The following is an example of how one staff worker helped a CU to come up with some great talk titles!
One of the great blessings of working with Christian Unions at this time of the year is helping them to shape their spring evangelism plans. Many of these CUs will host a Spring Events Week. Events Weeks are terrific times to intensely sow the gospel. Many students are drawn to consider Jesus like never before.
Something that’s struck me recently is that, when students plan these weeks of outreach, they can gravitate towards approaches and titles that have been used before. This, of course, is completely understandable. Yet the gospel always meets people within a culture. They don’t always have opinions on what we consider to be important. Asking a few basic questions about our present moment in Western culture — and the particular expression of this within the local university subculture — can bear much fruit. Non-believers subjectively begin to see the objective relevance of the gospel.
Last June I met a group of leaders from the University of York Christian Union. We discussed some diagnostic questions that helped me understand where their friends were coming from. It stood out to me that — perhaps even more than in some other UK university contexts — York students prize harmony, cohesion and inclusion.
We hit upon One as the name for their spring events week. I’ve written before on the importance of choosing titles carefully, and One has several advantages:
- It allows us to interrogate some gospel themes and existential cries that are widely shared by members of the university;
- It’s neutral and doesn’t assume that those on campus already have a deep interest in spiritual or religious themes;
- It’s intriguing and creates interest.
I was with York CU last weekend, teaching from Ephesians — a Bible book which demonstrates like no other God’s passion for oneness: in making us one with him, we are made one with God and (despite our differences) with each other, and reintegrated in our relationships with ourselves and everything else in creation. Our final hope is that, like members of an orchestra, we will all be made one. The common answers to where we can be made one fall very short of what Jesus can uniquely bring.
We also launched One to the rest of the Christian Union. Like the best recent university missions in recent years, One has a couple of questions that CU members can ask friends that open up conversations. We’re encouraging students to ask:
One is about what completes us;One is about exploring what makes us whole;One is about sharing stories of life undivided.So… What completes you? What makes you whole?
And here are the lunchtime titles we’ve hit upon:
- One with myself: how can I love who I truly am?
- One world: how can we build an inclusive society?
- One damn thing after another: is there meaning in my pain?
- One love: can our deepest desires be satisfied?
- Only one life — or is there more?
With the help of a range of interviewees, Roger Simpson will then speak in the evenings of the hope and difference that Jesus uniquely makes to all of life.
I’m really looking forward to this week in February. I’m hopeful that One — and similar themes — provide new angles on demonstrating the beauty and sufficiency of Jesus to many students!