Many of the students attending the Collegiate Evangelism Conference (CEC), held at First Baptist Church, Trussville, the weekend of Feb. 6–7, were a bit startled at the statistics they found in the program flyer:
There are 233,962 college students in Alabama.
Only 31 percent of those in their 20s attend church in any given week.
Those older than 18 have a 6 percent probability of accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior.
58 percent of born-again Christians claim they have shared their faith with a non-Christian during the past year.
At the beginning of the weekend, the statistics simply painted an interesting, if disheartening, picture of the state of Christian evangelism on the college campuses of Alabama. But by the end of the weekend, those same statistics had become a call to action.
“I was surprised at how many college students don’t know Jesus,” said Josh Hardin, a student at Auburn University at Montgomery. “This conference has put a passion in my heart to go back to my campus and share with everybody I can.”
But as a result of the CEC, an inspired and trained army of 1,100 students was deployed to campuses across the state. Inspiration came in the form of three upbeat worship services designed to appeal to a college audience while training came in the form of 20 breakout sessions designed to prepare students for evangelism.
Witnessing insights
Covering a variety of topics ranging from apologetics to using electronic media to present the gospel, the breakout sessions were an opportunity for students to gain spiritual, issues-oriented and practical information specific to situations frequently encountered on today’s college campuses.
A lot of the information presented in the sessions was not so much “new ground” for attendees as it was a way of making students mindful of a Christian’s obligation to share Jesus at every opportunity.
“It reminded me of the tools I already have to evangelize and it reminded me to use them,” said Jessica Fike, a student at the University of North Alabama.
For example, students who attended the session “Cold Turkey Evangelism,” presented by Willie Alexander, campus minister at Alabama A&M University, were reminded that simply opening their mouths might yield results.
Cold turkey witnessing, Alexander explained, is on-the-spot evangelism or unplanned opportunities to witness that require a willingness to speak.
“Before you can be a verbal witness for the Lord, you have to be verbal,” he said. “You have to start a conversation. You can’t win people to the Lord by osmosis. You have to begin to talk. If you strike up a conversation, God will open doors.”
Other sessions, such as the one led by Craig Branch, director of the Apologetics Resource Center in Birmingham, challenged students to take a long hard look at their own beliefs and to understand why they believe what they believe.
“Evangelism and apologetics are always tied together,” Branch told the students. “Ideas are formed in college and you’re going to be bombarded with ideas foreign to Christianity. But if you have the right mindset, college can be a huge missions field for you. You can have an impact.”
Other CEC breakout sessions addressed topics such as Islam and homosexuality. The Islam session was led by Steve Cowan of the Apologetics Resource Center and the session on witnessing to homosexuals was led by Craig Hawkins, campus minister at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Both Cowan and Hawkins encouraged students to challenge without condemning and to establish relationships that might lead friends to a saving knowledge of Christ.
“Most homosexuals believe they are born that way,” said Hawkins. “I don’t know if that is or isn’t true, but it’s my opinion it doesn’t matter.
Putting ‘feet to faith’
“We’re all born with a sinful nature,” he said. “God forgives through the blood of Jesus Christ, and I don’t believe there’s one sin or another that bumps you off the list.”
The CEC also featured sessions for campus ministers presented by Allen Jackson, associate professor of youth education at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and Matt Kerlin, senior campus minister at the University of Alabama.
Geared toward helping ministers develop plans for effective college ministries, these sessions encouraged ministers to go beyond the methods to create a culture that would appeal to college students and at the same time lead the lost to Christ.
As the students departed First, Trussville, filled with a new passion for sharing Jesus with those around them, student Rayne Dodd of Steele summed up what many of them were saying about the CEC: “This has been more than just motivation. It’s putting feet to our faith. It’s giving us a foundation for where we need to be in our everyday lives.”
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