First Year, Take Your Seat at the Table

There’s a really unique opportunity for evangelism at university - but you need to first take your seat, writes Sherwin Titus.

I have a confession to make: I’m not much of an evangelist. Sure, I’ve shared the gospel with people, but I’m always second-guessing myself, I’m always replaying conversations that I’ve had – and wishing I did things differently. I’m generally wishing that God would work through other people: smarter people, better communicators, those who are more convincing, more extroverted, less awkward, those who are more influential. 

In the Old Testament, when the prophet Isaiah hears God’s desire that people come to know him, he says “Here am I! Send me!” Earlier on, when the prophet Moses encounters God and hears of God’s plans to rescue a nation through him, he says “Here am I – send my brother!” No points for guessing who I relate to more!

Yet if you call yourself a follower of Jesus (as I do!), God’s great mission of reconciling the world to himself necessarily includes you and me. We are God’s ambassadors and he is making his appeal through us. We are called to live no longer for ourselves, but for the One who died and rose again. And - what’s more - we are called to be his messengers.

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ … and he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:18-19, emphasis mine).

I want to encourage and equip you to be the best possible ‘minister of reconciliation’ that you can be. It is my prayer that you would share the genuinely good news of Jesus visibly, vocally, and valiantly during the days that you spend as a student – and by God’s grace, all the days of your life.

You have a seat at the table

As I come to the end of my time as a student, I can’t help but think back to the conversation that shaped my approach to ‘doing uni’ as a Christian. A few months before I started my degree, I spoke to an older and wiser Christian believer about what evangelism in this new context would look like, sharing my fears and anxieties surrounding witnessing well. He responded with these words:

“Uni is a place designed especially for people to share and swap ideas. It’s a time when people are being formed and shaped, in terms of what they believe,and so are generally open to hearing new ideas, viewpoints, and opinions. As a Christian, you have as much a right to a ‘seat at the table’ as anyone else – and your Christian beliefs have just as much a right to be shared and heard, as anyone else’s beliefs. Don’t be afraid – just share! That’s what you and I are called to do: be messengers.” 

This perspective changed everything for me. It took all the pressure off – and profoundly reshaped the way that I thought about evangelism. We are simply called to be messengers – and trust that God can, and will, (and will!) work through us, for his glorious purposes. 

Compel them to come 

In Luke 14, Jesus tells a parable about the great feast that God will hold at the end of the age. He tells this parable to answer an important question: Who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God? His answer: anyone and everyone who accepts God’s gracious invitation to attend.

If you have accepted God’s great invitation, you will be a guest at God’s great feast. Once you are a guest with a seat at the table, God calls you to be a servant and a messenger. Once you have come in, you are sent out to carry God’s gracious invitation to those who are yet to accept it – and those who are yet to even hear that there is a feast that they are invited to. 

Those who are brought into the household of God are those who are also sent out into the world to bring more people in. Jesus puts it like this: “Compel them to come in” (Luke 14:23). Jesus’ point is clear: let them see how urgent and how necessary this invitation is. But how?

Make Christianity attractive

The Christian blueprint for evangelism is grounded in making the message of Jesus attractive. That is the point that Simon Peter, one of Jesus’ closest followers and a key leader in the early church makes when he writes to a group of Christians who are trying to live for Jesus under extraordinary pressure:

“ But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened.” But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.” (1 Peter 3:14-16)

Peter is implicitly asking us a question: Do you believe that the Christian gospel is the greatest news you have ever heard, or will hear? If your answer to this question is a resounding ‘yes’ then Peter expects that you will live as if the gospel is the greatest news you have ever heard, or will ever hear. 

What Peter is calling Christians to do is this: believe in your heart of hearts that this is the best news ever – and let it profoundly, radically, and visibly, shape and transform all of your life. Live lives that are so different, so distinctive, and so attractive that people will ask you questions. Peter expects our lives to be lived differently. And he expects that people will notice – and ask “Why?” And when people ask, Peter expects us to give people the reason why we think what we think, say what we say, do what we do, and live the way we live. 

In other words, make Christianity attractive in the way that you live your life as a Christian and the way that you love and serve, in response to how Jesus has loved and served you. Make people wish that the message was true – because they want what you have. And show them that it is, by leading them to the person at the heart of it all: Jesus Christ.

University’s greatest opportunity 

Uni is an extraordinary time of life: it presents such invaluable opportunities to learn more about the world (I’m not just talking about what you’ll hear in lectures!), to figure out your convictions and your worldview, to make connections, and to push yourself out of your comfort zone. For us as Christians, the greatest opportunities that uni presents are these: to grow in your own convictions – and to share those convictions with others. 

The God who has called us to himself, commissions us to be ‘ministers of reconciliation,’ and the Bible calls us his ‘ambassadors.’ As an International Studies student, I know a thing or two about ambassadors (at least, after four years at uni, you’d hope I would). Being an ambassador means two things. Firstly, ambassadors are legally authorised representatives of their home country. They are legitimate agents who are invested with the right to speak on behalf of their nation and conduct its affairs. 

To say that we are ‘God’s ambassadors’ is to say that we are the legitimate and authorised representatives of the kingdom of God – an honour! – and that it is through us that God conducts his affairs. 

Secondly, ambassadors are servants. The core of what it means to be an ambassador is to serve. God’s ambassador takes his or her cue from Jesus: the ultimate ambassador, the ultimate servant, who came to be the servant of all. This Jesus now calls and commissions to go, to serve, and to bear his invitation.  

I pray that you would be a faithful ambassador of Christ – a servant – all your days as a student, and all your days beyond. May the lamplight of your life burn ever brightly for him.

“Love so amazing, so divine, demands our soul, our life, our all!”