1940-1949. Building Foundations
By the early 1940’s, the basic shape of the activity of the Union was established. On a regularly weekly level there were Daily Prayer Meetings (the DPM), with a weekly larger prayer meeting on Monday lunchtime, topical evangelistic Public Meetings on Wednesdays, and a large group Bible study on Friday with an invited leader.
On the annual level, there was a consistent attempt to contact freshers, which often saw several hundred new students gather for a ‘squash’. This was essentially a coffee and desert night with light entertainment thrown in, usually a musical performance by SUEUers, perhaps a string quartet or an aria. As well, they visited schools and ran a tour of the University for final year students, an orientation process which eventually the Students Representative Council took over. An Annual Public Meeting was held, which would bring together SUEU students and graduates, as well as friends from the evangelical community, often numbering 300-400, in this way securing continued support for their work. Evangelistic houseparties, missions at suburban churches and the staffing of Crusader and Inter-School Christian Fellowship camps were highlights (the last of these seen as the responsibility of the SUEU to look after the next generation). Together these strengthened the apologetic edge and relational cohesion of the group.
By the end of the war, Sydney University had grown slightly from its pre-war levels to about 5,000 students, 4,000 of them day students; by the late 40’s it boasted 10,000, 8,500 day students, which level it never topped right through the 1950’s. Membership of the SUEU bettered this growth rate, increasing from 100 at the end of the war, to over 250 by 1950, again 3% of the day population of the campus. During this period, the Union broke through one of those growth barriers, changing from a smallish group where it was possible for everyone to know everyone else, to a medium size group which required a significant degree of public leadership and administrative expertise. These gifts were found in abundance, particularly among those returned servicemen who resumed their university studies, numbers of whom had been members of the SUEU prior to wartime. Most prominent here is Donald Robinson, who was Vice-President in 1945/46 and President in 1946/47 (later Anglican Archbishop of Sydney2).
The mood after the war was that of a determination to get on with things. The enemy had been dealt with, and the interruption put behind, and now was the time to launch into the business at hand. And this is precisely what happened. As membership increased, so did the resources available for the work of the gospel, as well as the need for a more decentralised structure. The idea of a faculty system for the SUEU was broached for the first time in 1945; teams of students to minister in schools and on missions were established in 1946; as well as a more elaborate sub-committee structure for administration.
Of course, the danger which these moves were seeking to prevent was that of nominalism; that is, a large but mostly uninvolved membership, led by a highly committed but eventually burnt out central core, leading to a lack of spiritual vitality in the Union overall. This concern is voiced time and again; a report in July 1947 complains of “the effectiveness of EU falling away” due to “large numbers, insufficient delegation, a lack of solid and deep prayer and the non-recognition of personal responsibility regarding personal work.” Reports of a mission in 1948, the first since 1941, are very subdued, with a number of subsidiary events cancelled; houseparties rarely attracted over 50 students, and some needed to be cancelled due to lack of support; in 1949, the DPM was steady at 20, the weekly prayer meeting at 35, and the weekly Public Meeting declined steadily from 180 at its peak. The 1940's ended with E.U. in a position of strength, but facing some significant issues - could it manage its own success?
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