’24-’25 Christian Challenge recap: Impacting students with the gospel, making disciples

The college campus is a place of significant life transitions. With change and transition comes a unique and eager receptiveness to the gospel. Christian Challenge seeks to meet college students in this season with the gospel and mobilize them as disciple-makers and leaders of their local churches.

The 2024-2025 school year demonstrated just how eager students are to grow in faith.

“If our churches are going to grow and continue to thrive, then we have got to reach the next generation,” said Marc Hill, state director of Christian Challenge. “College is a pivotal time and a strategic time to reach them because of the nature of who they are and where they are in life.”

This past school year, Christian Challenge saw 18,663 students attend at least one ministry event across 23 different campuses in Arizona. Of those students, 611 regularly participated in the ministry.

“I run into people who view the college campus as just a place of sin,” Hill said. “When I share with them the involvement we have, people are blown away because they had no idea that Christians not only can thrive on campus, but that students are getting saved.”

This past year, 4,567 students heard the gospel.

Christian Challenge has various methods for sharing the gospel across their campuses, but one main strategy is that of gospel appointments. Gospel appointments are one-on-one meetings between a believer and another individual with the expressed purpose of sharing the good news of salvation through the forgiveness of sin.

Forty-two students made a profession of faith, and 37 students were baptized as a result of hearing the gospel through Christian Challenge.

“Challenge is sharing the gospel, and they are inviting students to be involved in their local church,” Hill said. “When a student comes to faith, then they can readily get baptized because we are in partnership with local churches.”

In 2023, Christian Challenge added “sending missionaries to the world” as part of their mission statement. Since then, there has been a significant increase in the number of students involved in missions, with 297 students involved this past school year. Local churches are a large part of what makes mission experiences possible for students as they offer direct avenues for student participation.

Furthermore, 553 students were discipled through Challenge Communities. Challenge Communities are missional, small group Bible studies led by students. Of those students pressing into discipleship and evangelism, 101 of them serve as student leaders within their Challenge chapter, and 15 students are preparing for vocational ministry after college.

“Numbers do not tell the whole story, but these numbers represent human beings, represent souls, and that is why they are important,” Hill said.

One thing that is evident in these numbers is that college students are invested in church membership. In partnering with the local church, Christian Challenge is not only raising up vibrant believers but faithful, lifelong church members.

“We are getting older as Christians in America,” Hill said. “There’s a void between the old and the young, and we have got to have young leaders coming up ready to take over when our leaders, our pastors, step away.”

As Christian Challenge looks forward to another year of engaging college students with the gospel, developing disciples, mobilizing servant leaders and sending missionaries to the world, they do so for the glory of Christ and the desire to bring students into a saving relationship with Jesus. We as church members must pray that Challenge chapters across Arizona would connect to new students, that there would be open doors for the gospel, and that students would, through Challenge, grow in their faith and serve.