Youth with a Mission (YWAM)
30 March 2026
Since 2019, the Korean-based Christian sect of Shincheonji has repeatedly landed itself in news headlines for its recruitment on university campuses in New Zealand and Australia. The most recent of these stories was published in February 2026, when a chaplain at the University of Canterbury (UC) in Christchurch raised an alarm about the group's “dodgy practices”. This made me reflect on my own time at UC as an international postgraduate student, and what I observed in relation to religion-based student groups in universities and polytechnics across New Zealand.