TAMUK BSM named winner of 2021 Best of Kingsville Award

The Texas A&M University Kingsville (TAMUK) Baptist Student Ministry (BSM) was named winner of the 2021 Best of Kingsville Awards in the category of Religious Organizations. The BSM has spent the 2020-2021 school year focusing on community service and restoration.

“Our vision is restoration– finding what we can see that’s broken and helping students find a way to mend them,” Joe Luna, director of the BSM, explained.

For the BSM, restoration focuses on seeing the brokenness of the world and returning it to the way God created it to be. Luna explained that, for example, God did not create relationships to be in conflict, so students were encouraged to “restore” those relationships. Or, if there is trash on the ground, stop and pick it up, because God did not intend the world for litter.

This theme of restoration has led the BSM to focus heavily on community service as they seek to honor the Lord by loving people the way He commands. Over Spring Break, the BSM participated in Reach21, which sent BSM students out into their colleges’ communities to meet needs in their own neighborhoods.

The TAMUK BSM students held a clothes and food drive for international students at TAMUK. Many of the international students at TAMUK have been very isolated during the pandemic, Luna explained, as they do not have family nearby, most classes were completely remote and many do not have cars. The drive allowed the international students to meet the BSM students while also receiving much-needed clothes and food. They also delivered boxed lunches on a weekly basis throughout the school year to an apartment complex where many international students resided.

Luna has been with the BSM for ten years. College ministry is especially important to him, as he came to Christ during his college years. He hopes to continue equipping students for missions and service, helping them see how they can look outwards, rather than inwards, and glorify Christ through their actions.

“Without college ministry, I don’t know if I could have come to know the Lord. If we can help these students see the world through the lens of restoration instead of selfishness, think of the impact it could make,” he said.

Find a BSM near you, and see how you can be involved in making a difference in the lives of college students in your community at txbsm.org.