A South Carolina Baptist Convention collegiate ministry leader says a new Web site will help university campus ministers connect with college-bound high school seniors and encourage them to stay involved in Christian life at a time when many students are living away from home for the first time.
“We have Baptist Collegiate Ministry active on more than 30 campuses across South Carolina, but too often, our collegiate ministers and local churches don’t know the students who are coming to their campuses from Baptist backgrounds,” said Ken Owens, director of the SCBC collegiate ministry group.
Ken Owens“As such, many of the students who have grown up in our churches?go away to college and don’t get involved in a Christian ministry on campus.? It is critical that churches help us identify who the students are who are going to college.? We can’t guarantee that they will continue to be involved in the church, but we can make every effort to help them do so.”
The Web site, www.sbccampusconnect.net, is designed for access by youth ministers, parents, grandparents, Sunday school teachers, church staff members, and high school juniors and seniors. It is hosted by the National?Collegiate Ministry division of LifeWay Christian Resources.
All the information the users provide to the site will be networked to the?Baptist campus minister of the college or university the student will be attending. The campus ministers will pass names along to churches with a collegiate ministry.
Owens said churches can identify students and where they might be going to college by putting information in their newsletters or bulletins, connecting with high school Sunday school leadership or directly contacting church families about where a student may be planning to attend college.
“In many cases, churches have invested so much in helping students with their faith during their childhood and youth years,” said Owens. “It is so sad to know that many of those same churches drop the ball of ministry when students go away to college.? We need to be just as active in helping them continue their Christian growth during college as we have in the years leading up to college.”
“Transitions” is a term that represents the ministry of Southern Baptist churches to, with, and for juniors and seniors in high school and freshmen in college. “Our local SBC churches are losing massive numbers of older youth and freshmen in college from our churches,” said Steve Masters, Transitions Ministry contract worker for LifeWay. “In almost all of our churches, the loss is at least 50 to 60 percent. In many, it is as high as 90 percent. This loss has been occurring for decades and totals millions of people. This is a major challenge for our churches and denomination.”
“The earlier a collegiate minister has the name and contact information of a student, then the better the chance the collegiate minister has of involving that student in the campus ministry and either helping them stay connected or become involved in a local church,” Masters said.
Arliss Dickerson, director of the Baptist Collegiate?Ministry at Arkansas State University, said, “The single most important and helpful thing a church or individual can do to help a college freshman walk with the Lord during their time in college is to provide their name and mailing address to the BCM prior to the start of their freshman year.”?
Dickerson and his colleagues give such weight to this partnership because this is a crucial window of time for young adults. “We believe that what a student does during their first three weeks of college usually sets the pattern for their whole college career in the relationships they establish and the patterns they develop,” Dickerson said.?