Engaging Your Campus: Hosting Events that Work

Seven hundred tickets sold—seven hundred!—for the performances of Bruce Kuhn on our campus. More than 500 were sold to students and faculty. And there were 16 GIGs (Groups Investigating God) ready to start in the weeks following Bruce’s performances. We were excited; this served as a perfect catalyst to get the GIGs going.

It was just over a year ago that our chapter at the University of the Pacific (CA) brought Bruce Kuhn to our campus for three nights of performances. He is a former Broadway actor who performs on college campuses all over the world. If you were at Urbana 2000, perhaps you remember his bringing to life portions of Scripture during the worship gatherings. At Pacific, Bruce presented his shows, The Accounts of Luke and The Tales of Tolstoy. I knew that God would use these performances to rock our campus. We set high goals that a ton of people would come, and that people would pursue getting to know Jesus as a result. We also hoped that the fellowship would make a profit on it to help the chapter budget. Were we right? We were. Woo-hoo!

I led the production team of I-V staff and students that brought Bruce Kuhn to our campus. I’ve had a lot of experience in promoting dance and theatre productions. Much of my work as I-V staff has involved helping students sponsor evangelistic events on campus. Also, for the last two years I’ve been traveling to campuses all over the country to performing my own show, Always the Women. Here is what I’ve learned about sponsoring an evangelistic event that will truly engage the campus with the gospel.

ENVISION
Seven hundred tickets!? Wow, I want God to use our fellowship like that! I want God to use us to reach our whole campus! If your heart is beating and these exclamations are coursing through your brain, you’re likely the person God is trusting to get the ball rolling. But enthusiasm isn’t enough; there are many practical steps to consider and a lot of hard work ahead. Here are some questions to get you started:

1. What is your purpose for sponsoring evangelistic events on campus? What outcome would thrill you? Do you want an event that’s provocative and pre-evangelistic? This would be followed up with GIGs (not an “altar call” at the end), or a series of large-group meetings to lead students into adult decisions to become Christ-followers. Or perhaps your fellowship is ready to invite their not-yet-believing friends to a “harvesting meeting” with the opportunity to respond to Jesus’ call to follow him. Do you see the event as primarily appealing to students, or do you want to plan something that will engage faculty, staff and whole departments as well? I recently performed on a campus where the purpose was to sponsor an event where students could feel safe bringing their friends. They needed help rebuilding congenial relations between the I-V group and the rest of the campus after an unfortunate previous event—a badly presented evolution discussion. The leaders, and the fellowship, clearly knew what they were hoping for. This leads to the next question . . .

2. What is the right event? Bruce Kuhn’s performances were the right event for the fellowship at Pacific to sponsor. The students had a proven track record in inviting friends to evangelistic events like “The Joint,” an upbeat yet relaxed outreach. There were strong relationships with faculty in the theatre arts and English departments, as well as communications, history, and philosophy. Many students in the fellowship had seen Bruce perform at the Urbana missions convention, and they knew that he had trained both another of their staff members and me in Scripture drama, so they knew what it was and how it played. Also, the Pacific campus supports new theatre experiences, and I felt confident that the local theatre editor would want to cover this. (He printed a wonderful story just before Bruce arrived.) In addition, I knew the support of local churches and theatre community would be strong.

What sort of events would fit your campus and your fellowship? A special speaker? What topic? A concert? Would it appeal to those who don’t yet know Jesus, or would it turn into an evening dominated by church-youth-groups-in-buses? Theatre? A debate? Many students these days would find the good ol’ “evolution versus creation” evening a total turn-off, but there might be campuses on which something like that would be appropriate. What are students on your campus interested in, and where does the gospel, relevantly presented by really cool Christians, intersect? The right event can make a big difference, but . . .

3. What is the “evangelistic temperature” of your fellowship? Are you prepared to raise it for the event you think would be just right for your campus? I was confident that the fellowship at Pacific would bring their friends to Bruce’s performances. This is a critical indicator of a fellowship’s evangelistic zeal and health (see the side bar “Don’t invite them, bring them” on this page). True, people can be great at “bringing,” but much too hesitant at follow-up conversations, initiating GIGs, or inviting their friends to follow Jesus. But if they won’t even bring people, the other things aren’t going to happen either. The university edition of the Contagious Christian course has helped train many students in evangelism, developing an outreaching attitude, and preparing them for those post-event conversations (see your staff worker for more details). GIG leaders need to be prepared to start groups for their curious friends or others at the event. You and your team will want to model and teach the “reach out and expect God to work” attitude and corresponding action. When will your fellowship be in shape to go for it? Right now? Next spring? That leads us to consider . . .

4. What is the right timing? When is a good time for the fellowship to extend itself? Not in the middle of a season of discipleship conferences, and probably not the week after Christmas vacation or spring break. Finals week is out too. At Pacific, we took a risk and brought Bruce to campus on the second week of school in September. It would have fallen on its face if we hadn’t done all of the organizing and set up during the previous spring and summer (including designing and copying the much-in-advance posters and fliers). We knew the timing could be a problem, but we picked the September time slot because nothing else was happening on campus those first couple of weeks and students were freer to attend. Also, the fellowship used it as part of its new student outreach; chapter members were inviting people to things all the time anyway, and this gave them a nice finale.

When scheduling a big event, consider tying it in with what is happening on your campus at different times of the year. At UNLV, we picked the very end of January, just before Black History Month began, to bring Kevin Blue to the first “Malcolm, Martin and Messiah” evening on the west coast. The African-American Student Union was very supportive of the event and we had a huge crowd. Between Kevin’s powerful talk and the honest discussion after, we “got down to it” for the sake of the kingdom.

During March, 2002, I performed twice in Always the Women at Sonoma State University (CA). The staff and students already had good connections in the women’s center on campus. March is Women’s History Month, and the women’s center put the performances on their published calendar for the events of the month and came out for it as well. Between the guests of the I-V group and those from the women’s center, there were 200 students each night! It was one of my most successful performances in terms of numbers in the audience and campus engagement.

ENLIST
How do you get your whole fellowship on board to sponsor an evangelistic event? Well, you’re not going to pull it off alone. The goal is for the whole fellowship to be 100 percent behind the event and fully participating in it by coming and bringing people. You may even want to co-sponsor something with other Christian groups on campus.

Step 1: work with the leadership team. Discuss this article with the key decision-makers of your fellowship. Lead strongly, but make decisions together about the event, the timing and the preparation needed. Unite to seek God’s wisdom, asking him what he is doing in your fellowship and on your campus that you can hook up with. Find out if your vision matches up with what God is saying through your partners in ministry on the team. Who needs to be encouraged to go for it? Come up with a plan.

Step 2: include the small-group leaders and core members. In most fellowships, the small-group leaders and core members are key in modeling enthusiasm for the event and firing up their Christian members to participate, pray and bring people to it. Far in advance, make sure they understand what is happening and why, along with their role in pulling it off. When Bruce Kuhn performed at Pacific, the leaders were immediately involved in the event. They watched the promo video together. They divided up pre-written letters about the performances to deliver to professors. Some formed a prayer team to pray throughout the summer. In the fall, they were the first to get fistfuls of fliers to distribute as invitations to folks in their residence halls. Prior to the event, I verbally painted a picture of their personally leading groups of students from their dorms to the theatre. It happened!

Step 3: involve the whole fellowship. The real work of enlisting the members of the fellowship will happen in the more relational setting of the small group or in discipleship relationships. There is a place for big announcements, though, at large-group meetings and fellowship gatherings as soon as plans are in place. Several years ago, I worked with the leadership team at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo that brought I-V’s 2100 Productions’ huge-screen, multi-media extravaganza, Habakkuk, to campus. The previous year’s leadership team had planned the date, and it fell to their successors to make it happen. We were hearing about Habakkuk every Friday night for nearly a year (I might be exaggerating, but I don’t think so!). We received fliers with all the details to give away. We saw sketches and videos describing the show and firing us up to invite everyone we knew. And many announcements came in the form of heart-to-heart talks with the chapter about the evangelistic opportunity our event provided. (We probably experienced every mode of motivation known to humankind!) Everyone knew what was happening and how they needed to be involved. Large-group promotion matched the efforts being made in small groups to encourage the evangelistic participation of every student in the chapter.

So enlist all your leadership and help them promote the event.

ENACT
When Bruce Kuhn came to Pacific, the production team for the event knew it was crucial to involve a broad spectrum of the fellowship in the planning and preparation. This was key to the whole group’s making the event theirs and deciding to bring friends. Holding a lot of meetings isn’t always necessary. Use e-mail or one-on-one conversations. Here is a checklist of what the production team was responsible for (more information on each bulleted item can be found in the sidebar "Preparing for Campus Outreach Events"):

• Book the show or speaker.
• Book the theatre or room.
• Solidify co-sponsorship of the event.
• Form a prayer team for the event.
• Prepare a budget and secure finances.
• Order post-show giveaway materials.
• Secure technical support.
• Plan refreshments and hospitality.
• Plan publicity for students, faculty and staff, church partners, and city or community media.
• Plan a follow-up strategy.

ENJOY!
It was the most wonderful moment: after Bruce’s final performance at Pacific, he was taking questions from the audience. I think someone had asked him how he had decided to follow Jesus, and he was telling a bit of his story. I was sitting at the back of the theatre with the theatre department’s technical director and his 13-year-old daughter. I thought to myself, “This is incredible. Here we are, in a full theatre on campus, where the gospel is being proclaimed, and the theatre department is happy! This is what it’s all about!” We had envisioned this. We had enlisted the whole fellowship’s involvement. We had enacted good, thorough plans. Response cards were being collected, and I knew that chocolate-dipped strawberries awaited us on the patio. More than 500 students and faculty had been there over the three nights. God had used us to engage the campus with the gospel in this unique way. And the real fun of GIGS and follow-up conversations at Pacific was about to begin. May God grant all of us—and our campuses—fully engaged moments like this for the sake of the Kingdom. What could be better?

Nina Thiel is a graduate of University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, where she danced with the Pacific Dance Ensemble and studied acting. She has worked as I-V staff with several schools in California. She and her husband, Larry, have three children.