Equipping for Campus Missions
Missions Education Training (MET1) is the first phase of FES’ new missions programme. It aims to equip potential student leaders with an understanding of campus missions as a unique field of missions, so that they are able to articulate and embody a posture of engagement towards their campus. Held across two consecutive Saturdays, MET1 had its first run on 28 February and 7 March. Two students share their takeaways below.
Even though I only attended the first session, MET1 helped me gain a better understanding of the concepts of missions and witness. Personally, leading Temasek Hall CF, I found the sharing and discussions quite applicable to my context. The ideas of “incarnational witness” and “shalom” in missions especially resonated with the mission fields of our halls. In a place where we live alongside our peers, witness is not shoving the gospel down the throats of our contemporaries but living it out and alongside them.
For me, attending MET1 allowed me to bring back these ideas and share them with my CF members. I felt that many of our members had quite a narrow view of missions (i.e. go overseas and do something), so it was really delightful to have conversations on the larger picture of mission with them. We even managed to collaborate with Eusoff Hall CF to give out welfare packs to the Supper Stretch vendors (row of eateries at 16 Clementi Road)! While it was a short collab, I believe it was a big step in helping members better understand the larger, more wholistic, shalom, picture of mission.
– Irvin Lum, NUS VCF, History, Year 3
One point that stood out to me from attending FES MET1 was the idea of how campuses are slowly becoming an area that is “unreached” – where the Word of God is unable to penetrate. As someone who feels a burden for unreached communities overseas, this point really made me think about how I can start being a witness on campus. I had never considered how, as autonomous universities begin closing their doors to the public, students in these schools end up becoming an unreached community as well. Thus, in unpacking the culture and the ever-changing nature of schools and the education system in Singapore, this session made me think about my mission as a Christian student.
During MET1, we covered the calling to be hospitable as Christians. For me, this tied in with the realisation that missions can start from our campuses alone. As God called us all, as true Christians, to be hospitable in Romans 12:13, discussions with fellow CFers from other schools helped me learn what this could look like. It prompted me to think about how I can better make space for the people in school, and love those who might be ostracised in school or class. By putting aside all judgments and presumptions and sparking conversations with people I interact with less, I can begin being a salt and light within my communities.
– Sabrina Ang, SUSS CF, Psychology, Year 2
