Student commitment to the local church

I was particularly pleased to note in the current issue of the UCCF magazine an emphasis on being passionate about the local church.

It’s so good to read Richard Cunningham, the UCCF Director, making it so clear that all students in CUs are strongly urged to get stuck into a local church as soon as possible, and the clear statement that CUs can never replace the local church.

This is completely consistent with answers that were given at an open question session at the UCCF leaders’ conference, Forum, when I spoke there in ’07. Students were not only given clear direction to make sure they got involved with the local church but also testimony was given by one of the senior leaders that he knew that following his conversion at university, he would never have grown into maturity without becoming a member of a church.

Acknowledging that there is still some confusion about what a CU is and what it’s for, Richard Cunningham goes on to argue that a CU is clearly a campus-based mission team and that students in CU are church members who join a short-term mission team to reach their peers on campus and have unique access to the unreached thousands of fellow students.

Certainly within Newfrontiers churches we are delighted to have thousands of students in our ranks and about 70 full-time student workers who are happy to be involved in this mission.