In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing and His kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 

2 Timothy 4:1-2

The EU has always been on for Evangelism.
Object 1 outlines that the EU strives to “ present students with the Christian Gospel and to lead them to a personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.” This is especially so with 2020 being the EU’s 90th year, and the specified Year of Evangelism. However Covid-19 has changed what campus life looks like.

When things moved online one of the biggest questions we faced was ‘How will we do evangelism now?’ How could we continue to reach students with the gospel when they are all isolated at home?
There are obvious challenges to ministry online – including evangelism. Nevertheless, in God’s grace, the Year of Evangelism has continued, in ways that have been different,  exciting and invigorating.

2020 has looked vastly different to any other year on campus, with not one student meeting on campus.

Evangelism Training: 

When the EU went online, all Walk Up, Gospel Opportunity and Evangelistic Events were cancelled. The EU runs fortnightly Evangelism Training Summits that seek to equip students with a theological understanding of evangelism, and practical skills to be able to do evangelism themselves. One day after transitioning online, we decided to hold a Training Summit event to train students how to love their neighbours during this time.

The following week, we gathered 65 students for a THINK TANK to get their innovative wheels turning and came up with 47 unique ideas to be sharing the gospel in an online space. We even had some graduates and students from other universities join in to contribute and share ideas!

Evangelism Accountability:
I was amazed by the enthusiasm and creativity of the students and their desire to continue to share the gospel no matter what. This has led to accountability groups being formed, where students commit to one hour each week of intentionally loving and checking in with a non-christian friend in their life. These accountability groups  check in weekly with each other to see how their evangelism has been going over the week, sharing stories and prayer points.

This intentionality has personally challenged me to press on, see new opportunities, and not see this season as a reason to give up on evangelism. I have really been encouraged by students who have reached out to friends in a one to one context and asked them questions about Jesus or invited them into community social moments. Students who were reading Mark Uncover continued to do this over zoom, as they tackled big questions about ‘Who is Jesus?’, when their world felt like it was crumbling around them. Students continue to share stories with each other to spur each other on.

Evangelistic Events:
In a recent article Jeanet Sinding Bentzen, who has put together statistics on Google searches during natural disasters, found “search intensity for ‘prayer’ doubles for every 80,000 new registered cases of Covid-19”. University students are often open to considering the big questions and therefore we pray that this continues and that students turn to faith in this time. Initially, for the Year of Evangelism each faculty had planned to host a week of heightened evangelism.

Faculties have adjusted to the new online format and held evangelistic events such as online board game and testimony nights, Q & A nights about God and the virus, Zoom Exercise and the Psalms sessions, Watch Parties and Chats as well as online reflections on their favourite music and books.

Please pray that many students at Sydney Uni and beyond come to know a heavenly father who never lets them down, through online evangelistic events and through one to one conversations.

Anna Beaver
Senior Staff Member