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The Third Degree

Adventures in Freshers' Week

A university freshers’ week is typified by hordes of people doing exactly what they want; enjoying their new-found freedom, spending their student loan and often consuming vast amounts of alcohol. During this time everyone is trying to find their place, to make new friends and to get off on the right foot.

Imagine, or maybe you have been there yourself, a Christian trying to get by in this. For some it’s exciting, full of opportunities to get involved and have fun, but to stand tall for Jesus. For some it’s terrifying, being dragged to clubs and bars every night and having to explain over and over again why they aren’t getting drunk.

Temptation and pressure

For some, it’s too much, they want to honour God but the temptation and the pressure is just too great, so they conform. For others still, it’s somewhere in between.

No matter the student and the experience of freshers’ week, Christian Unions make student life taste better. CUs exist to help Christian students to live and speak for Jesus on university campuses. CUs welcome, build up, encourage, train and equip students and send them out to the university mission field. This all starts in freshers’ week and has been going on all over the country.

On the ground

In London, the Kings CU put on an event in a local Starbucks with free coffee, cake, live jazz, a London quiz and a gospel talk. It was packed, with all the seats taken and people left standing.

The Leeds University CU international team and other CU students worked very hard at welcoming international students and at the first invitational church service at the end of the week, 120 international students came along. The gospel was presented, and around 60 students said they would be interested in hearing more, and three said they wanted to follow Jesus!

The Cambridge CU made a big push to personally give every fresher a DVD with three testimonies of recent graduates who became Christians at university and an evangelistic talk. This was followed up by evangelistic events in every college.

The CU at Edinburgh put on over 20 events during freshers’ week. The busiest event, as always, was the ceilidh in the famous McEwan hall where over 540 people came.

Joining churches

As a Christian it is vital to be involved with a church while at university and CUs have been helping freshers to find local churches where they can get stuck in.

‘My CU hall group has been amazing, they were really welcoming and sorted out “church search” trips to help us freshers find churches and get settled’ (Nottingham CU fresher).

Fresher Link-Up

It’s brilliant for freshers to come to university and be welcomed and befriended by Christians straight away and to get involved in the missionary work of the CU right from the outset. Hundreds of freshers have used the UCCF Fresher Link-Up to get in touch with their CU before arriving at university and it has made a difference for many.

A CU fresher at Loughborough said: ‘I was able to ask questions about uni before I came. I was a little nervous about coming beforehand, but it made me feel more at ease about it because I knew there was always somewhere I could go if I did find it hard.’

The CU at Durham had a freshers’ getaway before freshers’ week began to give freshers the chance to meet Christians, be taught from the Bible, find out how CU works and get excited about evangelism.

‘The best thing was being able to meet and engage with Christians who are all in the same boat; it was really helpful to know some Christians already when I started uni!’ (Durham CU fresher). Another said: ‘Meeting loads of other freshers and getting keyed up to live for Jesus at Durham.’

It’s not too late to use the UCCF Fresher Link-Up. If you know of anyone going to university or want to get in touch with the CU at your university go to http://www.uccf.org.uk/freshers or email cpetra@uccf.org.uk

Charlotte Petra, UCCF

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<< November 2009 >>