A Beautiful Partnership

“We’re seeing beautiful things – the Holy Spirit is clearly at work in the lives of young people.”

On one campus in Canada, Tommy, a staff worker with GBUC (the French-speaking IFES movement in Canada) is working with Christina from Power to Change. They’re experiencing an exciting season of curiosity and conversions as they partner with each other, with students – and with God.

Partnering with God

In the last couple of years, Tommy and Christina have noticed a spiritual shift. The campus group used to mainly comprise international students who were churched and familiar with GBU/IFES in their own countries. But, today, the majority are new Christians and those seeking faith.

Tommy says it’s like “a huge discovery group”. Students just turn up and say, “I’m new to faith, I’m curious”. A few times, students have come and asked for Bibles. Last year, they met a student who turned to Christ through TikTok:

“When she started her spiritual search, she was open to everything except Christ. But for some reason, the Lord kept making sure the algorithm showed her Christian stuff. She started going to church in her neighborhood, and eventually, she and her mother became Christians!”

Partnering with Students

As Tommy and Christina follow God’s lead, they’re also listening to the students. Recently, Christina had designed different options for a poster to advertise the group’s activities. When the students voted for their favourite, the winner was the one that Tommy and Christina liked the least.

But God was at work again: “I think we had about forty students contact us because of that poster. And three students even took a photo of it to show their mothers!”. Christina adds, “I love these students. I’ve never been so challenged. It’s their different stories, their deep searching.”

Partnering in Campus Ministry

The university administration here has been cautious about the activities of religious groups on campus, leading to the formation of an umbrella NGO-like group for Christians. This gave Tommy and Christina the impetus for their ministry partnership:

“We have the same vision, we understand each other: we want to serve all students, whatever their denomination.”

Together – with the students – the group now offers a suite of activities on a different theme each week, through prayer times, Bible studies, an outreach stand, and a dessert and discussion evening.

One week, the outreach stand topic – “Tell us about a woman who inspires you” – caused such a positive response from students that the story-sharing was noticed by university staff on an adjacent careers day stand. One of them said, “I’m feeling so emotional. This is such a beautiful moment”.

Pray

Praise God for the “beautiful things” that he’s been doing on this campus in Canada – for the curiosity among students, the ministry partnerships, and the group’s growing witness.

Pray that the spiritual awakening will continue and deepen: for more encounters with curious students, good engagement at the outreach stand, and new students to attend the dessert and discussion evenings.

Give thanks for the partnership between Tommy and Christina and ask that a similar spirit of collaboration can be experienced everywhere on campuses where more than one student ministry group exists.