The following are a compiled lists of responses from feedback forms from the first members meeting... Questions in bold, responses as follows
What is the purpose of fellowship to you?…to worship God and get to know Him corporately
…a place where fellow students can meet together as a family of believers in Christ, where they can encourage, support, edify and rebuke each other and where they can be salt and light on our campus in sharing to others about our faith.
…a training ground to equip students in their endeavors as a student and Christian on campus. A shining light on campus. Make our presence shown
…get to know people, worship God.
…provide a place/environment where brothers and sisters in Christ can develop meaningful, edifying and challenging relationship with one another; enables individual to gather together to collectively do God’s will on this campus
…to be a body of Christ that provide a challenging and loving environment for Christian to grow closer to God and through example help others enter into a relationship with Jesus.
…a place for encouragement, growth, relationship, challenge, exploring new ministry ideas
…to develop strong Christians who actively seek God while encouraging each other (seekers included) to also do the same.
…a place to grow spiritually and be encouraged and kept accountable by fellow brothers and sisters.
…to support one another on our spiritual journeys
… provide an environment where people can search for answers to ‘life questions’
…to hold me accountable
… to push me forward in my walk
…to grow spiritually and mature together as a fellowship
…to meet brothers and sisters to be supported by and to help support them.
…learn more about God
…to be encouraged by a community of believers
…to challenge and be challenged
How do you think the fellowship is achieving that now?…Friday nights
…programs
…cell groups
…the fellowship helps build us up to be bold in sharing to our peers and classmates
…cell groups like alpha for non-believers but not preclusive, other CG like womens/mens/ cell allow relationships to grow on a deeper level and allow for accountability
…lifesong, outreach events allow others to hear and see a glimpse of the fellowship
…coordinating events for the glory of God
…I think CCF has done quite a bit in terms of bringing out the desire to spread the gospel and be a witness for Christ in its members, but members still have difficulty acting on that desire
…through a strong sense of community and offering Christ-centered teaching; also very open for seekers. Sometimes too much emphasis on “social”.
…I’ve met a few ppl who challenge me in my growth
…I have opportunities to encourage some younger students
…CCF is mostly social. We seem to place more emphasis on each other rather than God. God seems like an afterthought
…it’s doing alright, good community, but not too much emphasis on accountability
…though cell groups
…the convention was good for ‘life questions’
…help maintain relationships
…gives generous directions for one aspect of my spiritual life
…by meeting regularly and fellowshipping with each other relationships will be built
…it’s encouraging and somewhat challenging
Strengths of CCF:-community among believers
-loving one another
-building disciples
-body of strong passionate believers of Christ
-look after frosh well
-diverse cell groups for ppl of all spiritual levels and with diverging interests
-large #
- large resources
-BS
-cohesive
-clear vision and presentation of vision for this year
-community, loving caring brothers and sisters, great opportunites to serve, seeker-friendly
-opportunities to serve, try new things
-care among most members
-organization in programming
-community
-friendly ppl
-promote opportunities
-gives place fro worship, bonding and learning
-familiness
-lots of ppl with different opinions/perspective
-close community
Weaknesses of CCF:-lack of transparency among the members
-tend to have a very inward focus
-accountability
-followup after events/outreach
-tendency for newcomers to be overwhelmed by size of fellowship and not follow up with newcomers
-large # ppl (lower intimacy, turn off for new comers?)
-ppl don’t’ really know about us, what we do
-we may not understand our non-Christian peer group as well as we think (?)
-too social sometimes outside of Friday night, some lack of accountability
-lack of spiritual mentoring, growing new leaders from younger ppl at CCF
-fellowship among members is strong, sometimes it overshadows the real focus of why we gather
-don’t see desire to reach out to non-Christians
-why should there be CCF at all (?)
-Why Chinese???
-cliques
-range of spiritual maturity too large
-not personal enough
-not necessarily accountable
-with large membership hard to serve everyone
-intimidating for newer members
-sometimes too comfortable. Unhealthy ‘comfort-zone’
Areas for improvement:-balance with outward focus -> how do we reach the ppl on campus
-promote transparency/authenticity
-more non-Friday night events
-deepening members’ realization that we part of a great worldwide movement, one part of the large body of God’s church
-spiritual development (always can be improved)
-integrity, it’s easy to point fingers at others but not ourselves
-passion for lost
-challenge members to seek answers, to grow spiritually
-need to help build relationships (deeper)
-need to help build through processes
-bondness. Saying what ppl really think/feel rather than staying quiet
Specific topics to cover:-how to make ordinary days extraordinary with Jesus
- tithing
-world issues
-excellence, giving God 100% in all we do (?)
-apologetics, ‘hard questions’, more community involvement
-strong bonds with each other with God *clearly as the centre of relationships
-apologetics
- where is God when it hurts?
-personal faith
-define various aspects of Christianity
-purpose. Role of Christ in our lives
-things we should be avoiding/wise to avoid (eg. Shows, movies, magazines, events)
Additional Comments:-when talking to those who’ve left CCF or seekers who were turned away from Christianity the same answer is almost always given as to why. ‘Hypocrisy’. For every 1 thing we do right critics will always see 10 things wrong. But if we obviously are trying to change even the critics will find it hard to criticize.
-Jesus RULES!
