This article first appeared as a member exclusive resource for the Association of Christians Ministering Among Internationals (ACMI).
What comes to mind at the mention of International Student Ministry (ISM)? For some, it might draw a blank. After all, the majority of the roughly 2 million international students in North American universities and colleges (and about 7 million worldwide) come from 10/40 Window or “Restricted Access Nations,” and do not naturally intersect with typical Christian or church circles. They are a transient diaspora, an invisible people group, and easily missed.
Perhaps ISM is seen as the “fun” ministry—BBQs, boardgames, and occasional Bible studies. Or perhaps it is simply “College Ministry with Curry,” a familiar model with an international twist. For those who have experienced the highly relational aspects of ISM, concerns may arise about parachurch ISM organizations drawing the church’s most caring, welcoming, and sociable people away from congregational ministry. After all, there is crucial ministry to be done without spending countless hours on social events with a handful of “foreign students.”
But what if ISM was much more than all that? What if ISM could be a transformational catalyst for church growth, intercultural community outreach, and practical discipleship, leading to a deeper comprehension of the Bible, a richer walk with Christ, and world changing Gospel engagement among the congregation of a local church? Those involved in ISM sometimes call it the nexus of all things global missions, but what if ISM were also a blessing to the local church? Here are five ways that it is so:
1. ISM Expands Our World
Serving alongside international students is a continual process of healthy bubble-breaking, where God continually shows us a larger perspective beyond our localized cultural lenses. We discover a world that thinks differently, has different perspectives, priorities, and values, where assumed norms about family, friendship, even time itself are challenged. Yet therein we also see the wonder of how God tenderly meets each culture with the Gospel, bringing the blessings of his Kingdom into areas of life we in the West barely consider.
At a recent incubator conference for entrepreneurially inclined international students, every single delegate had stories of trauma, grief, and loss. Yet every single one was turning that suffering into an impetus for launching Kingdom building non-governmental organizations to address problems within their homelands. A young Nigerian man, whose home country had 90% of the world’s martyrs in 2022, focused on nurturing peacemakers through discipleship, leadership development and mentoring for Christian and Muslim university students. Another aimed to eradicate childhood homelessness and mortality in her country. Yet another is developing educator training so that children with special needs would have the opportunity to go to school in a culture that believed them possessed by demons. A Rwandan genocide survivor was developing an organization that offers trauma counseling, spiritual discipleship, and sustainable agricultural development among people from both sides of the conflict, bringing the salve of peace to the scars of fear and hatred.
It was an honor to walk alongside these and more world changers, who were each addressing issues within their countries that barely cross our minds in the daily bustle of our lives.
What would it mean for churches within individualistic cultures to walk alongside international students? To share life beyond the bubble, beyond our immediate surroundings, and to see how the Gospel transitions from theory to practice as it brings peace, redemption, transformation, and hope even to the darkest recesses of our world, near and far? Would happen to comfortable suburbanites, complacent congregants, and increasingly anxious, cynical youth? Would their world become just that little bit bigger?
2. ISM Expands Our Understanding of the Comprehensiveness of the Gospel
Often in the West, the presentation and understanding of the Gospel is primarily based on a Guilt Innocence paradigm1 our sin makes us guilty before the thrice-holy God, but Jesus’ propitiatory sacrifice allows us to be declared innocent before the God. That is true and gloriously so, but not the only portrayal of the Gospel. Like a diamond with many facets, the Bible presents the same Gospel in different ways, which resonate differently among global cultures.
For example, East Asian, Confucian cultures value the primacy of family, filial piety, and relational obligations. Here, the loving Father beckoning the wanderer home in the Parable of the Prodigal Son speaks powerfully to themes of adoption, fatherhood, kinship, relational faithfulness, and universal harmony in eternal Shalom. These cultural throughlines resonate more deeply than the judicial aspects of the Gospel, which, while gloriously true, can initially be perceived as cold, distant, and impersonal.
And here the wonder unfolds: As different cultures resonate with different aspects of the Gospel, God, in his grace and power has ensured that the Bible has them covered! Serving alongside international students, we witness the biblical Gospel’s beautiful comprehensiveness as students from different cultures discover how Jesus specifically and personally meets them in their culture, and how the Gospel is specifically Good News for them, their families, and their nations.
1 Jayson Georges, “The 3D Gospel: Ministry in Guilt, Shame, and Fear Cultures, and Werner Mischke, The Global Gospel: Achieving Missional Impact in our Multicultural World,” provide excellent overviews of this concept.
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