The stronger the relationship a BCM and a local collegiate church has with the freshman then the better the chance is that they will become involved in that ministry. I examined the roster of freshmen that become involved in our LSU BCM ministry during the 2011-2012 school year and discovered that over 75% of the freshmen who are active in our ministry had signed up for a Freshmen Family Group or our Freshmen Council by the time they arrived on campus.
Most of the other 25% that become involved in our ministry were friends of the 75%. One of the major goals of our freshmen ministry is that every freshman whose name we have is contacted by our BCM and by one of our local collegiate churches by telephone (cell or home). They will also receive emails and newsletters. During our contact with them we invite them to join a Freshmen Bible Study Group and our BCM Freshmen Council.
If they do they are then assigned to a specific Bible study and contacted again by the leader of that Freshmen Bible Study and or one of the leaders of our Freshmen Council. We secure prayer requests for the student and begin to pray for them. We ask our BCM leaders to stay in regular contact with the student throughout the summer.
We ask the incoming freshman to share the names of other freshmen they would like us to invite to the BCM. We receive many names by doing so and we contact each of them.
Another effective way that we have used to reach freshmen is by sending a letter to the parents of all of the freshmen on our database. We ask the parents to complete a survey about their son or daughter. The survey helps us know the students interests, high school activities and sports involvement and their church background and involvement. Over 70 parents each year mail us in a survey. They also share the names of friends of their students for us to contact.
We invite all of the freshmen on our database to attend Collegiate Week at Glorieta. Many go with us. This has been a great way for them to connect with each other and with our upperclassmen and our church and BCM staff. If you don’t go to Collegiate Week take them on a beach trip or a retreat or some other type of outing.
During the summer we sign as many freshmen as we can for the Freshmen Council. This is a leadership, fellowship group that meets for 45 minutes each week in the fall before our major weekly worship service. Our major goal for the group is to help them connect with each other through games, small groups, leadership activities, etc. We have found their signing up gives them “ownership” of our ministry before they even arrive on campus. Email me at lsubcm@eatel.net if you would like information of our Freshmen Council.
Connecting our incoming freshmen with a local church is one of our major ministry goals. We kick off the fall semester with an event called Survival. All of our seminar leaders for this event are local church collegiate ministers/leaders. These leaders are invited to a series of kick-off events which include a picnic, a scavenger hunt and then a road trip to our area churches. Our second worship service of the semester is always “Church Night”. Each local church is invited to have a table set up with information about their church so students can meet and get to know them.
Each fall we form a Freshmen Praise Band. This group leads praise and worship on Wednesday nights for area youth groups and leads youth D.N. weekends and retreats. Having this group has helped us to reach out to area youth groups. This group has also helped us to replace members of our BCM Worship Band as they graduate.
Most of the upperclassmen leaders of our BCM were involved in our BCM as freshmen. This has helped them realize the importance of our freshmen ministry and fostered a culture of care and concern for freshmen.
Please help our nation’s collegiate ministry as we minister to freshmen by entering the names of the graduating high school seniors from your church into www.sbccampusconnect.net. All names entered will be networked to the collegiate minister of the college or university they will attend.
Please use the summer to reach out to freshmen who will be attending your college this fall. Please email or call me at 225-343-0408 if I can help you in any way.
Steve Masters
Transitions Ministry
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