Our vision...sharing new life with you
Life is to for sharing: friends, family and people we meet share life’s ups and downs with us. They make life more enjoyable and sometimes help us through hard times. The good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection means that we can share life not only with other people but with God himself, as part of his kingdom family. This ‘new’ life looks different from much of our experience – it’s full of freedom, joy, healing, hope and love. The promise is that ultimately, all the negative things about our lives (pain, suffering, death) will be abolished and we will enjoy life with Jesus forever. This is the life that we want to share with each other and students around us that haven’t experienced it yet. In response to God's guidance, students began meeting in peer-led Fusion groups in 1999. Ten years on, we still see this as the best way for students share new life: both to experience genuine Christian community, and to take that community right into the middle of uni life.
As part of the church's vision to 'follow Jesus in a BIG way', we seek to provide a home away from home for students at OCC and to help students to engage positively in university life.
A home away from home
Church is not just what we go to on Sunday! God has called our church to be a family and so we see it as important that there are ongoing, meaningful relationships - and not only between students, but also with non-students. So, we provide opportunities to get to know people right across our city-wide church, which takes us outside the student 'bubble'.
Engaging with uni life
We are actively seeking culture change in the universities. As a church, we talk a lot about 'discipleship', because it's something that Jesus himself emphasised. Discipleship means that church is not about 'warehousing Christians for heaven' but that, as we grow together in relationship with Jesus, our whole lives are transformed and his desires and priorities become ours too. It also means that we'll join in the great commission to "go and make disciples" (Matt 28:18-20). God has placed us in Oxford for this purpose, and it is our desire that people will meet Jesus through us. We want the knowledge of Jesus’ glory to increase and increase in our universities. We want to play our part in the good news spreading to every people group, knowing that Jesus will return to end history when he comes to gather his followers from all nations!
We also want to get Jesus’ perspective on our studies. This happens through discussion in Fusion groups, through hearing Bible teaching on Sundays and through mentoring relationships with older Christians (what we call 'personal pastoring' in OCC). There are also some useful Bible teachers and academics in the church, with whom we can sit down and talk through particular questions.
