Kevin Yeung is the AFES FOCUS Staff Team Leader at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. Before going into gospel work, Kevin worked for four years as a physiotherapist, but he couldn’t shake the priority of the gospel. It was the core gospel convictions that Kevin learnt at university that led him to full-time ministry with the goal to train and equip others similarly and to build a pipeline that multiplies this work.
Shaped by Campus ministry
Kevin knows firsthand just how important university campus ministries can be for young adults. It was his initial experiences as part of the Sydney University Cumberland Campus ministry, that helped to shape him for his life of ministry, despite not knowing it at the time.
Having this background and personal experience contributes to why Kevin is working hard at the Australian National University Canberra (ANU) to build a pipeline that grows, equips and trains university students to take on ministry as a full-time job.
While studying at Sydney University Cumberland Campus, Kevin learnt a lot about how his life revolved around God and his purposes and plans for his life. As he spent his time soaking in the scriptures, hearing Bible teaching both at church and through university ministries such as AFES and midyear conferences, he began to understand the impact of the Gospel in his life.
After leaving university and working for four years as a physiotherapist, he was wrestling with the issue of security and the constant thoughts of the priority of sharing God’s word. Although Kevin recognised that it was a big deal to give up a secure nine to five job, to consider going into ministry full-time.
“When I left university, people said, ‘Actually, Kevin, you should think about it’. People encouraged me to think about actually giving up my life, giving up the notion of a career and physiotherapy to think about teaching about Jesus full time,” he says.
As he thought about his next move, Kevin met with a university campus worker named Danny Mullins who helped him to think through what it would mean to leave his job and take up a two-year ministry apprenticeship.
Affirmed in ministry convictions
Once Kevin decided “to give ministry a go”, he joined the Sydney University Cumberland Campus ministry team as an apprentice, with Danny Mullins as his trainer. During his time as an apprentice, he really came to understand how the values that are required in ministry, help to shape it. These two years in uni ministry were formative for Kevin and how he thought about ministry.
He says, “It gave me a way of thinking about ministry, the values that I have about ministry, and it was just an affirmation to go. It’s worth doing.”
He followed Danny’s advice and decided to continue on the path of studying and learning theology, attending Moore Theological College in Sydney.
Called to train and send
Once he’d finished his degree, Kevin was asked to go to ANU to be the AFES FOCUS Staff Team Leader and to build up a ministry of MTS apprentices there. He saw this as a special training opportunity as he himself had been so impacted by uni ministry and doing an on-campus apprenticeship.
“It was the opportunity to train and send students from ANU that was particularly appealing,” he says. “In one sense you can shake people in a formative time of life which I knew was quite special.”
Kevin sees uni ministry as a prime opportunity to have the lives and trajectories of students shaped by the priorities of God’s plans, purposes and the gospel as well as being an exciting opportunity to see the rest of the campus reached with the gospel.
The pipeline of train and send
Kevin has a solid vision for the students at ANU- to build a training and recruiting pipeline that extends beyond campus ministry.
“In terms of vision, we want to see people trained to take the gospel to the world. We want to see students from around Australia and internationally, to become Christians,” he says. “We’re constantly trying to equip our students to live for Jesus, no matter what life looks like afterwards. And if a uni ministry, that’s full of 18 to 24 year old’s who are at the crossroads of their life, is not sending people to take the gospel globally, then which ministry will?”
This unique opportunity to build, train and send starts with both formal and informal training. Part of the training is to think theologically about the world, and equipping the students to be able to live for Jesus after uni. Part of the training is to teach them to read the Bible and give them the skills to share the gospel with other people.
Kevin says that with 20,000 students on campus, it is important to have gospel workers on site to point them to Jesus.
“They need to know Jesus. People need a vision for more than Canberra, for more than ANU. We want to cast a vision of people going out from us,” he says. “And so apprenticeships are our way to express that, that people will devote more time with their life to actually telling others about Jesus, it gives our students tangible pictures and that is part of the pipeline.”
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“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age’” (Matthew 28:18-20, ESV).