BSM takes the Gospel to college campuses in Tennessee

By Analiz G. Schremmer

Baptist Student Ministry (BSM) participants from the University of North Texas (UNT), Texas Woman’s University (TWU) and Tyler Junior College (TJC) spent their Spring Break evangelizing and teaching evangelism on six different Nashville, Tennessee college campuses. They shared the Gospel with 184 people and saw 10 new believers accept Christ.

Before the trip, UNT students were equipped with an evangelism training called “3 Questions, 3 Circles, and 3 Responses.” The training gives Christians a simple method to present the Gospel by drawing diagrams on a sheet of paper.

Once on the trip, UNT students trained the other Spring Break participants from Texas, as well as some BCM (known as Baptist Collegiate Ministry in Tennessee) students from Nashville.

“The training was given about 90 percent by our UNT students,” said Stephanie Gates, who organized the trip and serves as UNT BSM director. “They trained other Texas students as well as students from two of the Tennessee colleges.”

Gates explained that the evangelism training involves asking someone if they need prayer. If you get a chance to pray with them, you can ask if they are close to God. That opens the door to draw the three circles and present the Gospel. The final question allows the person to give them the opportunity to accept Christ as their Savior.

Once the students received the training, they spent the rest of their time visiting six different Nashville college campuses and applying their evangelism tools.

Sean Beach, a junior from TWU, said before Spring Break, he had never really been able to share the Gospel.

“I went to Beach Reach, but I just froze up,” he said. “From then, I probably shared the Gospel with one other person the whole time I’ve been in college. I’m an introvert, so it’s something that’s just not easy for me. But on this trip, I shared the Gospel with like 30 or 40 people and I wasn’t even afraid. I just felt that God was with me that whole trip.”

Beach said that he and another student were paired up together most of the time. They shared the Gospel with students at Cumberland College and Middle Tennessee State University.

“We just walked around the campus and sometimes went to the dining hall where we asked students if they needed prayer,” he explained. “I was shocked at the response because 95 percent said, ‘Yeah’. Then we shared the Gospel. Usually, we’d pray with them right then and there and most of them would say, ‘Yeah, that’s fine.’

“I think it’s something I can keep doing,” he added later.

Gates explained that one of the long-term goals of the trip was to help students realize that they could share the Gospel and then be able to return to their own colleges and lives and continue evangelizing.

Another goal was to ensure that the students who heard the Gospel received some type of follow-up.

“We collected the names and contact information from the students who either made a decision to accept Christ or showed an interest in learning more, so that the local BCM could follow up with them,” Gates said.

Gates said the Nashville BCM students were excited to see students come to their campus to work alongside them for the Gospel and give them names to follow up on.

“Not only were we helping connect with students who wanted to learn more,” she said. “But I am hoping we were able to cast vision and excitement of how these things can happen even when we are not here.”