I missed being at Reading today, I missed the buzz of the lunch bars, seeing all the students turn up and eagerly await the beginning of the talk, seeing their eyes light up when they understand something true about God, seeing them reading along with the Bible passage, seeing them discussing together what a passage means, seeing them willing to ask questions and make a helpful contribution to the discussion.

Instead of being at the mission week, I was at the Evangelical Alliance Council meeting. We were reviewing the results from the huge faith survey EA had carried out last year. One headline was that 18-25 year olds are doing an amazing job at sharing their faith – they are much more likely than the rest of us when it comes to talking to friends and family  about Jesus.

The more I think about student mission the more they raise the bar for the rest of us. 40 students on a campus in reading have a vision to reach the whole campus, they are working at putting on creative events, wearing hoodies that advertise their faith for all to see. There is a high expectations on students to be involved in personal evangelism – something that is almost completely missing in the majority of churches I visit. It is true that for some the pressure to be involved in personal evangelism is too high in CUs – those of us in student ministry often underplay the body principle, that not all of us have verbal gifts and skills and not all of us have great social skills and to understand the way in which the whole church functions as the basic unit of evangelism – that we work collaboratively together to proclaim and to incarnate the gospel in a time and place. But looking around the CU this week as each person played their part in hospitality, service, testimony, publicity, food production, design, bringing mates, running the diesel generator, security – there was a role for everyone who wanted one. Churches can learn a lot from student mission (I am sure the reverse is true too).

Here’s my top 3 things churches can learn from CU missions

1. Trust

I love the fact that CU missions mean that teenagers get to be in charge of a budget of several thousand pounds to spend any way they like to bring the gospel to campus for a week. Many churches I know struggle to let the youthworker loose with that kind of money – let alone the youth themselves. Its so empowering and encouraging. We recognize that young people are doing real mission – not just playing at it.

2. Creativity

Some CUs can’t meet on campus so rather than sulk and moan that they can’t do anything. They get creative. They hire a marquee, they meet in student bedrooms. They get on with it and try and do something differently. Each day we have met as a team to try and tweak what we are doing to make it work better. Working with students is exciting because they are normally up for giving things a go – they are not afraid to fail. Couple trust with an openess to experiment and you have something very exciting. Churches could really learn from that.

3. Unity

Its been great working this week with a bunch of Christians from a range of different backgrounds. Watching conservatives working with charismatics has been fun. Someone will mention the word prophetic evangelism or healing on the streets and rather than get all upset there’s been a willingness to let people give it a go. I have been challenged to pray with seekers more – that God would speak to them as they go along their journey. I prayed with a couple of students this week that I might not have done if the guys with the more charismatic theology had not been with us. Anglicans, baptists, new churches, reformed churches all finding a way to focus on the gospel rather than secondary issues has been great.. Using a variety of people on the panel has been great – the reformed guys will often give a more cerebral answer, the girls from charismatic backgrounds will often give a more experiential answer to a question – which has meant that between us we have given a fuller answer to questions than we would have done otherwise.   Churches can learn a lot from this joint visible partnership to reach a community, when we silo off we impoverish our mission.