It was certainly an event to remember: the collaboration of Inter-Varsity, Power 2 Change, Ambassadors for Christ and CBOQ Youth, supporting grade 12 students in their transition into post-secondary life. This inaugural event laid the groundwork for a key Hemorrhaging Faith issue.
The Hemorrhaging Faith report identified transition points, including those in between life stages, as one area where many people move away from the faith. For the high school to post-secondary shift, it’s usually because the new frosh, especially for those who move to a new city, are bombarded with the changes of university life that they fail to plant their faith with a local community, whether it be a campus group or a local church.
The intention of Transition 101 was to be a conduit for soon-to-be frosh with people at the new campus even before setting foot there. We had grade 12 students from a variety of churches (including CBOQ ones) with representatives from all 3 campus organizations from most of the Ontario universities. We determined one success indicator was if a frosh and an upper year would exchange contact information so they could continue in the months to come; we saw many frosh take advantage of that opportunity.
A powerful moment was a time of prayer of blessing and encouragement for each campus, facilitated by Matt Wilkinson. Each campus group went to the middle and the others prayed around them. All 10 campuses represented were prayed for individually.
This collaborative group will continue to see how God uses these kinds of opportunities to help his grade 12 grads step forward in their faith. We’ll see what next year brings.
Continue to pray for this group, especially for those grade 12 students in your midst, as they made this life-altering transition.
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