Sharing Christ on campus: Church on Wednesday at the University of Ottawa
Worship songs do not usually echo through the halls of a Canadian university campus, but that is exactly what you will hear on a Wednesday night at the University of Ottawa.
Nearly one hundred young people gather each week in the Agora, an auditorium in the centre of campus, just a short walk from Parliament Hill. A half-way on two sides means the room is open to one of the school’s busiest hallways, sharing the Gospel-driven music and preaching to anyone passing by.
Simply titled Church on Wednesday, the weekly service was created by Daniel Gilman, Peter Mahaffey, and Joey McNitt, with the full support of two on-campus ministries and three local churches. It includes well-known worship songs, preaching, and a public time of question and answer with the guest speaker. Each night ends with the students breaking into small groups for prayer.
Daniel Gilman completed both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Ottawa’s downtown university, and felt a call, with many others in the capital city, to reach out to the students there.
“Every year there are several thousand students who come to the University of Ottawa who would identify as Christian,” he said. “Many of them will wander away from the faith, not because they’ve stopped believing in Jesus, but because it’s just a new city and they don’t have a home church, and as a result, church simply isn’t their highest priority amidst all school and first-year life.”
He continued by saying, “We wanted to bring the local church to campus with a heart to see students’ lives be transformed by the Gospel. To help students grow in being disciples of Jesus.”
One of the things that surprised Gilman is the amount of non-Christians he interacts with on a weekly basis.
“We started with a heart to really minister to students who were kind of drifting from the faith,” he said. “But what we didn’t anticipate was the number of non-Christians who would be joining us and becoming Christians and getting baptized. That’s been one of the most exciting things.”
In fact, Gilman pointed out, a few students came to Church on Wednesday without any prior experience in a church, and had since given their lives to the Lord.
Although the organizers and guest speakers know that non-Christians are listening, they don’t water-down the Gospel message in any way.
“Right in the DNA of Church on Wednesday is that we preach the meat of the Scriptures, try to fully preach verse-by-verse through the Bible, but using language that is accessible to non-Christians, so that both for Christians who know their Bibles cover to cover are getting ministered to, and people who have no exposure to church are able to track with and understand what’s being said,” Gilman explained.
The purpose of Church on Wednesday, Gilman stressed, was not to replace local churches, but to create a connection between students and congregations nearby.
“That informs everything we do,” he said.
Andy Falleur, who pastors Calvary Fellowship Church in downtown Ottawa, was the guest speaker the evening I attended. He sees an incredible opportunity for Christians to reach out to students.
“This is the age when most people make decisions for Christ,” he said, “and so Christians should have a key presence on university campuses.”
Falleur urged Christian leaders not to try to create exact replicas of Church on Wednesday on other Canadian university campuses.
“Thinking about somebody who is a Pastor in another part of the country, pray that God will open up the door for ministry,” Falleur said. “Don’t get caught up in trying to repeat the pattern of what God is doing somewhere else.”
“Sometimes we can learn from what people are doing in other places, but let’s not forget, He wants to do something great where they live,” he concluded.
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