Uncover: Using Uncover in your Christian Union
UCCF: 'Make it seem utterly normal'
Even though I was deep in Conservative Evangelicalism during university, I never felt very comfortable at my London university’s Christian Union (CU).
On one of the very few occasions I went to a meeting, we were put into small groups after listening to a talk by a visiting speaker on Jonah. After a few hushed whispers from older members telling the younger ones what they could discount from the talk, we were asked to tell the group who we felt most uncomfortable talking to about Jesus (usual answers are family, friends, other students). A cold silence fell when I said, “Honestly… nobody.” Clearly, the wrong answer. This is not my ‘holy-than-thou’ moment; This is an on-brand moment of taking a question too literally.
Rather than ‘Who do you not feel comfortable pushing your ideas on?’ I had instead answered ‘Who are you uncomfortable with knowing what you think?’ And like most Northern Irish women, as long as I’m chatting, I don’t mind who it’s with.
The Uncover series is the brainchild of the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF), who head 149 CUs across the UK. These books are design to be the ideal evangelistic tool for CUs - condensed versions of the gospels with study notes, questions, and QR codes for online resources.
The mistake most new university students make is thinking that CUs are clubs for Christians on campus. CUs are really training grounds for young Christians to learn evangelism, and to organise Christians to spread the Christian message on campus effectively.
The Uncover series is designed for CU members to use when asking ‘non-Christians’ to read the Bible with them - the idea being that a small notebook looks less off-putting than a hefty Bible. They are also, in my opinion, a way for UCCF to control what is being taught during these studies, as anyone reading Uncover with a non-Christian is advised to also read a leader’s notes PDF.
UCCF says that the leaders notes should not be used as ‘prescriptive teaching notes’. However, the leader’s notes prepares an (UCCF approved) answer for what is happening in every part of the text.
In John 2:1-11, when Jesus turns the water into wine, UCCF says that Jesus turned the water into wine in ritual stone jars because Jesus brings inner joy rather than a continual reminder of our uncleanness and guilt before God.
A generous reading of their answer is that it’s a weird us vs. them narrative. A critical reading is that it reeks of antisemitism and arrogance. It’s strange to pretend that Jesus snubbed the ritual cleansing of these superstitious Jews when Christians follow Jesus’ example of baptism, and some Christian use holy water to regularly bless themselves.
What is most interesting, is another PDF produced by UCCF. Although it’s available publicly, most normal CU members will have never read it. Uncover: Using Uncover in your Christian Union is aimed at leaders of CUs - student presidents, Relay workers (volunteers), or staff workers (paid) - and it gives advice on inspiring CU members to evangelise with Uncover on campus.
To see how this document pressures an average CU member to step outside their normal relational boundaries, you are going to attend a CU meeting. The aim of the meeting is to introduce you to Uncover. Your CU leaders will follow the steps UCCF sets out for them to convince you to evangelise with Uncovered, and to get you trained up within the first session.
Meeting begins
You are at your weekly CU meeting on the third week of term. You know ahead of time that your CU president and staff worker will be giving a talk on Uncover John.
You’re happy talking about religion with friends but you’re a little bit apprehensive about appearing pushy. This doesn’t matter. Your president and staff worker have been told by the pamphlet that ‘20% of people in the group will be enthusiastic and quick to jump on board, 20% will be hard to budge, and the middle 60% can be influenced either way’. You might not know who is against using Uncover, because your leaders have been told not to give the grinches airtime, but instead to move the 60% (i.e. you) ‘forwards positively’.
When you come in to the meeting, there is an Uncover John on every chair. Your CU president has also been told to put a ‘prayer bookmark’ on the seats but there was no clarification what a prayer bookmark is in the pamphlet or on the UCCF website.
The meeting starts and you all watch the Uncover John introduction video. It’s a broad overview of Jesus and the gospel, rather than about Uncover itself. You will be expected to show this video to the people you are reading with.
Your CU president says that pushing Uncover on to non-Christians is worthwhile because of ‘the core conviction that God speaks by His Spirit through His Word about His Son’. He tells you that Uncover has worked in many CUs in your region, and your staff worker chimes in with examples and stories of this being the case. You are provided with no evidence to back up their claims, but you regularly meet for coffee with your staff worker and you trust them.
Throughout this, your president and staff worker are repeating the mantra: Pray for 3, Give to 3, Read with 3 - which is getting on your tits. They keep repeating it because they have been told by UCCF that ‘vision leaks like water through a sieve’ so they ‘need to keep saying it and saying it in a broad range of ways’.
As well as reading with non-christians, you are told that the CU will be reading Uncover together, in small groups (this means another hour of your week will be taken up by CU). UCCF have advised your leaders to ‘make it seem utterly normal that the CU is reading through John’s Gospel with friends’ by bringing it up regularly.
UCCF has also advised that this Uncover meeting is in the third week of term so that ‘Freshers who have never known anything different will be on board from the beginning’. If you knew that your leaders were deliberately reframing what should feel ‘normal’ for you, you would feel manipulated. Luckily, you believe that it’s not normal (and even sinful) to feel uncomfortable asking to read John with your non-Christian friends.
On-the-spot training
UCCF calls the next section of the meeting ‘on-the-spot training’. You are asked to think of three friends and how you can invite them to read Uncover John with you. You might be asked to draw a diagram indicating the different areas of your life where you have relationships with non-Christians.
Another diagram you may be asked to draw has three circles which increase in size. The smallest circle in the center is your ‘Heart-level friends’ - the ‘ones who really know your hopes and fears, who can often tell how you’re doing without being told’. The middle circle is for ‘Close friends’ and the outer circle is for your ‘Friends’.
First, you are asked to write the initials of all of your friends and place them in the appropriate circle. You are then asked to underline the initals of all the non-Christians in the three circles. According to UCCF, ‘often there will be few [non-Christians] in the inner circle(s)’. You know that you shouldn’t put any non-Christians in the ‘Heart-level’ anyway because your staff worker has helped you see ‘that real friends are interested in what you’re interested in’. Since four days of your week is taken up with church (mid-week Bible study and Sundays) and CU (small group and weekly meeting), you know that the spreading of the gospel is what you’re most interested in.
After you have completed this task, you are asked a question along the lines of, ‘How can I build deeper, real relationships with non-Christians so that they feel what I care most about?’
Your leaders emphasise that these ‘are not techniques to build artificial ‘friendships-with-an-agenda’.
Role-play
In the last third of the meeting, your CU president and staff-worker do a role play on how not to ask someone to read Uncover with you. If anyone in the CU has read Uncover with a non-Christian before, they might be asked to share their success story and divulge how they got a ‘yes’.
After this you are paired with another CU member. In your role-play, you are in a lecture together and you are asking her (playing a non-Christian) to read with you. Other members of your CU have been given other scenarios such as ‘in a bar’ or ‘watching football’. You doubt that these are easy times to talk about Jesus. Even the role-play feels awkward. But that’s why you’re practicing! Plus, you should use any opportunity God presents you with. Everyone seems to feel less awkward by the time roleplaying ends.
Before the meeting finishes, you are given a handout suggesting words and phrases to use with non-Christian friends. One recommended by UCCF is: ‘Hey, you know I am a Christian - well in the CU we are giving people the opportunity to think about Christianity for themselves by looking at the original texts. Would you like to look through it with me?’ When you get home, you take time to underline the best phrases and promise to start using them.
I hope that CU meeting wasn’t too overwhelming for you. Even a confident person might have felt unsettled in your position. You drilled talking about your religion in inappropriate settings, you were pressured to place friends into relational categories, and you were manipulated to see certain friends as far away from your ‘heart’. You might also have noticed how structured this meeting was. It didn’t give you time to vibe check with other members or to voice reservations.
But wait…
Something that may have slipped your notice during the meeting is the lack of Uncover books. But there was one on each seat? Yes, in this meeting that was the case, but that Uncover is for you. If you remember, it’s Pray for 3, Give to 3, Read with 3. You need to go and buy, at least, three more books.
How will your CU fund this? UCCF has told your leaders that those ‘whose hearts are on fire with the vision will not find it difficult to give £3’ and it’s not like you are ‘asking CU members to increase their student loans’. However, if necessary, UCCF advises leaders to ‘challenge [CU members] to give up something and donate the money they have saved’. One of their suggestions is skipping a meal.
CU members are asked to write letters to churches, recent graduates, and their parents to ask for financial support. Although UCCF advises that members ‘Lead with the vision’ and ask primarily for prayer, this is all under their Where will the money come from? subheading .
Why do they need to fundraise if the cost can be covered with £3 from each CU member? The CU is also encouraged to send copies of Uncover to recent CU graduates which, adding the cost of gift copies, a copy for each CU member plus three additional copies, it’s going to work out more than £3 per person.
The scandal
Two UCCF senior staff members were suspended in 2022 and no real explanation for their suspensions and reinstatements has ever been given. A statement containing a summary of the report conducted by an independent investigator hints that UCCF engaged in bad employment practice. A number of trustees resigned after this statement was released and the report from the investigation was never made public.
Since the scandal, two former UCCF staff workers, Nay Dawson and Katie Norouzi, have published articles on Premier Christianity alleging that UCCF pressured its employees to resign and, in a “Legalities of leavers” document, UCCF ‘suggested the organisation would not “stay within the law” if employment law were to clash with “the ministry.”
Their allegations expose UCCF’s habit of ‘[treating] people as commodities’ - a mindset staff workers are pressured to adopt. One CU president I knew, who was concerned about how much of her time CU was taking up, was told that she should be willing to sacrifice her degree if it meant furthering the gospel.
UCCF’s 2023 financial report states that they ‘are working towards a new Uncover gospel project in 2025’. UCCF should consider taking the log out of their own eye before telling non-Christians that they need to change.