Bristol University Christian Union

Hi Guys and Gals,

Congratulations on getting into Bristol University!  Welcome to the fold!  We as a CU get terribly excited every new year as it is when we get buoyed up by loads of new freshers who we have lots to learn from and who inject fresh energy and passion into our mission team.  We hope you are at least a bit excited about meeting us too.  Please?!

Being part of a CU is probably different to any Christian group you have been part of before, and may take a bit of getting used to, but don't worry, it is well worth the effort.

Why is it different?  Well basically, we are a group of Christians who go to different churches, and therefore believe slightly different things on various issues, and do things in slightly different ways with a whole host of different styles.  So why do we come together?  We do this because we are all agreed on two key things.

The first is the gospel, the good news of Christ!   That Jesus Christ is Lord of all, and that all who come to him repenting of their sin, their living for themselves and desire to turn and live his way, trusting in his death on the cross to pay the punishment they deserve for their sins, are forgiven and bought into God's family for ever.  Indeed, it is news so good, that good is an understatement.  Awesome and Legendary (key student words that you will be using at least in every other sentence) really are in need to describe how good this news is.  A fuller statement of what we believe is on the Vision and Beliefs page.

The second is the importance of people knowing this legendary news.  We know that a relationship with God is what we were made for, and that it without it we can't use this life to invest in things that last.  We also know that it effects not only this life, but the next as well, and those that aren't trusting in God's grace, through faith in Christ, will spend eternity separated from God in hell.  As we know there is another way, we want to make this clear.  We also believe that the most effective way to do this in a university context is by coming together to form a CU, a student run society, who can be an active presence on campus where churches might not be able to reach.  This is what we mean when we say the words, "mission team" or "missionary community" or whatever helpful buzzword is the flavour of the month.

So what we have been trying to make clear is that our purpose is mission, telling others who Christ is and what he has done.  So we don't exist as a social club (although at CU we meet many of our dearest friends), we don't exist to disciple and build people up in our faith (but that inevitably does happen as we hear the Bible taught, pray together and minister as friends to each other).  No, even though we have the benefits of all these things, the reason we exist, and why we do the things we do is for mission.

So please be asking when you get here, why are we doing that?  How does that help gear us up for mission?

I hope that gives you as bit of a flavour of who we are, now how about what you can do already?! 

Just in case you were wondering, and I wouldn't blame you if you were, we just want to stress we are really excited about hearing from you!  We really mean it.

You would make our day if you dropped us an email to say you are coming!

Please do go to the Hall CU page and find the hall you are going to and email your Hall CU leaders.  They will be hugely encouraged to know you are coming, and who you are.  This will avoid the slightly awkward, "So you're a Christian then" conversations that tend to happen during freshers week.

Also, please join our facebook group when you get your Uni Email!   Don't worry, we don't collect membership fees or monitor attendance, so you are not signing your life away or committing to being part of CU.  You can even leave if you don't like it!  If you post on the wall when you join that would be great, as it is pretty hard to figure out who has joined otherwise.  The reward for posting will be us getting back to you with a friendly message, and maybe even the offer of a cup of tea, or some quiche..

If you are super keen, and that is a cool thing and you want to know how you can be helping us in a more spiritual way, then we would appreciate your prayers for our work.  Under the prayer tab we have a list of things we are trying to be praying about as a CU over the holidays in preparation for next year.

I think that is enough for now, really looking forward to hearing from you, and praying for a great CU for next year, and that we would see God working many mighty miracles in Bristol over the year, and that our friends would come to know Jesus for themselves.

Lots of Love, Grace and Peace

Bristol CU

XXX

PS:  See you in October - Want to know what's going on?  Well don't ask me!  Just have a look at the What's On page .