Overseas Christian Fellowship Australia

The Overseas Christian Fellowship Australia (OCF Australia) is a parachurch Christian organization which ministers to overseas students studying in Australian universities and colleges of higher education. OCF Australia is inter-denominational and evangelical in its doctrinal stand. Historically, members of OCF mostly consists of students from South East/East Asian countries, such as Brunei, Canada, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea, as these form the bulk of overseas student population in Australia since the 1950s. OCF also ministers to students from other countries, most notably those from island nations near Australia, such as Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Tonga. In recent years, students from mainland China have gained prominence, reflecting the influx of mainland Chinese students.

History

In the 1950s, there began an influx of Asian students into the capital cities of Australia. Christian overseas students were meeting independently almost unknown to one another in a few cities, starting with Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne.

OCF Sydney took the initiative of inviting other Christian overseas students in Melbourne and Adelaide to their Easter Camp held in 1958. That meeting provided great encouragement to the ministries and that friendship paved the way for the inauguration of OCF (Australia) the following year. OCF Melbourne was officially formed immediately after the Sydney camp, and OCF Brisbane followed suit a few months later.

It was decided that meeting together annually was a profitable activity that would mutually encourage one another. OCF Melbourne volunteered to take responsibility of organising a conference the following January and during the Convention held at Cowes, Victoria, the body known was Overseas Christian Fellowship (Australia) officially came into being after much prayer and discussion.

With this, overseas university students at the Cowes Convention laid the foundation for OCF Australia, and gave it the vision and aims upon which all future OCF chapters (called "centres") based their activities. They were joined by Christians in Perth, Western Australia in the following year and by 2005 had covered six states and one territory, spanning some 24 centres [(OCF Handbook, 2005, 7th Ed.)] .

Currently OCF Australia's official website is located at [http://www.ocfaustralia.org www.ocfaustralia.org] .

Vision

The vision of OCF (Australia) is

"To reach out to all overseas students in Australia,
build them up to be Christ's disciples,
and send them back to their home countries as disciple-makers" (OCF Handbook 2005)

The mission of OCF centres on reaching international students in university campuses across Australia with the intention that they will be built up and sent back as disciples of Christ to their respective home countries, where they will continue to challenge and build others up.

Network

Currently [http://www.ocfaustralia.org OCF Australia] exists in university campuses across six states and one territory. [ The OCF Handbook 7th Edition lists the year of affiliation for all centres up to 2005. This table is updated as of the 37th Annual General Meeting held at Rawson Village, Victoria, 2006] Most of these centres are affiliated with their respective university student unions and operate as official clubs on campus.

There are also non-functional centres, which were either officially dissolved or closed temporarily due to declining membership levels. There is however a possibility for them to be reopened, God willing, in future. They include:

Footnotes

References

* cite book
author=Overseas Christian Fellowship (Australia)
title=Overseas Christian Fellowship Handbook
year=2005
edition=7