Doing College Ministry Long Term....Scott Smith

 Lander University, a public university in Greenwood, South Carolina, announced last week that they would be honoring Scott Smith with an honorary doctorate and a scholarship in his name.   Scott has served as the Baptist Campus Minister at Lander since 1985.  Although some Campus Ministers have been honored in such a way by Baptist and other church related colleges, this is the first public university to make such a recognition.  I asked Scott to share some of his tips for long effective service and being seen as such a valuable partner by a state university.  Arliss

I found that I had to make at least one change in the way that I do things each year.  Sometimes they could be a big change and sometimes it was only a change that I could see.  It helped because it forced me to tweak things and make sure that we were doing things in the right way.  Another thing is that we have adjusted our emphasis along the way.

When I turned 40, I realized that my campus was more that just students.  I had spend many years  developing a ministry to students but I had neglected faculty/staff, coaches, and other folks.  That was a real wake up call. It also added an element of newness to our emphasis.  We also decided a few years ago we need to reflect our campus more.  Our BCM needed to look more like our campus.    We needed more diversity, more students that were involved in a lot of different groups on our campus. 

 Last thing:  We were always pretty good at keeping our churches, alumni and friends involved in our ministry.  Many years ago, I felt like I needed to keep the administration really updated.  For 30 plus years I have sent 20 to 30 administrators a packet of information twice a year (May and December) about what all we are doing.  We included a glossy piece, some numbers (administrators love numbers), a thumbnail sketch of the semester highlights and lastly a personal letter from me just expressing my appreciation to be able to work on a state university campus.  It took about 10 years for me to ever hear any results of this. I hope this helps.

Scott Smith, Lander University

Arliss Dickerson's book, ALMOST EVERYTHING ABOUT COLLEGE MINISTRY, is available at amazon.com.