5 Things Parents Can Do to Encourage Their Kids Spiritually in College

1.  Just as you communicate a desire for good grades and keeping scholarships, etc, encourage and talk about spiritual involvement and connections.
-Just as you cannot control or make students study and make good grades, you talk about it and do all you can to promote it.  Do the same with spiritual connections.

2.  Make SURE that the local Baptist Collegiate Ministry, another ministry and or a local church with a college ministry has their name and contact information.
-Contacts are beginning to be made and information is starting to be sent out now about special start of school events.  What a student does their first three weeks often determines their whole college career of connections and activities.

3.  Ask about spiritual involvement, events attended, etc the first time they come home for a visit.
-You will ask about friends, Greek life, studies, dorm life, etc.  Make this just part of that whole conversation.

4.  If your family will visit for a weekend in the fall semester for Homecoming or any other event, let them know that you will plan to stay and attend a church with them on that Sunday prior to your leaving.
-Remember, that tone matters.  It cannot be, "We know you will not have gone to church yet, so we are going to stay and drag you to a church on that Sunday."  Make it something along the lines of, "That weekend we are going to be there think about a restaurant you really like we can eat at and a church we can all go to on Sunday."

5.  Model to your student the kind of spiritual connections and activity you expect and hope for them.

Arliss Dickerson is the author of five books on college ministry in eBook form available for 99 cents each on Amazon.com.  His book, FIXING A BROKEN COLLEGE MINISTRY, is also available in paperback on Amazon.

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