“What will you do with the rest of your life?”

“If you were consumed by buying property, climbing the work promotions ladder, keeping up an idealistic lifestyle or killing time watching Netflix – who would people think you belong to?”

These were two of the questions posed to students of the EU during the recent Imagine Conference. The conference was designed to encourage students to be part of the Gradsfund vision “to flood God’s church with servant-hearted leaders.” Two days were spent urging students to embraced the urgency of mission, to pray for those who are less reached or less resourced (LRLR), and to send and support those who choose to go and be witnesses for Christ where the church is non-existent or floundering.  Day two of the conference saw 130 students visit churches to be exposed to the challenge of cross cultural work in areas that are LRLR.

Hence it was a gathering moment for likeminded students, willing to be challenged to go, but also taught from the scriptures that we are witnesses to Christ first and foremost because we have been bought with His blood.  Our lives are not our own and hence how we spend them will be indicative of who we belong to.

Frankly I found the challenge disconcerting and uncomfortable. But there was an excitement during the conference as students stopped and prayed for local suburbs where the gospel was challenged by the ideas of Islam, Buddhism, or secularism.  Students spent time thinking and reflecting about what the next 5 -10 years of their lives could achieve for the Kingdom if they were to embrace joyful sacrificial obedience to Jesus’ call for more harvest workers.

As a supporter of the Gradsfund, can you imagine how the landscape of multicultural areas like Lakemba could be transformed if students chose to relocate to those areas after graduation?  Can you imagine the greater Sydney and rural belt of NSW containing hundreds faithful bible teaching churches if students went armed with the training they receive while at Uni through the EU? Can you imagine secular Europe, Buddhist Asia or the Islamic Middle East having the option of investigating Jesus because faithful EU graduates went out to flood God’s church in those parts of the world?

Celia Toose
Senior Staff