Reaching Freshmen

By: Steve Masters

Involving freshmen in our campus based ministries and helping them stay connected in a local church are some of the most important responsibilities we have. Here are a few suggestions that might help you reach and involve more freshmen.

1. Email the youth minister of freshmen that are interested in becoming involved in your ministry. This will also be an encouragement to the youth minister. Ask them to provide you with information about the student. Ask them to partner with you in ministry to the student.

2. Consider having your upperclassmen adopt freshmen before they arrive on campus. Ask your freshmen now if they would like to be adopted. Ask your upperclassmen to call, facebook, write, etc. their freshmen to establish a relationship with them before they arrive on campus. Secure prayer requests from them.

3. Consider sending a Parent’s Survey to the parents of your incoming freshmen. Write them and ask them to partner with you to minister to their son or daughter. Ask them to share the interests, backgrounds, etc… of their son or daughter. Ask them to share the names of friends that might be interested in being involved in your ministry.

4. Sign freshmen up for Freshmen Bible Study Groups before they arrive on campus. Assign them to a Freshmen Bible Study Group before they come to campus. Ask your upperclassmen leaders to call, write, facebook, etc. them and establish a relationship with them as soon as possible. Once they arrive on campus there are multitudes of things competing for their time and commitment. The sooner your ministry can connect with them the greater chance they will get involved.

5. Remember that some of the freshmen that attend your first few weeks’ activities are there looking for relationships. They may or may not have a spiritual background/relationship with the Lord. Remind your leaders it is critical that they develop a strong relationship with these students so once they find other relationships on campus your ministry will stay connected to them.

6. Remember that some of your most dedicated freshmen may not attend any of your ministry meetings during the first few weeks. They may not even know you exist. During my years as a collegiate minister some of our most influential leaders didn’t get involved in our ministry until late in the first semester or even into the second semester.

7. Consider forming some sort of freshmen leadership group. Freshmen respond to ownership, fellowship, leadership development and ministry. Let these be the purposes of such a group.

8. If you are a campus based ministry, provide your local churches with the names and contact information of all freshmen that attend your ministry so they can invite them to their churches. If you are a church based ministry, provide your campus based ministry with the names and contact information of all freshmen that attend your church so they can know who is visiting churches.

9. Consider sponsoring a Freshmen Retreat during the first part of the fall semester. This gives them a good chance to connect with each other.


Email me at lsubcm@eatel.net or call me at 225-343-0408 if you have any questions. I would like to hear other ministries you have done to reach freshmen so I can network them to our nation’s collegiate ministers.

BCNet Transitions Video Contest

The Church Ministries Committee of BCNet is sponsoring a Transitions Video Contest among college students.

The purpose of the contest is to promote the use of

www.sbccampusconnect.net

by 2010 High School Seniors, Youth Ministers, Parents, Church Leaders, Sunday School Teachers, etc.

Length of Videos – From thirty seconds to five minutes.

Prizes - $400.00 to the first place winner, $200.00 to the second place winner, $100.00 each to the three third place winners.

Judges – Linda Osborne and LifeWay staff.

Deadline: Videos must be turned in on or before March 31^st, 2010. Mail videos to BCM, P. O. Box 25118, Baton Rouge, LA 70894 or ship them to BCM, 3800 Highland Road, Baton Rouge, LA 70802.

Video Usages – State Youth Evangelism Conferences, State and National Youth Conferences, local churches, parents conferences, etc…

Possible Theme/Ideas For Videos

1. Testimonies from current BCM students.

2. Documentary style.

3. Nooma video style.

4. All words/statements.

5. Students speaking into a webcam.

6. Testimonies from parents discussing their discouragement of seeing sons/daughters drop out of church.

7. Youth Transitions Network Transitions video style.

8. Funny scenes from Freshman year and how involvement in church and BCM could have made a difference.

9. Temptations Freshman face.

Transitions Information to possibly include:

1. What a student does during their first three weeks of college sets the pattern for their whole college career in the relationships they establish and the patterns they develop.

Help lay the groundwork for Christlike college experiences by connecting yourself or your students with collegiate ministers through this site.

Once you go to the webpage, enter contact information for yourself or your student. It takes less than three minutes and it will be networked to the campus of your choice!

2. From 75% to 90% of the youth in our Baptist churches have dropped out of church by the time they graduate from college. Of those who don’t drop out in high school many will do so in college.

3. For most college students their college years will be a “make or break” time for their spiritual life.

4. Most college students will make some of the major decisions in life during their college years. This includes their career choice, their choice of a spouse and their choice of the importance of their spiritual life. Having the influence of a Christian collegiate fellowship can greatly help the student with these decisions.

Reaching Out to Freshmen

Reaching out to incoming Freshmen is one of the most important things we can do as a church or campus based collegiate ministry. Most colleges and universities do not provide the names of Baptist preference students so we are dependant on securing names of incoming students ourselves.

Here are some suggestions for ways you can secure the names and contact info of incoming freshmen.

1. FRESHMEN ORIENTATION - At each university, all colleges and universities have recruting offices. This is an important office to relate to. They will usually sponsor orientations for new students. Some campuses have tight regulations on religious group involvement in their orientation. At LSU we cannot have an individual table at an orientation. We have to be a part of one table that represents all the religious organizations at LSU. Find out the policies of your college or university.
2. CONTACTING YOUR LOCAL CHURCHES - To find out the names of graduates coming to your college. If the church prepares a picture report for a High School seniors recognition service, we get a copy and cut out the pictures and attach them to the info card of the student to help us get to know them better. You can also secure a picture and profile of the student from Facebook.
3. CURRENT STUDENTS - We ask our current students to provide us with names of incoming freshmen.
4. STATE YOUTH MEETINGS - In Louisiana, we secure the names and contact information of all juniors and seniors in high school that attend the State Youth Evangelism Conference. I'd encourage you to do the same and attempt to secure names at all local and state youth events.
5. LOCAL CHURCH CONCERTS - Last year we secured over forty names of High School Seniors at a Big Daddy Weave concert at one of our local churches. We secured names at the Passion event held on our campus.
6. SPECIAL EVENTS ON CAMPUS - LSU chooses one football game each fall and invites High School Juniors and Seniors in that are interested in attending LSU. We have a table set up during that day and secure names and make contacts.
7. CENTRIFUGE/WORLD CHANGERS - They continue to provide us with names of juniors and seniors in high school that either will or are interested in attending our college or university. These are provided to collegiate ministries through the state offices.
8. ACT LIST - You can purchase a list of students interested in attending your college or university from the ACT office.
9. RELIGIOUS PREFERENCE INFO - At LSU we receive the names of all freshmen that indicated they are Baptist on their Admission Form. If you don't receive this info then ask for it. It might be available. If the religious background question isnt on the Admission Form and you'd like it to be then request that it be done. Use LSU and other colleges that still secure this info as an example that it can still be done without violating seperation of church and state.

We secure the names of juniors and seniors at all times so we can establish a relationship with the students during their senior year. Once you have secured a name then its important that you contact the students. We attempt to call each student personally. We have attached a guide to contacting freshman (LSU BCM Freshmen Telephone Guide). It has evolved and will continue to do so. We have tried to design it where a BCM staff member, a BCM leader or another incoming freshmen could use it. We add all names into an email merge and email the students regularly. We mail all of them a newsletter and a Survival Brochure. They'll receive from 7 to 10 contacts from us before they begin the fall semester. One of our goals for these new students is that they be contacted at least once by a local church. We provide names to our local churches to do so. We've attached A Church Contact Guide we use to help them with making the contact. We include information about these local churches in our emails and newsletters. We also include the churches in all of our outreach efforts to the new students when the fall semester begins. Hope this has been helpful information for you.

Steve Masters, BCM Director, LSU