Five ways to support students in your church this summer

I first noticed the problem after my first year of university.

When I was living in university halls, I had a friend called Dannielle. Dannielle was what you might call a success story for the Christian Union. She asked all the right questions, was desperate to know more about Christianity and went along to church with friends. Eventually, she became a Christian and seemed raring to go, on fire and excited for God.

But then summer came.

Dannielle went home to a very rural part of South-West England, back to her non-Christian family with very limited access to any churches and no Christians her own age. Three months is a long time to go without the support of fellow believers. When September came, Dannielle didn’t bother with CU meetings or church. She had simply slipped away.

For those of us living in university towns, students can make up a significant yet temporary part of our church congregations. While we may greatly appreciate students when they are with us, there is a tendency to overlook them when they go home. It’s easy to assume that they’ll all be going back to great churches with excellent support networks that they’ve had from birth. It’s also easy to think that they have a new church lined up for them when they graduate to go and change the world of investment banking or medical research (which all graduates do, obviously).

But the truth is, there are lots of students for whom this is not the case. It’s not just a problem for new Christians like Dannielle either. There are plenty of students who have been Christians for many years. But many are just as likely to fall away during their three month summer holiday, whether that’s spent volunteering in a lemur sanctuary in Madagascar or sitting at the checkout in Aldi. Many will be going home to influential non-Christian friends, difficult relationships with parents, or will struggle with the shift in lifestyle between home and university. For those graduating, it might be extremely hard to leave behind relationships, church family and the freedom of student living that has become central to the past three or four years.

With this in mind, let me suggest five ways that you and your church can best support and encourage students this summer:

1. Identify the finalists. It might sound obvious, but if you don’t know who’s graduating then you can’t offer them the support they might need. Perhaps put together a booklet of graduating students, including contact details and prayer points, to encourage the whole church to be supporting students and graduates.

2. Buy them a gift. There are many resources available that can support students in their prayer life, Bible reading and spiritual growth, and that are particularly useful for students’ stage of life. A few personal recommendations (certainly not an exhaustive list):
Gospel Centred Life by Steve Timmis & Tim Chester – great for thinking about the person God wants you to be.
Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper – encouraging us to live a life of passion and joy in the gospel of Christ.
Dig Deeper by Nigel Beynon & Andrew Sach – a helpful practical guide to reading and understanding the Bible to get the most out of God’s word.
Enjoy Your Prayer Life by Michael Reeves – a short guide to seeing prayer as a gift to be enjoyed rather than a duty to be performed.
You could consider getting two copies so that you can both read it and discuss it on their return in the autumn.

3. Stay in contact. Write to them, form groups and chat with them on Facebook, Skype them, drop them a message to let them know you care. This helps keep them in the loop with what’s going on at church while they’re away too.

4. Make plans for September. Why not make a commitment to welcoming them back next term by inviting some round for lunch/dinner for when they return? It might seem early, but put it in your diary and then it will definitely happen! It will also give students a genuine reason to return to church after the holidays, regardless of how difficult those holidays have been.

5. Pray for them – and let them know you’re doing so! There’s something especially encouraging to be told that someone is praying for you – it demonstrates genuine concern and love. And ask them to pray for you in specific ways as well, to really cement bonds of fellowship.

Those are a few ideas. Why not share your own below?

Don’t let students simply drift away, make sure they are looked after. It’s a unique stage of life that many of us will remember as a particularly formative time in our walk with God. Effectively supporting young Christians at the beginning of their lives is fundamentally important to making truly disciple-making disciples. Support them now, to help them persevere to run the race to completion.

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