Time to Contact College Freshmen From Your Congregation

"Have you contacted the campus ministry of your college freshmen yet?" asks Rev. Sam Halverson, associate director of Connectional Ministries. Halverson offers the following advice:

It's an easy thing to forget: you said 'goodbye' to your graduated seniors last spring and are now focused on the incoming middle schoolers, but wouldn't it be important to hand over the baton of your ministry to those who can speak into the spiritual lives of your graduated seniors?

Here are four steps:

1. Generate the list of who graduated last year with phone numbers and names of parents.
2. Find one, two, or three adults who will contact each of those parents by phone (email will take too long, unfortunately) and ask what the plans are for their student this year. If the son or daughter is going away to college, ask the address and email. Ask if it is alright to pass that information off to the head of the campus ministry there at the college or university.
3. Contact the campus ministry by clicking here and filling out the form for each student. You don't even have to contact the school. This site does all that.
4. Keep the list of who is going where and send out a care package to each campus - to the campus ministry offices - and then tell the youth they can pick up their care package at the next campus ministry event. 

Statistics tell us that if a new student doesn't get involved in some sort of faith community in the first two weeks at college then it is most likely he or she won't be involved in any faith community while away at school. Campus ministries will appreciate the attention you take with this and find ways to keep their connection with you and your congregation.

You can find the Georgia campus ministry connections at http://www.umcommission.org/