What is GBU?

GBU (Grupo Bíblico Universitário – University Bible Group) is a space for honest questions about the Bible, academic life and contemporary society.

For more than 50 years in Portugal and present in more than 180 countries around the world, GBU has influenced thousands of students who are today active citizens and professionals in different spheres of our societies.

We organize into local groups in the towns where there are institutions of higher education and we have a network of student leaders, cooperators and staff members who come together in order to achieve our vision.

Vision

Students that, as a community of disciples, are committed to be transformed by and for the gospel, serving and influencing the University, the Church and the society for the glory of Christ, during their academic season and throughout their lives.

Mission

GBU is a Christian association whose mission is to reflect, to live out and to communicate the message of Jesus Christ in the Universities in Portugal.

Values

The centrality of the Word, the example of service from Christ himself – the “servant-leader” who taught and showed the meaning of leading through love and self-abnegation – mutual submission, as well as submission to the authority of the Holy Spirit, and investment in the mission of living as disciples of Christ and making disciples of Christ.

Faith Statement

GBU is a missionary arm of the Church in the University and, as such, it is member nº. 1308 of the Portuguese Evangelical Alliance and it is also a member of IFES – International Fellowship of Evangelical Students.

We adopt and defend the following body of Christian doctrines:

1.	The existence of a God in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
2.	The sovereignty of God in creation, revelation, redemption and final judgement.
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 expiatory death of Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God, truly man and truly God, as our representative and substitute, thus demonstrating the infinite love of God for us.
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 personal mission of the Holy Spirit in the work of repentance, regeneration and sanctification of the Christians.
8.	The justification of the sinner by the grace of God through faith alone.
9.	The intercession of Jesus Christ as the only mediator between God and humankind.
10.	The indwelling and work of the Holy Spirit in the believer.
11.	The one holy universal Church which is the body of Christ and to which all true believers belong and which on earth manifests itself as local communities.
12.	The assurance of the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in a glorified body and the consummation of His kingdom of peace and justice.
13.	The resurrection of the dead, the eternal life for the saved and the eternal condemnation of the unjust.

Goals

1. The goals of our association are:

a) To promote the practice and communication of the Christian message in the Universities, investing in the integral formation of the students to complement their academic training with civic, social and spiritual formation;
b) To search for opportunities to take the same message to secondary education;
c) To encourage the practice and communication of the Christian message in the context of families, communities, and work environments of those who graduate from the University;
d) To further the emergence and maturation of a biblical reflexion applied to our contemporary world and to take on its diffusion into the realms of our economic, social, political and cultural life in general.

2. As an association that is also vocationed to address themes that pertain to youth, society and development, envisioning also a consistent Christian practice, the association as the following complementary goals:

a) The development of programs and initiatives related to these themes, promoting volunteering-projects, solidarity, civic action, critical analysis and the formation of young leaders;
b) To support social and professional integration of the finalists and recent-graduates;
c) To be a space where students and graduates can gather, develop friendships, train each other and encourage each other;
d) To cooperate with public or private entities for the achievement of these goals.

History

The origins of GBU in Portugal goes back to 1967. Starting with the network that resulted from the youth summer gatherings held in Acampamento Caravela, in Vila Nova de Milfontes, Dean Fredrikson, a US missionary from TEAM that was based in Portugal, starts to gather in Lisbon, from May 1967, a group of University students that belonged to several evangelical churches. Almost simultaneously, there was the beginning of periodic meetings for bible study and prayer in Coimbra among the students that were studying at the University of that city. A few years later, a group with identical characteristics also began to gather in the University of Porto.

At first, these groups adopted the name Movimento de Estudantes Evangélicos de Portugal (MEEP – Movement of Evangelical Students in Portugal), but soon thereafter, in 1968, as the group became affiliated to the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) they progressively became known as «grupos bíblicos universitários» (University Bible groups).

The year of 1970 was extremely important for GBU due to the arrival of Alexandre Araújo, the first IFES staff that came to help the movement to become more consistent. The first gathering of evangelical university students in Portugal happens in the Easter of 1971, in São Pedro de Moel. From that moment on, many other similar gatherings have taken place, an yearly tradition that still exists today. The international cooperation with IFES and with evangelical students from other countries was also strengthened through the participation of Portuguese representatives in the Mittersill gatherings, in Austria, starting in 1970.

In a time in which information was not as easily accessed as today, GBU begins the publication of its monthly brochure, which had a lasting impact within the movement even if this publication could not be kept throughout GBUs existence. In part as the result of the strong social convulsions that the Portuguese society faced in the years 1974-1975, the three pioneering groups in Lisbon, Coimbra and Porto also suffered profound transformation, but the movement would «reborn» in 1976 with the formal founding of the association Grupo Bíblico Universitário de Portugal (GBU) and with the beginning of the collaboration of its first national staff: Celeste Jorge. 

May 27, 1976, was the official foundation date before the Portuguese State. This is the date in which GBUs bylaws were published in Diário da República. The public signing act took place in Porto, on March 13, 1976. The fouding members that signed the act were: Manuel Pedro de Almeida Duarte; Fernando Adolfo Serra de Sousa Pinheiro; Maria Celeste Mendes Jorge; Sérgio Paulo Ferreira de Matos; Isabel Rosa Pereira de Almeida Pinheiro; João Alfredo Figueiredo Duarte.

In 2022 GBU commemorated 55 years of activity in Portugal and on that occasion we launched an interactive timeline with more info and images from our history.