student ministry should teach students why this is important, and model it by the staff being members, serving faithfully as they partners with local churches. Student ministries should never treat their ministry as more important than the church, because the church is more important to Christ. They seek to teach students that there are significant differences between the church and the student ministry—no Lord’s Supper, baptism, or church discipline in a student ministry. Student ministries should never schedule events during times local churches gather for worship. Along with their Christian students, they work hard to bring non-Christians to church to sit under the preaching of God’s word. In modeling this commitment, they call their students to commit to gospel-preaching churches. Ultimately, they partner to see that local church, and other churches in their cities, being faithfully established, for the glory of God.

When It Is Done Well

I have now known Arun for about five years. He grew up in the Arab world as a Hindu, but found it very hard to reconcile the fact that he needed multiple gods to meet his various needs. This made the gods seem weak. While in university, he began a search for real faith. In God’s providence, he was paired up on a group project with a Christian. This new believer invited Arun to a Bible study on his campus, which he dutifully attended. He was not convinced enough to become a Christian right away, but after exploring other faiths, he kept coming back to the Bible and was curious why people in the Bible lived such radically changed lives. He wondered why his Christian university friend was so eager to regularly share the gospel, even though he kept rejecting it.

Eventually, he took up his Christian friend’s regular invitation to go to his church. To his surprise, not only did he hear the same message throughout the church service, but he was shocked at how eager the Christians were to live for Jesus. Soon he was invited to read the Bible with other church members. Evangelizing Arun became a community project. He said, “Whether I was on campus or visiting church or reading the Bible with Christians, everywhere I went I kept hearing the gospel! God was using the church and my Christian friends on campus to speak to me, to show me my sin and my need for a Savior!”

One Sunday, after hearing a sermon from the book of Genesis, he finally put his faith in Jesus Christ. Soon, he was baptized and eagerly joined the church. He is the only Christian in his entire family, and now his church has become his family. He is consistently growing in his faith under its ministry.

When the gospel is at the center and the church is prioritized, student ministries set up students for a long life of gospel faithfulness, beyond the years of university. We long to see many more student ministries prioritize the church.

Maybe you are reading this article as a student or a staff worker who is seeking to take the gospel onto a university campus in another country. Talk to the elders of your church and seek their counsel. Don’t just think about how you will establish a student ministry in another country, but consider growing in your understanding of the church. Persevere in evangelism and discipleship on your campus, while learning to prioritize the church that you are a member of. And wherever you go, commit yourself to a gospel-preaching church in that country. If you realize that you'll be entering a place where there are no gospel preaching churches, why not consider asking your sending church to send one of their elders with you to help start up a church in that country?

Pastors, if you have university students in your church, encourage their evangelism on campus! Get them to share testimonies of God’s work on their campus. Get to know the people discipling them on campus, and find ways to partner together for the good of the student. Model evangelism by proclaiming the gospel through all of Scripture. Teach your congregation to invite students into their homes and to disciple them. Teach the students to pursue a life of holiness.

In China, a large number of the elders in the various churches all either came to faith or were discipled through a student ministry. Pastor, it is likely that your future elders might be a young university student who is growing in his faith and bold in evangelism. Teach students how to aspire to be elders and deacons. Help them see how their ministry on campus brings glory to God. Who knows? It could be the means God is using to prepare them for missions one day.