History

The AFES origin story began in the UK in 1877 when the first university Christian union was formed at Cambridge. A similar Christian university group was founded in Oxford soon after and by 1928 groups across the UK joined together to become the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF).

Gripped by the global gospel need, generous students from these British Christian unions partnered together to send their fellow students as missionaries to the nations. The overflow of that generosity was used to send American travelling evangelist John Mott to Australia where he helped found the first Australian Christian unions in 1896. These early Christian unions were passionately focused on recruiting student volunteers for global mission. That same passion for global mission remains a deeply held value of AFES.

This question has shaped our groups from the beginning. In answer to this question, student leaders decided the blood of Jesus was not just important, but essential to the gospel. We still hold that the atoning work of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins is the message of first importance for which God has placed us in the universities (1 Cor 15: 3).

As is still the case in AFES today, global mission passion gave birth to local gospel effort. In 1930, students gathered on university campuses across Australia to hear English evangelist Dr Howard Guinness preach God‘s gospel of grace. Convicted that they had to share the good news of Jesus with their fellow university students, Christian student groups sprang up on campuses across Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, and Hobart to prayerfully proclaim the gospel together.

One of the great joys of AFES is prayerfully proclaiming Christ not as isolated group on individual campuses, but as a national fellowship united by the Gospel. In 1930, encouraged by another visit by evangelist Howard Guinness, those first fledgling groups were joined by new groups in Perth and Adelaide. Together they formed a national network of University Christian Groups called the Australian InterVarsity Fellowship (IVF).

By God’s grace, AFES has the privilege of being one of the 10 founding members of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES). IFES was formed in 1947 when National Christian University fellowships from Australian, Canada, China, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, the UK and the USA networked together for the cause of the Gospel. Since then that network has grown to include student groups from over 180 countries, including 9 from the IFES region of the South Pacific of which we are a part. It is a wonderful global fellowship for a wonderful global gospel.

To reflect our ongoing membership in the IFES, in 1973 we changed our name from the Australian IVF to the Australian Fellowship of evangelical students (AFES). While our name may have changed, our mission remained the same: proclaiming Christ on campus to present everyone mature in him.

In 1997 we re-launched our nationwide student conference as the National Training Event (NTE). A 5-day event where we make the most of our national gospel fellowship together, NTE has seen thousands of students trained, transformed and sent with the gospel back to their campuses and then into the nations. Packed full of dependant prayer, deep Bible teaching, excellent training and rich fellowship, now 30 years strong NTE remains high point in the AFES calendar.

From the very start of our fellowship, with evangelist Howard Guinness, we've embarked on mission. Most recently, this happened in 2024 with the “Meet Jesus” campaign. AFES groups across Australia united together, along with partnering churches to help our friends and classmates and beyond to “Meet Jesus”.

As we approach the 100th year of our national fellowship – a fellowship depending on God and his grace and proclaiming his gospel on campus. We do it both humbly and expectantly. Humbly remembering the story so far and the shoulders on which we stand. And expectantly looking forward to what our mighty God is yet to do. And so we pray, by his grace, he might even use us as he writes the next chapter – for the glory of Jesus our Lord. After all, “He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.” Colossians 1:28