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Whats New?

Welcome to my first prayer letter of 2013! Thank you for being so patient in your support, and in waiting for this letter to be sent. Much has happened in November, December and January, and I dont have the space to go into as much detail as Id like to. November kicked off with the South East Big Weekend Away, which was a sort of big CU houseparty for all of the CUs in the South East (see my October letter for details). The rest of November continued with much study, meeting up with students to read the bible, some badminton and to cap it off a mission in Cardiff. For Cardiffs city-wide mission week (called Convinced?), I went with my staff worker and the two relay workers from Reading to help out for the week as a guest of the CUs in Cardiff. We spent the week with Cardiff Met during the day and at the central collective event in the evenings, at which Lindsay Brown

spoke. I was particularly involved in running all of the visual technologies during the evening, which involved taking a lot of photos and video during the day to create a short film clip based on the theme of that evenings talk, to be played during the evening meeting. December was a relatively relaxed month (especially in comparison to November!), thanks to having some time off over Christmas. The Christian Union ran their carol service at the Students Union (Rubix), and estimate that about 400 students came that evening to have some mince pies, drink mulled wine, sing carols and hear the gospel! January brought the end of the holidays and a chance to spend a week with the relay workers in the South East and London for a week of study at Rora House in Devon. This study week prepared us for the second Relay conference, which came the following week.

January 2013

Relay Prayer Letter

Christian Union

Tim Clark

University of Surrey Christian Union 7 Saffron Platt Guildford Surrey GU2 9XX tm.clark@btinternet.com 07748905270

contact

UCCF: The Christian Unions Blue Boar House, 5 Blue Boar Street, Oxford, OX1 4EE T 01865 253678 E email@uccf.org.uk www.uccf.org.uk
registered charity no. 306137

In the past months Surrey CU has been operating on the 1, 2, 3, Go structure (I explained it in my last letter), and had its most recent Go event in December; Carols at Rubix. This was a time when the CU made use of the students union night club to host an event where people could come along, sing carols and hear about the Christmas story. The members of the CU were encouraged to get individually involved by bringing their friends to the event, and by helping make all of the decorations then putting them up in Rubix. Local churches were involved too, providing essentials like mince pies and mulled wine. Our staff worker, Gareth Leaney, spoke at the event, sharing in bitesize chunks the prophecy about Jesus in Isaiah, Jesus birth and the good news about Jesus purpose on Earth. During the event we also had the universitys Gospel Choir sing some fantastic arrangements of Christmas carols and songs to us. At Surrey we have also launched the Uncover gospel project, which is a resource for

students consisting of two books; a copy of Lukes gospel and a set of six bible studies written by Rebecca Manley-Pippert. It is a very useful resource for the students as the bible studies are written in a way that provokes personal questioning from the passage, and allows the readers to go to whatever level of depth they want to. Another reason why they are so useful is because the studies are already written! It has been encouraging to see students take the resources and use them with friends, going through an account of Jesus life and encouraging them to see for yourself. We have just had a time of exams, and so people have been less able to come to the weekly meetings during revision time, but it has been encouraging to see members of the CU make it out on a Thursday, especially when there was no meeting scheduled but they had one anyway!

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Relay 2
In January we had our second weeklong conference for all of the relay workers in the UK and the IFES Ireland workers. This came after a dedicated study week, and was held at Cloverley Hall Christian Conference Centre. During the conference each of us presented a prepared 15minute talk on a section of Malachi, with time for some discussion questions at the end. I spoke on Malachi 1:6-14, about the outwardly religious practices of the recovered remnant of Gods people. During the week we looked at the whole of Malachi, reflected on our first term as relay workers, reminded ourselves of what the gospel is and why we should stand firm for it, looked at good reasons for mission and what that looks like, and thought about the future, motivations for what we may or may not do and how to make a choice. The week was excellent, and it was good to see other relay workers again that I hadnt seen for months. It was also encouraging to speak to people who have been doing the same job as me and have had similar struggles and encouragements. I was able to put my gifts to use straight away when we arrived by setting up the PA system for the week, and then I continued to use other gifts by playing my cello during times of singing. At the end of the week we had some snow showers which cut the week short as the final speakers was unable to make it to Cloverley Hall, but we were thankfully all able to make it home safely.

Prayer & Support

- Pray for the committees of the Christian Union and Chosen as they work together. Pray that they would be good listeners and would be wise in the decisions that they make together. - Pray for the mission week planning sessions, that we would not lose focus on the mission, and especially seeing people become Christians, for the sake of unity between the two societies. - Pray for Reading CU and Gareth (staff worker), Tom and Esther (relay workers) as they run their mission week this th week (4-8 Feb). - Thank God for a good Advisory Committee meeting between the CU and local church leaders, and pray that they would continue to happen and be helpful.

- Pray for strength for me in this coming month, as my time is taken up by making preparations for mission week, helping students leading Uncover bible studies, meeting students and doing my own personal admin and study. Time always seems to run thin, and strength from the Lord is a necessity.

Important Dates
- 4-8 Feb. Reading mission week. - Monday and Friday evenings. Mission week planning meetings. th - 11-15 Feb. Bournemouth mission week (I may help for a day as a guest). th - 4-8 March. Surrey mission week. Thine be the glory, Risen conquering Son Endless is the victory, Thou oer death hast won. Edmund Budry, tr. Richard Hoyle
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Looking Forwards
February holds some exciting new challenges for the CU, especially with the planning of our mission week. There is another Christian society at Surrey called Chosen Christian Fellowship, and both societies have existed along-side each other for a few years now. As Chosens interest in evangelism has been growing during this academic year, the call for unity between the two societies has become louder. In response to this call to unity we have decided to join together for our mission week and run a joint mission. We have joined together before, but never on the same scale scale as this. This marks an exciting time at Surrey as all of the Christians on campus seek to become more united in mission. There will be some obstacles to be overcome, particularly in terms of style in outreach, and both societies will need to learn to listen, but this could be the start of a more unified Christian presence on campus at Surrey. In preparation for the mission we are holding twice-weekly planning meetings open to all members of both societies, hoping to get as many individuals involved as possible.