Inter-Varsity Press

CONTENTS

Foreword: Indigenous mission in a digital age - Don Carson

Introduction: A passion for Christ’s glory

1. Never underestimate what students can do
2. Our sovereign God and human courage
3. Holding out the word of life
4. Students and world mission
5. Making a difference in society
6. The reconciling power of the gospel
7. The new Europe since 1989
8. The call to sacrifice
9. Providence and perseverance
10. Looking ahead

Appendix 1: What distinctive contribution has IFES made to the global church?
Appendix 2: What we believe
Appendix 3: How to pray for students
Appendix 4: IFES ministry world-wide

"The university is a clear-cut fulcrum with which to move the world. The church can render no greater service, both to itself and to the cause of the gospel, than to try to recapture the universities for Christ. More potently than by any other means, change the university and you change the world."
Charles Habib Malik, former President of the UN General Assembly, Pascal Lectures, 1981

The International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) was founded in 1947 by leaders of evangelical student movements in ten countries.

They covenanted on behalf of their students and staff to work and pray to see a witness to Christ among students in all nations. We now have national movements in 150 countries. Our commitment to the task is still strong as we press on to pioneer in the remaining nations.

We are equipping each generation of students to be (i) effective evangelists; (ii) serious disciples; (iii) mission-minded Christians. We want our graduates to help strengthen the world Church, and to bring the presence of Christ into their professions, family life and society.

The primary theatre of our activity is the world’s universities, but many IFES national movements also work in colleges of higher and further education and in high schools, so our opportunities for the gospel are very wide. The stories in this book are drawn from the university sector.

www.ifesworld.org

Extract from Introduction: a passion for Christ’s glory

This is a book about students around the world and how God has used them. It gives just a tiny glimpse of their commitment to Christ, which for many has been at great cost. Above personal ambition has come their desire to see Christ glorified in their own lives, in their universities and in their nations. These students have taken to heart the Lord’s words in the parable of the rich fool and have chosen to be ‘rich towards God’ (Luke 12:21); hundreds, perhaps thousands, have been faithful even to the point of death.

It is their passion for Christ’s glory which has driven me to write; a passion which has often rebuked and deeply inspired me. If you are a student, let these stories of fellow students spur you on in your own witness on campus. You are part of a world-wide Fellowship. For all of us, may we allow the lives of these students to awaken in us again that passion we once had for Christ if it has started to wane.

Jesus Christ and the University

There are many passages in Scripture to which student leaders and staff turn over and over again. One of them is Colossians 2:2–3 where Paul is writing of his prayer for the Laodicean Christians and for others whom he has not met personally:

My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

The one ‘in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’ – what a description of the Lord Jesus! How can we not be jealous for his name in the world’s seats of learning? It is a scandal – and surely the deepest of ironies – that he should be ignored, scorned or held in derision in the very places where knowledge and wisdom are deemed to be sought and taught.

The university is the seedbed of ideas and of relationships, the two critical axes of human development. It is the hothouse in which both are nurtured, for good and for ill, and, because of this, it is a critical battleground for ideologies. That is why we must work and pray tirelessly for Christ’s honour here. It is no surprise that Charles Malik, the Lebanese Christian who served as President of the UN General Assembly, posed as a refrain through his masterly 1981 Pascal lectures the question, ‘What does Jesus Christ think of the University?’

If we have a strong grasp of the Lord Jesus as the agent of Creation and as the one ‘in whom all things hold together’ then we need have no fear of learning. For increasing in our knowledge and understanding of the world is a way of expanding our view of Christ.

In our discipling of students, the staff of IFES national movements encourage themto love God ‘with all their hearts, their souls their minds and their strength’. This full-blooded commitment is calling for ever-greater courage, as will become clearer through the pages of this book.

We are all aware of sexual immorality on Western campuses and of the pressures on students to compromise in the area of sexuality. It is less widely known that women students in Latin America and Africa are often required to sleep with their lecturers to secure a pass grade in examinations. Given the high incidence of AIDS in these continents, the tragedy is deeply alarming, for the students, for their families and for the whole culture. You will read stories here from students who have had to make hard choices.

Sharing our faith: Muslims and Christians

In the West, Christian mission is the domain of the Church or of voluntary organizations; in the Muslim world, where there is no separation of religion and state, Islamic mission (da’wa) plays a strategic role in foreign policy.

It is no secret that money from the Gulf has been used to endow chairs in Islamic studies in several major Western universities. The Arab states have also funded core facilities like libraries and dorms as well as business schools. These facilities have been greatly appreciated by students of all religions and ethnic groups. The Muslim world is investing shrewdly to bring influence in academia – and through academia to whole nations. Within Africa and Asia, the most able Muslim students are receiving scholarships to study outside their countries. The purpose is clear – to build a new generation of leading Muslim thinkers, east and west, north and south, who will influence their countries.

So how are we investing? We do not have the multi-million dollar funding available to the Islamic world for mission, and in some places our labours can seem very insignificant. We worship a humble Christ who entrusts the message of reconciliation on campus to his students. ...