Summertime. World Cup and Wimbledon. Sunny skies. Some graduating. Some going home for the first time as Christians!

How do you feel as you look ahead?

Wherever you are, remember this: Jesus has a body.

He's not a decorpulated head. He has a body, the church. In term time we each belong to a local church and we work together in Christian Unions to build those churches. The CU and your church are a place to be committed relationally, and the place we long to see students find life as they hear the gospel. It was great to hear of two students baptised at a church in Exeter recently, having become Christians this year. It's good to know that Jesus is building his church through the CUs.

And looking forward, let's remember: A Christian life is simply not meant to be lived alone. The gospel of Jesus creates a community, for the Triune God is a community.  We're invited to live with the Father, Son and the Spirit and with the people of God. With people who can keep our hearts fixed upon Jesus. People who will encourage us to come out into "the sunshine of the gospel" again and again. It's not always easy. Each time we meet with others we have the opportunity to love and bear with others and to grow together.

Let's make the most of being with others over the summer, maintaining relationship with those in the CU and our Uni churches. It's essential to persuasively speak of Jesus, but it's also essential to be community. A loving community - where members belong to one another, eat together, are involved in one another's lives, reflecting the life of the Triune God together - is the context for our evangelism. It's into the united community of the CU, and each of our local churches, that we call people to come as they come to know Jesus.

If you're moving on this summer, please pray for those who will continue to reach students - as we pray that you'll be knit into a new local church from which you can reach those God places around you.