Faith on campus: Why students drift, and what keeps them rooted

For Kenya’s university generation, the choice to stay in faith is harder than it looks — and more urgent than ever

By Kevin Olum

Campus is where faith gets tested for the first time without a safety net. No parent waking you on Sunday. No one watching. You decide — and that decision reveals whether what you carry is conviction or simply inherited habit.

Many drift. The reasons are predictable but worth naming honestly.

Faith without spirit becomes routine. Many Christian Unions run programmes but carry no presence. Services stretch long but leave students empty. This generation does not want to hear about God from a distance — they want to encounter Him. Without that, campus Christianity becomes another obligation to shed.

Faith without substance collapses under questioning. University interrogates everything — philosophy, science, relationships, money, mental health. A faith built on “because my parents said so” cannot survive a determined lecturer or a season of personal crisis. Substance — deep grounding in scripture and honest engagement with hard questions — is what holds when emotions fail.

Faith without skill fails in practice. You can be spiritually sincere and still struggle to manage time, handle a painful breakup, balance HELB repayments with integrity, or lead people effectively. Students drift not because they stopped loving God, but because nobody taught them how to live for Him in a practical campus world.

The ones who stay are rarely the most perfect. They are the ones who embrace all three: spirit, substance and skill — encounter, roots and execution working together.

That is what Jasiri is building. Not a campus programme. A generation.

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