Dawkins to launch Secularist societies in university campuses

Apparently Richard Dawkin is launching a campaign to start secularist societies in every UK university. UCCF have stated that it "will excite CU members, who are keen to share their faith and raise the spiritual temperature amongst students."

Read the full press release.

Relay Bloggers 08/09

Due to the wonders of the Facebook application Blog Networks, I've just discovered a few more Relay Workers who are blogging their way through the year! So, to celebrate, here are the other Relay bloggers that I am aware of.

Bescot42 - Andy Jinks (Liverpool)
The Cornerstone - Craig Taylor (Newcastle)
Dear Freedom - Ed Rogers (Newcastle)
The Grace Race - Gethin Jones (Bangor)
Living Stones - Cat Hare (Exeter)
The Race - Mo McCracken (Relay coordinator)
Spider's Scribblepad - Peter Williams (?)
Threelay - myself (Manchester), Jez Poyner (Manchester), Craig Taylor (Newcastle)

If you're aware of anyone else, let me know and I'll add them to the list.

Really Relay?

Judging by the many half completed draft blog posts I've written on what I've been doing so far in my Relay year, I think this post is long over due!

The other day I was on the bus heading up to the station to travel out to one of my universities and was not in a particularly good mood. I think I was pretty tired and didn't really feel as if I could be bothered to go to the CU event that was going on... But half way there it suddenly struck me just how fortunate I am to be doing Relay. I couldn't help but smile and think that I was, in my opinion, the luckiest person on that bus.

Get this: I get to spend my time studying the Bible for myself and meeting up to study it with Christian students. I get to spend time discussing the gospel with students who don't believe. As well as that, I get to look at the Bible with other older, more mature Christians, all of whom are much wiser and godly than I am at the moment. On the side, I'm learning a language in preparation for years 2 and 3 of Relay Homestart where I will hopefully be working with a certain IFES movement in Europe. On Fridays, I get to spend a whole day looking at Systematic Theology and the Great Commission.

In my opinion, this is a flipping awesome way to spend your time. So, in an attempt to celebrate the first two months on Relay (1/5th of the way in) these are five highlights so far...

1. Relay 1. Seriously, this is the best Christian conference I've been to. It can be summarised in that beforehand I thought I got grace, afterwards I realised that beforehand I really didn't! I'd still not say I've completely got it, but from what I know, it's more amazing than I ever dreamt. I'm not going to say too much more at the moment, because I'll post on it in the near future.

2. Glad You Asked. After a slow start, we now have a few students who attend - some don't believe and some do. What a privilege it is to be able to discuss spiritual truths with them and see them come to a deeper understanding of the Good News as they look at things for themselves.

3. Studying the Trinity. Mindblowingly amazing stuff. God is so incomprehensible, but that only deepens the awe at who he is. I blogged some of my thoughts on the Trinity over at threelay. Take a look!

4. Meeting up with students to look at the Bible. I'm currently meeting up with 4 students at different times and we're looking at Mark and Romans. What a privilege it is to point people to Christ in the Bible and see them realise just how awesome he is! It's also great because I get to study these great wonderful books and it actually counts as work!

5. Studying Hebrews. I've never looked at this book before, and it's also blowing my mind! I'm also really fortunate that I get to meet up with two absolute legends, Zac (legendary Staff Worker) and Judith (legendary Relay Worker) to look at it. We're really getting into it and, just like a fine wine, we're savouring it: 5 weeks of studying it and we're only in chapter 2.

Note: It should also be said that this also has absolutely nothing to do with persuading any final year students about doing Relay next year ;)

Free - what it's all about

UMCU vid

My old CU, the University of Manchester Christian Union have been asking students on campus what they would ask God and who they think Jesus is.


They've also got a rather swish new website!

What is a CU?

Some Thoughts on University #1 - Get stuck in to a Christian Union!

I finished university a couple of weeks back so I thought I would share some thoughts on university and how it has affected me. If you're at uni or starting uni in the Autumn, please listen to my advice!

When I started university I wasn't particularly serious as a Christian. I had been a Christian for my whole life, but it wasn't particularly important to me. Now that I have finished university, I can look back and safely say I have grown beyond my wildest dreams (or fears!) as a Christian over the past three years. My faith has deepened, my awe of God increased, my wonder at the Gospel greater.

I have no doubt that this is 100% down to the grace of God. But he has been working through the Christian Union at my university in doing this.

If I hadn't gone there, I would be much worse off:

• I wouldn't have seen great Christian students living their lives for Jesus and been inspired to do the same.
• I wouldn't have had the opportunities to grow as a leader and take the responsibility that comes with it. I wouldn't have made so many great Christian friends and had the joy of seeing them grow as leaders and evangelists and their love of God increase.
• I wouldn't have had the amazing teaching from the Bible that I'm so fortunate to have had by some of the best speakers in the country.
• I wouldn't have had the opportunity to try out evangelism with some really passionate student evangelists and learn from them and be inspired by them.
• I wouldn't have had the joy of being part of a small non-believer's Bible study group and see one of the people come along place their hope for salvation in Christ.

In a nutshell, I would have missed out! Christian Unions are fantastic. If you are at university or starting university please join one and if you are part of one, but don't attend it regularly, please start attending!

As with most Christian things, you won't get much out of your CU if you don't serve it. My advice is to throw yourself in and help out! Here are some of the many things you could do:

• Help lead an evangelistic Bible study!
• Do some first contact evangelism!
• Befriend and welcome international students!
• Start a prayer group with some other Christians and pray for your non Christian mates!
• Put on an evangelistic dinner!
• Help the CU when it puts on evangelistic events!
• Start a Christian book reading group with CU friends!
  
• Help run your hall group!
• Welcome freshers in September!
  

I hope and pray that you will do something and that through your involvement in a CU, you too will grow throughout your time at uni!

So much more than just a meeting...

Earlier today my staff worker and I met up with a couple of guys from Bolton University Christian Union (where I will be doing Relay next year!) to discuss and plan for Freshers Week in September. It was a really exciting time of thinking about what we could do, but it was particularly exciting seeing them realise the vision of what Christian Unions are all about - students reaching students with the gospel.

Out of this understanding, it becomes obvious that being in a CU is so much more than just meeting up with other Christian students once a week to pray, sing songs and hear a talk... it's about praying for each other, supporting each other, training each other and encouraging each other to share the gospel with our fellow students in the universities, halls and departments has put us in!

Roll on September!

Free

I've blogged about this in the past, now at last we can all see pictures!










Coming soon to a Christian Union near you! For more info, check out the Facebook Page or www.uccf.org.uk

Forum 2008

UCCF Forum promo video is now online. Forum 2008 is going to be awesome - John Piper and Graham Daniels speaking, loads of awesome seminars and camping! Plus I'm in the video 3 times :)

First Contact Evangelism

Just finished Action Group with University of Manchester CU. Before heading out we looked at God's part and our part in evangelism. We learnt that our part is essentially just to get out there and tell people the gospel (Matthew 28:16-20 and Romans 10:11-17) and that it's God's job to save people (Acts 4:10-12 and Revelation 7:9-10) - what a well timed reminder for us just before we head out to the daunting task of telling complete strangers the gospel!

Seven of us headed out in pairs and a single. We had some pretty cool conversations with many different types of people. I spoke to Muslims for a half hour showing them how that as God is both a perfect judge and loves us perfectly, the only way he can reconcile these two characteristics and forgive people of their sins is through Jesus taking the punishment for our sins on the cross. How exciting to be able to tell this to Muslims on campus!

Several other great conversations were had and we all became more confident in sharing the gospel with students.

New Evangelism Podcast

UCCF have released their second Evangelism Podcast. This time, Clive Parnell speaks to Mike Reeves (UCCF's theological advisor) about our missionary God. I haven't listened to it yet, but I will do and I recommend that anyone who is involved in a CU should too!

Powered by ScribeFire.

UCCF's New Gospel Project "Free" - First Look!

We were privileged at the North West UCCF New Leaders Training weekend to be the first bunch of students to see the unveiling of UCCF's latest gospel project - Free (we didn't pay, Free is the name of the project!) The idea of this gospel project is to take the gospel of Mark, put it in a contemporary styled booklet and hand 400000 to the university CUs so that they can hand one out to every student in a university hall of residence in the UK.

This is an awesome undertaking in any case, but when you remember that this is the very word of God being placed in the room of every first year at university it really is amazing and I'm deeply grateful to UCCF and their supporters for taking the effort and putting up the cash for this project! Just think what would happen if the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of even a few of those that receive the gospels so that Jesus walks of the pages into their hearts and minds - I think we would see something close to revival in some of our universities!

I guess we won't know the level of success of any gospel project until we reach heaven but I do know of someone who's financial supporters are almost entirely made up of people who came to faith through a previous UCCF gospel project - so they do work!

Please, please, please join us with praying that these gospels would
fall into the right hands and that the Holy Spirit would open their
eyes so that they can see that it is the truth, place their trust in
the Lord Jesus as their personal saviour and have eternal life.

In terms of the design, I think the "Free" gospels look pretty amazing. There are six different covers which CU members are reminded not to try and collect as therefore only a fraction of the students in uni will get the gospels, which would be a disappointment. The covers are completely black with a bombed(?) stencil of Free on the back - very chic - and the inside pages are emblazoned with doodles around the block of text. The doodles are on twelve different themes (life, freedom etc) at relevant stages in the narrative.

On a side note, as far as I am aware, there is still a fair amount of money to be raised for this gospel project, so please support the efforts of one staff worker and two Relay workers to raise money - if Nick Warner raises more money than the Peter Dray and Sarah Dawkins, Peter has to wear a tutu for a day and Sarah has to dress up as a banana. If Sarah and Peter raise more money, Nick, a die hard Blackburn Rovers fan has to wear a Burnley (hated rivals of Blackburn) shirt for a day. Check out the Facebook group for more details! Last time I checked, £150 had been raised and Nick was losing.

Check here for more details about the gospel project.

Powered by ScribeFire.

New Leaders Training

As some of you might be aware, I have just finished serving on the executive committee (exec) at University of Manchester Christian Union and the new exec have taken over. This weekend I am fortunate enough to be able to join up with some of the new execs from around the North West at the annual UCCF North West Region New Leaders Training. It's going to be fun!


Things I am looking forward to:

• Tim Rudge talking on either 1 or 2 Peter - either way, the teaching will be UCCF ace-tastic and I haven't studied either of the possibilities, so double bonus!
• Meeting some of the people on the new execs at Salford and Bolton and becoming even more excited about work with them and serving them next year on Relay
  
• Leading a seminar with Zac Wyse for the new Evangelism Coordinators in the various CUs in the region. What a privelege to be able to help them as they begin to form ideas of what they will be doing evangelism-wise with their CUs this year.
• Cooking! Never worked in a big kitchen before but I'm on the cooking team
• Bookstall. UCCF event always have opportunities for buying good IVP books at low, low prices. Having said that, I will try and hold back from bringing too much conference bounty home.
• Train journeys. We travel from Manchester in approximately 1 hour on a locomotive train. Get to hang out with some of the new UMCU exec.
• Meeting new people. UCCF events are basically large family gatherings and I am looking forward to meet some more of my brothers and sisters in Christ. It's also cool when you get to meet people you've already met at Forum, Biblical Evangelism, last years NLT etc.

Will fill you in on all the delights of NLT and of the Truth? when I get back!

Relay!

Awesome news. Just been officially accepted onto the Relay programme with the North West team. I'll be working in Salford and Bolton universities. Am very excited about it, if a tad concerned about having to do something like this.

Powered by ScribeFire.

theologynetwork.org

Woop! At long last, theologynetwork.org has been launched. So from now on I will mostly be spending my bus journeys to uni learning about theology. That might sound pretty dull, but basically its learning more about God i.e. who he is and what he's done for us. I think I'm going to start by spending a bit of time looking at the cross and justification, which is, I think you'll agree, slightly more worthwhile than staring out of windows at stationary traffic.

Powered by ScribeFire.

The Truth?

"What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies and anthropomorphisms." Friedrich Nietzsche, 1873.

"What's true for you is not true for me." Student, 2007.

"I am... the truth." Jesus, c. 30 AD

Is there such a thing as objective truth? If you asked the average student here in Manchester they would probably say not. Pluralism and postmodernism pervades the modern day students worldview - it is claimed that it is wrong to say someone is wrong and its considered arrogant and even rude to claim that what you believe is the truth.

Jesus claims to be the truth. This claim flies in the face of everything that society says, but in a world where despite the many loud voices shouting that there is no truth, people are increasingly searching for a deeper meaning and purpose to life. Surely he is one person worth listening to.

On another occasion Jesus stated that he came into the world to testify to the truth and that everyone on the side of truth listens to him. Surely he's a person worth listening to.

What is truth? The University of Manchester Christian Union is hosting a week of events from Monday 11th - Saturday 16th February 2008 and invite you to come along, find out what Jesus had to say and decide for yourself whether his claim to be the truth is truthful. Everyone is welcome, whether Christian, or of other beliefs or none at all. All events are free.

Events are happening on the following days:

• Monday 11th 1-1.45pm @ Jabez Clegg (Dover Street) - short talk on "Where is God in a messed up world?" with free lunch.
• Monday 11th 7-9pm @ Queen of Hearts (Wilmslow Road) - pub quiz with talk on "The truth about God" (TBC)
• Wednesday 13th 7-9pm @ Queen of Hearts (Wilmslow Road)- talk on "The truth about Life" preceded by a quick account by an ex IRA terrorist who became a Christian whilst in prison.
• Thursday 14th 1-1.45pm @ Jabez Clegg (Dover Street)- short talk on "What is True Love?" with free lunch.
• Friday 15th 7-9pm @ Glass (Wilmslow Road) - talk on "The truth about Jesus"

Check out The Truth? Facebook Group

Powered by ScribeFire.