Being a POSITIVE Presence on Campus

Depending on the size of your campus, the size of your ministry, and the disposition of your campus, your ministry may be known or not known generally on the campus.  It is to a ministry's benefit to be known in a positive way.  Regretfully, some ministries are known in a negative way and it hurts all campus ministries.

Here are Five Ways to be a POSITIVE Presence:

1.  KNOW THE RULES AND KEEP THE RULES.
Most campuses have rules about what can be done in regards to publicity, events on campus, etc.  Some ministries that have a negative presence usually are known for breaking the rules.  Often, they do it in the name of being "a bold witness".  In the long run this is harmful to the Christian witness on that campus.

2.  KNOW THE KEY HOLDERS AND MAKE SURE THEY KNOW YOU.
Our ministry was using a room in the University Student Center recently.  There was a problem with the room.  One of the night custodians went out of the way to offer us an alternative.  He is a key holder.  The lady in the Student Affairs office who schedules the room is a key holder.  I went out of my way to thank her for working with us and letting her know he had been super helpful.  She said she would note that about him.  Both she, the night custodian and the Chancellor are key holders.  It is to our benefit to know all of them and have a positive relationship to them.

3.  SPEAK NO ILL OF OTHER CAMPUS MINISTRIES.
This is hard sometimes!  Obviously, if a ministry is speaking or doing hateful things that is a whole different thing.  But, the normal disagreements over philosophy, theological fine points, etc should not be criticisms that you voice to students.  For a variety of reasons, students respond very negatively toward criticisms of other ministries.  And if we are honest, sometimes that criticism...even though valid in our eyes....is the result of some jealousy on our part.

4.  WALK THROUGH THE STUDENT CENTER AND ACROSS CAMPUS EVERY DAY!
We have more of a sense of what is going on throughout campus.  We see people that it is helpful to just get to wave to.  We see students with whom we get to have a non-confrontational sixty second conversation.  Students we know introduce us to other students.

5.  GO TO CAMPUS EVENTS.
A friend of mine uses the slogan for their ministry, "We Love Our Campus!".  Students and key holders know when you love the campus.  Part of demonstrating that is showing up at campus events.  Key holders are more likely to work with someone or a group that they know is trying to benefit the campus as a whole.  Show up.


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