Programme and speakers

There's plenty of great things to look forward to at Forum. From excellent seminars to afterhours fun to the morning and evening celebrations, there's always something going on for everyone! Check out the details below to get a flavour for this years programme and follow our socials to find out what our theme for the year will be…

Morning

  • Start the day well as we unite together in pray during the morning prayer meetings.
  • Join in with the morning celebration as we gather together in the Arena to worship, get equipped with great resources and be inspired by fantastic speakers.
  • Before lunch, choose one of the Growing Deeper Tracks: digging deeper over three days into who our God is and what it means to follow Him in His mission.

Afternoon

  • Enjoy lunch together with your CU. This is always a good opportunity to reflect on the teaching you've heard so far, or why not invite other CUs over to hear from them and inspire one another with ideas.
  • We have lots of Forum Fringe activities to make the most including The Mark Drama, crafts, and walks. You can also enjoy time to yourself to rest and reflect. Make the most of the picnic tables, a lake and acres of space on-site to pray, or head to the Forum cafe to refuel.
  • In the afternoon there are a range of seminars helping you think about CU excellence, tackling prevalent issues you face at university, and joining together with similar universities through the 'Your unis, your ideas' seminars.
  • Explore The Hub including exhibitor stands, the Forum café, and Forum Bookshop by 10ofthose.

Evening

  • Grab your food for the evening: whether that is cooking it yourself, collecting it with your meal pass, or having a delicious meal from one of the food vans.
  • Join in with the evening celebration as we gather together in the Arena to worship, get equipped with great resources and be inspired by fantastic speakers.
  • After the evening celebration in the Arena, there's lots of Forum Fringe activities to enjoy! From a silent disco to late night worship to boardgames, we've got you covered.

Morning celebrations

This years morning theme is 'unshakeable'. We'll be exploring how, in a shaken world, only the gospel offers an unshakeable hope, identity, and future. Because the gospel is unshakeable, CU leaders can hold it out with confidence, and shaken people can become unshakable as they encounter its truth.

Jonathan Thomas

Jonathan is married and has 3 boys. He is producer for BBC Radio, shaping broadcasts that bring faith and culture into lively conversation. Before moving into media, he spent 20 years as a church pastor in Wales. His roots in student ministry run deep: first as a CU leader, then as a UCCF Staff Worker, helping students explore Christianity with curiosity, confidence, and intellectual honesty.

He is also the author of Intentional Interruptions and the presenter of the documentary Welsh Awakenings.

Jonathan will be exploring the unshakeable theme during our morning celebrations through various passages in Romans.

Evening celebrations

Our evening talks will be thinking about what it means to lead and be leaders in light of who God is, drawing on a variety of passages across the week. A number of UCCF faces will be speaking as well as guest speaker, Phil, on Friday evening who is currently serving as a missionary in South East Asia.

Pick one track and stick to it for the week to dive deep into these topics and deepen your knowledge of God.

Andrew Sach - Bible Overview

The bible contains many stories - David slaying Goliath; Jonah swallowed by a fish; the walls of Jericho falling down; Naaman healed of leprosy; Jeroboam’s wife unsuccessfully disguising herself; Eutychus falling out of a window during a long sermon - but each is part of a bigger story, an overarching plan of God stretching from the creation of the world in Genesis 1 to a “new heaven and a new earth” in Revelation 21-22. In three sessions we will trace three strands of this bigger story as we discover how the whole bible fits together.

Andrew is co-Pastor of Grace Church Greenwich and a tutor on the Cornhill Training Course in London. He is a regular conference speaker and has cowritten the Dig Deeper series, Pierced for our Transgressions and Are you 100% sure you want to be an agnostic? He cohosts Grace Pod, an expository podcast.

Andrew Bunt - Sexuality and Gender: God’s Good News for our Big Questions

Andrew will be exploring how God has good news for our big questions about sexuality and gender, how we can live out that good news ourselves, and how we can communicate it well to others.

Andrew is part of the leadership team of King’s Church Bexhill and is content director at Living Out, a charity that helps people, churches and society talk about faith and sexuality. He is the author of several books, including People Not Pronouns: Reflections on Transgender Experience (Grove, 2021) and Getting God’s Perspective: A Short Christian Introduction to Worldviews, Sexuality and Gender (IVP, 2026)

Helen Thorne-Allenson - Flourishing in leadership

Leadership is a high calling but it is no easy task, we all need the Lord's help to serve him and serve those we have been invited to lead. In this track we will look at the privilege of leadership, what the role involves - the posture of leadership, the manner in which God calls his people to lead - and the pitfalls of leadership, the ways in which we need to be alert to what can go wrong in our hearts and relationships - and, in the process, encourage each other to flourish in our leadership roles.

Helen Thorne-Allenson is the Director of Training and Resources at Biblical Counselling UK. She is an experienced speaker and author whose recent books include A Church that Cares, Hope in an Anxious World, 5 Things to Pray for a Suffering Friend and Mental Health and your Church. She lives in Hampshire with her husband, Nick and very much enjoys gardening and eating Korean food.

Dan Strange - Making faith magnetic

Based on his book 'Making Faith Magnetic', this track we will be focusing on cultural apologetics and engagement based with a view on how a 'magnetic points' analysis can help CU's in their evangelism and discipleship.

Dan is a theologian and author. He is in theological leadership at The London Project, Strategic Advisor for Culture and Contextualization at Terminus, and Fellow of the Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. He is an elder at Hope Community Church, Gateshead, married, with lots of kids, and long-suffering West Ham fan.

Jim Murkett & Matt Lillicrap - The God who is there

Who is God? What is He like? How do these truths glorify God and bring us joy? Join us at this track to explore some of these crucial questions together. As we gaze in wonder at our God together, we will be moved to delight in him – all He is within Himself and all He has done for us. Over our time together we will look at some key realities about God; important characteristics about God that underpin our faith, motivate us in CU mission and lead us to delight more fully in God as He really is! We will cover some deep terrain together, but the journey will be well worth it as we come to delight more fully in God and in who He is.

Jim is the UCCF Midlands team leader, Matt is CEO of UCCF.

More sessions to be announced soon.

Download the Forum app to view the entire programme plus plenty of other things including session speakers, essential event info, and all of our exhibitors. Available on IOS and Android, just search UCCF Forum in your app store.

The Forum app for this year will be launched in June, but you can still download the app to see last years content to get a flavour of what to expect.