October 2006 - Vol. 1

A while ago, when I was the Director of Koinonia, an evangelistic outreach to university students in London, UK, I was reading the London Student, a weekly student newspaper, and came across an article about a lesbian who was trying to sell her virginity for £10,000. With the money, she figured she could avoid having to do part-time work and could focus better on her studies. A jarring world-view. Allow violation to your very person for the sake of your future.

The university world is often a bewildering place. Students enter it as teenagers and somehow are supposed to emerge ready to take their place in society, able to bear the responsibilities of family and career. Often it doesn’t happen, as evidenced by the front pages of the non-student newspapers – failed businesses, failed marriages, lives in grave disorder.

But, university can be a window of opportunity for establishing or reestablishing contact with God himself – a time to strengthen the foundations in Christ that will last a lifetime.

In our student outreach we’ve hammered out a few simple goals for our work:

• To help students grow into a full relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
• To help students embark on the road to radical, lifelong discipeship and
• To help students discern the call of God in their lives and respond to it.

Nico Angleys, a member of the Servants of the Word, served for three years as the Director of Koinonia, the student outreach of the Antioch Community in London, United Kingdom.  He is presently working with several University Christian Outreach chapters in the United States, providing training and consultation for chapter mission leaders.