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Dear Howard,
It seems to me that you are labouring under some significant misconceptions. I have responded to the three main ones below.

1. UCCF and CUs
You seem to see UCCF as an authoritative body separate to CUs. UCCF is the 'CU Movement', which comprises students, staff and supporters. Our aim is for student leaders in particular to recognise that we are all in this together; all working towards the same ends; all dependent on one another. Staff do not work independently of the students and CUs are encouraged to see themselves as linked to each other. For example, the ‘Life Gospels’ were jointly funded by students and supporters from across the CU movement. UCCF is not some outside agency that is merely called in for advice and support, but it is a genuine fellowship across the UK CUs. You and some of your student friends may well have some personal issues about the choice of speaker for the Swansea mission. But if you let that drive your thinking you are going to be way off mark in getting the tone and texture of your article right.

Therefore, if you wish to satirise UCCF, bear in mind that you are attacking the wholehearted efforts of individual students who are doing their best to reach their peers with the good news of the Gospel.

2.Effective missions and the Zeitgeist
The only effective missions occur when students are doing good regular evangelism. It may be that you saw a mission where there wasn't much evangelism outside the mission itself. I have personally heard many eyewitness reports of record numbers turning up at mission events and greater numbers of students becoming Christians than at any time in recent years. Our London Team leader writes of the recent mission season: ‘…many more Christian students have been really fired up with a vision for evangelism and hosted more effective mission events in the spring than we have ever seen in a single term. There have been at least 4 effective new CUs set up off the back of a couple of keen students doing pioneer evangelism. They are creative, they are doing things in contextualised ways and they love the Lord with all their hearts.’

Your observation that Christian students are more in-touch and socially adept seems to be a direct contradiction to your complaint that CU missions aren't. Generally it is the in-touch, socially adept students who are most aware of the apathy and lack of ideology around them.

You are right to notice that the "it’s lovely for you" mindset is strongly out there in universities. But wrong to imply that no work is being done on this. Record numbers of CUs held missions this year and the majority of CUs worked hard to devise individual strategies relevant to their patch. Recent UCCF publications like Transition, The Blurb and Meltdown are in recognition of the shifting cultural landscape.

We also have many able staff and student officers who regularly collaborate to provide cutting edge training to equip students, not merely to identify the Zeitgeist, but to respond creatively and effectively.

Even with a poor venue, the Swansea CU managed to attract good numbers of outsiders to their lunch bar events. Clearly, they got something of the contemporary atmosphere right to get so many people coming back day after day and signing up for follow up courses.

The most travelled of the UCCF staff tell me that your impression of some of the outward detail of missions appearing the same might easily mask the fact that the strategy is extremely flexible. This provides opportunities for CUs to use resources in culturally appropriate ways - Swansea is not Cambridge, is not Birmingham, is not Newcastle, is not Cornwall FE colleges, is not Exeter or Glasgow. Yet each of these places has seen significant and strategic use of carefully designed and produced resources. The problem with extrapolating from limited experience is that the world is seen through a false lens, which serves neither critique nor appreciation in a generalised way.

3. Opposition Vs Apathy
Apathy is always going to be a major obstacle in a postmodern, relativistic society. However, the flip side of apathetic relativism is a growing intolerance to truth claims. You and your friends were sniggering at the missioners comment about the CU being the most hated organisation. But there cannot be many societies who challenge the secular myth of relativism as consistently as a CU running a series of lunch bar discussions and debates. I could name 6 CUs off the top of my head that are being threatened with expulsion from the SU for not allowing atheists to be voting members of their respective CUs. UCCF students and staff are more than aware that the majority on campus are too apathetic about the claims of Christianity. But any who have known the national CU scene well for the past 10 years will confirm that their has never been so much vocal opposition as in the past few years.

It is such a shame that you seem unable to offer support to the many hundreds of Christians in our college and university CUs who are threatened with expulsion for the first time in living memory. The tone and timing of your comments on this could not be more ironic.

In summary, I would say that if you wanted a serious discussion about the Zeitgeist of postmodern campuses then you will have to go a long way to find people more clued into the nuances of all this than amongst UCCF staff and students.

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Cheesy wrote this:
I am also interested in what you saw of the leadership during the mission - was it led primarily by the UCCF missioners, the CU exec or the CU punters?

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My view was that CU missions had most in common with old style tent revivalist meetings - which worked in a university climate where students went along to hear someone saying something outrageous, but that the prevailling student culture has changed.

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Students need to work harder and play harder, so perhaps considering a religious or political commitment is lower down on the scale of importance.

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But maybe I am wrong about this. Who were all these people who turned up (were they friends of CU-ers)?

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Originally posted by Boopy:
CU people only seemed to socialise with each other, too; except when they were forming friendships as fodder for evangelism. Those I encountered didn't seem to relate to the idea of having non-CU friends just because they were your friends.

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Everyone's Favourite Irish Pixie of Diminutive Stature writes:
I think your UCCF contact may have a point - that these methods are not handed down from on high, and it is up to individual CUs how they go about things.

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Originally posted by Wood:

Also, more importantly, I find it a little arrogant that UCCF should rebrand itself (with an hilariously rude acronym, incidentally. Someone I know and love suggested that they might next try something like Federation of Universities and Colleges Christian Unions, but I suspect that even UCCF might balk at that) as "the Christian Union Movement", almost as if to say: "you're part of us. We are you, you are us. You just didn't know it."

I'm sure that wasn't the intention, but I really am getting that vibe, you know?

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Originally posted by Cheesy*:
Wood, now I'm confused. Are you saying that there are individual CUs that are not affiliated to UCCF?

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Originally posted by Leprechaun
Would you be offended if I said that I think you may be hatching a conspiracy theory on the tagline? UCCF has always explained itself as being the CU movement, when people want to know what the letters mean. Its only recently made it on to the logo recently with the plethora of Christian student movements that are proliferating currently. As, you rightly say, nearly all CUs are affiliated, its not entirely unjustified is it?

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Originally posted by Elephenor:
But the chief conspiracy theory I've heard was that the explicit adoption of this tagline was a response to competition from Fusion - which seems to be precisely what you too are saying!

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
That's not exactly what I said is it?

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The Loughborough situation is slightly more complex than you have described it

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Originally posted by Elephenor:
I tried to stick to relatively uncontroversial facts, and leave it ambiguous who initiated the split. My impression is it was rather more complicated than your one sentence summary too!

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
Would you be offended if I said that I think you may be hatching a conspiracy theory on the tagline? UCCF has always explained itself as being the CU movement, when people want to know what the letters mean. Its only recently made it on to the logo recently with the plethora of Christian student movements that are proliferating currently. As, you rightly say, nearly all CUs are affiliated, its not entirely unjustified is it?

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And certainly I don't know anyone in UCCF who would deny that it has lots to learn from other student movements - so Howard's last paragraph won't come as a massive shock to anyone.

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From Rev. Cunningham's interview:
the liberal secularists who were the student radicals of the '60s now represent the establishment. These 'poachers turned gamekeepers' guard both the media and political processes with instincts that are not merely indifferent to the Christian worldview, but actively hostile. In all areas of social policy and broader cultural life we are witnessing a radical secular revolution. Postmodern society for all its vaunted openness to spirituality has become intolerant of orthodox belief, not least in the area of sexual ethics. Similarly Christian students are put under siege by their peers and mentors who demand their conformity to secular lifestyle and belief; so it is increasingly hard for Christian students to find the contact points, categories and confidence to speak meaningfully into this new society. Until quite recently it was common to hear someone say: 'That's great for you, I wish I had your faith'. Today, we are just as likely to hear, 'How can you be so intolerant as to believe that?'.

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From Rev. Cunningham's interview:
the liberal secularists who were the student radicals of the '60s now represent the establishment. These 'poachers turned gamekeepers' guard both the media and political processes with instincts that are not merely indifferent to the Christian worldview, but actively hostile. In all areas of social policy and broader cultural life we are witnessing a radical secular revolution. Postmodern society for all its vaunted openness to spirituality has become intolerant of orthodox belief, not least in the area of sexual ethics. Similarly Christian students are put under siege by their peers and mentors who demand their conformity to secular lifestyle and belief; so it is increasingly hard for Christian students to find the contact points, categories and confidence to speak meaningfully into this new society. Until quite recently it was common to hear someone say: 'That's great for you, I wish I had your faith'. Today, we are just as likely to hear, 'How can you be so intolerant as to believe that?'.

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Posted by Cheesy:
The siege mentality is a convenient device created by evangelicals to reinforce and theologise their natural tendancy to continually create subcultures.

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From Rev. Cunningham's interview:
the liberal secularists who were the student radicals of the '60s now represent the establishment.

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These 'poachers turned gamekeepers' guard both the media and political processes with instincts that are not merely indifferent to the Christian worldview, but actively hostile.

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Postmodern society for all its vaunted openness to spirituality has become intolerant of orthodox belief, not least in the area of sexual ethics.

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Similarly Christian students are put under siege by their peers and mentors who demand their conformity to secular lifestyle and belief;

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Until quite recently it was common to hear someone say: 'That's great for you, I wish I had your faith'. Today, we are just as likely to hear, 'How can you be so intolerant as to believe that?'.

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Originally posted by Wood:
But now, I get the impression from my contacts with (mainly non-Christian) students across the UK that the response you get to a conservative evangelical viewpoint is more likely these days to be: "Well, if it makes you happy, cool. I'm off to the bar."

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Interesting.

If all goes well I'll be getting confirmed rather soon, and I have to say that the strongest response I've encountered from friends and family has been fond amusement. The "if it makes you happy" has been by far the most common reaction.

Maybe the student response is just a reflection of current attitudes to Christianity in society in general. I'm in my mid-thirties so it may not be age-related either.

On the other hand a sample of one isn't generally regarded as statistically significant

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Originally posted by Wood:
No, I don't think it is cricket.


How was the article about Fusion received within UCCF circles? Does anyone know?

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Back to the question of the "Christian Union Movement": it occurred to me that often UCCF seems to want to have its cake and eat it.

Namely, they state openly (eg in UCCF guy's statement, above) what amounts to: "we are Chrstian Unions; they are us," and yet, when it's pointed out that tactics used by CUs can be harmful and that attitudes held by CUs aren't necessarily helpful, UCCF members have in my experience disowned these tactics: "we're just the staff workers. We just offer advice. They don't have to take it."

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I think, also, there's the issue that among UCCF people (again, see my contact), there's the assumption that criticism of UCCF's methods necessarily implies criticism of CUs and, worst case, Christianity in general. I actually thought it quite disingenuous that my contact seemed to say that in criticising UCCF, I was "failing to show solidarity" with CU students.

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And that brings me on to the issue of "persecution". I handled this a little in my full article, but I do really feel that there's a culture of paranoia in UCCF. Apart from the issue that it's a bit insulting to those people who in other countries actually are facing real persecution, this defensiveness is in my opinion an obstacle to the Gospel.

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Originally posted by GreyFace:
If all goes well I'll be getting confirmed rather soon, and I have to say that the strongest response I've encountered from friends and family has been fond amusement. The "if it makes you happy" has been by far the most common reaction.

Maybe the student response is just a reflection of current attitudes to Christianity in society in general. I'm in my mid-thirties so it may not be age-related either.

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I'm sorry Wood, but have you been aware at all of the increasing number of CUs being expelled from their students Unions? I can think of at least 7 (one of which I have been directly involved with in the last few years) in this academic year alone. And it is JUST the Christian Union, no other Christian society, and in many cases IME the SU are joined in an unholy alliance with the chaplaincy who also can't wait to get rid of the pesky evangelicals.
I have been involved in CUs deeply now for 8 years, and this is definitely considerably more of an issue than it was when I began my involvement.
And I think, if you went to any UCCF conference, you would see more concern there for persecuted Christians throughout the world than in most other evangelical Christian fora you could care to mention.

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Lep,

Once and for all, this is not a new phenomena. CUs have been grappling with SUs for many years, so let us not hear any more of this 'oh poor me, the nasty secularists are having a go at me this year' crap.

It is perfectly simple.

1) If the CUs got off their backsides and got involved in the SUs instead of just sponging off them there might be less of a problem.

2) The arguments for expulsion are based on nonsense as any rational person could see. The fact that CUs get all hot under the collar and are unable to defend themselves shows a complete ignorance of the SU constitution (see point 1 above).

3. Most of the time being expelled from the SU has no practical consequence in any case.

4. I have recently had conversations with chaplains at universities who are pulling their hair out. At best the CUs in question are rude, arrogant and self obsessed. At worst they are vindictive and vicious. On at least one occasion a band of CU-ers went around to the chaplain's house to attempt to excommunicate him because he wasn't a 'proper christian'. Chaplains are not just there for evangelical christians.

All power to your elbow if you managed to stay 8 years in a CU, Lep. I managed less than a term.

C

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Originally posted by Cheesy*:


1) If the CUs got off their backsides and got involved in the SUs instead of just sponging off them there might be less of a problem.

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2) The arguments for expulsion are based on nonsense as any rational person could see. The fact that CUs get all hot under the collar and are unable to defend themselves shows a complete ignorance of the SU constitution (see point 1 above).

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3. Most of the time being expelled from the SU has no practical consequence in any case.

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All power to your elbow if you managed to stay 8 years in a CU, Lep. I managed less than a term.

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:

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Originally posted by Wood:
No, I don't think it is cricket.

How was the article about Fusion received within UCCF circles? Does anyone know?

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Not happily. Generally speaking, while some agreed with the theological questions being asked, no one I met thought that it was the right way to go about dealing with the issue. And senior people felt a little irritated that the progress that has been made at their level in building a happier relationship with Fusion, where the differences could be articulated, but without vitriol, was being undermined at grass roots.

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your article was actually quite critical of the CU in question.

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Mission hoodies are a prime example.

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And I'm not being aggressive, Wood, but

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for someone that many of these students know and trust, to be so cynical about their best efforts to love their friends in a public forum probably is a bit discouraging, isn't it?

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I'm sorry Wood, but have you been aware at all of the increasing number of CUs being expelled from their students Unions? I can think of at least 7 (one of which I have been directly involved with in the last few years) in this academic year alone.

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From what I wrote myself:
Swansea’s Union is something of an rarity in the British university scene. Often, SUs and CUs exist in open hostility to each other. UCCF pointed out to me that there are about a half-dozen CUs this year alone who have been (or are in real danger of being) expelled from
their SUs, including University College London, Warwick and Hull. But if you look at the proportion of students who take part in student
politics, the number is minimal. For example, in Swansea’s sabbatical elections this year, the winner got in with 650 votes. Out of a constituency of nearly 10,000, only about 1,000 students voted. The result is that those who actually take part are in the same minority as
the CU – the minority of people who actually give a flying one.

and also:

Ironically, in a climate where no one turns up for student politics, the potential power CUs could wield is vast. UCCF is the largest and most active student-based lobby group in the country, after the National Union of Students itself. And yet, paradoxically, UCCF doesn’t register on most people’s radar. Most students just don’t care. And while Student Unions may have people hostile to CUs in their executives, many are unaware of UCCF’s existence. University College London, for example, had voted not to expel their CU in a meeting; they only rescinded the decision and expelled them anyway when it was pointed out to them that the CU was affiliated with an external organisation (UCCF) which held standards in violation of the SU constitution.

But UCCF’s culture seems to promote the belief in many of its members that CUs constitute a beleaguered, persecuted minority. Some even seem to believe that there is some sort of liberal conspiracy out to get Christians. Although the idea of getting a bunch of liberals to agree on anything long enough to form a conspiracy is frankly absurd, somehow I think the idea that UCCF may be an irrelevance is somehow worse. If they persecute your organisation, it means they care about you. But if they just shrug and say, “If it makes you happy,” that’s worse than death. Ironically, the recent crackdown by the minority groups that run SUs has given UCCF’s work meaning and direction.

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and in many cases IME the SU are joined in an unholy alliance with the chaplaincy who also can't wait to get rid of the pesky evangelicals.

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Whoa, whoa, whoa. If, and I mean IF the chaplaincies were involved in this conspiracy, why did they do this?

Because they want to "get rid of the pesky evangelicals"? Having been involved with both CUs and chaplaincies for about ten years or so (if we're going to share credentials ), which is frankly not easy, I always get the impression that reasons for chaplaincy-CU conflict are far more complex than that.

There are no villains. There are well-meaning people who don't understand each other, but there are no villains.

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And I think, if you went to any UCCF conference, you would see more concern there for persecuted Christians throughout the world than in most other evangelical Christian fora you could care to mention.

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Originally posted by Carys:
It's interesting to read how the mission played out elsewhere. There was a lot more opposition and debate here in reaction to Promise (don't ask me why but CICCU used the Gospels but rebranded them -- but then again Life was their mission two years ago) than in Swansea. There was a lot of debate about it in Varsity and TCS and I overheard some conversations about it.

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Originally posted by Cheesy*:


Why do you have such a persecution complex?

C

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Originally posted by Cheesy*:
All power to your elbow if you managed to stay 8 years in a CU, Lep. I managed less than a term.

C

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
...beleagured small groups of Christians, who genuinely wanted to share their faith, and just didn't know how or what they could do as they were not allowed even to organise a gathering anywhere in their university.

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Originally posted by Wood:
Could you stop apologising about being aggressive? I know you're not being aggressive, mate. If you have a point to make, you make it.

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Again - criticism of method does not imply criticism of person, faith or of Christianity in general. And it's because I'm in solidarity with the students that I feel it needs to be addressed. How are you ever going to fix anything if it isn't scrutinised?

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I want to take issue with your idea of a "movement". I take your point, but again there's the assumption that UCCF=CUs. It doesn't. UCCF is an organisation that (in its best manifestations) supports and links CUs or (in its worst) tells CUs what to do. But it is not CUs.

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One has to ask why these CUs got suspended, when, if they got involved in student politics, they could be running the place.

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Originally posted by Tabby Cat:
Oh, poor poor them.

They could try using their imaginations, making friends with non-Christians, getting involved in other university groups...

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Yes. Obviously its CUs who are arrogant, thoughtless, and unconcerned for the difficulties that other Christians face .

[ 24. May 2004, 10:35: Message edited by: Leprechaun ]

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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:

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Originally posted by Tabby Cat:
Oh, poor poor them.

They could try using their imaginations, making friends with non-Christians, getting involved in other university groups...

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Yes. Obviously its CUs who are arrogant, thoughtless, and unconcerned for the difficulties that other Christians face .

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I don't see how your response relates to the quote... I thought Tabby Cat was merely saying that Christians often don't get involved in university life.

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“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed

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Originally posted by Tabby Cat:

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
...beleagured small groups of Christians, who genuinely wanted to share their faith, and just didn't know how or what they could do as they were not allowed even to organise a gathering anywhere in their university.

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Oh, poor poor them.

They could try using their imaginations, making friends with non-Christians, getting involved in other university groups...

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OK. While I agree that the lack of encouragement to get involved in university groups and politics is a problem, I don't think the tone of this comment is particularly helpful.

These are good students. Even if they are wrong or misguided, they are not doing ehat they do for their benefit. They're young, they make mistakes.

Similarly, in reply to Cheesy, while CUs can appear vicious - at worst it's simply that they're defensive. And - right or wrong - I don't think any of them liked excommunicating the liberal Chaplain, and I don't think they wanted to do it. It was a stupid thing to do (even if you agree with the theological grounds), but the motives behind it were pure.

Re. The UCL Controversy. As I understand it, the SU tried to pass a motion banning religious societies from using SU money to perform religious activities, on threat of expulsion (meaning that the CU would have been kicked out immediately). The vote was held, and a block vote of religious societies meant that the resolution was overturned. While the resolution was directed at university societies in general, I don't think anyone was fooling themselves that it wasn't directed at the CU.

After the vote was overturned, the UCL discovered links on the UCLCU website to a rather extreme apologetics site (which was linked before anyone read it properly - oops) and to UCCF. The fact that UCLCU was affiliated to UCCF was made clear to the UCLSU exec, who hadn't noticed before, apparently .

UCCF's site includes a number of resources which break UCLSU's rules on discrimination; therefore, by being affiliated to the outside society, the CU was breaking the SU rules anyway, and could be expelled without anyone having to change any rules.

Someone in the SU at UCL was out to get the CU - I think that's clear from the fact that they tried to change the rules to kick them out. There's no point in painting this any other way.

This doesn't mean that the SU was representative of the opinion of the mass of UCL students, however. It just happened that the minority who control the SU wanted the CU out (on the grounds that they thought it a bad, harmful thing).

If the CU had been more invovled at an earlier stage, it probably wouldn't have got to that point.

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Narcissism.

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Originally posted by Ophthalmos
I lasted a year, mostly due to the fact that after about two months of going I realised I hadn't seen a woman speak, went to the president and was fobbed off with the "it would provide a barrier to some people" "argument" and saw that the thing is impossible to change from a huge, horrible, neo-conservative reason for existence to most of its members. When I say reason for existence, I mean the "this is my first priority" kind of mentality. DizzySheep is right, but no one's really up for being radical, are they? It's amazing how liberal conservatives are about some things, though.

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:

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Originally posted by Wood:
Could you stop apologising about being aggressive? I know you're not being aggressive, mate. If you have a point to make, you make it.

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Now Woodsy, you know you have told me off for being too aggressive before. I was just making it clear that I was not attempting to start a fight on this occasion.

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"Woodsy"?

Call me "Woodsy" again, shortstuff, and that'll start a fight...

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I don't think "Mr contact" was trying to stop scrutiny was he? Just to point out that, actually for many of these students who are young, not confident in their faith, and doing their best, you have chosen to expose them to criticism in a public forum, just for doing their best.

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But the tone of your article was to suggest that the whole thing, while well meaning, was a bit of a wasted misadventure.

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The Fellowship is made up of its consitutent parts. It has a small core staff team in relation to the many CU members that there are. In what way is it not CUs?

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Ok, so the Leicester office isn't a CU, but surely that doesn't stop them being the same movement.

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One has to ask why these CUs got suspended, when, if they got involved in student politics, they could be running the place.

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Yep, they have been slow on the uptake - largely because (IMO rightly) they have been focussed on their purpose, rather than their organisation.

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It's now becoming apparent that it is not enough to be like that, if you are a religious group you have to campaign for your right to exist. But that, in itself, IMO is evidence that SU politics are moving against rather CUs rather than being passive to them.

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
My response to Tabby Cat was knee jerk and not particularly helpful. Sorry.

I was pointing out that we are not talking, even ofetn, about rabid evangelists here. One girl I know is in an off campus hall of 800. She knows no other Christians in her hall.
She turned up at our church weeping at the end of freshers week as she hadn't been able to find any Christians, and the chaplaincy is 3 miles away from her house, and (in this case) not evangelical or even sympathetic to evangelicals. The CU is allowed to meet on the main campus, which was at night and meant travelling across the city by herself. (in this case, it must be said, they were pretty rubbish and not very helpful to her.)
Well, put up a poster to find other Christians I said. Not allowed.
Start a little hall group. Not allowed.
Prayer meeting. Not allowed.
People from church come in and help you talk to people in the bar, do some surveys or something. Not allowed.

As such, being from a sheltered background, she basically hasn't the confidence to get involved in any uni societies without a Christian friend. So she isn't.
Its not all CICCU with their million pound missions or whatever. We are, on occasion talking about people feeling disenfranchised from university life because of their SUs. And that's not getting shot or tortured. But for her it certainly felt like persecution.

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...beleagured small groups of Christians, who genuinely wanted to share their faith, and just didn't know how or what they could do as they were not allowed even to organise a gathering anywhere in their university.

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Originally posted by Wood:
But it's been like that for ages. In the last twenty years, there have been several periods where CUs have been kicked out in clusters. Swansea CU itself got disaffiliated and banned in 1992 (I think it was. It's in that ballpark). It got through that, and now enjoys a fairly good relationship with the SU.

These things pass.

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Originally posted by DizzySheep:
I don't know if others will agree with me, but it seems to me that the essential problem with missions like the UCCF one (and I've been to many similar ones) is that they are failing to engage with relevant issues in secular society. It's not enough just to tell people about Jesus if this isn't backed up by practical action.

As an example of this, I went to a fairtrade meeting the other day at which volunteers from various organisations across the town met up to discuss ways of promoting fairtrade locally. When someone suggested we should perhaps approach the Churches, their suggestion was met with amazement, as most of the people in the group weren't even aware that the Church was involved.

I think it's sad, basically, that for most people today Christianity is just a thing some people do on Sundays. Telling scary stories about Hell isn't going to change that because if people don't believe in any of it in the first place, they'll just regard that as another 'story' (sad, but true).

What we need to do is demonstrate a new radical way of living which is counter to what people are used to and which is God-centred not Me/money-centred. (Isn't this what the early apostles did, actually?)

Of course, telling people about Jesus should be at the centre of any mission, but unless we back our words up with our actions then basically it's just regarded as so much talk. (I'm sure some of the CU folks are doing this, by the way, and this isn't meant to criticise anyone in particular, it's just an observation).

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