More than 20 students made professions of faith at the seventh annual “Converge” student conference held Jan. 30-Feb. 1 in Myrtle Beach.
Just a few days after the conference, Lander University campus minister Scott Smith spent an hour counseling two of his three students who were among those professions of faith.
“Conversations like this are an absolute highlight for me,” he said. “No matter what else goes on that day, this is the most exciting part of being a campus minister. These students and I are going to meet every other week for discipleship, and I gave them some scripture and some reading materials and talked about the importance of church. It’s just exciting.”
Two students from Columbia area schools also made decisions to follow Christ, said campus minister Tim Stewart, and others made decisions to pursue vocational ministry.
“Weekends like Converge enhance what we’re already doing on the local level,” he said. “It’s a great time to get away, take a road trip, fellowship. It’s a great opportunity for me to spend time just hanging out with my students, in a way I rarely get to back at campus.”
He added, “Our students were challenged in regard to how they’re living out their faith on campus, to be more intentional in how they respond to their peers in the classroom, in the dorm.”
USC graduate pharmacy student Joshua Meador agreed. “I really enjoyed the ‘ground warfare’ breakout session. Our focus is often not where it should be. We try to think about being popular and numbers, but really it is all about relationships and living in a worthy manner.”
Meador was also one of several students who shared about missions experiences – in his case, a Christmas break trip to Peru to minister to the Ashaninca people.
Converge is an annual statewide student ministry event that draws students from campuses and college church groups around South Carolina. It offers the chance for fellowship with students from other campuses, corporate worship with messages especially relevant to students, seminars on topics such as relationships, witnessing, missions, and discipleship. This year, tournaments of ultimate Frisbee and beach volleyball were held. Nearly 900 students from 17 campuses and 26 church groups attended the conference.
Clayton King, an evangelist from Crossroads Ministry, Atlanta, and popular speaker among high school and college students, was the keynote speaker this year. In keeping with the conference theme, “Invested,” he urged them to invest their lives in things that matter: relationships, living in holiness, intentionally sharing their faith, and more.
“You could tell that Clayton has a passion for God and it was just contagious,” said Misti Bailey, a senior English major at Columbia College and this year’s Baptist Collegiate Ministry state president. Another aspect that stood out to Bailey was the creative opportunity in the worship services; easels had been set up in the front of the room so that students could paint as a form of worship.
Such creative worship, designed with college students in mind, is one of the keys to keeping students plugged in to church when they go to college, said King.
“I call students the ‘ignored generation’ in a lot of churches,” he said. “The church has to be willing to do more than hang a sign out front that says, ‘College students welcome.’ I’d recommend offering a corporate worship experience more conducive to their style – Saturday or Sunday night, informal, authentic and genuine, with food, relevant music and teaching.”
King also addressed what he said is the biggest impediment that students, particularly those with little or no church background, must overcome before they can become believers: misconception.
“They do not know that God loves them,” he said. “When they think of Christianity and the church, they think of rules, regulations, gay-bashers, ultra-fundamentalist, right-wing, gun-toting people. They just do not know that God loves them.”