College Students Challenged to Complete the Great Commission

By Lillian Kwon, Christian Post Reporter Wednesday, July 04, 2007

College students are being challenged to finish the mission – that is, the Great Commission.

"Is God serious?"

According to Austin Okomohwo, global representative of Africa for Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC), God is "very serious."

Over the past 50 years, Christian movements have reached 2,000 of the most influential college campuses around the world. There are 6,000 more. And more than 16,000 college students from around the world are being called to spread Jesus' name on all of them.

"Isn't it about time we completed the Great Commission?" posed UK National Director Andy Atkins on Tuesday. "The question for us today is 'Are we willing?'"

Students from 127 countries have convened in Busan, South Korea, this week for CCC's largest global student missions conference. They're being propelled not just for any short-term or summer mission, but for a sweeping new initiative to reach the 6,000 campuses by launching 365 new spiritual movements.

Following CCC's motto – "Win the Campus Today, Win the World Tomorrow" – the international campus organization is looking to change the world.

"Completing the global mission is the unavoidable deduction from the universal lordship of Christ," Atkins told the thousands of college students at CM2007.

Active in 191 countries and with 27,000 full-time staff, CCC is one of the largest Christian organizations in the world and some are calling it one of the greatest in church history.

"I believe you are one of the greatest dynamic spiritual movements in the history of the Church," said George Verwer, founder of Operation Mobilization, Tuesday night.

When the late Dr. Bill Bright founded Campus Crusade for Christ in 1951, he began a movement to fulfill the Great Commission of carrying the gospel throughout the world.

Today, under the leadership of Steve Douglass, a long-time associate who Bright tapped in 2001 as his successor, CCC is aggressively taking responsibility for this generation of students to complete the mission. CM2007's theme is "Completing the Mission."

"What does God want us to do if we are going to finish the commission that God has called us to do?" Naton Camunga, CCC campus coordinator for South and East Africa Area of Affairs, asked the young crowd.

First, agonize in prayer, he said.

Camunga called students to pray the type of prayer that "will shake the core foundations of our universities and campuses throughout the world.

Second, evangelize on campuses.

"Getting [your] degree is a small ambition," he said. "Give up your ambition and get involved in telling others about Jesus Christ."

Third, give time, resources, and talents to the work of God.

"Students are the most talented people that you can find," Camunga noted.

CM2007, which continues at BEXCO Convention Center through July 5, is serving as more than a six-day conference for the 16,000 students attending. With students coming from 127 countries, the event is serving as "an on-going vision and project to reach every student on each campus ... so that everyone knows someone who truly follows Jesus," as CCC spokesman Tony Arnold said prior to the event's opening last Saturday.

Main sessions of CM2007 are available live on www.CM2007.net, June 30-July 5. The primary themes of the conference are Christ Magnified, Connected Movements, and Completing the Mission.