Great Ideas for New Student Outreach (Summer 2002)

Opening Doors at the University of Illinois

by John Roeckeman, Staff Team Leader

Champaign/Urbana, IL

Even before NSO activities begin, our chapter has a “Back to School” conference so that everyone is able to refocus spiritually with the Lord in his Word and in prayer. We review our mission. We work on how to be personable and friendly at publicity tables and events and how to take initiative in meeting people and introducing them to others. We take a close look at how to do quality follow-up visits.

During the first weeks of school our chapter tries to be unmistakably visible to each one of the 36,000 undergrads and grads on our campus. Sometimes we assume we are more visible than we really are, so we do multiple attempts to make sure every student knows I-V is around. We’ll take one day to host eight lemonade tables all over campus, decorated with bright red IVCF banners. We put up posters, distribute flyers in mailboxes, and walk around campus in our I-V T-shirts.

But the most important thing we do is to pray and simply use our natural opportunities to get to know the new people who live around us. We encourage an “open door policy”—keep your door open and be welcoming. Last fall about 800 new U of I students signed interest cards indicating that they would like to check out a small-group Bible study. Nearly 50 students indicated that they were not Christians but were interested in attending a GIG (Groups Investigating God).

We’re learning that New Student Outreach is only as good as the follow-up. We regularly remind our I-V student leaders that time and energy demands for ministry are high the first few weeks of school. Hundreds of new people need to be visited personally and invited to meetings, introduced to others and grafted into the fellowship. Christian leaders are expected to be “hospitable” (Titus 1:8), and this is the time to demonstrate a willingness to welcome and care for new people. We try to contact each new person who signs a card within 24-48 hours. The leaders who are doing follow-up phone calls and visits get together for their own encouragement, prayer and accountability. NSO at the University of Illinois is an exciting time.

“Wanna Beer?”

by Craig Weber, I-V staff member

Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo (CA)

Cal Poly (CA) may be a ‘“dry” campus, but we’ve learned to bend the rules a little in our own evangelical sort of way. During the school’s Week of Welcome (WOW) last fall, the Poly Christian Fellowship distributed its own specially brewed “beer” to all of the incoming students (the WOWies) in an effort to acquaint them with our group and entice them to check us out. The brown bottles of root beer had all of the requisite club information and activities printed right on the label. It even included the statement, “Bolder, broader, more ethnically diverse.” It was fun to see thousands of students walking around the University Union with 12-ounce bottles of PCF root beer advertising InterVarsity. Mingling among the crowd were dozens of PCF students with bottle openers.

It’s events such as this that remind me of why September is my favorite month. It’s so exciting to meet new students at dorm move-ins, the “Aloha Luau” and all the other social events. But it’s even more exciting to watch student leaders interact with new students, make plans for the year, and actively pray for God’s vision on their campus in the coming months.

Standing Room Only at Central College (IA)

by Jason Brown, I-V staff member

Pella, IA

We planned. We prayed. We worked hard to prepare for the first large-group meeting last fall. We thought we were ready. We were wrong.

We had been optimistic, but nothing prepared us for the 490 students who came to our first chapter meeting! Our school, Central College in Pella, Iowa, has a total population 1,500. We watched in amazement as one-third of the student body heard the gospel at our meeting that night. Too awesome for words!

Our chapter has a great team of dedicated, gifted leaders. But I believe our strength is in the commitment of the entire chapter to meet freshmen. Our NSO preparations are very basic because the focus throughout is on relationships and not on programs. Many of our students are RA’s in the dorms or work closely with a small group of incoming students as part of the college’s freshman orientation program. During NSO, the chapter taps into some of the events that Central College plans. We also have students involved in nearly every athletic team on our campus, where nearly half of the students are out for a sport, so we are indeed penetrating the campus.

Yet we do a number of things to make sure that our chapter functions efficiently so that outreach is ongoing and new people are included naturally into the chapter.

During the summer, someone from the leadership team maintains contact with everyone in the core group via e-mail updates (50-100 students). Just before school starts, we have a retreat together to study Scripture, pray, define our mission and vision, and worship. Then we return to campus, ready to meet people and help students move in. Our move-in program became so successful that the college adopted an official move-in policy that incorporates RA’s and other college officials to help, too. Last year they even gave us shirts to wear that they printed for free. We don’t do much God-talk at this, but just focus on meeting people.

We make sure that our first large group (called “9”) is high quality and high energy. We put a lot of time into planning and carrying out our first three large-group meetings. We also do a lot of advertising. In order to help people connect, we have developed a “medium-group” structure that is promoted the first two weeks at “9” and advertised near the student mailboxes with a sign-up sheet. Then we take freezy pops around to the students who have signed up for “9” or a medium group. About three weeks into the semester we have a retreat for frosh. It is focused around relationships and worship and helps them get connected to God, the fellowship and each other.

Our entire NSO operation is so simple and smooth that we just divide different portions of it among our leadership. Next year we may have one person in charge of NSO, but everyone is involved in caring for the new students on our campus. It’s the heartbeat of our chapter, and it’s what keeps us healthy and strong.

Read All About It!

by Patrick Langan, I-V staff member, SIU-Carbondale (IL)

The chapter at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale plans NSO activities for both fall and spring semesters. When the spring semester starts, we’re limited by the cold weather, so we try to think of other ways of coming into contact with new students on campus. Last year, we thought long and hard about places where we could meet new students, and we finally came up with an idea—books! Everyone needs to get books. So we called the campus bookstores and volunteered to help students find their books in the often confusing and always merciless aisles of textbooks. They loved having us help out. We made bright yellow T-shirts that said on the front, “Ask me about I-V.” On the back we printed, “InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.” We had a lot of fun serving students and we got the word out about our group. One bookstore even paid us because it was easier on the paperwork than just letting us volunteer for free!

We finished off our NSO week with a “Bob” party. Everyone who came to the party dressed up as a popular “Bob” from history, fiction, entertainment, or just a personal favorite. We had Bob Barker, Bob the Tomato and Bob Vila show up. I dressed up as Coach Bob Spoo who was my coach in college. Having to explain your costume made a great conversation starter and a fun theme. Next year we may have a “Fred” party.

“Oops!” . . . When Good Plans Go Bad

Duke U, Durham, NC

U of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Have you ever had your name left out of the phone book by mistake? That’s what it felt like for the InterVarsity chapter at Duke University when they found out they had been omitted from the Orientation Guide for new students. This was the fall publication that listed all of the campus groups, their activities and schedules. Therefore, incoming students had no way of knowing that I-V existed. So upperclassmen had to contact new students the old-fashioned way—by walking through dorms and meeting them one by one. The chapter adopted the motto, “Invite everyone to everything.”

“It was tons of work, but tremendously rewarding,” says staff worker Joseph Ho. “At our final orientation event, we had around the same number of freshmen as last year. However, this year, almost all of them had come because they were personally invited, and the majority had already had multiple interactions with I-V upperclassmen.” Despite the advertising oversight, the chapter was off to a good start. Go figure.

At the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the InterVarsity chapter planned a coffeehouse as an outreach for new students. At first glance, it may not have looked successful. For starters, the industrial-sized coffee makers would not stay on, so they wasted entire batches of vanilla bean roast. A coffeehouse with no coffee?

Then, students brought in a fog machine to provide more atmosphere for the entertainment, but instead it set off the fire alarm. The university authorities summoned to investigate were not very happy. Nevertheless, about 75 new students came to the coffeehouse. They were able to find out what InterVarsity is doing on campus and how they could become a part of it. Staffer Carole Mathews says, “Overall, it was worth it!”

Coming your way

by Melissa Pribbenow, I-V staff member

UW—Eau Claire (WI)

Last year our chapter changed its focus for NSO. We decided not to sponsor large events to attract students to us. Rather, we would go to them. Our vision as a chapter is to present each student on this campus of 11,000 with the opportunity to know Christ. Our method is to befriend students in each dorm and department through small-group fellowships (called witnessing communities) that hang out together. Many of our students have committed to living on campus, even moving back into the freshman dorms in order to serve younger students. There were 20 new Christians in our chapter last semester, six in one dorm alone, all of whom were a direct result of friendship evangelism!

This ministry philosophy had an impact on our NSO planning. We did sponsor a few InterVarsity events for those students looking for a Christian fellowship to join, so we had a volleyball tournament, a house party and a bonfire. But we also actively served in university festivities designed to welcome and integrate new students. Why plan our own conflicting events?

Finally, and most importantly, we reached out to new students through personal invitations to join a witnessing community. The Servant Team members (what we call our leaders) have been especially intentional in befriending other students by inviting them to share a dinner, run errands or do laundry together, or join their Bible studies. They have agreed that, like others in the chapter, their main job is to establish witnessing communities in their places of influence, not just run the chapter.

Jamie is one student who captured a missionary mindset for her campus. She felt called by God to hang out in her dorm on the tenth floor of a dorm which was known as the drinking and pot-smoking floor. These new friends were completely different from Jamie and engaged in activities that Jamie didn’t agree with, but that didn’t stop her from loving them and building relationships with them. And they noticed that Jamie didn’t drink or smoke. Because of her stance as a Christian and her willingness to share her beliefs, Jamie became respected in the group and frequently engaged in spiritual conversations with them. Some of them have started following Jesus and witnessing to their friends, too, as a result of Jamie’s friendship with them!

We’ve seen similar stories all over campus. A lot has happened since those first hello’s last fall when we decided to focus on people, not programs. May God be praised for his love for the lost and the work he does in calling them to him!