What is a CU?
A CU is not a church...
Many people have come to see CUs as a student alternative to a church. A CU is not a church and cannot function in the way the church does.
If by ‘church’ what is meant is a mere gathering of Christians, then a CU is a church. If as evangelicals, however, we follow our theological ancestors in their reading of what the Bible has to say about the Church, then we cannot say that a CU is a church in any more specific sense.
First: a CU, itself, simply cannot exercise the ministry of the teaching eldership, for:
i) CU leaders are not appointed for their abilities to teach;
ii) they may well be, and often are, recent converts; and so they cannot be appointed to biblical eldership. They are not expected to shepherd the flock of God, as Peter exhorts elders to do (1 Peter 5:1), to protect them from wolves, to lead, guard, care and feed them. They are not expected to keep watch over the souls of the CU members, or have those members obey them (Hebrews 13:17). We do not ‘ask students to fulfil the role of elders’.
First: a CU cannot function as a church in the manner in which Paul and the apostles wanted churches to function because it does not have an appointed ministry of word, sacrament and discipline, and must not pretend to.
Secondly: a CU cannot function as a church because, for all the warmth and closeness of fellowship that can be experienced within a CU, it does not have the communal characteristics of a family that the Bible assumes.
If, for example, a ‘Spurgeon' arrived as a student[14], completely qualified to be an elder even at his tender age, even then it would only be possible to establish a temporary chaplaincy. Even his wonderful presence in the CU would not make it a church, for despite his teaching ministry, there still would be no church family. It is the difference between a student’s digs and a family home. A CU, by the nature of what it is to be a student for three years (and back at home for half of that), cannot be the kind of family that Paul envisages a church being.
Thirdly: a CU cannot function as a church is because it is a specialised ministry that is seeking to target only one mission field. It has a clearly limited missionary objective: students. In no sense does it have the ambition to function as the heterogeneous body that Paul describes in Ephesians 2.
In summary, there is a clear and definite distinction between a church and a CU. A CU is simply not the kind of ordered community with a specifically appointed ministry of the Word (which includes sacraments) that a church is.
A CU is a missions team...
A Christian Union is a mission team made up of students who are working together to evangelise their fellow students in their University or College. It is said that the CU is the only society on campus that exists for primarily non-members. These witnessing communities of students work in cooperation with local churches.
CU and the Local Church
We have a good working relationship with the local churches. Our purpose is to evangelize to students all year round. This frees the churches up to focus on more generic evangelism, pastoral issues and other aspects of ministry. We tell the gospel to students all year round as it would be impractical for the local church to do. We are a mission team that works with the local churches to reach students.
