Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union

rdf:langString Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union

rdf:langString The Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, usually known as CICCU, is the University of Cambridge's most prominent student Christian organisation, and was the first university Christian Union to have been founded. It was formed in 1877, but can trace its origins back to the formation of the Jesus Lane Sunday School in 1827 and the Cambridge Prayer Union in 1848. CICCU's stated purpose is "to make Jesus Christ known to students in Cambridge". Currently CICCU runs two main outreach activities – 'Events Week' in Lent term, and 'Big Questions' lunches on Fridays in St Andrew the Great which feature short talks and Q&As about questions of life and faith – along with a variety of occasional events, and bigger activities in colleges. Students in many other universities followed Cambridge's lead in forming their own Christian Unions, beginning with OICCU being founded in Oxford in 1879. Initially CICCU was part of the Student Christian Movement, which it left in 1910 to provide a specifically conservative evangelical ministry in Cambridge. Again, OICCU and other Unions followed them in this move, and together they founded the Inter-Varsity Fellowship of Evangelical Unions in 1928, which now the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship or UCCF. UCCF spread to Canada in the same year and later to the United States, Australia (Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students), New Zealand (Tertiary Students Christian Fellowship) and across the globe.