Collegiate ministry legend passes wisdom to new ministers

Being the leader of a Baptist Collegiate Ministry on a college campus or in a local church is like being a pastor of a small church whose entire congregation leaves every four years.

Arliss Dickerson, BCM director at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro since 1979, is legendary for the way he has poured his life into developing student leaders.

Dickerson led a series of workshops for new collegiate ministers during National Collegiate Week, Aug. 2-7, 2008, at LifeWay Ridgecrest Conference Center near Asheville, N.C.

Calling relationships the “currency of your ministry,” Dickerson told the new collegiate ministers they would need to develop seven types of relationships:

--Relationships with your key student leaders – students who will develop into the key ministry leaders. Dickerson encouraged one-on-one investment with these individuals.

--Relationships with casual attendees.

--Relationships with campus leaders – the student government leaders, cheerleaders, club leaders who may not necessarily be a part of the ministry, but are influencers on the campus.

--Relationships with campus administrators. “You need to make your presence known to people in places such as the student affairs office,” he said. “If they know you are there and are willing to help, it will be beneficial.” Dickerson suggested helping at student orientation to pass out soft drinks or even stack chairs.

--Relationships with key figures on campus, such as the coaches and professors.

--Relationships with the students to whom no one else tries to relate. “We need to attract some of the top students on our campuses, but we also need to attract the people who wouldn’t have anyone else if they didn’t have us,” Dickerson said.

 --Relationships with people that do – or potentially could – support your ministry, such as local churches and organizations willing to volunteer time, money and resources.

Randy Boyd, state collegiate ministries director for the Baptist Convention of New England, said that most students in the Northeast enter college with no church background whatsoever.

“About 99 percent of our college students in New England are unchurched,” Boyd said. “All they know [about Christianity] is what they’ve seen through the media, which is nearly always negative. We hear the most positive portrayal on television about Christians is The Simpsons. Evangelism for us is a huge challenge.”

He added that he thinks campuses are the greatest hope for student evangelism in New England. “We have a BCM presence on 275 campuses, but our state convention only has about 240 churches.”

Becky Crandall, BCM area director in Miami, said she thought one of the greatest strengths of the campus ministries is their focus on connecting students with a local church.

“We tell them, ‘Hey, guys, it’s good here on campus, but you need to get plugged in with a church too,’” she said.

Dickerson agreed. He told leaders they need to model involvement in their local churches for their students. “You want the student – the  finished BCM product – to be a Christian involved in his church,” he said.

“Let them look at you and see that you are involved in your church as an individual,” he said. “I teach a Sunday school class and am on committees at my church and they know that.”

Jared Bell, the volunteer collegiate leader at Bath Baptist Church in Bath, S.C., for less than a month, said he was glad to see there was an event where he could learn what would be helpful to him as he begins his ministry.

“One thing Arliss said that really struck me was that our face will be the face of our collegiate ministry,” Bell said. “We have to be willing to do the work and take responsibility.”

Nate Young, campus minister at the University of Alabama for the past two years, sat with Dickerson during a Q&A with the new collegiate ministers. He said Collegiate Week is a good time for experienced collegiate ministers to be reminded of how much they know.

“It’s good just to realize we do know a lot about how to minister to college students,” he said. “It’s also a great time to be around all these other leaders who deal with the same issues and hear what they do.”

Dickerson told the group to be proud of their calling as collegiate ministers. “Remember,” he told them with a laugh, “God called thousands of preachers, but only a few collegiate ministers.”

A second Collegiate Week was going on simultaneously at LifeWay Glorieta Conference Center near Santa Fe, N.M. Both were sponsored by LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention. About 1,700 students and leaders from across the country attended both events.

Next year’s National Collegiate Weeks will be Aug. 1-5 at Ridgecrest and Aug. 3-8 at Glorieta. For more information about these and other 2009 collegiate events, go to www.lifeway.com/collegiate.

For up-to-date news and information regarding LifeWay Christian Resources, visit www.lifeway.com/news.