Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
The neutrality of this article is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.

UCCF (the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship) is a UK-based evangelical Christian charity which operates on university campuses.

UCCF is a network of students, staff and supporters from a wide range of backgrounds and churches who unite in the mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ in the student world. The Fellowship is student-led, meaning that its 'Christian Unions' (CUs) are active and popular student socities on campus where Christian students meet to encourage one another, and primarily, create opportunities for students to hear the gospel message of Christianity. There are around 300 Christian Unions in the UK at present, with a membership of approximately 10,000-15,000.

UCCF employs a number of staff (mainly themselves graduates) who work to support the student Christian Unions with training, advice and materials.

Contents

[edit] History

In the summer term of 1919 an evangelical student called Norman Grubb of Trinity College, Cambridge and a friend, met with ten representatives of the Student Christian Movement to discuss their concerns that SCM was promoting an overly liberal view of Christianity in the British universities. Grubb posed the direct question, "Does the Student Christian Movement put the atoning blood of Christ central in its teaching?" After a little deliberation the answer came, "We acknowledge it, but it is not central."

Grubb and his friends at Cambridge decided that they could no longer work in partnership with the SCM saying that it had divorced a biblically-based, cross-centred emphasis. They began the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (CICCU). Soon, their contemporaries at Oxford did the same, and new Christian Unions (CUs) began to spring up in a number of universities over country. Grubb developed a vision to see an 'evangelical witnessing community on every university campus'. At the time there were just 28 universities in the UK and Ireland.

So the Inter-Varsity Fellowship (IVF) was born in 1928, linking these early Christian Unions together. In Cambridge, Oxford, King's, University College London, Manchester, Durham, Cardiff, Bristol, Liverpool, Queen's, Dublin, Magee, Glasgow, Edinburgh, St Andrews and Aberdeen students gathered under the banner of IVF.

During the 1940s, CU work began in the Technical Colleges. This expanded so rapidly that by the early 1970s it represented half the ministry and led to the name change to the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship. Since then many colleges have themselves gained university status, but UCCF continues to serve both the HE and FE sectors of tertiary education.

In 1947 UCCF became a founding member of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) and continues to play a role globally.

[edit] The Doctrinal Basis

The parting of the ways between the CICCU and the SCM was due to the centrality of both biblical truth (as it was perceived by Grubb and his friends) and the need for evangelism. Initially, the SCM had been aiming at "the evangelisation of the world in this generation," although the CICCU had felt that this aim was not being sufficiently emphasised by 1922. By 1978 SCM had just 200 members in a student population of more than half a million and SCM had entered into a strong decline.

According to the UCCF, the Doctrinal Basis sets out the "fundamental truths of Christianity, as revealed in Holy Scripture."[1] The Basis lists the core values of Evangelical Christianity,[citation needed] including stating that the Bible "infallible Word of God."[1]

[edit] UCCF's core values

This article or section may need a complete rewrite.
Please discuss this issue on the talk page.

UCCF's published core values are:

1. Our Convictions - Committed to the gospel
The biblical gospel is at the heart of our identity. We are united in our conviction that the historic gospel (as summarised in our Doctrinal Basis) is true and that we are called faithfully to live by it, proclaim it and defend it.

2. Our Vision - Committed to student disciple-making
Our priority is to make disciples of Jesus Christ amongst today’s students. We therefore aim to help students to be:

a. Mobilised in mission, reaching students with the good news of Jesus Christ and facilitating involvement in world mission.
b. Growing in Maturity, submitting our lives and our thinking to God’s word, living in dependence on his Holy Spirit and in fellowship with other believers.

3. Our Strategy - Committed to CUs
Our aim is to encourage the growth of witnessing communities (CU) of Christian students within the colleges and universities of Great Britain. These CUs are:
a. Led by students studying at the college/university with support from a CU Staff Worker (whenever possible).
b. Committed to uniting students from many backgrounds and denominations in the gospel (as summarised in the Doctrinal Basis).

[edit] Bibliography

  • Douglas Johnson, Contending for the Faith - A History of the Evangelical Movement in the Universities and Colleges. ISBN 0-85110-591-2.
  • Steve Bruce, The Student Christian Movement and the Inter-Varsity Fellowship : a sociological study of two student movements, (PhD thesis) — A copy is held at the British Library and also at the Center for Research Libraries , Chicago, IL 60637.
  • Lindsay Brown, Shining like Stars - stories from students worldwide. ISBN 1-84474-167-2
  • Oliver Barclay & Robern Horn, From Cambridge to the World - history of Cambridge CU. ISBN 0851114997
  • Steve Bruce, Why the IVF succeeded where the SCM failed, (unpublished PhD thesis), cited in [1]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b UCCF. Doctrinal Basis.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../u/n/i/Universities_and_Colleges_Christian_Fellowship_c83c.html"