2024 is the year of “Meet Jesus” a national evangelistic effort of the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students (AFES). The bright yellow Meet Jesus tee-shirt has become a familiar site during orientation days on many campuses, with the campaign rolling out in a staged way across Australia with some campuses launching in second semester.
“The idea is to raise the temperature of evangelism across the country, firstly through fervent prayer for our friends who yet do not know Jesus,” Richard Chin, the AFES National Director tells The Other Cheek. And secondly, providing as many opportunities to proclaim the one true gospel of Jesus to all in sundry. And thirdly, a systematic way of doing that is to use unified branding to create background noise that we hope and pray will enable many to hear about Jesus and meet him, especially in the pages of scripture.”
A direct connection to Scripture is provided by Meet Jesus’ “Uncover” five studies from John, adapted from a version road tested on British campuses. 19,000 copies of the book are being distributed.
“We look at five passages where people meet Jesus and we ask some simple questions and we hope and pray that through that process many will indeed meet Jesus so that Jesus will walk off the pages of scripture and they will see how they can respond to him we pray as their Lord and Saviour,” Chin explained.
Besides the 60 campus affiliates of AFES, a growing list of churches are joining in Meet Jesus.
They are “Churches who would consider themselves evangelical in the sense that the gospel is at the heart of why they gather and they are across denominations from Anglicans, Presbyterians Baptists, fellowship of Independent Evangelical churches,” Chin told The Other Cheek. “We also have other Asian and other ethnic churches. Also we have Christian organisations like the City Bible Forum, the Gospel Coalition Australia and Theological Colleges like Moore College and the Reformed Theological College in Melbourne.”
Asked what has changed on campus, Chin outlined both a negative change and a positive one. “What has changed at one level for the worse is that students are less accessible because they only come onto campus two or three days a week, even if they are full-time. Two decades ago, full-time meant five days a week, right? So the part-time job has really increased or rather decreased the experience of students on campus.
“But on the other hand, because of the pandemic and social media with its various challenges have made students I think a little more willing to hear the gospel of Jesus just through walkup [evangelism], let alone through the invitation of friends and the like. There is an openness, despite the climate that [makes it] appear to be the case that people are anti-Christian. Our anecdotal experience is that’s not the case. Of course there are people who express atheistic challenges, but by and large we feel like people are at least open to a warm conversation, are willing to at least engage in polite conversation and perhaps even attend one or two meetings.”
The Other Cheek asked if a particular type of student, by ethnicity or study discipline was more likely to respond to Meet Jesus. “That’s a great question. And again, it’s anecdotal. We don’t have a lot of data coming up for answering this question. What I do know is that Christians often do health science courses, and so your medicine, your physiotherapy, nursing also teachers, Christians are often doing such courses because they see those particular vocations as means to which they can help others. And because there are lots of Christians in those courses, they are the ones who are able to meet with others. Now, that’s not to say that they’re not involved in all the other courses, they certainly are, but that’s where I can almost guarantee that there will be a larger number of Christian people if they’re in the So-called helping professions. As far as ethnic groups are concerned, I think it is true that our international students are often very open to the gospel.”
Christians who are warm and caring can have a positive impact, Chin explained. “One thing is for certain that because Christians are people who by the grace of God do care and do love the unlovely, that when they gather and are hospitable and warm and genuinely so because of the fruit of the gospel, we do see people being attracted to that and especially international students who don’t have a home here are attracted to that for good reason. But that’s also for the local students too who I think are increasingly becoming lonely, especially coming out of the pandemic when they didn’t have the opportunity to meet with people.”
Meet Jesus’ aim is expressed in its title. “God willing, by the end of the year, I am praying, and I hope you are praying with me too, that thousands and thousands will not only hear the gospel of Jesus, but be saved and indeed receive him as their Lord and Saviour”, Chin said.
Meet Jesus is uploading testimonies on its Facebook page. Recent reels include Nadia who studies medicine, linguist Ben, and Business major, Nathaniel – and there’s a steady flow of uploads.
Multi-denominational Churches across Canberra are planning a citywide Meet Jesus event. The Anglicans in northern Sydney’s Meet Jesus event has Anglican Archbishop Kanishka Raffel as their featured speaker. Keep up with Meet Jesus events at MeetJesus.au
As expressed in Chin’s careful descriptions, Meet Jesus is concerned to make sure they proclaim the “one true gospel” beginning with prayer. Chin has written a paper which states what the gospel is and is that forms the basis of AFES and Meet Jesus: The momentous news of the gospel