Student Church is a family of students and mobilizers who are passionate about growing student-led simple church communities on college campuses to reach the nations. 

So what is a student church? We define it pretty simply:

A student church is a group of students who follow Jesus together, committed to one another to love God, love each other, and love the lost on their campus.

Students on universities across the world are sensing God's call to go on some radical adventures with Jesus. Students pray for spiritual awakening. They tell their non-Christian friends about Jesus. They pray for the sick. People encounter Jesus. They start student-led churches in dorms, fraternities and sororities, and apartments - anywhere students do life together. When students go to represent Jesus, Jesus goes with them!

This experience of interdependent relationships, centered on following Jesus together, is these students’ primary experience of what it means to be the church on their campus. It seems God is up to something really cool! (Isn't He always?)

We're passionate about Jesus and seeing His kingdom come to campuses, to cities, and to the nations. Here are some values we are committed to living out on our campuses:

» Jesus is alive and awesome.

Jesus is Lord and worthy of worship among all people groups. All people everywhere need the message and power of Jesus to experience transformation in this life and eternal life in the next.

» The Scriptures are alive and awesome.

God speaks to us and guides us through these inspired words His followers wrote throughout history, canonized in the books Genesis through Revelation. They are the authoritative, inspired words of God and are applicable in all generations and among all people and ethnicities everywhere.

» The church is alive and awesome.

We love the Church. We believe the Church is God’s people in the earth who are called to love and transform the planet by demonstrating God’s kingdom here. Church, in it’s simplest form, can start anywhere. We define local expressions of “church” as a group of people of any size who follow Jesus together. Anyone can start a simple form of church. Church is not confined to a meeting – it is a group of people who experience Jesus together and influence the world around them in daily life. As part of the Church, followers of Christ have responsibility to obey all the commands of Christ, including baptizing, making disciples, facilitating communion, and starting churches among those who don’t know Jesus yet.

» Prayer is vital.

When we hang out with God a lot (pray), cool spiritual momentum around us often starts to happen. Prayer and mission are inseparable.

» The Gifts and Power of the Holy Spirit are vital to our lives and purpose.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit never passed away. We try not to be too weird, but weird things don’t scare us as long as they match up with the scriptures. We like the Holy Spirit. We eagerly desire more of Him and His gifts.

» Character matters.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit function effectively when matched with a life of growing moral excellence and character. We are passionate about being sexually pure (you know, one man and one woman in marriage, hot for each other). We want to experience Jesus and develop fully in our potential in Him as we live passionate, wholehearted lives for Him.

» All Nations are important.

From the teeniest tribe a GPS would find hard to reach, to the university centers of the industrialized nations of the world, we are passionate about all ethnicities everywhere experiencing Jesus. Jesus isn’t white, nor is He an American. We do student churches because we love the nations.

This isn’t a comprehensive theological treatise or doctrinal statement; just a short list of some values we often find ourselves talking about, praying about, and trying to live out.

Some people have asked, “Who leads Student Church?” The short answer is, “Students do!” There are no student movements unless students lead. While students lead, older mobilizers and spiritual moms and dads also play a vital role in loving and equipping these student church leaders. 

The Student Church family is decentralized in that we’re a network of ministries and individuals who function financially and organizationally independent of one another. Each group is locally autonomous, but relationally connected. While we nurture local creativity and autonomy, we’re also a growing “tribe” - a spiritual family with actual relationships who hang out together and try to serve each other to mobilize simple churches on campuses and in the nations. When God moves in one region we all get to celebrate! When one region struggles, others can share the burden.

We don't use a lot of titles, but leadership and spiritual fathers and mothers are vital to the healthy growth of churches anywhere. Our growing family of students, elders, and mobilizers is committed to serving student churches and helping people start networks of student churches in new areas. Elder teams are adaptable as the movement changes and new leaders are developed. Student Church in the U.S. is currently served by an elder team of: Erik and Jen Fish (Student Church Movements), Dr. Pam Arlund (All Nations Family), Aaron and Morgan Snow (Intentional Gatherings), Brad and Adriane McKoy (Antioch Campus Network), and Mike and Michelle Chang (Antioch Missions Equipping Network). The elder team exists to serve student churches and help diverse ministries to implement student church planting on university campuses around the world. As new regions start networks of student churches, local mobilizers in the area oversee and encourage the growth of these churches and are encouraged to form their own elder teams.

Almost anyone can start a student church. Every campus can be influenced for Jesus through student-led simple church planting!

In the Student Church online community, you can share stories, give encouragement and tell others around the world what God is doing on your campus. If you're concerned about privacy/security, you control the content you upload - you decide what is visible to the public, what is visible only to members of StudentChurch.org, and what is visible to a smaller group of people you determine.

Though the primary connecting point for many will be the Student Church online community, there is no substitute for real, life-on-life relationships. An online community is only effective as it nurtures authentic, real-world relationships. This may take the form of students traveling to serve the movement on campuses in a new region that needs help - or students asking their friends to join them in backpacking trips across the Himalayas! 

Is your heart stirred to mobilize student churches to reach the nations?

Join the Student Church online community here.

Let's go reach the world for Jesus!

-- Erik Fish, Student Church Elder