Our Mission

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We want to see students, on French speaking campuses:

  • Discover Jesus Christ
  • Develop a mature spirituality
  • Become Spirit-filled witnesses


To put this virtuous circle in place, our activities hinge on 4 pillars:

  • Scripture engagement: studying, loving, applying and sharing the Word of God
  • Prayer
  • Community
  • Personal witness and evangelism

Two principles support our 4 main pillars:

  • Student leadership: the students direct the activities of the campus groups.
  • Engaging the university: being a credible partner on the “academic scene”.

What do we do?

The heart of the GBU activities is a small group of students who meet together to encourage each other to live out the Christian faith on their campus: by studying the Bible together, by encouraging each other to put it into practise, by praying and worshiping God and by seeking to witness about their faith to those around them.  These activities are directed by student leaders, supervised by a member of the GBUC team.

The GBUC groups also offer activities planned for students from the whole province of Quebec: training sessions, camps/retreats, prayer meetings, short term mission trips, etc.  We take part as well in Urbana, the North American student mission conference.

In the province of Quebec, the GBUC is present on the French university and cegep campuses in Montreal, Trois-Rivières, Rouyn-Noranda, Chicoutimi, Saint-Jérôme, Longueuil, and Quebec City.

What do we believe?

The GBUC adhere to the doctrinal basis of IFES:

  1. The unity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the Godhead.
  2. The sovereignty of God in creation, revelation, redemption and final judgment.
  3. The divine inspiration and entire trustworthiness of Holy Scripture, as originally given, and its supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct.
  4. The universal sinfulness and guilt of all people since the fall, rendering them subject to God’s wrath and condemnation.
  5. Redemption from the guilt, penalty, dominion and pollution of sin, solely through the sacrificial death (as our representative and substitute) of the Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God.
  6. The bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead and his ascension to the right hand of God the Father.
  7. The presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the work of regeneration.
  8. The justification of the sinner by the grace of God through faith alone.
  9. The indwelling and work of the Holy Spirit in the believer.
  10. The one holy universal Church which is the body of Christ and to which all true believers belong.
  11. The expectation of the personal return of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Where do the GBUC come from?

Originally, universities were founded with the goal of better understanding God and his creation. Today, however, a student who enters university or cegep will be faced with the challenge of living out their faith in the context of their campus: they will be challenged intellectually, ethically and in their witness.

This same challenge showed itself starting in 1877 in England.  Despite the disapproval of the university authorities, some evangelical Protestant Christian students met together to pray, to study the Bible and to share their faith.  Then, these groups of Christian students moved out among numerous campuses across England, starting the inter-varsity (between colleges) movement.

Then, this interdenominational evangelical movement spread out into the whole world, in particular in France in 1901 (GBU), in Canada in 1928 (IVCF) and in French-speaking Quebec in 1965 (GBUC). The French-speaking national movements are called “Groupes Bibliques Universitaires” (GBU).  They are grouped together within an international federation, IFES (International Fellowship of Evangelical Students). Today, IFES counts as members more than 170 national movements which encourage hundreds of thousands of students to live out and to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ on their campuses.

Our vision is to see students built into communities of disciples, transformed by the gospel and impacting the university, the church and society for the glory of Christ.(IFES Mission statement)