At Georgia Southern BCM we do an intro week for new students called Week One. Week One starts the day students move onto campus, as we have our leadership team helping move students into dorms and then inviting them to come be a part of the BCM Open House the next day (Saturday) and then also the rest of the events during the next week.
Each day there are different events. Saturday: Open House/meet and greet, free food, tables set up for different aspects and ministries of BCM (worship team, missions and outreach, men's/women's ministry, intramurals, etc.) Each of these tables is manned by multiple student leaders.
Sunday: Go to to a local church together. Church feeds the students after service. Sunday afternoon, we invite students to meet up with groups of upperclassmen for touring the campus and finding classes, and then invite them back for games/socializing
Monday: Outdoor game night at RAC on campus. Reserved a field on campus for organized games. Great way to get people having fun together, working together, break down walls and get deeper conversations.
Tuesday: First worship night of the semester. Free food for students before our weekly worship night. We also encourage leaders to invite people for volleyball or other games on campus for late night hangout times.
Wednesday: No activities officially for BCM. This gives a chance to breathe mid-week but also gives opportunity for students to check out a local church Bible study on a Wednesday night.
Thursday: Ice breakers and then a "reveal" for family groups. We put each new student into a "family group" (small group mixed gender Bible study).
Friday: Color War/Paint war/water games type fun night. Lots of fun, memorable pictures, easy for people to pop in and out of this event as they wish.
Saturday: Family group scavenger hunt (starts in the late morning). Each new family group is a team and will be asked to travel together to Savannah in a vehicle or two, which gives great conversation time in car rides. Also, they do a lot of funny/silly stuff for scavenger hunt which ends up being memorable for everyone.
Sunday: Go to another local church together. We ask all our leaders (BCM Council and all family group Bible study leaders) to all do this as well. This gives students another chance to see another great local church and also worship together on a Sunday.
We invite students to register beforehand, so that it's easy to place them in family groups and the small fee ($25) helps cover costs for the week for food & drinks, snacks, T-shirts, prizes, etc. I am also a believer in the theory of people paying a small amount helps them to mentally "buy in" instead of offering it for free and then not seeing the value right away.
Many students will show up who have not pre-registered. We try to push it for the first few days about registering officially when people show up. Most people who are a part of our Week One event will end up registering after they come to an event or two of ours. Ultimately,, we would neve turn anyone away from any event we do regardless of paying or not paying.
As far as attendance goes, there is an ebb and flow throughout the week. Usually, Tuesday is a bigger night because it's our first worship night and a free meal. Wednesdays were something we did up until two years ago. Those were the weakest attended. We stopped Wednesday activities also so people could check out local church studies.
One of the bigger things we are pushing throughout the week is Thursday family group reveals, because we know things can lose steam. But that bigger night at the end of the week helps this out. Also, the paint wars and waters games on Friday help with that as well. The attendance definitely ebbs and flows throughout the week though because students are checking out different ministries and activities. We usually might be missing a few students from earlier in the week, but there's also new students every night as well.
Chris Bryan is the Baptist Campus Minister at Georgia Southern University BCM.
Arliss Dickerson's book, Tips for College Freshmen: 124 Tips for Fun, Faith & Good Grades, is available at Amazon.com/dp/B09QFB9DJ9 and A College Student's Guide to Spiritual Maturity is at Amazon.com/dp/B0CXTCTNB1.
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