There are so many stories of change that we could tell in the lives of people.
There is a Master’s student from China who knew nothing about Jesus but started coming along to Christian Union 18 months ago because he noticed that all of the people he met in NZ who were friendly and warm towards him were all Christians. He wanted to find out what it was about Christians that made them this way. He was gob-smacked when he read about the resurrection of Jesus, and said he had to go away and think about it: he had never heard anything like this before. He is not yet a Christian but is seriously weighing up the cost of following Jesus, please pray he would put his trust in Him.
Gabby became a Christian 18 months ago largely through a Christian friend around the time she started coming along to Christian Union towards the end of her degree. She is growing in leaps and bounds and has a real passion for evangelism. Gabby has joined the CU exec this coming year. While she takes a short break between undergrad and postgrad studies she is volunteering some time outside of her work hours to serve with CU and her church. There are a number of new Christians at CU have a real love for Jesus and for others that has been a great encouragement for our group in helping us continue to invite others and love those who come along to various CU events and our regular CU dinner and Life Groups on Wednesday nights on campus.
One of the great stories of change is for our CU group as a whole. We meet on campus in a study space that we are able to book. We gather together for dinner at 6pm before breaking up into small groups to look at the Bible from 7pm until 8:15pm. The dinner is a great opportunity to invite friends along to meet others at CU, people don’t need to stay for the small groups afterwards. It is easy to invite friends along for free food, and as they meet others at CU they are intrigued and interested at what makes this group of people do what they do. Many guests choose to hang around for the small groups and this last term we have been looking at some passages from Luke’s Gospel to help people meet Jesus.
Sometimes the small groups turn into Q&A type discussions as people have lots of questions about Jesus, not just from the passage, but because they don’t know anything about him. Often students are a bit afraid of ‘doing evangelism’ on campus, especially since many are shy, but we encourage people to see that helping people meet Jesus isn’t scary especially when we can do it together and just be ourselves. Please continue to pray for CU and for groups like ours across the country seeking to help others meet Jesus.