Jess Senasack said campus ministry is a little different in the area where she lives than it is in Alabama.
In Maryland and Delaware, only 14 of the 60 colleges and universities have some kind of Baptist ministry going on. In Alabama, which has the same number of campuses, 44 have Baptist campus ministers at work.
‘Emerging’ region
Ben Edfeldt, director of the office of collegiate and student ministries for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, called Senasack’s area an “emerging” region — an area “where your access to gospel-believing churches is much less than it would be in more traditional states.”
That’s a big reason Senasack — who serves as state collegiate director for the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware — was excited about forming a new partnership with Edfeldt’s team.
Edfeldt said their “prayer and hope is that the Lord will open the doors for a pipeline of Alabama students who will spend some time in Maryland and Delaware reaching students there.”
That could be a week, a semester or longer. He said he and other Alabama collegiate leaders are “always challenging our students to leverage their gifts and passions for the sake of the gospel.”
Edfeldt said he thought the partnership would also sharpen Alabama’s Baptist Campus Ministries.
“What we’re finding is that our campuses in Alabama aren’t getting any easier to reach,” he said. “The way they’re engaging students (in Maryland and Delaware) would benefit us here in Alabama.”
They got to see that in action in mid-January when Senasack and a team of 10 students from the University of Maryland in College Park and Morgan State University in Baltimore came to Alabama, along with Jalen Stewart-Fuller, who directs the BCM at Morgan State.
Senasack said a lot of what they do in Maryland and Delaware is “going out and having cold evangelism conversations.”
“Something we felt like we could give back to Alabama was teaching their students to do this,” she said.
She said she also feels like new cultural issues hit her area before Alabama.
“What we’re dealing with in Maryland will eventually hit the South,” Senasack said. “We can help campus ministries in Alabama be ready before it comes.”
Better insight
During their time in Alabama, Senasack’s group spent time on the campuses of Auburn University, the University of South Alabama, Tuskegee University, Auburn University at Montgomery and Alabama State University.
While there, they worked alongside students involved in those campuses’ BCMs handing out hot chocolate, popcorn and coffee and having conversations with students who passed by.
Stewart-Fuller said for the students he brought from Morgan State, it was their first-ever missions trip.
“To see how Baptist collegiate ministries do things in other places, it helps them realize that God’s world is so much bigger than what we’re used to,” he said. “This gave them a better insight about what it’s like to really go out into the world.”
Senasack said their hope is to have students coming from Alabama to serve in her area — a hope that is already starting to come to fruition. The University of South Alabama BCM is already planning a trip to Baltimore over spring break and may add more students to the team after they met some of the visiting students this week.
‘Forward thinking’
Chris Mills, SBOM student missions mobilizer, said One Mission Students also has a summer missions project planned for that area this summer. He said he hopes in the future students from Alabama will feel called to serve there for a semester, a year or even more in the future.
“Our desire is to raise up students and send them wherever the Lord may call them, but we believe one of the most strategic places is the college campus,” he said.
Edfeldt agreed.
“If our scope is only the 300,000 students in Alabama, we’re limiting the Lord in what He can do,” he said. “We want to be forward thinking.”
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