The soft-power benefits of educating the world’s leaders

International students here in America and in countries around the world are the key to global mission. Here’s why:

• Global Growth

The growth in the number of international students is explosive. There are five million international students in the world.

• Global Reach
• Change the university, change the world.
• Global Unreached

Two thirds of international students in the US come from the 10/40 window. 

• Global Culture

The global campus is not an American melting pot, nor a Canadian mosaic; instead, it is a global kaleidoscope, in dizzying technicolor. . . . On the global campus, International students—like their domestic peers—are marinated in a global youth culture: selfie-liked identity, app-abbreviated relationships, 15–minute YouTube heroes, tweet size thoughts. On the global campus, trends are transferred and new ones are started. The 

future is being shaped here and disseminated around the world by pixel, and by hand. . . . The worldview that permeates the global campus is a kumbaya of undocumented human goodness and a trust in human ingenuity, with little memory of our histories. On the global campus, young hearts and minds are being shaped, and not in the image of God.

• Global Ministry

China has one and a half million students overseas; but it has half a million foreigners studying in China (as many as in Canada). The top two nationalities of foreign students in China are South Korean and American.

• Global Impact

Most international students who come to faith on our global campuses will return home. Their journey mirrors the shift in the distribution of the church—West to East, North to South. International students transcend both worlds . . .

• Global Missionaries

Churches in the sending countries must send some of their young Christians here as imbedded student missionaries. 

• Global Campuses

Oxford University reports that, “student mobility is shifting from a largely unidirectional east–west flow to a multidirectional movement and encompassing non-traditional sending and host countries.” International education is becoming polycentric. Global campuses are becoming a worldwide phenomenon.

• Global Workplace

On the global campus, the primary focus is work. Students are to succeed when they graduate, so they often left home and crossed the world. . . .We need to teach global students about the power and virtue of the gospel to shape all aspects of their work and the societies their work will build.

• Global Future

The church has not been immune to building its own towers. The city of man is built from the ground up. But the city of God comes down from Him. God is re-gathering the nations, drawing their brightest hopes for the future, to a global campus near you. He wants to reveal Himself to the next generation of every nation.

An article condensed from “Ten Reasons Why the Global Campus is the Future of Mission,” by Alexander Best. Posted July 27, 2019, The Exchange.

At the beginning of the 21st century, Chi Alpha Campus Ministries USA is a major national student movement communicating the love of Jesus Christ and the good news of the gospel to thousands of students each year who matriculate through college. Chi Alpha students actively participate in campus ministry both stateside and abroad. Fifteen hundred campus missionary staff and volunteers serve 20,000 students on 300 campuses nationwide.  Sister campus ministries are active in seventy-five nations. 

Dennis Gaylor writes Growing a Student Movement, The Development of Chi Alpha Campus Ministries, 1940–2020 after having served as the national director of Chi Alpha Campus Ministries USA from 1979–2013. This 674-page comprehensive overview   illustrates the profound influence of Chi Alpha in the church and world today. 

Chi Alpha is rooted in the Assemblies of God (AG) denomination, a church formed at the beginning of the 20th century as part of the modern Pentecostal movement. The name Chi Alpha is derived from the two Greek letters, XA, and the biblical passage, 2 Corinthians 5:19-20, identifying “Christ Ambassadors” or “Christ sent ones.” The AG created a national Youth Department in 1947 and soon began to explore ways to minister to AG youth attending state colleges and universities, particularly as thousands of men and women entered college after returning from WWII. Chi Alpha was first organized at Southwest Missouri State (now Missouri State University) in 1953.

A chronological history of Chi Alpha stateside is brought to life through the decades in eight chapters. The book records 800 photographs, 50 charts, and 100 quotes to help tell the story of people and events in Chi Alpha’s growth. A single watershed moment changed the trajectory of Chi Alpha in 1986 with the organizational move from the national Youth Department to AG US Missions. For the first time, Chi Alpha personnel were recognized as missionaries and mission strategies and methods were applied to advance the ministry on campuses. AG World Missions also began appointing world missionaries to start university ministries in other nations.

Three chapters cover the vast influence of Chi Alpha in world missions, international student ministry, and a parallel history of university ministry outside the US. The final chapters focus on change, new leadership, and spiritual awakening. The epilogue observes the impact on college students and campuses in the year of 2020 during an unprecedented global pandemic, racial justice issues, and the presidential election.  

In Growing a Student Movement, the reader can know the history, experience the present, and catch a vision for the future.