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Is CU a church? If I go to CU why should I go to a local church as well?

There have been many arguments about whether CU is a church or not. In one sense a CU can be called a church only if the meaning of church is a gathering of Christians. However there are several reasons why a CU is not a church because a church is not only a gathering of Christians, it has deeper meanings and does more than gather at certain times. These reasons are,

1. CU leaders are not appointed for their abilities to teach.
2. No biblical eldership is in the CU. They are not expected to shepherd the flock of God, as Peter encourages elders to do (1 Peter 5:1), to protect them from wolves, to lead, guard, care and feed them. They are not expected to keep watch over the souls of the CU members, or have those members obey them (Hebrews 13:17). We do not 'ask students to fulfil the role of elders'.

It is also important to say that a CU cannot function as a church for the following reasons,

1. A CU cannot function as a church in the manner in which Paul and the apostles wanted churches to function because it does not have an appointed ministry of word, sacrament and discipline, and must not pretend to.
2. A CU cannot function as a church because, for all the warmth and closeness of fellowship that can be experienced within a CU, it does not have the communal characteristics of a family that the Bible assumes.
3. A CU cannot function as a church is because it is a specialised ministry that is seeking to target only one mission field. It has a clearly limited missionary objective: students. In no sense does it have the ambition to function as the heterogeneous body that Paul describes in Ephesians 2.

(Information sourced from UCCF Website)

In summary, there is a clear and definite distinction between a church and a CU. The CU is not a Church and therefore we strongly encourage you to find a local church that can serve as your spiritual home whilst away at university.

So taking the above information into consideration and it now being clear that CU is not a Church, we still need to be part of a church community, we still need to be guided by church leaders, ourselves and be discipled. This is why we should attend church as well as CU. Also UCCF encourage the CU members to do the following,

• Be involved in the local church, not independent of the local church
• Seek personal accountability to local church (mature) leadership
• Be committed to getting good Bible teaching from a local church
• Receive appropriate pastoral care and discipleship in their local church and if it's not obviously on offer, request it from church leaders.