Statistics show that if the downward trend in church attendance amongst young people continues, there will be no expression of church at all by 2020. In other words, the situation is pretty serious. Students have long been called the most spiritually open age-group, with more people getting saved between the ages of 18-25 than any other. It's an open, flexible, exploratory time of moving away from home influence, trying out new things, forming a personal identity and building up an independent world-view. Yet, the campuses of the UK are home to one of the least reached people groups in Europe, with less than 0.5 of students attending any form of Christian group or church.

These challenges are nothing new, but church must adapt and learn to think outside of the box. The problem is, whilst younger generations are very adaptable to rapid cultural change, and very ready to produce new church wineskins to meet the demands of each new cultural context, older generations can be more resistant to change. Looking at recent national trends, the result seems to be a polarisation into one of two possible, and somewhat unhelpful responses. Either to carry on with old models of church, or to take the totally break-away approach, (which essentially comes from a heart of rebellion - the church won't change, so we'll do it ourselves), in planting alternative youth or student congregations.

On the one hand, it seems inevitable for the church to diversify, to begin to strategise and localise as a solution to meeting the needs of what is an increasingly fragmented society. Considering the ever-escalating issue of the break-down of the family unit, of more and more young people leaving home at 18, and in view of the mass social shift there has been towards prioritising friends over family amongst younger generations, the question is what is how should the church respond? Does the church adapt to reflect this cultural shift, and build church in specific micro-cultures, with the primary focus being mission to every section of society, or should the church be counter-culture, modelling something of God's heart for the family, being mothers and fathers for the motherless and fatherless?

Actually, I believe it is both, that holding these paradigms of thought in balance is more effective than opting for either extreme. I don't offer any perfect solutions, just a few principles from a model that I have been involved in over the last few years, as part of a leadership team building church amongst students at a large family church & student church in Liverpool. We work in conjunction with Fusion, the national student cell group initiative, and from the launch of our first cell way back in 1999, to our present situation of overseeing 18 cells in our own church and supporting many other Fusion cells across the North West, we have been on a massive learning curve. How do we fully release students to reach other students without alienating them from the rest of the church? Essentially we have found integration between students and wider church can happen on three different levels; through i) vision, ii) church structure and iii) relationship.

i) Vision

Because of our church's city-wide vision to see every man, woman and child reached with the Gospel, there is a releasing structure at the heart of the church. Everybody is part of and working towards the same vision, but it is understood that only students can reach students, that local families in L15 are best placed to reach other local families, that youth are best placed to reach out to other youth and so on. Students remain part of a large family congregation, but localise through more specifically focused cells. Our Fusion student cells, function very differently to youth cells, business cells, young graduate cells, and 'regular' church cells, but are working towards the same vision. We don't all do the same thing all the time, but we are one in heart and vision.

ii) Structure

Although we do have enough students to function as an independent church, we have resisted the temptation to break off entirely into our own, possibly more convenient and specifically stylised congregational plant. We have found the benefits of access to wider church resources, encouragement, wisdom and the covering of and accountability to a mature church leadership team who are completely behind us, to be indispensable. We are not young leaders just out on our own. We are one major limb within the body with a very distinctive focus, function and individual identity, but we remain connected to the rest of the body, without which we would struggle to fully function.

On other practical levels, we have found remaining connected to a larger church family has solved many problems that youth plants seem to create. For instance, the question 'at what point is it time to leave a student/ graduate church for a more family orientated one - is it when they reach a certain age, is it when they have kids and therefore need a creche, what about the friends I might leave behind ?? gets complicated. In an inter-generational church model however, we find it a fairly smooth transition from one sector of church life to another. And by running student specific events and evangelism activities on top of regular whole church celebrations, we have escaped any need to break off. For example, Essential Gathering, our alternative student worship event which bring together all our Fusion cells once a month, provides an opportunity to present church in a more accessible way for students to bring un-saved mates to and to address specifically student issues. It is the student equivalent to a mid-week youth event, or a Kidz Klub on Saturday reaching the un-churched kids in the city. It is always understood as an 'add-on' rather than an 'instead of' wider church events.

iii) Relationship

We are finding increasingly that new students coming up to University each year are unable to relate to and communicate effectively with older generations. But more than that, as media influence promotes diversifying, new forms of expression, we find new languages of youth culture emerging, spanning as little as two or three years. In other words, we now face not just generational but sub-generational gaps. As a result we have been very intentional in trying to intergrate students into relationships with wider church families, through encouraging families into 'adopting' a student and running student lunches with families to maintain some level of relational togetherness. Also, much of the discipleship, accountability and mentoring of students happens at an inter-generational level. Students are encouraged into these relationships with the twenty and thirty somethings in the church - those who are at the next life stage, but still young enough to remember what it is like to be a student, who current students feel confident about talking through real life issues with.

Originally from Yorkshire, John now lives in Liverpool, with his wife Kirsten, an RE teacher. He graduated 3 years ago with BA (Hons) in theology and works for Frontline; a large, inner city cell church in Liverpool as student pastor, overseeing the student fusion cells.

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