Student Churches Loving Muslims

Native Americans reaching out to Muslim students in their city?

These are the kinds of stories I imagine Jesus smiles about.

Below is a story from three student church planters (two of them are Native American) who were trained at one of our summer Student CPx training experiences:

Over the summer the team I was with and I met [name omitted], a Muslim student at KU who lived next to us in our apartments.  Everywhere we went he was there.  Through him we met his friend [name omitted], another Muslim at KU.  Neither of them have many international friends, which means all their friends are Muslims from Saudi Arabia, the wealthiest of the families who send their kids to school for petroleum engineering ect to become the future leaders of the country!  After two months of ending the summer and not seeing these friends of ours, I ran into one of them at a coffee shop who then proceeded to invite us to his new apartment to visit!

So my friends Robert, Tyler, and I had this amazing opportunity to pass the evening with an incredible group of people in their own home!  They were the most incredible hosts, catering to us like kings!  They prepared a Saudi Arabian meal of chicken and rice, plus banana juices and cheese cakes until I feel like I won’t be able to eat for days again.  Simple dinner, conversation, movie, and then hours of conversation sharing pictures of Medina and Mecca and what we like to do in our free time.  

[Name], who has seen me more than once on the curb or outside reading my Bible on nice summer days replies, “She likes to read her Bible in her spare time.”  A roommate then replies, “I’ve read the first couple pages before.”  And then a discussion embarks on the difference between Islam and Christianity.  

 

Did Jesus really die or was there a substitute person?  

 

I got to share of evidence of the crucifixion, soldiers’ testimonies when the earth shook and the sky grew dark at the hour of his death, and the factuality of it even in history books.  They asked questions about Isaac and Ishmael wondering if they were the same stories.  They say, “Tell us your story of it, we haven’t heard your side.  We want to see if they are the same.”  And so I get to tell them of Abraham’s faith and willingness to give “His one and only son whom he loves” and how it points to Jesus.  It’s where God gets his name Jehova Jireh, “The Lord Himself Will Provide”.  He has provided a sacrifice apart from our own efforts.  And this amazing new group of friends sat intently like kids at story time, not to amuse us or give us a turn to talk, but intently listening to stories they have never heard.  Not just the one friend we met , but now one friend bringing us like the Samaritan woman to her family and friends in her community. 

 

It still baffles me.  How I got into such an incredible position to bring the presence of God into their own home, a whole community, sitting in a circle with the eyes of 5 Muslims locked on mine listening to words of life that will linger in the atmosphere long after I go home and go to sleep.  I have had opportunity before to share with Muslims and there were many Muslims in Malawi as well that I had a chance to share with.  But I have never been as passionate for them as I am with this group, friends, whom I have grown to love, that I would rather die for then see them perish.   

Pray for life. – Jessie

Imagine thousands of students like Jessie, Robert, and Tyler on universities around North America starting simple church communities in apartments, residence halls, and every place students do life together. They eat meals with students who would probably never walk into a church, make friendships, share stories of Jesus, pray for the sick, follow up with those who are open to the greatest news ever heard on earth.

God is sending student church planters to reach the lost and reach the nations for Jesus.

Pray for Muslim students all over America to discover who Jesus is and how much He loves them!

Story from a Student Church at Haskell

Last week, my father in law and I took my 7 year old son Ethan on a wilderness camping and fly fishing trip in the Colorado mountains. It was a challenge for me personally, because I saw so many pressing ministry needs happening at Haskell University, a Native American college where we have been mentoring student church planters for the last year. The needs of our young student leaders seemed really great. At the same time, this seemed like a really critical time in my son’s life, where some time away with dad was really important. It was a key marker in my life to realize this,

“If we love our wives and family as Jesus loved the church, Jesus will show us that He is truly the one who builds His church.”

Among our numerous adventures, we survived the steering going out on our truck and almost driving off the mountain. We caught trout. We photographed elk, antelope, and mule deer.

We had a powerful time together.

And the student churches grew more while I was away then they had the entire semester.

Here is one story that happened while we were away, as told by Jessie, a student church planter who has been living with us the last several months:

Yeah!!! Haskell student enters into the Kingdom!

So two nights ago Robert and I were in OK Hall in our endeavors to have simple church. We were randomly inviting people. One student returned from football practice and replied as he passed, “Is this a church thing? God knows I need it!” He returned and we proceeded to talk to him afterwards. This guy has had dreams. He described one,

“There was a fire and my people were dancing around it in a circle. Out of this group of people one figure stood out. There was Satan amongst them pointing his finger mocking and laughing at them. They couldn’t see him, but I could. He turned and looked right at me.”

 He’s always felt like a protector. So I get to share with him what his people need protected from and why Satan was laughing in his dream. We talked about Jesus and why Jesus is so important in the equation and how it is only through him that we can be delivered from the grasp of Satan and sin. By the end of the night he repented, named people he had to ask forgiveness from and prayed and committed to serving Jesus!

I laugh in how God had called him and spoke to him and how minimal my end really was in just connecting the dots in his life. I wonder how many people are in that same spot where one conversation is all they need. So many people could be so close!

So this kid, your now brother, is so excited about fighting. I laugh in telling him that it is not flesh and blood that we fight. He is so eager to be trained in spiritual warfare. In telling him about the Holy Spirit and healing ect, he was like, “Wow! That is a lot of power!” As Robert and I were sitting outside talking with him about all these questions he had that I thought may have been too much for someone who just got saved, a student walks by saying hello. This new follower of Jesus says, “I wonder if he needs Jesus. I should have asked him, huh? Should I chase after him?”

 

I think I could afford to be just a little bit more like him.

 

To support the work of Erik and Jen Fish:

 

Student Church Movements

PO Box 4068

Overland Park, KS 66204

 

All gifts are income tax deductible

Complicating Simple Church

Complicating Simple Church

 

There’s an emperor with no clothes on running around the simple church movement! 

 

We’re making “simple” church complicated. Let’s admit it and talk about it.

 

There are some really, really stellar examples of student churches producing some amazing fruit. But for those of us who might be feeling a wee bit confused and frustrated, I hope this encourages you.

 

Maybe some of you experience in simple church planting what I experienced with a hefty piece of machinery I recently purchased.

 

I bought a used riding lawnmower a few weeks ago (excuse me, I mean lawn TRACTOR). I was so excited. I admit I felt manly riding it around my yard. It felt like the suppressed, untamed pioneer farmer in my soul was finally unleashed. Alas, one trip around my .02 acre yard and it breaks down. Ugh.

 

After a lengthy examination over several cigarettes with my neighbor (my neighbor smoking the cigs, haha), I discover: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. my neighbor is a recovering backslidden fundamentalist Baptist whose teachers used to smack his knuckles with rulers, and 
2. my lawn tractor has got condensation in the carburetor. 

 

Evidently, I have to download diagnostic charts and an engine schemata for a Briggs and Stratton 20HP engine on the internet, then take the carburetor apart and dry it out. I couldn’t point out a carburetor right now if my life depended on it. (Is the carburetor next to the carotid artery?) 

 

I started thinking, 

 

“If students planting simple churches feel like I do looking at this engine in my riding lawnmower, (I mean lawntractor), we need some encouragement for how we can really live this missional life on our campuses – and enjoy it!”

 

Here are three challenges to those planting simple churches I see at work. Student church planters feel:

1. It’s Complicated  - We view simple church like an engineering manual. You know, lots of complicated CPM steps to follow. Students get overwhelmed, confused and frustrated. 
2. It’s Mystical – Things get so mystical and hyper-spiritual, people don’t simply gather with non-Christians around the scriptures unless they see a miracle, word of knowledge, or angelic intervention first. YES, we should pray for these things, but we can also get “emo”, weird, and, sadly, unfruitful.
3. Alone. This may be the biggest challenge many of us are facing. At this stage of the movement, most students are pioneering the idea of students leading churches on their campus. Pioneering is sometimes hard. You get to see new things others don’t see, but you also have to blaze trails where others have not yet gone. 

 

Remember, it can be simple and FUN to journey with God to bring the church into the dark places of our campus. There are certainly burdens and moments of stress in what God has called us to do, but remember, Jesus gives a burden that is supposed to feel light.  

 

Waterlogged Soap

 

Have you ever had a bar of soap sit alone in the corner of your shower where it gets so soggy and waterlogged you can’t use it anymore? Some of us have become like that bar of soap!

 

We feel alone and so waterlogged with principles, formulas and weird, overly mystical beliefs about church planting, we struggle to simply use the tools God gave us for reaching non-Christians on our campus. We’re saturated by books and theories where we can analyze all 86 principles of how CPM’s spread, what barriers to cpm exist in conventional churches, etc. – while students who have been trained in these principles often get burned out and frustrated when they don’t produce any simple churches. 

 

Let’s “dry out” a bit, get back to some basics, have fun, and get this thing working the rest of this semester!

 

Following Jesus is not like following an engineering manual. Nor does starting simple churches always have to flow around miracle stories so remarkable they’re sure to make it into the yet-to-be-written,The Blueprint II. It can be simple.

 

For those called and sent as a student missionary, your assignment is not to rush off to get deeply immersed in another church or campus ministry program and then add simple church planting on the side. You are a full-time student and you are a student missionary. Your goal is goal is to go to the lost WITH A PARTNER (so you are not alone), make disciples, and grow a simple church community around you where a church community wasn’t being expressed before (like a dormitory, apartment complex, non-Christian student group, etc). Through the year, you stay networked with your church planting mentor and other student church planting friends so you can gather together to pray for each other and encourage each other. The idea is lots of students branch out across the campuses in our nation and start lots of little churches for those who don’t go to church. Often times, people aren’t fruitful right away. But — sometimes — God shows up in a major way. 

 

I want to restore some sense of “chill” to anyone who’s been sent out from a Student CPx or anyone who reads this who is pursuing student church planting.

 

When students go to start student churches and come back exhausted, confused, and feeling like failures, some adjustment and encouragement is needed. (Ok, there’s definitely a spiritual resistance component coming against us, too, but often I think we give the devil way to much credit. Jesus has got way more power than His defeated foe. I think trying to get us so confused and complicating things is part of satan’s distractions for this movement.)

 

See if you can relate to the thoughts of this frustrated simple church planter. 

 

“Who is my person of peace?!! I can’t find them! OMG! I’m failing! Where do I start? I haven’t seen any miracles yet, so nothing is happening. Man, I miss big church. What’s wrong with me just attending another church anyway? Oh yeah, I’d be attractional, not missional. I just forgot for a second. Lord forgive me for backsliding and almost going back to conventional church. Whew, that was a close one. Gotta confess that at the LTG this week. [I'm joking here]. Alright. How am I gonna start a church? Oh yeah, pray for sick people. When someone gets healed, I’m supposed to go back to their apartment and start a church there. Crap, I just prayed for that guy and he says he feels worse. He definitely doesn’t want me back at his apartment. Oh well, I guess he wasn’t good soil. Yeah, that’s it. Bad soil. Ok, back to my person of peace. It’s been three months since my SCPx training. I can’t find one yet. I haven’t had the courage or boldness to open air preach. I wish I were more like Jaeson. Or Brian. Man if I could heal people and make people laugh like him, then I’d really be a good church planter. Or Aaron, ‘cause he has tatooes and looks so cool. Or Brad, man can that guy love people. Or Pam. She is so smart. She started CPM’s in China, and I’m pretty sure she raised some people from the dead, too… I’ve read The Blueprint. I’ve read Organic Church. I’ve been praying. I’ve been to SCPx. I see the cpm movements in the book of Acts. I get the concept. I can define a CPM. I blog about it. But I’ve tried and tried and no simple churches started. Maybe I have an ungodly belief holding me back. Or sin, yeah, maybe I’m just too sinful, so God is resisting me. I need to fast and pray more…I guess I don’t really have what it takes to be a student church planter.”

 

Dude, (yes, there are times when use of the word dude is entirely appropriate.) Seriously, if you don’t plant churches, it’s ok. This isn’t a performance thing. 

But the thing is, many of us want to. And many of us feel called to.

 

COMPASSION

I’m pretty sure Jesus likes the idea, too. He wants the church to grow on your campus so people can get help, hear His words and follow Him. When Jesus looked out at the crowds of people, He felt compassion for them – they were like sheep, weary and scattered, not knowing where to go for help. Jesus loves students SO much! This is why God inspired the idea to grow His church in every area of the campus. They are a way to “seed” the church in every place on the campus where people don’t yet experience Jesus yet in their daily life. This is His movement. He inspired the idea. 

 

We can do this together!  God is with us!

 

SIMPLE + FUN + GOING TOGETHER

!!!!!

 

Here’s a story that may not seem so complicated or supernatural. But it illustrates – simply – how some significant spiritual breakthrough can start to happen in dark places on our campuses. It shows how the three problems I mentioned above (Complicated, Mystical, and Feeling Alone) can be overcome. 

 

Last week, Robert and I went into a new dorm at Haskell to seed the beginnings of a simple church. We just wanted to go there. It just seemed good to go. Heck, an entire book of the Bible was written (Luke) because he said it “seemed good.” Can the Holy Spirit actually be leading us when it “seems good” to do something?

 

First, Robert and I gathered with Chris and Jessie. We prayed and worshipped together for an hour. We prayed for each other and encouraged each other. It was like our own little simple church meeting to encourage each other and focus on Jesus prior to going out together to start new ones. We were together. We didn’t feel alone. It was awesome!

 

Anyway, Robert had met some people from this particular dorm we wanted to go to, but he didn’t have any solid contacts. He’d just had a few conversations with people. We had no prophetic dreams leading us there. No signs from heaven pointing to the mystical person of peace. We just felt like we wanted to try something there and see what happened. We think it’s God’s will for the church to fill the entire campus, so maybe it doesn’t matter too terribly much where we start.  I guess God will close the door if He wants to!

 

Robert bought some milk and some donuts. He printed out some sheets of paper with a story about Jesus and how he treated the woman caught in adultery. After our prayer and worship meeting, we split up and went to different dorms. Robert and I went into the dorm lobby about 7:30. 

 

I was nervous. Yes, nervous. I’m 34 and I still get nervous around 18 year olds. So I’m insecure – big deal. I’m ok with that. I don’t know if I’ve ever done anything missional with Jesus where I haven’t been nervous. Have you ever used your insecurities and fears to avoid being courageous and trying what God’s put in your heart? We all have! So you’re a little insecure – welcome to reality. So was Gideon. So was the Apostle Paul. Paul said when he first came to the Corinthians, he was “timid and afraid.” (I Corinthians 2:3) Haha! We are in good company when we admit we’re afraid and timid to bring the gospel to people. We all get insecure!

 

Anyway, we overcame our insecurities and went into the dorm. Robert and I sat down in the TV room and asked if anyone would like to eat donuts and discuss a story about Jesus. Three people sat down. Whoopdy-do. Three people. 

 

But the Holy Spirit came. We simply discussed three questions: 

 

What does this tell us about what people are like? 

What does this tell us about what Jesus is like? 

How can we apply this to our lives? 

 

You could see one freshman football player’s eyes come alive as he learned about Jesus. One girl there said how encouraging it was. Another guy came who I’d been praying for for a year who got saved at last years’ SCPx. 

 

After about 20 minutes, Robert said a quick prayer for everyone. We asked them, “Was this encouraging? Would you like to do this again next Sunday night?” They all said, “Yes” that they would. Robert ended up hanging out watching TV and playing phoosball with them the rest of the night. 

 

It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but we got our foot in the door. You may say, “but that story from the group in the TV room isn’t really a church yet.” Well guess what – it’s a SEED! That’s the closest thing to an encounter with God in ‘church’ some of those people have ever had. It was a group of people just taking the very first step together to follow Jesus. 

 

A year or so ago, some guy impregnated five different girls in one year in that dorm. Five different girls.

A church starting in that dorm is a really, really big deal. Jesus has the answers to make people’s lives better, and we owe it to people to give them a chance to experience Jesus. He loves them and feels compassion for them! We’re gonna start some really simple forms of church, and let them grow from there. Jesus is using us to bring church where there is no church. 

 

So, here’s a couple practical ideas. 

 

Buy a cake. Yes buy a cake (or whatever, you get the idea.) Invite 10 people on your dorm floor to come to your room to eat the cake while discussing a Jesus story. (No, it’s not a “CPM sin” to invite people back to your room instead of going to theirs. If you live in the dorms, YOU might be the person of peace!) Add the presence of Jesus and you’ve got the early seeds of a simple church starting. Hey, Jesus fed people. He said some of them came just for the food, and he seemed to be ok with that. So what if no one comes? Try again, and keep trying.  

 

You say you don’t live in a dorm? You commute or something? OK, try to find one nonChristian from your classes who you can start conversations about Jesus with. Ask them about their spiritual journey and if they’ve ever had an experience with God. Tell them your story. Ask him/her if they would want to read and discuss a Jesus story at lunch together. Afterward, ask if they’d like to get together again. 

 

Try to make one disciple this semester. One. If every Christian in the world made one disciple, the Christian population of the world would double (yep, that’s brilliant.) 

 

I once led a guy to the Lord that I met with twice a week to read the Bible, encourage each other, and pray together (like an LTG). Five months later, he brought me to another friend of his who got saved. They led another guy to the Lord together. All three are walking with Jesus today. Start with one nonChristian and encourage them to read the Bible with you. Start with one disciple.

 

As for feeling alone, we must serve each other and encourage each other as a family of student churches on our campuses. (The National Gathering January 1-4th will be a great opportunity to nurture this). Don’t wait for someone to come to you – use the different SCPx google group email lists. Tell stories, send encouragement. Share (briefly) prayer requests. If you don’t have one, find a partner on your campus who you can do an LTG with, or meet with other simple church planters for prayer, worship, and encouraging each other.  Call or facebook a friend to ask for prayer. Remember, it’s church planting, not church panting. We are building a spiritual family together as we continue to love and encourage each other.  

 

 

So, let’s stop being so complicated. Let’s stop being so weird. Let’s build a sense of family with others.

 

As we do, we will bring Jesus to people – in simple forms of church for those who don’t go to church. We owe it to people to give them the chance to know and experience what Jesus has done for each one of us. 

 

If you’ve felt like a failure, or frustrated, or whatever, now is a GREAT time to get back up and try again. Whether you fail or are successful, God is SO PROUD of each one of you whenever you speak up for His name.

 

Let’s stop complicating simple church. Let’s return to making it simple, fun, and doing it together with others who have a passion to grow churches on their campus!

 

Ask God to show you one step you can this week take to adjust your thinking and renew your passion for growing churches on your campus.  Let me know how it goes!

 

Erik Fish

www.studentchurch.org

A Global Youth Awakening – here come the Student Churches

http://www.encountersnetwork.com/email_blasts/sept_2009_prayerstorm91.htm

 

A Global Youth Awakening – Students Doing the Work of Ministry!

The Story of the Student Churches

In the book of Acts, a prayer meeting in Antioch produced apostolic sending. An apostolic team was sent out to travel, make disciples, and start new church communities. Today, the prayer movement is fostering a rediscovery of this type of apostolic ministry –students are starting churches among the unreached on college campuses around the world.

The Beginnings of A Student Church Movement

In the Bible, Joshua and Caleb saw things differently than others. God said they had “a different spirit.” The story of the student churches began with that same spirit.

Two students named Joshua and Caleb (yes, that was really their names) started to dream of a move of God across the UCLA campus. They began praying 24/7. As they prayed, they dreamed of forming students into simple house church communities that could meet across the campus. They went out to preach in the center of campus with towels in their backpack, believing that students afterward would baptize other students in the university fountains. The story that followed at UCLA is told in The Blueprint, by Jaeson Ma.

Today, students are baptizing students on universities all over the place. The seed of Joshua and Caleb’s prayers and dreams are beginning to spread across many universities.

In Western Pennsylvania at this same time, another student named Lee Myers and mentor friend Brad McCoy were contending for spiritual awakening at Allegheny College. As Lee would read the stories of Jesus, he began to meditate on a thought that kept coming back to him, “If Jesus could heal the sick, why couldn’t I at least try?”

Lee began to pray for people with illnesses. At first, there were very few healings. They kept praying.

Then strange things started happening. As they were faithful to keep praying for the sick and injured, the frequency of the healings started increasing.

In one semester, 40 healings were reported on the Allegheny campus. Injured athletes and others would come ask them for prayer. Lee began to organize the students into smaller gatherings led by students. Students from other campuses in the university-dense atmosphere of Western Pennsylvania began coming to Allegheny College to experience what God was doing and spread it elsewhere. The beginnings of a student church movement were happening.

When Lee tragically died a short time later, his testimony didn’t. It began spreading to universities all over the nation.

Heard it in the Prayer Room

The first time I heard of “student churches,” I was in a prayer room, desperate to hear from the Lord about where He was leading our family. I heard the words, “student church.” I saw a vision in my spirit of students leading small churches that multiplied and spread across campuses. I saw students and young people traveling from campus to campus, spreading the movement in the power of the Holy Spirit. Within a few months, I discovered God had been speaking the same vision to leaders across the world. This was God’s doing, not the idea or vision of men.

Spiritual Moms and Dads

As God is speaking to students, God simultaneously is stirring the hearts of spiritual moms and dads to support them. Where there are healthy, growing student churches, there are usually spiritual fathers and mothers that bless and serve those student leaders.

Many local church leaders have also come alongside what they see God doing among the youth. They started asking, “How can I train and send the youth of my church to start new churches among the unreached?” One SE Asian pastor recently said, “I don’t care about having a mega church anymore. I want to see a movement across my nation. I’m willing to take a risk and send out the youth to plant churches.”

Yea, God! Do this everywhere!

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Student Church Characteristics

1. Student churches are actual expressions of church. They are not just Bible studies, campus meetings, small groups, or evangelistic outreaches. The students see their experience of following Jesus together with other students their primary experience of what it means to “be the church of Jesus.”

2. Student churches are led by students. The students lead the churches. Mentors serve a support role only.

3. Student churches practice interdependent leadership. They are not characterized by one charismatic personality or leader. Gatherings are not small versions of a conventional church meeting. They usually gather in a circle to interact with the scriptures, apply principles to their lives, and exhort each other to live out the teachings of Jesus. They listen for the Holy Spirit, worship, pray, and focus on reaching other students with the message of the gospel.

4. Student churches are motivated by a love for the nations. When you spend time with student church leaders, they talk about fulfilling the Great Commission. They dream about going to the nations after college, or helping to send their friends. The seeds start on campuses, but spread to the cities and the nations.

5. Student churches are fueled by prayer. The student churches are birthed, sustained, and multiplied through praying students.

From Campuses to Nations

A short time after God called us to serve the student church movement, God reminded me, “Erik, remember, it is not about campuses, it is about nations.”

This has become a guiding mantra for how we perceive what God is doing on the campuses. He’s sending youth to the campuses to reach the nations. What a great way to reach the world for Jesus — send thousands and thousands of youth to be church planters in the university systems across the world. Students live in the dorms. They take classes with the future leaders of the nations. When they leave, they’re equipped with experience in church planting. The church can multiply at every university in the world if we will send the youth to do it!

Prayer + Student Churches = Global Student Missions Movement

The prayer and student church planting movement is part of a divine blueprint for a global spiritual awakening among the youth of the world. Here is a glimpse of what God is doing:

• A graduate student baptizes five students and starts a student church with the new converts. 
• A student starts an international student church on his campus with visiting PhD scholars from SE Asian nations — all who previously had never read a Bible before.
• A student baptizes another first year student in a dorm shower. They soon begin sharing the good news of Jesus with Muslim students.
• Students are stopped by university administration from baptizing international students in a campus fountain – so they improvise and use buckets to baptize them.
• People are miraculously healed as students go out demonstrating power evangelism on their campus and city. 
• A mission agency working in the Middle and Near East strategizes that university students are the most receptive to the gospel. They start efforts to plant student churches on the college campus.
• A student at an American university leads three Asian students to Christ, baptizes them and starts a church on their campus. They travel that summer to a SE Asian nation and spread the gospel together to other students there.
• Students begin indigenous-led student churches on a Native American college campus — believing for a church planting movement to spread from the campus to the 500+ tribal nations scattered across North America (many which do not yet have an evangelical church among them).

Across the world, students are moving in a rhythm of prayer and mission unlike has been seen in decades. Are we at the beginning of a global youth awakening? We believe, “Yes!”

“God let your kingdom come on campuses and in the nations!”

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Let’s pray in faith!

• Pray for the student churches to walk in love, power, and humility
• Pray that a student church planting movement will spread to every university in the world; that God would send forth laborers to these harvest fields. 
• Pray for spiritual fathers and mothers to love and serve the student churches. 
• Pray for a global youth movement to bring transformation to the marketplace and the influential spheres of society.
• Pray for a united effort among churches, youth ministries, and mission agencies to send a global tribe of student church planters to universities across the world. 
• Pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit among First Nations youth (indigenous people) across the world. They are hidden treasures God is raising up to be leaders and messengers in this next global youth awakening.
• Pray for a global youth awakening in every nation and the fulfillment of the Great Commission in this generation!

 

By Erik and Jen Fish
Student Church Movements
www.studentchurch.org

Student Account of Student CPx Austin

 

Serving a movement of student churches

 

A student movement is growing on college campuses around the world. Students in love with Jesus and inspired by His love are going as missionaries to their campus. They join with Jesus to seek and save the lost, and they endeavor to start simple churches on campus in every place there is darkness.  The vision is simple:

No student would leave university without experiencing the gospel, as it’s lived out in simple church communities all over each campus.

That every nation on earth would be reached with the gospel in this generation as an overflow of a worldwide student movement.

One way we serve  the movement is through Student CPx, a two-week training experience we host with a diverse team of student leaders and ministries.

The thoughts below are written by Lauren Nanson, a University of Texas student who hosted a Student CPx event in Austin, TX. She shares her feelings and experiences at SCPx as she prepares to reach her campus with the gospel this fall.

“I must say Student CPx Austin far surpassed my expectations. I always
hear people say, “If you’re vision seems possible to accomplish, than
you’re not dreaming big enough.” Real visions should be so extreme, so
ridiculous, so unlikely, that only God could do it. What happened at
SCPx was so extreme, so ridiculous, and so unlikely, that looking back
I know it was all God who did it. I’m like, God I couldn’t even dream
that up if I tried.

So this is how I measure fruit- not by how powerful the worship was,
not by a number count of how many people came to Christ, nor by how
many people came to the training…. real fruit = personal
transformation. And that’s exactly what we saw.

Short memories pass through my mind of moments that are hard to think
about without crying. The tears that came from a simple prayer
breaking off generational curses. The intense freedom and joy that
released God’s children into dancing as two students got baptized, not
as a ceremony like the first time, but as a celebration. Guys, yes
guys, weeping at the effects of the church coming together in genuine
care, relationship, and fellowship; the profound contrast between
being used in order to advance someone’s ministry… and being
loved… in order to be loved. I remember Jesus baptizing some
students in ways that we couldn’t… with the Holy Spirit and with
fire. And the grateful response to being healed… by the One whose
favorite activity is to heal every type of sickness and disease.
Students leaving with new outlooks on life, with testimonies bound to
be repeated, with a vision that chills the flesh, and a hunger that
cannot be satisfied. Three teams forming, one that will shake and
transform Joplin, Missouri, one that will fill TCU with God’s glory,
and one that will usher in the long-due revival at UT. And we will
never forget that night of prayer when we lingered in the presence of
Jesus together till our bodies demanded sleep. “His presence is life.
His absence is death.” We heard it from Brian, but we learned it from
experience.

I can’t handle the history [of this movement]. I just freak out. Two students named
Joshua and Caleb begin to pray and preach, longing for a move of God
they never saw with their eyes… but something was shifting the
spiritual realm. Simultaneously Lee Myers begins to bring the kingdom
of God to earth, walking in faith and healing the sick… before
disease attacks back and takes his life. God marks the students. And
then He calls forth fathers and mothers. They all begin to see the
vision that was in His eyes… all at the same time… and by destiny
they find each other and start the first Student CPx. One year later,
there are three Student CPx’s. And two of those who attended were the
firstfruits of the first SCPx.

The story continues.

The weave of divine appointments continues to tangle, and the tree that started as a tiny seed continues to grow, until soon all the birds of the air will find shelter there. Sam Lee said at the first SCPx, “If we were to witness the glory of God’s plan, we would die.” Just a glance into a fragment of it, and I’m feeling sick. All I can say is, prepare the way of the Lord.

There is nobody who can do what our Jesus just did. I can hear Kirk Franklin calling…”Can I get a witness in the house!”

(- Lauren)

 

Yes, Jesus, may your church grow on every campus to reach every city and nation in this generation!

Reach the world for Jesus!

Erik

Scooters, Megachurch, and CPM in Taiwan

 

At the oldest Confucian temple in Taiwan

 

 

I’m riding on the back of a scooter the wrong way down an alley, running red lights, and cutting in and out of congested traffic. Traffic lights are more like “traffic suggestions” here. This was part of my cultural experience in Taiwan. 

 

 

Dominating the streets of Taiwan with scooter studliness. Experiences like these help me be humble.

 

We just finished the first half of a Student CPx (Student Church Planting eXperience) training with 50 students. 

 

I’m sitting here flying over the Pacific thinking what a privilege it has been to work with these Asian students. They were the most faith-filled, passionate, ready to obey students I have ever had the privilege of working with. 

 

Students hit the streets with the Gospel in Tainan

 

The first day I taught on evangelism, we sent students out into the city to preach the gospel. When I said, “Go!” they practically shot out of the room, full of passion to go tell others about Jesus. What a strategic opportunity to train the future leaders of a nation that is 97% non-Christian!  I kept feeling the entire time that these students were the first domino that could spark a church planting movement in Taiwan. Several came back with stories of healings as they preached the gospel and prayed for the sick.

 

There are over 200 universities in Taiwan. I did not hear of a single campus ministry there working on campuses (I’m certain there are some good ministries working on campus, but I didn’t hear of any. The need is huge.)  

 

By the way, here’s a couple quick questions I just started pondering -

 

1) Why are there thousands and thousands of campus ministers working on U.S. campuses, yet the statistical percentage of Christians on American college campuses keeps decreasing? 

 

2) Why do we send so few church planters to work on foreign universities? We talk a lot about fulfilling the Great Commission to disciple every nation. How can we disciple every nation without bringing transformation to the university systems of those nations? This is why I love the student church movement – it treats college campuses like a mini, concentrated mission field where you can start small discipling communities (simple churches) which can reproduce on campus and beyond. 

 

OK, back to Taiwan. If every church building in the nation were full to capacity, I estimate they would hold less than 5% of the population. So we encouraged the church leadership to send out multiple student church planters to reach the universities and grow small, reproducible student churches. This last week, my friend Pam and I met with the church leadership to help them devise a strategy for sending out student church planters, mentoring the student leaders monthly, and continuing to grow a student church movement in the nation of Taiwan. 

 

This pastor told our team, 

 

“I don’t care about having a mega church. I want to see a church planting movement of small groups all over the nation, and we are ready to take a risk and send out students to do it.”

 

His words made me think of one of the tenets of our movement:

 

We believe “Anyone can plant a church” – from 18 year old students believing God to change their campus for Jesus, to experienced pastors willing to send out their youth to start simple church communities across their cities.  With spiritual fathers and mothers to love them and coach them, we believe God is using students mightily to grow movements of student churches.

 

It is an exciting time to be alive and move with Jesus to reach universities and the nations!

 

Erik

Keeping Control

Keeping Control

An entire Native American family heard the gospel today as a student in their family was baptized. Brothers, parents, aunts, and friends.

But it wouldn’t have happened if I’d had my way with things.

Let me explain.

One of the most difficult things about moving from an organizational mindset (focused on how to build an organization with controls and a chain of command) to a movement mindset (nurturing rapid reproduction of an idea or set of practices) is the seeming loss of control that takes place.

In a traditional organization, a higher degree of control is built into the structure. When there is growth, it is easily measurable (ie: how many people attend meetings, how many new members, how many staff are employed, etc.).

A movement’s growth is different. You still look to evaluate growth and ascertain where you need to improve and adjust, but the traditional measuring tools often don’t apply immediately. In a movement mindset, you place a high value on really average (aren’t we all “really average”?) people leading so there is potential for things to become “out of control.” Every step of the way, you’re trying to think and act in ways that further the movement so it goes further after you’re gone. You’re preparing people to be dependent on the Holy Spirit and not dependent on you. It’s hard because you feel a lot smaller. You feel like a failure when things don’t go the way you want. People disappoint you. They sometimes make stupid decisions. Yet, they often make incredible ones as they are learning to follow Jesus.

Jesus modeled how to start a movement. He continues to stand as the leader and founder of the greatest movement in history. He was such an incredible leader that in three years’ time, he prepared leaders, then laid down his life, assuring them, “It’s better for you that I go away,” and, “Greater things than I did, you will do, because I go to the Father.” Who did Jesus appoint as His successor after He left? Not to anyone person, but to twelve. (Ok, some Christian traditions would argue Peter was the lead guy). Even after the twelve were appointed, the man God used to write most of the New Testament wasn’t even among the twelve (Paul). Jesus placed the future of the movement at the hands of a group of ordinary men, all who had abandoned Him at his most difficult hour, and a guy who was persecuting Christians. As the movement spread, countless pagans and idol worshipers became the leaders of this movement. Why could he do this? Because He knew His example and His leadership through the Holy Spirit would continue to inspire men and women throughout history to spread the movement. He built so things would go further after He was physically gone.

We must grasp this aspect of the historic Christian faith — that, in it’s essence, it is a movement more than an institution. Organizations are important. But we must be constantly mindful that the organizations we build only serve God well to the extent that they are aligned with what He is doing in this ongoing Jesus movement that I believe will one day conclude with disciples of every nation on earth.

When you build toward a movement, it’s best for things not to be dependent on your day to day involvement. You try to build and influence in ways so that the idea (ie: the spread of the gospel) spreads authentically and powerfully at the hands of common people so that there is no way to control or contain it. You still look for some ways to evaluate (Are we transforming and blessing our city? Are people coming to faith in Jesus? Are people growing in spiritual maturity? Are we making disciples? Are churches growing and multiplying?), but the old ways of validating an organization tend not to work so well.

In the case of student churches, to instill in students the very real sense that they are responsible for obeying all Jesus’ commands (being Jesus’ disciples together) is sometimes frustrating. Sometimes growth seems slow. People make bad decisions sometimes. Yes, sometimes you have to correct things. (Remember that most of Paul’s letters in the New Testament were written to young churches struggling with heresy and problems that seem shocking to us today). But other times, students learn priceless life lessons. Often times students surprise you with incredible decisions they come up with under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and scriptures.

I pray there would be thousands upon thousands of new churches started in America in this next generation that grow from following the Holy Spirit, being interdependent upon one another, listening to good mentors and older leaders, and simply seeking to obey Jesus together.

With students I mentor, there are innumerable times and places for speaking wisdom, giving advice, and pointing people to scriptures. But oftentimes, I struggle to intentionally limit myself from telling people what to do in order to press them to seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the scriptures, figuring out what they need to do. Sure, I give advice and lead, but it’s often a fine line between pointing people to scripture and becoming the “expert who everyone consults for Bible knowledge.” (People start becoming dependent on a person more than the scriptures and the Holy Spirit. It gets out of balance.)

OK, back to my native American friend.

After he’d professed to become a Christ follower, he told me one day he was going to go to his first peyote-smoking worship ceremony with other Native Americans. He asked me what I thought about it. Oh my. I wanted to jump on this one, but refrained.

“Are you going to worship other gods or spirits there?”

“No, I only want to worship Jesus. And I want to show others there that they can worship Jesus too.”

“Well, my advice is to pray about it, then do what you feel peace about. Honor Jesus with your words and actions. Then see how it goes and learn from it.”

One day I took him to a big training conference with other students. Several students were getting baptized and I asked him if he wanted to, especially since it had been a number of months since he’d professed to become a follower of Jesus.

“I’m not ready.”

I felt my frustration rise up (which I mistook for God’s leading at the time).

“Jesus commands us to be baptized. You need to obey Him now.”

The time was so right. It was a powerful moment. I knew he needed to do it.

“I’m not ready.”

Frustrating!

He later told me,

“I wanted my family to be there.” (To my knowledge, none of them are Christians yet).

In our American church culture, we value individualism. Getting baptized and following Jesus is an individual decision. There are Biblical values that agree with in this cultural value — such as the understanding that every person is individually accountable to God.

Yet, there are other Biblical values that other cultures, such as several Native cultures, exhibit that Americans are often lacking. Namely, valuing the ideals of community and family over individualism.

This afternoon, I gathered with my Native friend and almost his entire family – brothers, parents, aunts, and friends. He gathered them all together because he wanted to be baptized in front of them as a way to honor them and include them in his decision to follow Jesus. He went and grabbed another student he’d started to read the Bible with and asked him to baptize him so his friend could help hold him accountable to truly follow Jesus. (Great idea. I don’t know how he thought of that. I guess it was the Holy Spirit).

As his family and friends gathered to watch his baptism, he stood in front of them and said,

“I wanted to do this with you all here today so that I could hopefully influence you.” He honored his family and they all seemed to welcome his decision to follow Jesus.

There are times when we need to assert the clear commands of scripture. There are other times where we need to trust the Holy Spirit , let go of our fleshly need for control, and let people figure out how the Holy Spirit is leading them, even if they make mistakes. Is it risky. Yes! But if you think back over your life, how did God treat you with your mistakes? What freedoms has God given you?

I’ve found the Holy Spirit’s way is always much more fruitful than my own controlling ways would have been.

We all have a call to make disciples and influence people for Jesus. Yet how we go about this is really important.

We will all be more fruitful for Jesus in the long run if we can learn the art pushing people toward the Holy Spirit and the scriptures for their leadership, not relying on our own control or approval if they make decisions that please us.

Jesus places a lot of trust in us to make disciples and represent His kingdom in the earth. We need to place a lot of trust on His Spirit to work in those we are discipling toward following Him.

In the end, being out of control can actually be a lot of fun when we truly let the Holy Spirit be in control!

Tyler follows Jesus in baptism

No Discipleship Without Evangelism

No Discipleship without Evangelism

When I was in college, a leader in our ministry used to remark, “There is no discipleship without evangelism.”

That stuck with me. Today it seems more important than ever.

The first words we hear Jesus speak to his potential disciples are, “Follow Me, and I will show you how to fish for people.”

I think Jesus is saying, “As my disciple, the first thing we’re gonna work on is being able to catch others.”

Where are the “fishers of men” in the body of Christ in the Western world today?

A few months ago, my wife and I returned from a 6,000 mile road trip with our four children. We travelled to several universities with friends from 24-7 Prayer and Campus America to launch a traveling movement called the Wilder Project. In our travels, two themes became evident:

1) Approximately half the students we’d talk to on college campuses HAD NEVER HEARD THE GOSPEL IN A WAY THEY COULD UNDERSTAND.

2) Many students WERE REALLY CURIOUS AND OPEN WHEN WE ASKED IF WE COULD TELL THEM BRIEFLY WHY JESUS CAME TO EARTH.

On most campuses, there were multiple college ministries present. There were sometimes a hundred churches within five miles of the campus.

How could so many students have never heard the gospel?

Geographical Distance and Cultural Distance

In our cities and campuses in the Western world, there is geographical distance and there is cultural/relational distance.

A church building might be next door to a non-Christian’s house. A college student might walk near several campus ministry meetings every week. They are close geographically. But culturally and relationally, they might be a million miles apart. On a college campus, there are hundreds of “sub-cultures” that will probably never be exposed to the gospel unless someone leaves their own group of Christian friends and intentionally engages them with the story of Jesus.

The message of the gospel often has been buried within our Christian meetings and our Christian sub-cultures. Some statistics show that 95% of college students currently are not active in a Christian ministry. However, I see lots of signs of life here. Today, I see college students everywhere changing this, learning how to engage their campus with the gospel and become fishers of men. There has never been a greater hour or a more opportune time to preach the gospel and make disciples than there is right now.

One reason I love training students to start simple churches on their campus is because it offers a way to bring the gospel and a relevant Christian community into the areas that students do life – dormitories, scholarship halls, fraternities, apartments, etc. We try to start simple expressions of church for those who don’t want to go to churches.

We were destined by Jesus to be the most creative, contagious, attractive, influential people on the planet. Your unique life is intended to emanate the attractive aroma of God that goes out and draws people toward the love of God.

You don’t put on your “Sunday best” to fish. You put on fishing clothes. Paul the apostle said, “I’ve become all things to all men that I might win some to the gospel.” Fishing is the daily life of being a disciple of Jesus. You find as much in common with non-Christians as you can to win them to Jesus. They’ll see the difference in you; just get around them and pray for opportunities to share Jesus with them.

The other day I was playing basketball with a couple students. Without even planning it, afterward, I asked them, “Hey, do you want to do five-minute church?”

“What’s five-minute church?” they asked.

“It’s really cool. We read a Jesus story, connect with God, and pray, all in five minutes. You don’t have to know anything about God to do it. You want to try it?”

We sat down and read a story of Jesus together. It was encouraging to see one of the guys pray who doesn’t have a Bible but was open to God. It was really fun and easy. Both of them talked about starting to read the book of Mark together afterward.

We’ve made discipleship a character issue. Character is essential. You can’t continue in life and ministry without developing character. However, evangelism – being able to catch others – is the first principle Jesus mentions when He calls people to follow Him. The call to follow Jesus is a call to learn how to catch other people.

Do you see how huge this principle is?

Sometimes Christian students will ask me to start discipling them. The first thing I tell them is, “Go find three non Christians. Learn their story, pray for them, and tell them about your relationship with Jesus.”

If they are faithful to do that, then I know they’re someone I want to invest my time with. There is no discipleship without evangelism.

A student I met a few months ago at ASU has been going out on campus every week to “fish” for people. This semester, he led three Chinese students to Christ and started a simple church with them. I received the following emails from him giving the updates:

Hey Erik!

Good to hear from you!  Things here are going well!  God is doing some cool stuff!  The Chinese brothers are growing well too.  Since they received Christ, I have gone through some follow-up and discipleship with them every week for the past 2 weeks.  They seem to grasp the reality of what it means to receive Christ.  Just last week, we read the Easter story together, and one of the Chinese students later told me how amazed he was by the story.  He had heard about Jesus from others and even learned about it from other Christians, but he told me that he never truly understood the love that Jesus had for him until I told him about it.  He said that I really should go and tell other about Jesus love back in their hometowns.  They also have this passion to go and tell their friends and family about what Jesus did for them too.  So it’s pretty exciting!  I was struggling with follow-up material and just how to explain things to them.  But God shows up every time.  I just looked on the CampusChurch website, and I saw the follow-up material you guys have there, so I think I will begin to use that.  I really want to explain baptism more to them and pray that they would be baptized soon!  But ya, that’s an update on that situation.  Let me know if you have any suggestions or any insight you have on the follow up process.  This is something new for me, so I’m definitely learning as I go.  Thanks for the encouragement!

Then a few weeks later:

Hey Erik,

Just wanted to give you an update on what’s happening here. Sorry, I haven’t been able to respond earlier. We are now coming to the end of the school year here at ASU, so we have finals and stuff the next few weeks.

As for the Chinese students, I got to baptize the three of them this past Monday! The administration actually had to stop us from using the fountains because of the baptisms that were occurring. So instead, we went ahead and used a bucket and poured it on them. It was a really beautiful moment. Many of the students involved in our Epic simple church came and supported and celebrated the Chinese students. After we baptized them, we all laid hands on them and prayed for them. One of the guys from the prayerhouse was there and got a word that the three students were like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who would stand firm in the face of idolatry. It was a pretty powerful time! So they are doing well, and I am excited to see how they are growing.

Have you heard the call to become a fisher of men? Maybe you feel timid, afraid, or unrelatable to nonChristians. You can turn Jesus’ words into a promise: “Follow Me, and I WILL make you become a fisher of men.” Jesus WILL teach you if you’re willing to try.

Early in my walk with the Lord, I started praying a dangerous prayer daily.

“Jesus, will you lead me to someone who needs to hear the gospel today?”

I was amazed at how many conversations about God started springing up in my daily life.

You were created by God to become a fisher of men. You can do it! You have something inside you the world can never offer: hope; a future; eternal life; peace with God; the Holy Spirit. Tell people about it!

You can become a fisher of men because we follow the greatest fisher of men who ever lived – Jesus, the one who caught each one of us!

The Fish Family

Who Will Do Church For The Pagans?

A couple months back, my family and I were traveling across the Southwest U.S. to several college campuses, helping to launch the Wilder Project with friends from 24-7 Prayer and WYWAM. I was able to spend a day in a prayer room in the center of a nondescript complex – the international headquarters of an organization that sends Jesus-followers into some of the most difficult places in the Middle East and North Africa to start Jesus Communities.

Everything in the prayer room was set in Middle Eastern decor. From the moment I walked into the prayer room, I began weeping. I began reading prayer requests from field workers, written in a notebook in the corner of the room. I began praying for a family who was asking for prayer: “Last week, a bomb exploded a few blocks away from us. Militants are looking for Christians in the area. Pray that we will not be afraid and that our children will not be aware of the danger around them.”

While I was reading this account from a missionary family, I realized that hundreds of thousands of international students, including Muslims, walk on our university campuses, where their biggest regret upon leaving America is often that they didn’t get to build a close friendship with an American.

I’m not ashamed of the gospel. But I am saddened by how little it seems to be going forth among the unchurched in the West.

Here’s a point I’d like to get across that I’m learning — preaching the gospel in Christian ministry meetings and church gatherings is not the same as communicating the gospel to non-Christians in our culture. No matter how hard we preach, if we surround ourselves with cultural barriers and extrabiblical requirements, we limit the effectiveness of the gospel simply by preventing people from hearing it.

Do most people have to come to a formal meeting prior in order to hear the gospel? When John Wesley went to the fields and coal mines, one of the criticisms against him was that that he wasn’t preaching in a pulpit. Today, when most of our energy revolves around making arrangements for programs and weekly gatherings, I believe we’re neglecting to communicate the gospel to people who need to hear it most. Jesus said, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor, sick people do. I came to call sinners.” Jesus said, “Go into all the world and preach the good news.” We’re sometimes content to sit in ministry meetings that 95% of the lost will never come to — when the Lord has told us to go. I’m not saying having places to gather and worship aren’t important. But I think we’re dangerously out of balance in terms of where we prioritize our time and efforts. We have more full-time campus ministers on our college campuses in America than anywhere in the world. Yet, after a traveling tour of almost 6,000 miles the last couple months, I’m shocked at how many students we met on college campuses who said they’d never heard the story of why Jesus came to earth.

 

The “Go and tell” good news

The term “apostle” has been largely misused in the West. People are afraid to use the term. “Apostle” signifies one who is “sent out.” I believe the apostolic aspect of Christianity in the West has been almost completely forgotten, or at least buried beneath a cultural traditions that – though not wrong in and of themselves — are extra-Biblical. We rarely release control enough to send out small teams to travel, preach the gospel, and start new communities of faith that result from the evangelism. It’s too risky. Heresy might occur. It doesn’t generate income to sustain local churches as we know them. It doesn’t fit our understanding for how churches are supposed to grow.

One of the most successful and expansive missionary movements in history – the Jesuits – was pioneered by St. Ignatius of Loyola. He was an oddball in his day. St. Ignatius was weird. He once walked barefoot from Spain to Jerusalem, thinking this was a way to encounter God. He got deported quickly. But he was still hungry to see God do something significant through his life. The monastic orders of his day were largely secluded and had very little view of the primacy of Christian missions. In this environment, St. Ignatius believed that you must “pray as you go”. Across the Himalayas, on three year ocean voyages, across the Western Frontier of the Americas, through the Amazonian river basin — Jesuit missionaries inspired by Loyola and his team married prayer, missions, and an adventurous spirit together in a way not seen since, perhaps, St. Patrick traveled throughout Ireland bringing the gospel to the Celts in the 5th Century. Jesuits went into China a hundred years before Hudson Taylor. Matteo Ricci died in China after leading 2,000 Chinese to Christ – in a land known for extreme xenophobia. Jesuit missionaries actually wrote home that the Chinese wouldn’t adapt well to worshiping in traditional cathedrals. They believed they would want to worship in houses. Ricci paved the way for others.

I believe we must start thinking apostolically  in the West again and especially on college campuses. The Muslims on your campus can’t join your campus ministry. I am informed by cultural experts that word would spread around the Muslim community and, in many cases, word would get back home and they would be shamed and forced back home. Not only that, but we worship the way Westerners like to. We do church in a Western style. Is there a way to reach people with the gospel and start new churches completely and culturally distinct from the local churches we have now? There must be, or there is little hope for spiritual awakening in our culture. If there is not a new church planting movement in North America, we may quickly follow in the steps of post-Christendom Europe.

I realize passion must be expressed in love. We all need community. We all need a place to call home and people around us that we feel comfortable with who we can worship with. It’s normal to build churches that reflect our culture. But the last two years I cannot escape this question that constantly lays on me like a coat:

“Who will do church for the pagans” (non-Christians)?”

Looking at the Church or The City?

In the West, we’ve become experts at worship services. We’ve become experts in producing conferences. Many of our churches grow because we’ve learned to implement better marketing practices than smaller churches. God uses all these things. The gospel still goes forth though and people do come to faith in Christ. But we have a ridiculous standard of success for church growth in the West — we look at the church rather than the city. We look at the growth of our individual church community, rather than the corporate expression of the “Church” in our city. The percentage of Christians in our city can decline year after year, but if our individual church is growing, we figure we must be doing it right. Then, to further validate one particular model for church growth, people write books on how to mimic the strategies implemented by the growing church.

Marketing and advertising and learning from the business world isn’t bad. I think we should maintain a posture of learning from everything. I love Jim Collins (Good To Great, etc). I use marketing and advertising for Christian events we produce. I love big celebrations and large gatherings to worship as much as the next person. However, if you spend most of your time around Christians and ministry events, your view of the world often will be formed in ignorance to the cultures and people around you.

Here’s a harsh word for some of us: Some of us need to go out from our prayer meetings and go obey what God has already told us to do. Some of us need to leave our worship gatherings and go bring worship where there is no worship. Some of us need to leave “the ministry” and start following Jesus to become fishers of men.

Go meet international students on your campus. Walk up and introduce yourself and welcome them to your city. Tell them you’re glad they are here. Go befriend the ethnic minority family on your street who everybody smiles at politely but stops short of inviting to dinner. Go make a Muslim friend. Share a meal with them. Gather with Muslims for a meal and to discuss a story about Jesus together. Did you know the Koran instructs Muslims to read the stories of Jesus? Ask for their help translating a simple worship song into Arabic, or Farsi, or whatever language they speak.

Demographers predict that, given current trends, white people will become a minority in America in the next fifty years. (See Jenkins, The Next Christendom). Yet, most church growth strategies I see are geared for Westerners who are at least open to attending a congregational church. We still do church with the subtle ethnocentric views that made our efforts to bring the gospel to Native Americans such an abysmal failure: We communicate (unintentionally perhaps), “You can come follow Jesus, as long as you do church like us, worship like us, and look like us.” We’ve stopped giving the gospel away as a gift by requiring adaptation of a Western model of church to be a requirement for Christians to endorse you as a follower of Jesus.

Near many of us, there are pockets of culturally distinct people who need culturally distinct expressions of worship and culturally unique ways for leading churches. This is one reason I love the idea of planting organic churches — they are a way to start culturally flexible forms of indigenous-led churches. They can grow into larger churches, buy a building, and pay their leaders down the road if they wish. But let’s believe for the start of thousands and thousands of new “baby” churches in the culturally unique pockets of people around North America.

If there were a couple truths I could live and die for, here would be two of them:

1) The gospel is powerful, not our Christian culture. It’s human nature to “do” church only in the cultural forms with which we’re most familiar. It takes humility and spirit-given wisdom to give the gospel away and nurture new cultural forms of worship and ways of leading church communities. See Acts 15 for a great debate on whether the early church would allow different cultural expressions of church in other cities. We would do well to heed their example today.

If you talk about Jesus, things happen. We’ve got to rediscover the ancient apostolic roots of our Christian movement by relearning how to start churches in the West that are faithful to the gospel, but culturally distinct.

2) Universities are a mission field. They are the most strategic mission field in the world. In one square mile, you can reach the future leaders of America and almost every country on earth (though certainly not every ethnic group). Universities require prayer, creativity, self-sacrifice, and apostolic/missionary strategy as much as strategizing to go to an unreached people group on the other side of the planet. They also require a willingness to hold loosely our cultural forms of doing church and adopt an apostolic mindset, constantly asking questions like, “What would it look like for an indigenous, lay-led expression of the church look like here?” “What would it take for the gospel to rapidly spread and bring transformation on campus?” Because universities are a constantly-changing, transitional, temporary community, it also requires asking these questions year after year.

I, and a growing network of friends, believe it’s strategic to bring new strategies alongside local church and parachurch models to call for temporary, simple expressions of church that can be planted on campus and led by students. It’s not hard to find criticism of the student church movement, or the idea of planting student-led organic churches on college campuses. In most cases, they don’t last, at least in terms of an ongoing established congregation that identifies with a name or denomination or geographic location. What’s hard for our brothers and sisters in Christ of a different paradigm to understand is, “They’re not supposed to.”

Student churches are a way to “seed” the gospel into a campus year after year in a continual cycle of death and rebirth. When the church “dies” it grows into new ones. One spreads overseas. Two new ones start in two new dorm floors on campus. New disciples are made. Expressions of church are brought into the areas students do life. Why do we call them “churches” as opposed to Bible studies? Because we want students all over the nation to go all over the world with the following precepts:



“Anyone can start a church” and “You can start churches anywhere.”

These two principles have become tenents of our movement. Universities are a key vehicle in God’s plan to fill every corner of the earth with worshipers in every ethnic group. We hope for a reformation in our thinking so that churches and campus ministries everywhere will embrace their potential to start new simple church communities year to year on campuses, that can still connect relationally and be served by their local church or ministry.

My heart breaks when I read the literature about the attrition rate of teen students who attend Christian youth groups, then fall away from the faith in college. Is this the kind of leadership we’re raising in the next generation? I have a book on my college written to Christian teens: “How to Survive Spiritually in College.” I’m all for teaching kids how to protect their faith and be on guard against backsliding but I think, as the people of God in the world, we have a lot more potential than we’re living up to.

Surviving or Sent?

I started asking a different question: “What if we started EQUIPPING and SENDING students to secular colleges, rather than just trying to get them to SURVIVE? Christian students can literally become student missionaries to their campus if they adopt this apostolic mindset. I started giving this challenge to young people with a heart for the nations:

Do you want to see God transform the nations? I challenge you to start by giving 4 years of your life to missions – by going as a student church planter to a secular college campus. You can reach the nations as a cross-cultural student missionary on your campus.

I believe a new student missions movement has begun. But this movement is not going to look like what we might think. It may start on universities but it will not end there. It’s gonna be people traveling to pioneer micro-enterprise projects in Central Africa, starting simple churches along the way, while teaching men and women to live out kingdom values in business. It will be people planting simple churches in economic sectors, teaching businesspeople in the high rises of Hong Kong, Taipai, and Tokyo that they can encounter Jesus’ presence in a temporary prayer room set up in an office and an informal meeting with a handful of others to encourage one another to follow Jesus’ teachings. It will be college students and professors planting simple churches on college campuses around the world. Yes, it will be full-time vocational missionaries and ministers, too. But this will not be the principle way of funding the church plants around the world. Like in Acts 11:20, they will be Antioch churches started by people who we don’t even know by name. “But some of the believers…”

Speaking of the Antioch Church in Acts, did you ever realize that this missions-sending epicenter of the Mediterranean world was started by people whose names we don’t even know – “some of the believers?” Paul and Barnabus later came to strengthen it and build it up. But it was started by people who we don’t even know by name. I am believing to see an apostolic move of God where churches start this way all over the place. There’s a place for professional ministers (I am one), but I’ve come to fully believe that our role is actually to equip others to start and lead churches (do the work of ministry).

“Anyone can start a church. You can start churches anywhere.”

“Lord, I pray for the gospel to go forth in power on college campuses. From there, may your church grow on every campus and every nation on earth.”

Campus Church Call – a call for student churches on every campus in America

(From Campus Church Networks and Student Church Movements)

Campus Church Call
A Call to Every Campus in America

A new student movement is being birthed on college campuses of America that could bless every nation on earth. There is more prayer for spiritual awakening, revival, and reformation than anytime in America’s history. In response to what we believe God is doing, we are, in faith, calling for simple churches to be birthed among non-Christian communities on every university in the United States over the next five years.

What is a “simple church”?

They are sometimes called “Organic churches, missional communities, intentional gatherings, or Jesus communities.” Simple church is church reduced to it’s most basic biblical ingredients: “a few people building community, obeying Jesus, studying his word, and gathering where they can as they grow in their love for Jesus and their desire to tell others about Him.”

We believe simple churches are an effective way for individual Christian students, campus ministries, and churches to reproduce themselves by planting seeds of the gospel into non-Christian communities on a campus. We don’t desire to spend another minute arguing one way or another about the validity of simple churches vs. local, congregational churches. The whole world is waiting to see Christian communities live out the gospel, whether they are composed of 7 people or 700. The need on college campuses is so great, it is time to call “all hands on deck” to launch a fresh initiative to foster communities of faith that develop from evangelism on the 2,600+ campuses all over America. What’s essential in these simple churches is that the gospel is being preached, new disciples are being made among non-Christians, and new Jesus-focused communities are nurtured in the areas where students do life together.

It’s not about campuses, it’s about the nations.

We believe God is passionately reminding us of his love for all nations. We cannot neglect this college “mission field” at our backdoor any longer, content to run the bulk of our ministry activity in a way that caters mostly to American, once-churched students. Every year, hundreds of thousands of international students from almost every nation on earth come to America to study.

I’ll never forget the experience of a student church planter this year telling me repeatedly of his encounters with international students who had never heard the gospel. One student he met HAD NEVER HEARD THE NAME “JESUS” BEFORE. It is time to shift our focus off of how to increase attendance at ministry events and reprioritize our activities for how to reach those who have never heard the gospel and are most unlikely to ever come to our ministry events. Maybe invite them later. Let’s reach them and all their friends first.

Simple churches offer an effective way to start new, culturally-sensitive Jesus communities among non-Christian students in the areas where they do life. When international students learn to follow Jesus in interdependent relationships with others in a simple church, they learn a model for church planting that is reproducible in their home country. In nations that restrict Christianity, rather than going home disappointed that there are no churches like there were in America, they will understand church communities as something anyone can start. It is a joy to watch the eyes of students as they read the Bible and hear Jesus’ stories for the first time, excitedly asking each other, “How can we apply this to our lives?”

We are calling for Christian students to focus a specific amount of time each week on intentionally loving and reaching non-Christian communities on campus with the gospel. This might be as simple as finding a group of non-Christians and hanging out with them. Study together. Have conversations about how Jesus has changed your life. Play basketball. Have BBQ’s. Play music. Host a dinner at your house and invite people to eat and discuss a Jesus story together. See what happens from there. At several simple churches students have started this year, it is common for non-Christians to actively participate in prayer and worship and applying scripture to their lives BEFORE THEY EVEN COME TO FAITH IN CHRIST. These simple churches form a template these students can use after college to make disciples in every sector of society, in any culture, in any people group on earth.

Simple churches are student-led communities that sometimes – though not always –grow to eventually practice what we see as the basic, essential functions of church: evangelism, discipleship, worship, fellowship, community, giving, and prayer. They are free to practice all the commands of Jesus, from giving to baptizing other students.

We honor the “Annas and Simeon’s” – the older generation — who has prayed for the next generation of leaders. We ask for your prayers and blessing for this next generation of student missionaries.

We honor the spiritual fathers and mothers who have stewarded the faith and have brought us to this unique hour in history. We are appealing to spiritual fathers and mothers, pastors, and ministry leaders to spiritually parent student churches to help reach every campus and nation on earth with the gospel. We are asking for the generational transfer, wisdom, and blessing of older leaders.

We are appealing to pastors, youth leaders, and campus ministries to intentionally pray and send out student missionaries to preach the gospel and make disciples on the college campus by starting new simple church communities. These new simple church communities can benefit from being networked with your sending community. They can grow from your blessing, leadership, love, and mentoring as they pioneer to see the gospel spread among non-Christians and international students.

We are challenging Christian teenagers across America to prepare now to go to college as four-year student missionaries to secular college campuses. This is a risk. Spreading the gospel to new areas almost always is. You have the extraordinary opportunity to go to college in order to reach the nations. It will not be enough to plan for how to survive and preserve your faith. We’re challenging you to go as a student missionary into an often difficult mission field, set on reaching non-Christians and international students with the message of Jesus on your college campus.

What do I do?

Pray and tell the Lord that you are willing to either:
1) Go as a student missionary to your campus
2) Mobilize and mentor student simple church planters in your area.

Erik Fish
Student Church Movements
Campus Church Networks

www.studentchurch.org