(Note: when I write of colleges, I’m mostly thinking of public colleges, where in the U.S., any American citizen has a constitutional right to freely and openly use it as a forum for the expression of his beliefs and convictions. Public colleges at least ought to be some of the best forums for the free exchange of ideas and beliefs. (obviously this largely isn’t the case, as I’ll explain))

Yesterday, I visited the college campus that I’ve been visiting with the gospel for the past month and a half. As is my practice, I began by offering tracts to people. After offering tracts to at least a dozen people, and receiving mostly disinterested cold shoulders, shaking of heads, or completely blank stares straight ahead, I decided to take advantage of a situation that was developing. I noticed that there was a great stream of students walking passed a raised platform near the center of the campus square. Seeing that this was the great opportunity I’ve usually watched for, I ascended the platform, faced downstream of the walking people, pulled up the Gospel of John on my phone, and began to loudly read God’s Word to them. Most of the students who passed by tried to act like I wasn’t there, but several gave me their attention as I preached the gospel of Jesus. After several minutes, one young man walked near to the bottom step of the platform, and watched me as I finished the introduction to John, and launched into an extemporaneous declaration of the good news of salvation through faith in the crucified and risen Savior.

I continued to preach until the steady stream of people dwindled to one or two occasionally walking past. I decided that I’d now address the young man that still stood nearby, and entered into conversation with him. He began by praising my preaching, and expressing his appreciation for my efforts to meet the spiritual needs of the students, and I soon learned that he was a believer. One of his friends joined us, who disclosed himself as a believer as well. I soon learned that they were both members of a Christian club on the campus, and began to ask them about who they were, and what they were doing as students there. It was one of the most encouraging conversations that I’ve had in my entire Christian life, and that I’ve had in a long time. I was able to greatly encourage them, and to give them biblical counsel and instruction in the course of our conversation, and I ended up meeting another member of the same club.

After finishing my conversation, the second young man actually offered to join me in handing out tracts, and we spent a good bit of time handing out at least a dozen tracts to people, and sharing the gospel with a few. As my parking time limit was close to ending, I had to start back to my car, and get ready to leave. Before leaving, I had another good conversation with my new found brother, gave him my contact information, and promised that I’d pray for him.

Thus ended the beginning of a new and exciting era in my Christian service of preaching and discipleship. I made a few good connections with believers, was able to encourage and instruct them, and left them with several avenues to good resources for teaching and encouragement, including invitations to my weekly assembly of brethren, which is very close to the campus. And this all began with open-air preaching!

The Desperate Need on College Campuses

There are at least a few reasons why I regularly share the gospel at this college, not the least of which is because North American campuses are white for harvest, and the faithful laborers are so few. Several polls and surveys from the last few years, and even the last decade, have shown that today’s college students are more open than ever to learning about spiritual things. Most of our western colleges are strongholds of the devil, where atheism, humanism, evolutionism, progressivism, and false religions such as Islam and Buddhism are taught and embraced with vigor and deadly effect. At the same time, thousands of students are confused by some of these conflicting worldviews, and most of them just follow along with the godless and purposeless humanism that is arrogantly propagated by most of the college faculty.

To add to the chaos, many students are increasingly drawn to the rich and powerful voices of self-purported spiritual and moral teachers and leaders on social media, such as Jordan Peterson, Russell Brand, Richard Dawkins, and so on. Most western students are confused, depressed, anxious, ignorant, hurrendously deceived, and highly skeptical to any claims of truth or objective morality.

What is worse is that most representations of Christianity at our culture’s colleges are severely lacking in faithfulness to the pure and holistic teachings of Jesus and the apostles. The most popular and loud influences there are shallow, anti-intellectual, emotionalistic, and/or hindered and deceived by various false teachings and worldly practices. Extreme forms of pentecostalism and charismaticism, as well as emotionalistic and sentimental forms of simple-minded and compromised evangelicalism are all too prevalent and popular on these campuses. Not only does the research support this, but my own personal experience being a member of a Christian club on a college, and my investigation into the options for Christian organizations on the nearby colleges give me ample evidence that these stains and blemishes on the name of Jesus are what most students and faculty see at these places. Christian college leaders and societies that are substantially grounded in robust, diligent, and comprehensive Christian teaching and practices are all too rare on all types of campuses, even so-called Christian ones.

So, for all these reasons, there’s a great need for well-taught and godly gospel preachers on college campuses. In addition, think of the huge importance of college students and faculty to western society! As of now in the U.S., the default course of action for most young people is to enroll in a college after graduating high school. This means that most of western young adults are college students! And not only this, but their young adult years are the ones in which they have come to use to form their beliefs about their identities, their place in the world, and their core beliefs about life, the world, their relationships with others, and most importantly, their views on the ultimate purposes for human life and death. In other words, the college years are the years in which most westerners’ whole set of beliefs, guiding principles, and everday habits are formed and solidified. Sadly, and frighteningly, we now live in western societies where the higher educational centers are now the great propagators and defenders of the prevailing pagan and anti-Christian beliefs and attitudes that dominate our idolatrous, debased, and anti-biblical western culture.

With all these considerations, I’ve concluded that western colleges are some of the most strategic places in which to preach the gospel and make disciples. There is such a confused flurry of contradictory teachings, and hopeless myths and lies, being taught and investigated by students, that there is a prime opportunity for believers to preach the gospel of truth, life, and hope to these poor, ignorant, deceived, and miserable young people. As the Lord’s ambassadors on this earth, it’s our duty to add the truth of God’s Word to these conflicting voices, and share the hope, peace, purpose, and joy that believing the gospel brings to perishing sinners. If even one prominent college was to experience a spiritual awakening of most of the students, let alone the faculty, just think of what this would mean for the communities and places that those students would later go! If even a small but significant part of the western colleges were to have strong, thriving, and powerful Christian communities studying and serving at them, just think of what this would mean for those towns, and western society at large, especially in the near future!

At our western campuses, we must remember that a great number of our future politicians, lawyers, doctors, scientists, teachers, and business owners are being educated. Thus, we as the holy nation of God on earth have a great opportunity to rescue these open-minded, easily-swayed, and key members of our societies from the chains of unbelief and ungodliness through the preaching and teaching of the gospel.

So, is your congregation actively involved in reaching the masses of perishing sinners at your nearby college?

Needed: Mature Gospel Preachers and Teachers at Colleges

I conclude with this earnest appeal for your prayerful consideration — where are the evangelists, Bible teachers, and Christian leaders who are concertedly and deliberately assaulting the citadels of Satan where thousands of some of the most influential, ignorant, and deceived westerners are currently being pumped with anti-Christ, anti-Bible, Satanic, and humanistic philosophies, beliefs, and principles? Where are the men gifted to boldly, passionately, and wisely preach the gospel at all costs, even if it means standing above a crowd and heralding the gospel of peace? Where are the compassionate and passionate teachers of the Scriptures and wisdom who are regularly going to colleges to tell the lost students the good news of the Way, the Truth, and the Life who satisfies all the needs of the human heart for eternity? Where are the elders and pastors who have a concern for spiritual death, weakness, and compromise of ostensibly Christian clubs and societies at their nearby colleges?

Even more generally, what are you doing to bring the gospel to your unbelieving neighbors, co-workers, family members, and friends? Do you have a heart to proclaim the glorious good news of our great God and Savior? Do you have an inner anguish and sorrow over the miserable and wretched state of the sinners among whom you live? Do you feel pity for their ignorance, hopelessness, and enslavement to Satan, the world, and their inner bent to evil? What do you do on a regular basis to make your speech be filled with the grace of the gospel, and to direct your neighbor’s attention to their need, and to answer to their need?

Let me urge you — please consider these things. Remember that we aren’t only on earth simply to be holy and godly, but that our Christlike character ought to motivate and enable us to share the gospel of salvation with those who need to understand it, as we’re given opportunity. There is a Great Commission still to be fulfilled, there are lost sheep still to be found, there are God’s chosen ones still to be called out of darkness into light! So pray that the Lord of the harvest would send out laborers into His harvest field, and strive together with your closest brethren to advance the faith of the gospel, so that sinners will be saved, and the name of the Lord Jesus will be increasingly made known among the peoples who are still subjects of Satan’s kingdom, to the praise of the true God. And think about the colleges near you, and the students and faculty that work there, as well as the public witness of the gospel in your community at large. While we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, including preaching and teaching the gospel to them! Send the light, the blessed gospel light — let it shine from shore to shore!