Austrian Student Mission

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ÖSM Logo

The Austrian student mission (ÖSM Österreichische Studentenmission - Christen an der Uni) is a group of students from various churches, who wants to make Jesus known at the universities in Austria. Currently there are 6 groups in almost every major university in Austria. The organisation is the Austrian division of the worldwide umbrella organisation International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES), currently covering 160 evangelical Christian student movements in over 140 countries.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]

The ÖSM is led by Christian students from a wide variety of backgrounds. They are united in a common desire to "make Jesus Christ known to students in Austria". Each group is also supported by a travel secretary, whose main tasks are encouragement and teaching of various biblical subjects. The ÖSM is not a church and does not want to compete with them, in fact it encourages every member to be a member of a local church.^[6]

Activities^[7] organized by local ÖSM university groups are for instance bible study groups, talks, book tables or other events like movie nights. Almost every week there is some sort of event. Usually in April they meet together at a retreat in Schloss Mittersill (called 'Forum'), where talks and seminars are held to encourage the group in their Christian faith. Members of the ÖSM groups also participate in international IFES events like the World Assembly and the European Student Evangelism Conference.