Students Share Their Faith During Engage24

ARLINGTON – Oct. 11 started out like any other day for Amy. She went from college class to class. Then a Christian classmate asked to go for a cup of coffee.

Amy admits she was relieved to be invited to coffee because she had questions swirling in her head that day, and she wanted to ask her classmate about them.

“You see, I was kind of happy she asked because there was something I desperately needed her perspective on,” Amy wrote in an email to the Engage24 leadership, and who asked to not share her real name or location.

About a year ago, Amy had an abortion and was condemned by her mother. She was carrying an immense amount of pain, guilt and disappointment from this situation. She shared her story with her classmate, expecting also to receive judgment. But that didn’t happen.

“She surprised me,” Amy wrote about her classmate. “...She smiled, grabbed my hands and told me all about how and why everyone is messed up - most importantly, how and why everyone still has a hope. She told me it was the gospel and that it meant that regardless of who and where I was, I was loved.”

The conversation between Amy and her classmate is just one of thousands that took place on Oct. 11 through Engage24, a 24-hour period where college students connected to Baptist Collegiate Ministries around the nation and Canada made an effort intentionally to engage their campus with the gospel. The goal was to see every Christ-following student share the gospel with one person that day.

Though Amy did not make a decision to follow Christ that day, she has been openly seeking answers and learning more about Christ since her encounter. 

“Your Engage24 really gave me something tangible, and it has been the first piece of life I’ve seen in a while,” Amy shard. “I’ve even begun to see new strength, and it is helping me begin to do things like rebuild my relationship with my mother.”

In the United States and Canada, there are more than 17 million college students. Leaders with the Baptist Collegiate Network, an organization comprised of the Baptist Collegiate Ministries in the U.S. and Canada, had a heart for each of these students to hear about the hope of Christ. In Oct. 2011, these leaders began to pray about involving more college students in evangelism efforts on college campuses and their hearts were drawn to promote a one-day effort for sharing their faith.

“Our heart was to somehow move evangelism forward on a national level and communicate to all the college students in the U.S. and Canada that we want them to be out sharing their faith,” said Christi Brazile Matthews, associate director of the BSM at University of Texas at Arlington and evangelism committee member for the Baptist Collegiate Network. 

Through the effort, more than 2,700 students across the nation and Canada reported that they shared the gospel more than 9,300 times and saw 96 students choose to begin a relationship with Christ.

“We just have been absolutely been blown away with what God has done,” Matthew said.

Ways that Engage24 was carried out were left up to the individual collegiate ministries. Some held evangelism trainings the weeks prior to the effort while others held service or campus events in order to engage students with the gospel.

John Shaffner with the BCM at the University of Arkansas shared that his group planned a campus revival around Engage24 and saw 39 students choose to follow Christ.

“Students have been connecting with and praying for lost friends this semester and this was the week to take it to the next level and share the gospel,” Shaffner said. “We planned REVIVE with the hope that this would be a harvest event, a place where students could personally invite those they have been praying for and investing in. Souls were saved and lives were changed.”

Richard Parsons, a business management major at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas, said that he met a college student while the BSM students also were hosting a solarium card table. He found that Engage24 not only gave him an opportunity to share the hope of Christ with non-Christians but also to encourage Christians who have been struggling in their walk.

“We exchanged contact info and had a deep talk. He was really depressed,” he said. “We were going try to meet up last night, but he was tired and we ended up texting. It seems he's getting back on the right track again. It's great to see how we were trying to connect and make an impact with non-believers, and yet we were making an impact for the struggling believers, as well!" 

At the University of Texas at Arlington Baptist Student Ministry, Matthews and other leaders held evangelism training each hour of the day on Oct. 11, equipping students to share their faith. The group also gave away free coffee and more than 600 donuts that day, giving students an opportunity to connect with others on campus and begin gospel conversations. Matthews mentioned that through the effort, she was able to explain the gospel to students four different times that day.

“There are students in the BSM who have grown up in church but had never shared their faith until Engage24,” Matthews said. “I think because it was a national day, they felt encouraged to be bold and take part in sharing their faith.”

Beyond spreading the gospel to students who may have never heard, Engage24 is the start to helping students make evangelism a daily part of their life, Matthews said.

“I hope that this helps them to have a lifestyle of evangelism, that they will look at their everyday personal lives they are living as a chance to share Christ, that they won’t see this as a one-day event but a lifestyle of sharing Christ with friends and family,” Matthews said.

Make plans to join the next Engage24 on Oct. 10, 2013. For more information, visit www.Engage24.org.

Kaitlin Warrington, Texas Baptists Communications