I’m a CRIC or CRC student, can I join the Bible studies?
Yes, you are more than welcome to join!
I’m going to be in Cambridge during the holidays. Are there still Bible studies I can join?
Yes! A number of us live in Cambridge and keep meeting regularly 🙂 The best way to keep updated is to get on one of the WhatsApp groups!
How can I join the WhatsApp group(s)?
Just send us an email at cambridgechristianstudents@gmail.com and let us know if you’d like to be on the ‘Thursday Home Meeting’ group, the ‘Friday Bible Study’ group, the ‘Saturday Fellowship and Games’ group, or a ‘Bible Reading Challenge’ group. You can also join the announcement Whatsapp group: tiny.cc/cambridgechristians and message any of the admins.
Why should I join the Bible Reading Challenge?
Joining a Bible Reading Challenge group is a really encouraging way to read through the Gospel of John in just 30 days – the WhatsApp or Facebook groups keep us accountable to one another, as well as being an enjoyable way to share what we are touched with from our reading. God’s word is spirit and life (John 6:63) and brings us light (Psalm 119:130), and we hope that as we all take part in the Bible Reading Challenge this year, we would get to know God and grow in Him more!
I took part in the Bible Reading Challenge last year. Why should I do it again?
When we come to the Lord’s word in a proper way, with a pure heart and are poor in spirit, we find that God’s word is always fresh and always speaking to us. To be poor in spirit means to be unloaded and unoccupied, not thinking we already know everything. We may have read the Bible (or in this case, the Gospel of John) many times before, but there is always new life and light when we exercise our spirit to contact God in His Word. We hope we all will have this experience of treasuring and loving the Word of God!
What’s the Recovery Version and how come you are able to give it away for free?
The Recovery Version is a direct translation of the Bible from the Hebrew/Greek (the original languages the Bible was written in) and is especially helpful for those who would like to study and understand the Bible because it also comes with outlines, footnotes, cross references, maps and charts. It’s a very readable version, yet also focuses on accuracy of translation – which is why the notes can be so helpful to explain why a certain word may be used. Another key factor is that there is a charity, Bibles for Europe, which gives out the Recovery Version of the New Testament for free, in many languages. (You would need to purchase the whole Bible, Old and New Testament, if you want it.) If you have friends in other parts of the world, you can also let them know about Bibles for America, Bibles for Canada, and Bibles for Australia.
Of course, if you prefer to use your own favourite version(s) of the Bible in the Bible studies, you’re more than welcome to!
I came to a Bible study but I didn’t know many of the songs!
Hymns and spiritual songs are wonderful, as they express the song-writers’ experience of the Lord, and help to usher us into the same feeling and experience. We try to sing from songbooks/hymnals that contain collections of songs that are based on the Scripture and help us to focus on the Lord. As there are thousands and thousands of good songs, these books don’t always contain the more recent ones, however we do make use of the internet (songbase.life and hymnal.net are great resources for scriptural songs, both for classic hymns and “new songs”) and like to teach one another new songs, so if you have a favourite, don’t be shy to ask to sing it! (And one of the families nearby often has us over on Saturday evenings for dinner, song learning, and guitar practice, so get connected to that!)
On the topic of singing, you also may notice that we like to practice praying, speaking, or declaring the words of the songs to the Lord and to one another. This comes from Colossians 3:16, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to God,” and Ephesians 5:18b-19, “…be filled in spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and psalming with your heart to the Lord.” It may sound strange or feel awkward at first, but it’s a very enjoyable (and scriptural) way to fellowship with the Lord and with one another, to exercise our spirit to worship God, and to release a sacrifice of praise! 🙂
What’s the University Conference and what makes it so great?
We’ve made a post about it here: Join us for the University Conference! (this was in 2017, but the main content still applies!) and this video will also give you a great taste of the conference (more videos on unistudents.eu):
I’m interested in going to the European University Conference, but I’m not sure how I’d get there?
A group of us normally travel together to the conference from Cambridge, so don’t worry! If the conference is somewhere we can drive to, we’ll chip in to help with the petrol costs and it’s not too expensive at all. For the conference in the Netherlands, we do need to buy flights there, but again can coordinate that together. You just need to let us know that you plan to travel with us so we can make the arrangements. We’ll make announcements about the registration and transport, closer to the time.
There is a bursary available to help those who would like to go to a conference but have limited funds. Please get in touch with one of the WhatsApp community admins if you have any questions about this.
If you have any other questions, send an email to cambridgechristianstudents@gmail.com.