bear the fruit of horizontal care. That’s why we evangelise, encourage, train, and send students throughout the world with the glorious news of Jesus. We hope you are encouraged by updates of this in this edition of On Campus. Please labour in prayer with us to joyfully partake in this mission for the glory of God.

There is a sombre mood in our world today with so many apparent threats to our security.

News of global terrorism, climate change, drug trafficking, corruption, domestic abuse, gang violence, sex trafficking, theft, and murder, flood our news cycles hourly. A recent U.N. report on Syria alone describes “a level of inhumanity that is almost unbearable to document”.

We live in a broken and divided world. And God cares! Indeed he cares about all suffering. But he especially cares about eternal suffering. Our horizontal offences against one another are ultimately symptomatic of our vertical

offence against God that rightly deserves his holy wrath. That’s why (despite his numerous offences against others) King David dares to say: “Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight” (Ps 51:4).

The gravity of our sin lies not so much in the nature of the sin committed but in the greatness of the Person sinned against.

If we reduce the gravity of sin only to our horizontal offences then we will only ever offer horizontal care. But if we rightly understand our vertical offence against God like David, then we will always offer

the vertical care of proclaiming the gospel of Jesus. For only the momentous news of Jesus, can save people from the coming wrath of God. And Christians who rightly understand the nature of sin will always care about all suffering, but especially eternal suffering.

Our vision for AFES is to “proclaim Jesus Christ at University to present everyone mature in him.” And God’s strategy is for his people to prayerfully proclaim his gospel to all people and

2015

OnCampus Proclaiming Jesus Christ at university to present everyone mature in Him.

intro.Richard Chin AFES National Director

2 3 54 5EvangeliseDanny Mullins 2 3Train2 32 3Tony Rowbotham2 3 Encourage

Julia BollenUncover Storiesfrom students on campus

SendHoward Spencer

also in this issue:

Christians who rightly understand the nature of sin will always care about all suffering, but especially eternal suffering.

save? And it invites the students to hear Jesus speaking to them and their friends as they start prayerfully reading Luke together.

2 Simplicity = confidence. Christian students are only asked to remember five words we call the 5 Rs (Retell, React, Reveal, Reason, Respond).

With these memory prompts a student can read Luke evangelistically. There’s nothing else they need. This simplicity and subsequent clarity combine to give confidence.

The 5 Rs also model essential bible reading skills like observation (Retell, React), interpretation (Reveal, Reason) and application (Respond). Both the Christian and their friend are seeing for

themselves how to read gospel narrative well.

3 Uncover provides an evangelism pathway.

One of the most pleasant surprises is how Uncover has

provided a pathway to help students’ friends, as well as those who come to our meetings.

So rather than ‘just’ being welcoming (always essential), students have a clearer sense of what to do next with each person: ‘You should do Uncover with me...It’s a great way to understand Jesus and know what he is on about. I could do it with you.’

train.“I invited a friend to read Luke with me … and they said YES! What do I do now?” – Crystal

Uncover: See For Yourself was adapted to our Australian context (from the UK) and piloted in 2014, with a frenzy of training and equipping across the nation earlier this year. The strategy was to practice Uncover with another Christian in semester one – students training students in evangelism.

But many the students couldn’t wait – starting evangelistically with their friends! We’ve seen many students courageously inviting friends to read Luke with them, and many of them taking up the offer.

Here’s three brief training reflections.

1 Uncover is gospel only. This is why we were attracted to Uncover in the first place. It places Luke’s Gospel before a friend… that’s all. The Christian has only God, prayer and his Word!

This poses a fundamental question: Do I believe in the power of the gospel alone to

Students already want their friends to know Jesus, but are sometimes unsure of the next step (or lack courage). Uncover has provided a clear pathway from welcome to invitation to ‘see for yourself’ what Jesus and the gospel are all about.

Excitingly, Uncover helps us do evangelism with the Bible open. It makes the most of the evangelistic resources God gives his people – the Scriptures, prayer, God’s own desire to save, and the Holy Spirit who opens darkened minds and applies the gospel to us. It’s not a layer that fits over the gospel, but rather calls the inquirer to respond to Jesus as he is revealed in God’s ‘Spirited’ Scriptures.

We hope the training goals of Uncover will help students wherever they may serve in their churches in the future.

Please pray for the gospel to be proclaimed clearly, for courage & love for the lost, and for a generation of Christian students to have the confidence to read the gospel evangelistically.

It places Luke’s Gospel before a friend... that’s all. The Christian has only God, prayer and his Word!

2 OnCampus 2015

Tony Rowbotham Deputy National Director

Lisa in second year at Cumbo was already on board with this vision when last year as a first year student she made friends with Marie* who is from a religious background. From the start of their friendship they had conversations about spiritual things. At the beginning of first semester this year Lisa and Marie started reading Uncover together.

Lisa says, “we’ve been able to meet up and read some of the key passages and talk about how we’re saved, sin, the purpose of the law, what are our works, and what Jesus came to do. She’s really on the ball, and has lots of tricky questions – trying to find out the truth from the evidence.”

One of the highlights was when Lisa and Marie read the story of the Prodigal Son together. “It was a lightbulb moment for her” says Lisa. “She said, ‘Oh, so you Christians aren’t on about doing good things… its about faith in Jesus!’ I was like, ‘YES!’ That was really encouraging – especially when she’s from a background of doing good things, and being moral.”

We’re hoping that in second semester many more students at Cumbo will adopt Portia and Lisa’s mission of deepening relationship and uncovering Jesus with their friends. May it also be your mission!

*Not her real name

evangelise.Uncover is such an exciting initiative – students reading Luke with their non-Christian friends! However, at Cumberland, we realised that students wouldn’t read Luke with non-Christian friends if they didn’t first have some! So the evangelism goal that we have adopted for the year is “Deepen relationships and uncover Jesus with three non-Christians on campus”.

Portia who’s in her third year of Physiotherapy got the message back in February at our KickOn conference. She realised that actually showing up at uni would be necessary to hang out, deepen relationships and uncover Jesus with friends! Here is her story.

“The ‘before Kick-on me’ would have read our evangelism goal and thought it impossible for myself. For the first two years at uni I was not active with evangelism. I felt awkward and embarrassed to try and bring up Jesus

Meet Portia.

Meet Lisa.with my friends. However after Kick-on, 3 key messages changed that perspective.

1 Uni is a unique time so you should try to spend as much time as possible at uni;

2 We have a purpose and a role to play as Christians to tell as many people as possible about Jesus;

3 Mesh 1 and 2 together!

“Jesus is slowly being uncovered for my friends through small groups, public meetings, Uncover and everyday conversation.”

So what does that look like this year? Increased attendance at lectures and tutorials and intentionally talking with my friends individually to get to know them better. Deepened relationships have enabled me to bring up Jesus with my friends and invite them to our events. Every time I am surprised by the outcome! It’s never-not-awkward to ask, but it is through these opportunities that Jesus is slowly being uncovered for my friends through small groups, public meetings, Uncover and everyday conversation. ‘Deepen relationships and uncover Jesus with three non-Christian friends on campus.’ It’s do-able.”

Danny Mullins Cumberland Campus – ECU

4 OnCampus 20154 OnCampus 2015

Oliver met up with a non-Christian, ‘S’, for over a year to read through Mark’s gospel, and now Luke’s gospel. Running the Uncover training session for the ES leadership team, Oliver invited S to come along and share from an unbeliever’s perspective how he has found reading the Bible. S agreed to come and told the ES leaders that they should all be reading the Bible with their classmates because in our culture no-one knows anything about Jesus! The ES leaders loved it, and S stayed for the rest of the training session! Then the next day he committed his life to Christ!

Oliver says: “God is great, he pursues people and opens their heart through his word about his Son... This verse from Proverbs sums how I feel about what has happened by the grace of God: many are the plans in the mind of a man but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. (Proverbs 19:21)”

We’ve been training our FOCUS students to read Uncover with their friends and have had 10 -15 students complete the training. They come from many different countries – Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, Vietnam and the Philippines – and are reading Luke with people from even more countries.

An Indonesian student is reading Uncover with his Indian friend who is investigating Christianity. They have loved the Uncover questions and have had good conversations about who Jesus is and what it means to follow him.

A group of women in one of the La Trobe residences have been meeting to read Uncover together. A Japanese woman has persistently invited her friend from Tahiti to come. She kept saying to her friend “You need to trust Jesus, he is very good. You need to trust Jesus, he is very powerful. You need to trust Jesus, he is very wise.” The Tahitian woman came, read Luke, and became a Christian a couple of weeks ago. Now they have both started saying to their Indonesian friend “You need to trust Jesus...”

Praise God! I’ve met up to read Uncover with an international student! It was great! He had heaps of brilliant questions and was amazed to find out that Jesus came to forgive sins and make our relationship right with God – not to fix all of the world’s problems, but to fix our biggest problem. I’m heaps encouraged by that and would love if you can keep praying for him – he’s got heaps of questions and he’s really keen to find out the answers.

‘V’ and I first met when she came by to FOCUS carols last December. She only saw the FOCUS flyer about the event earlier that night and just joined in not knowing anybody. She first talked to my friend and wanted to come to church. Later in January, V came to church. Then, she agreed to have coffee. Then, she agreed to read Uncover investigating Jesus for herself.

After our first Uncover meeting though, V did not respond to any of my calls or messages and I felt quite sad. What a big encouragement it was when three weeks later she got back to me asking to meet up. And when we did, she came with the first few chapters read and highlighted, full of questions. Over the next few months it was beautiful to see God’s word at work. I’m not a great speaker but he is. Seeing V interacting with the Bible, uncovering the words, kept reminding me of his grace and glory as I really only sat there! V and I became friends, and now we’ve become sisters as well.

I had the privilege of reading Uncover with a girl who went to my old Christian school. She had some knowledge of the Bible because of this, but doesn’t come from a Christian background and is not a Christian herself. She was, however, quite open to reading Uncover and going through the story of Jesus healing the paralysed man! Getting her to retell the story in her own words meant that she was able to better understand the significance of when Jesus said “friend your sins are forgiven.” But when we got to respond, she wasn’t sure on how to herself!

Please pray that as we continue to read Uncover that she may come to see that she needs Jesus to be her own personal friend. Also give thanks for when we’re given these amazing opportunities to read Uncover with other people!”

“I met up with my non-Christian friend ‘M’ to continue reading Uncover. Her friend ‘H’, also a non-Christian, was there with her and decided to join in. We read The parable of the Sower. After discussing it, I asked M what we could pray for. She said “that we could be like the last seed, listening to Jesus and being open to hearing what he says.” Please pray that she will in fact continue to hear Jesus through Luke and commit her life to him.

H is returning to Japan, but is quite interested in the Bible. I gave her a Japanese gospel of Luke. Please pray that she reads it and that God will open her heart to believe it.”

Erina’sStory.Macquarie Uni - CU

Oliver’s Story.Adelaide Uni - ES

Jemima’s Story.Federation Uni Ballarat

Nathanael’s Story.Wollongong Uni - ECU

Marie’sStory.Wollongong Uni - ECU

FOCUS La Trobe’sStory.

5 OnCampus 2015

encourage.

send.

Julia Bollen James Cook Uni – CU

Howard Spencer AFES National Office

Life is a bit different in the tropics. In a part of the world that is thought of as full of deadly and infectious diseases, we hope to see students have an infectious influence on the campus at JCU – one not to be avoided, as they encourage each other to know God through his word.

This last semester, we had a particularly enthusiastic bible study group of first year medical students, with a number of keen Christian students committed to coming each week. Studying 1 Peter, they have been thinking through the themes of suffering, humility and love – spurring each other on, such that the core group of seven stand out as the Christians among their peers. With this sense of fellowship, they frequently invite friends to join us – to see what it is all about. The study rooms where we meet are often full, and as we sat outside one week, we made the mistake of sitting right by the busy path that leads to the medical school.

A mistake because there were plenty of distractions and interruptions, but also a great joy because, other friends saw what they were doing, a couple even sitting down to join us. Unashamed to be known as people who follow Jesus and study his word – they are an encouragement to one another to persevere, and to me!

Emma became a Christian during her first year at university studying medicine. Living ‘on college,’ she made friends with a number of Christians at her uni residence, was eager to investigate Jesus, and became a Christian that year. Now in her third year, she is growing in her knowledge of the Bible and maturing in the gospel as she tentatively gets involved in leading others in our campus group. Having been ‘met with’ to read one to one, she was excited to seek to initiate meeting with a friend to do the same.

As part of Uncover, we asked students to meet in triplets to read and become familiar with the resource during Semester One. Emma asked two friends to meet with her. The first was a non-Christian friend from their time at college, who had

been occasionally coming along to our weekly talks. The other, a Christian friend whom she hoped to encourage to grow in confidence in Bible reading. The two friends decided that the best place to meet was at the share house they both share with three other housemates. It sprang into an evangelistic group, with each of the other housemates joining to read and ask questions – even one who describes herself as a pagan!

It has been a great encouragement to meet with Emma and hear her asking her own questions of the passages and reflecting on how the group is going. Together, the girls are learning more of the gospel, and the two Christian friends are building each other up to keep proclaiming Jesus as Lord.

As the students grow in maturity, they encourage each other and our whole staff team to stand firm. Their enthusiasm to grow in the gospel is infectious, as they look outward to invite others to share in this great news.

AFES continually presents staff and students with the enormous need in the world for the gospel to be proclaimed. Keeping this global perspective ensures campus ministry is focused on God’s plans for the world and challenges personal involvement.

Over the years many AFES staff and students have left Australia to be involved in ministry with other IFES National Movements, or as missionaries. AFES also hosts overseas IFES personnel to come to Australia to train in student ministry and theological studies. This two-way partnership is a blessing for both parties.

The partnership with Zvesh in Slovenia is one creative example where Australian students can simultaneously be supporting the small Slovene movement while studying in Slovenia to obtain credits for their Australian degree. Brane spent time at Melbourne University doing an AFES apprenticeship and now works full time as the General Secretary of Zvesh in

Slovenia. Brane says this study program “is a great help to us, because students like Laura (from Monash University) who is with us this year, has a lot of skills she was not even aware of – like how to lead bible studies and run small groups – you guys are full of skills that we can use here.” AFES students studying there is massive help for Zvesh, as there are so few Slovene Christian students.

NTE is a strategic platform for promoting world mission across AFES as well as to our international guests from other IFES movements who come every year. The students from Fiji attended for over 15

years and loved the bible teaching and repeatedly asked AFES to send a campus worker to help them learn and teach the bible. Tony Wright was sent through CMS, and in a short time the mentoring and training of students has produced confident student leaders and hopefully, future Fijian campus workers. A similar story is unfolding in PNG with Keith and Marion Birchley sent to help the TSCF

PNG student group with Bible teaching earlier this year in June.

Our dream is for NTE to challenge many to consider going to places where there are gospel needs and to raise up more workers for the international harvest. It is so exciting to see staff and students taking up this challenge each year. There are many requests so pray that AFES staff and students might take up these offers and go! By God’s grace, we are sending students and staff to the world to

share the gospel but we long to do more.

fb.com/afes.national twitter.com/afes vimeo.com/afes

FulltimeJon Baird @ Uni of Wollongong Andrew Maskell @ Uni of Tasmania, Hobart Sarah Weber @ Deakin Uni, Geelong

Part timeChin Wee Ang @ Curtin Uni, Perth Chris Angel @ Federation Uni, Ballarat Katie Bolton @ Uni of Western Sydney, Parramatta Shane Ellery @ Flinders Uni - FOCUS, Adelaide Nick Gauci @ QUT, Brisbane Jess Green @ RMIT, City Grant Moore @ Curtin Uni, Perth Rodney Weatherhead @ QUT, Brisbane

new staff.

AFES National Office PO Box 684 Kingsford NSW 2032

T +61 2 9697 0313 E office@afes.org.au W afes.org.au

Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students

be our guest.Steve Lister Charles Sturt Uni – Wagga CF

What sticks in my mind about the Guest Programme at NTE is one word – partnership. I was personally spurred on as supporters from across the country descended on Canberra to find out first hand what NTE and AFES are all about. As we shared about what God was doing on campuses around the country (and abroad), it was a wonderful demonstration of what it means to work side by side in the cause of the gospel.

We were profoundly encouraged by each other, as we heard of God’s grace in young people’s lives who had turned from idols to serve the one true God. We met a number of students on the ground who were growing in their desire and ability to speak of Jesus and serve him, and friends of the fellowship got to see first-hand what

their prayers and financial gifts had been achieving according to God’s mercy. Our time together at NTE left me inspired and thankful for the way God uses all his people to achieve his mission.

Please do consider joining us for the Guest Programme at NTE this year. I’m sure you’ll be blessed out of your socks by all Jesus is doing among us.

The NTE Guest Programme will be held at EPIC Canberra on the first weekend of the conference (Dec 4 - 6). Visit our website for more information and to register online: nte.org.au/guests