It is increasingly apparent just how few people read the Bible well for themselves, even those growing up in churches. Students continually tell me, “I’ve never been this challenged about reading the Bible” and “I just want to read and understand the Bible better for myself”. So I’m thoroughly convinced of the need for training students in how to read the Bible through a Biblical Theology framework. Formative conferences, such as National Training Event (NTE), help students from all over Australia and internationally to understand how the Bible fits together as one big picture and equip them to teach others.
The desire of Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students (AFES) is for our NTE to train students to proclaim Jesus as Lord and Saviour by carefully and humbly teaching the Bible. This is because our conviction is that we meet the risen Christ when engaging with the Bible. Therefore, the heart of NTE are the 150 small training groups, or strands, of eight to ten students with two leaders each, spending 12 hours studying a Bible text together. Students learn the skills of careful contextual reading of a passage and understand how the Biblical narrative is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. At the end of the week, each student gives a short talk with feedback, explaining a part of Jesus’ person or ministry they have learnt from the Bible. The act of speaking trains the student by practising the skills needed to share the gospel. It’s a real confidence builder for students to become teachers of the Bible. Students are grouped together from different states and countries, so it is truly community-in-action, with everyone part of the body of Christ, working in unity for Gospel proclamation.
NTE is mission
A vital part of NTE is the mission-team partnerships with local churches across Australia. Each year, AFES goes on mission with around 100 local churches. Students serve with the convictions and skills they have learnt at NTE, and on campus. Our student teams serve and engage with local church activities—school Scripture presentations, BBQs, doorknocking, nursing-home visits, free carwashes, testimonies, Sunday School leading and preaching. It’s exciting to see students grow to trust God, overcome their fears, and see God at work through them as they proclaim the gospel together in the context of mission.
NTE exposes students to world mission
Jesus came to save the world, and all nations will submit to Him. Therefore, a key training strategy of NTE is to raise students’ eyes to have the same vision as Jesus—for the world. Missionaries come to NTE from all over the world to share their lives and ministries and recruit support and student workers for global mission.
NTE invests in the main game
AFES staff are invested in the main game of training students to proclaim the gospel through carefully and humbly teaching the Bible in the context of mission. When we gather nationally, we are replicating what we do on campus—mission. There’s no better national expression of our fellowship and partnership.
NTE is long term
NTE has been a significant ministry of the AFES throughout the past twenty-five years. Our prayer is that God will equip many students with the gospel of Jesus, and the heart to share the love of Christ by calling others to follow and trust Jesus. Please uphold this ministry in your prayers.
Gospel Training Event (GTE) goes online in 2020 for South-West Victorian Christian University Students
The priority of Gospel proclamation and Biblical Exegesis in the NTE model is so convicting that the Christian Unions of Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Footscray and Warrnambool ran our own ‘Gospel Training Event’ (GTE)—a localised version of NTE, which couldn’t take place in Canberra in December 2020 due to Covid restrictions. Alison McDonald (FOCUS GCU staff) and I hosted a FOCUS group of international students, training them to understand the Biblical narrative, pivoting from Colossians 1. A highlight was hearing student testimonies of how Colossians 1:15-23 challenged their view of Jesus as ‘The One’ through whom and for whom everything exists. Jesus literally makes all the difference. We gathered around screens like other Christian Union (CU) groups nationally to hear the evening Bible talks on the ‘Gravity and Glory of the Gospel’ from our wonderful AFES National Director, Richard Chin. One of the highlights of NTE is singing praises to God in a packed auditorium with 2000 others from across Australia and the world. We still managed to do this last year, just from our lounge-rooms!
When I was a student at LaTrobe Uni in Melbourne, NTE was a real highlight, as well as other CU conferences during the year. At NTE, we were trained in Biblical exegesis and taught how the Bible fits together as God’s big picture of redemption from creation to new creation. Throughout my four years of involvement with the LaTrobe CU, I was constantly challenged by how Jesus demands all my priorities. This led me to eventually give up my career as a Speech Pathologist to take up an AFES ministry apprenticeship on campus in Geelong (my home-town), followed by a four-year Bachelor of Divinity at Moore College and now almost six years of student and church ministry. NTE continues to be a highlight for me. We even offer our students in Geelong CU a ‘money-back guarantee’ for NTE and have had no refunds to date! NTE truly is a glimpse of heaven on earth as many tribes, tongues and nations are gathered around the Word of God. It is such a thrill to be a part of God’s visible national and global mission, expressed each December at NTE.
Sarah Weber is an AFES Senior Staff-worker, serving the Geelong Christian Union at Deakin University since 2015.
Originally published in Moore Matters Winter 2021
