I went to NTE twice when I was at uni, honestly, I wish I could have gone more times! NTE is such a highlight of my time at ES and challenged me so much! One of the highlights was being able to praise God with 2000 other Christians, which is something you don't get to do every week and is so powerful! In a crowd of 2000 people, it really doesn't matter how good a singer you are, or how loud you sing because it is just like one voice being lifted up to God as you all join together in praising him! But also, I have loved doing the different strand groups! In those, we took a hard look at different parts of the bible and how to practically apply these. In strand 2, I learned how to write a short bible talk which was an amazing experience, and in strand 4 we looked at what the bible says about work and how it fits in to God's plan for humanity which was such a challenge as someone who was about to graduate! But the biggest challenge I got from NTE was thinking about global mission, and how great the needs are for this!!!! Last year I also attended part of the SIMEON Network's CITE conference, and it was great to meet other Post-graduate students who were researching very different things to me but had a passion to use their study and research to glorify God and share the gospel, in Australia or overseas! And all the mission focused workshops at NTE really helped me as I was deciding what to do after I graduated. Making the decision to go overseas as a volunteer on short-term, to use my uni degree to serve Christians in a persecuted country!

If you want to grow in your faith, be encouraged by meeting other uni students who love Jesus, learn more about overseas mission, be challenged about what to do after uni, get great bible teaching from awesome speakers, or get new skills to help you serve your church family, I 100% recommend going to NTE!

LAUREN