February 26, 2009
This is a slightly belated update on the happenings of Salford Christian Union’s events week.
Salford CU held three events during the week:
Tuesday night was the JazzCake event with talk on “Free to all“. Salford University’s favourite jazz and cheesecake night returned for the third time and about 60 students attended. Tim Hanson talked on how the good news of Jesus Christ is free to everyone. We looked at two facts from the Bible, firstly that human beings matter and secondly that we have all sinned – they’ve fallen short of the standard that God expects from us. He then showed us that there is a wonderful third fact in the Bible – that in Jesus, we have a solution to the problem. It was a great evening with about 45 non believers present, and many had great conversations afterwards.
Thursday night was the Grub Crawl. We went to three different locations to eat each course in our meal, and Tim did a talk on “FREE but at a price“. We learnt that the price of the solution to the problem that was discussed on Tuesday night was the death of Jesus Christ, God’s son. We saw that on the cross, the sins of many were put onto Jesus and Jesus righteousness was given to them in return. In essence it’s a giant swap – Jesus was punished in their place and they recieve Jesus’ obedience to God – and it’s free to anyone who believes and trusts in Jesus. Six people attended.
Friday night was a talk on “FREE but costly”. Ten people were there as Tim showed us that even though the benefits of the swap that occured on the cross is free to anyone who believes, living in the light of it is costly. Jesus sayst that the believer will repent and believer – that the new way of life is to be lived with God treated as God. This is the opposite of sin: sin is essentially living with ourselves as the most important person rather than God as the msot important person.
Each day CU members met for prayer, which I found really encouraging. It’s great to see students really expressing reliance on God during mission weeks rather than drifting into the wordly way of thinking that more work makes things better. As it’s God who does the work of saving unbelievers, it makes sense to ask him to work during evangelism!
All in all, it has been a wonderful two weeks of mission in Salford University. In those two weeks about 1100 gospels were given out and at least a couple of hundred students heard the good news about Jesus explained by students, friends of the CU and Tim. During this mission I have seen CU members who have become more confident in evangelism and have been encouraged by the openness of non believing students at Salford to talk about the good news of Jesus.
As is the way with most university missions these days, this mission was much more about sowing seeds rather than about seeing many people come to believe in Jesus. We’re in the same situation as described by Jesus in the parable of the growing seed in Mark 4:26-29:
And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
We won’t know when these people who have heard the good news and received gospels will begin to believe in Jesus, but the seeds have been sown and there will be an effect at some stage in the future.
There will be an update on the Manchester Mega Mission Week coming early next week.
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update | Tagged: Free Gospel Project, Jesus, mission week, Salford University Christian Union | 
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February 16, 2009
It’s about a week since I last posted on here. Time for a bit of an update!
Last week was University of Salford Christian Union’s gospel distribution week. Here’s a few numbers for what happened:
5 days of gospel distribution
Nearly all CU members heavily involved in it
15 hours of having a stall in the foyer of the main building on campus
100s of good, gospel focussed conversations
1000 gospels distributed
1 in 20 students in Salford University now have a
FREE gospel
It was a fantastic week and the CU members are really pleased (and pleasantly surprised!) with how it went. It was really encouraging seeing CU members step out of their comfort zones and doing questionnaires and handing out gospels. Great work guys!
This past weekend was the annual New Leaders Training conference. At this time of year, all the CUs in the country change leadership, so UCCF gets all the new CU exec members together in their regions for some training. This year we held our New Leaders Training in Leyland and Justin Mote joined us to teach us from the book of Daniel. The Staff and Relay workers pitched in to help train everyone for their new roles.
It was a brilliant weekend with fantastic teaching. Daniel is a wonderful book and is incredibly relevant for students today – its the story of four young Jewish men as they live with the challenge of living and speaking for God in an alien culture that’s hostile to their faith.
One thing that encouraged me was seeing the new CU leaders became more and more excited about the gospel through the weekend. Being on exec is not about serving men or the CU, it’s about serving the Lord, and the only way to motivate yourself to do that without being legalistic is in joyful response to the wonderful gospel.
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Colossians 3:23-24
This week Salford CU has their events week, so please pray for us that we’d be confident in sharing the gospel and that God would show Salford students that the gospel is true!
Leave a Comment » | Free Gospel Project, update | Tagged: Daniel, Free Gospel Project, Jesus, New Leaders Training, Salford University Christian Union, uccf | Permalink
Posted by opentoesandals
July 13, 2008
I graduated last Thursday! It was a great day and I really enjoyed myself. I don’t think I have ever been so proud as when my name was eventually called out and I walked up the steps, shook hands with a senior university man (no idea who he was, but he must have been important!) and claimed my degree certificate. All the work I had put in over the past three years had come to this point, and I was finally getting my reward!
The whole ceremony reminded me of Paul’s final message to Timothy from 2 Timothy 4. For pretty much the whole book, Paul has been instructing Timothy as to how he should fulfil his duties as a minister and now Paul tells Timothy that the time of his death has come:
For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.
Paul will soon die, but he will be awarded the crown of righteousness from the Lord, the righteous judge. He’s being poured out as an offering, he’s fought the good fight, he’s finished the race, he’s kept the faith. But he doesn’t claim his reward in the same way that I claimed my degree certificate.
The passage says that the Lord is a righteous judge but it says that He gives the crown of righteousness to Paul, who is unrighteous (c.f. Acts 8:1-3) That really makes no sense at all! A righteous judge cannot say that someone unrighteous is righteous – it’s logically impossible. And it’s not just Paul that is unrighteous – the Bible says we have all done bad things, whether or not its persecuting the church or just plain ignoring God.
But this is where the wonderful news of the Christian gospel comes in. God makes the unrighteous righteous by taking their punishment onto himself at the cross and crediting Jesus’ righteousness to them. So we have our punishment deserved for being unrighteous being dealt with and we’re given Jesus’ righteousness. It’s absolutely amazing. This same crown will also be awarded to everyone who loves Christ!
So I compared being awarded my degree to being awarded the crown of righteousness. But in reality, they’re not even remotely similar. I had to work for my degree certificate and it was a direct reflection of how well I did. But my crown of righteousness will be given to me from God as a gift and it has no bearing whatsoever on how well I do or how many times I screw up.
What an amazing thought. God gives crowns of righteousness to those that don’t deserve them. Why? It’s all down to God and his love for us. 1 John 4:10 says: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Wow.
So I’ve officially finished uni and now I can’t wait until September when Relay starts. Then I get to get stuck into studying the Bible and being discipled and being continually amazed at what God has done for us! 
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: 2 Timothy, graduation, Jesus, Manchester, salvation, thoughts, university, works | Permalink
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July 1, 2008
I’m currently working my way through Colossians in preparation for Relay 1 in August – I reckon you could probably find a good few of us future Relay workers by looking to see who else is writing blog posts on Colossians 
Ever wondered if you’re saved? Maybe you’ve accepted Jesus and put your trust in him, but you’re just waiting for that magical feeling that you’ve been accepted by him.Paul gives thanks in Colossians 1:3-5 for three characteristics he’s heard of in the Colossian Christians. The three characteristics he refers to are faith in Christ, love for all the saints and hope in heaven. It’s a pretty good checklist of things to look for to see if you’re saved!
Faith in Christ
This is the consequence of the work of the Holy Spirit in someone, not the cause of it. How often do we think that our faith is something that we do? That’s completely wrong – before, we were completely dead and blind; now, we have been given faith as a gift from God- our eyes have been opened and we have been shown that the Gospel is the truth. Thus if we have faith, it has been given to us by God and it is evidence that we are saved.
Love for all the Saints (other Christians)
Love can be an easy thing to do if you like the other person. If they’re attractive, pleasant or fun to be around, it’s easy. Try loving someone that is the opposite of that – someone who’s different to you or who’s hard to get on with – is hard. However, that is the essence of Christian love. It’s a love that can only come from God. This love is what binds people who are so incredibly different into a unique fellowship called the church.
Hope in Heaven
This is the confidence that we as Christians have that whatever happens here on Earth, whether it’s persecution, suffering or comfortable living, there are infinitely better things stored up in heaven. It’s the hope that enables us to persevere and endure hard times or the hope that helps us from getting too materialistic and focussing too much on the here and now. Again this hope can only come from God, if you’ve got it you’re saved!So, if you can see these things in your life, you’re definitely saved and if you can see these things in your friends, they’re definitely saved!
Note: updated 23/7/08 due to David pointing out my grammatical errors :/
3 Comments | Bible, Relay | Tagged: Bible, Colossians, Jesus, Relay, salvation | Permalink
Posted by opentoesandals
January 23, 2008
“What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies and anthropomorphisms.” Friedrich Nietzsche, 1873.
“What’s true for you is not true for me.” Student, 2007.
“I am… the truth.” Jesus, c. 30 AD
Is there such a thing as objective truth? If you asked the average student here in Manchester they would probably say not. Pluralism and postmodernism pervades the modern day students worldview – it is claimed that it is wrong to say someone is wrong and its considered arrogant and even rude to claim that what you believe is the truth.
Jesus claims to be the truth. This claim flies in the face of everything that society says, but in a world where despite the many loud voices shouting that there is no truth, people are increasingly searching for a deeper meaning and purpose to life. Surely he is one person worth listening to.
On another occasion Jesus stated that he came into the world to testify to the truth and that everyone on the side of truth listens to him. Surely he’s a person worth listening to.
What is truth? The University of Manchester Christian Union is hosting a week of events from Monday 11th – Saturday 16th February 2008 and invite you to come along, find out what Jesus had to say and decide for yourself whether his claim to be the truth is truthful. Everyone is welcome, whether Christian, or of other beliefs or none at all. All events are free.
Events are happening on the following days:
- Monday 11th 1-1.45pm @ Jabez Clegg (Dover Street) – short talk on “Where is God in a messed up world?” with free lunch.
- Monday 11th 7-9pm @ Queen of Hearts (Wilmslow Road) – pub quiz with talk on “The truth about God” (TBC)
- Wednesday 13th 7-9pm @ Queen of Hearts (Wilmslow Road)- talk on “The truth about Life” preceded by a quick account by an ex IRA terrorist who became a Christian whilst in prison.
- Thursday 14th 1-1.45pm @ Jabez Clegg (Dover Street)- short talk on “What is True Love?” with free lunch.
- Friday 15th 7-9pm @ Glass (Wilmslow Road) – talk on “The truth about Jesus”
Check out The Truth? Facebook Group
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Leave a Comment » | University of Manchester Christian Union, evangelism, uccf | Tagged: Jesus, mission week, The Truth?, uccf, UMCU | Permalink
Posted by opentoesandals
