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What if stories like in the Book of Acts could happen on university campuses?
What if students started praying for sick people like Jesus taught His followers to do?
What if students could start simple church communities in the student residences on campuses that would grow among those who don't go to church...and spread to the nations?
 
Student Church is a family of students and mobilizers who feel called by God to grow student-led simple church communities on college campuses to reach the nations. 

Students on universities across North America have sensed God's call to go on some radical adventures with Jesus while finishing their college education. Students are praying fervently 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!
Older leaders often mentor these students, but conventional language for what it means to be "a church" sometimes doesn't apply to what God seems to be doing. These students' experience of encountering Jesus' presence and following Him with other students is what it means for these students to be the church on their campus.
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.
 
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?)
 
Movements like this are not uncommon (or unbiblical) when you look through history. The fruit of changed lives, God's power, and the loving relationships that grow among these student churches is a testament that Jesus is at the lead of this movement. 
As others saw these students reaching their campus, older spiritual moms and dads started asking, 
 
"What can we do to encourage and equip student leaders and nurture a movement of student churches on the campuses?"
 
A network of relationships started forming across the United States and the world to encourage this movement. We started praying together, talking about what God was doing, and realized we were sensing the same call from God. We believed God was calling us to elder, encourage and nurture this student church movement. Together, we prayed for God to empower a student movement that would reach the universities of the world and spread to the nations.
Out of these times of prayer among students and student church mobilizers, studentchurch.org began. Studentchurch.org provides a platform for student church planters and mobilizers anywhere to share stories, support each other, and give and receive encouragement as we reach our campuses with Jesus.
Though older mobilizers for the student churches work under specific local ministry names, we share values and a sense of calling to mobilize student-led church planting movements that would spread from campuses to the nations. 
As students continue to follow Jesus on their campus, Jesus continues to do some really cool things!
  • A student who had never heard the gospel receives a dream from the Lord. That week he encounters a student church meeting in his dorm lobby and encounters Jesus. He gets baptized in a local lake while three car loads of students hear him testify to His faith in Jesus.
  • A student leads five other graduate students to Christ and starts a simple church with these new disciples.
  • Students go to the cafeteria on campus and begin praying for the sick.
  • Students walk the campus, praying for students who are spiritually open...and they experience miraculous healings.
  • A student leads three Asian students to Christ and baptizes them in a campus fountain.
  • Students gather to pray for the nations...and branch out to start simple churches among international student communities.
The college campus is a small mission field full of unreached people groups who live together in temporary communities. We believe the students who already live among them are the best candidates to be sent to do the works of ministry on their campus. This includes students making disciples, baptizing new believers, students teaching other students to obey all the commands of Jesus, and gathering together to worship, pray, and be the church together on their campus. We try to encourage the potential for what God can use students to accomplish if they’ll step out in faith and try. We pray for a Jesus movement among students to influence every campus in every nation of the world!
Student churches can start anywhere. Whether it be in a Native American college dorm, a fraternity house, an apartment, or a student union, a growing number of students carry this passion to see Jesus worshiped through every area of the college campus.
Though God is never confined by one method, a usual template for the growth of these student churches often looks something like this:
  1. Student leaders gather regularly to pray for their campus.
  2. Students respond to what Jesus tells them.
  3. Student leaders branch out to hang out with non-Christian communities on their campus (International student groups, Residence Halls, Fraternities and Sororities, Apartment Complexes, Student groups, etc.). They pray for sick people, have conversations, go to parties, and represent Jesus among them.
  4. Student leaders look for persons of peace – students who are open to the gospel.
  5. Student leaders start meeting with the person of peace and their friends to discuss the teachings of Jesus.
  6. Jesus shows up. Students start coming to faith in Christ. Students are then formed into simple church communities where they learn to follow the basic commands of Jesus together.
  7. These simple churches, led by students, are able to grow and multiply from year to year, as students move to other residences around campus.
This whole process of students planting simple churches works well when local, older ministry leaders encourage them and equip them. Instead of expecting them to be a full-time student, participate in a variety of other church and parachurch programs AND add simple church planting to the mix, these local elders sense that encouraging simple church planting is their strategy for reaching the campus. Often, local ministry leaders serve the growth of these simple churches by meeting regularly with the student church leaders and by encouraging the student churches to gather together every month to celebrate stories of what God is doing, pray and worship together, and hear from the Lord about issues specific to their campus.
We encourage student churches and mobilizers to join the online Student Church community to share stories, give encouragement and tell others around the nation what God is doing on your campus. If you're concerned about privacy, in the Student Church online community you control the content you upload - you decide what is visible to the public and what is visible only to other members of StudentChurch.org.  
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 your area, or students from your area traveling to other regions where the movement is growing.
Is your heart stirred to mobilize student churches to reach the nations?
Let's go reach the world for Jesus!
-- Erik Fish
Student Church Mobilizer