OUR HISTORY
In 1981 at UNSW (University of New South Wales), a small group of Australians met to pray for and seek out opportunities to share the message about Jesus Christ to students from overseas.
In 1985, a bible fellowship called FOCUSS (Fellowship of Overseas Christian University & Secondary Students) was formed. It met weekly, and soon grew to become a group of 30 or so students.
In 1994, the group was renamed FOCUS (Fellowship of Overseas Christian University Students) with a vision of equipping overseas university students to become mature in Jesus Christ. This year was marked by the arrival of Joshua Ng to become the full-time senior pastor of FOCUS.
Between 1997 – 2007, FOCUS underwent much growth and many changes. During this time FOCUS continued evolve as a community that made itself more accessible for overseas students to hear, discuss and understand the Bible in their own languages. New groups were formed and new churches were planted. All the while (under God’s generosity) the FOCUS vision of equipping overseas students with the gospel of Jesus Christ and then sending them away with this gospel to their original countries (and elsewhere) had become a reality – as hundreds of graduates by this stage were doing just that!
In this period an Indonesian bible fellowship – soon renamed as ‘Pelita’ was also formed. Pelita met as a fellowship of small groups on Friday nights.
During this time students from Pelita continued to meet with the other FOCUS fellowships for Sunday church. In 2007, Charles Gajus (who had served with Pelita since 2001) became Pelita’s full-time Indonesian pastor.
In 2008, Gereja Kristen Pelita (GKP) was formed. Still a ministry of FOCUS and continuing its vision of taking the gospel to the world, GKP however seek to make it especially easy for Indonesian overseas students to hear, understand, and share the great news about the forgiveness of sins that we can receive and the life of great hope that we can now enjoy because of ‘Yesus Kristus’!
Today Gereja Kristen Pelita (GKP) remains as a ministry of FOCUS (Fellowship Of Christian University Students) and is a congregation of the University Churches (UNSW). Unichurch and Campus Bible Study (CBS) are others arms of the University Churches.