[This post is part of the “4 Hour Campus Plant” series. I am live blogging my attempt to plant a ministry at a new campus with only 4 hours a week. This is a continuous story that builds, so make sure to start at the beginning.]

Today was the activities fair at LBCC and our first time doing any public outreach. Well, today God showed up in a big way! We had over 100 students stop at our booth and fill out contact cards. In just under three hours of time! That means 100 students gave us their email and want to get more information about joining our new start up ministry on campus!

If you have been following along with our other 15 posts, you know we have been praying, and strengthening our small team of 3-4 for the last four months.

But now, with our funky team of me (Greek InterVarsity Staff), Sean (local youth pastor), and Kimy (LBCC student), God has given us a group of 100 students to follow up with and lead spiritually.

To be honest I don’t know how we are going to do this. We only have 4/hrs a week!

Here are a bunch of pictures from our time!

A Few Lessons

Today was an exciting day. It is one thing to get a bunch of contact cards (which I have done many times over my 10 years on staff) but it is another thing for 100 people to come to your table in less than three hours, pull out their ear buds and interact with you and give an email. God was seriously drawing people like I haven’t seen on a campus before. Genuine interest and excitement.

Its not about the flyers or table

We messed up the flyers (wrong logo) even though they looked really sharp. I didn’t bring the table cloth for the table, we had no banner. We didn’t even bring enough contact cards. I was seriously rusty in my table game and you know what – It didn’t matter today.

Trust me, I take NSO (new student out reach seriously) and you need to look good and be on your game. I am not ever wanting to show up looking like this again.

But that being said, it wasn’t about that for this 4/hr a week plant.

God had prepared this moment

We have been praying for months and Sean and Kimy have really hung in here in the waiting game and let God dig their hearts out for campus. We have been believing that God was going to give us a big catch. It was almost as if we needed to just show up – this is what God is doing here at LBCC. He just needed a few people to tithe their time to the campus and we are doing that.

Go back and look at our first post in the series. Sean urged me and InterVarsity to come to LBCC at a taco shop. None of us really cared about this campus. But God did.

Kimy was really scared after our first core meeting. I know she thought about quitting. I am glad she didn’t! SO is she!

The Perfect Trio

I have never done NSO with a pastor and one student. This was a very fun time. Not only had we been praying for this day for 4 months, so there was much anticipation and buy in, but we represent such different and dynamic realities. Sean won people’s trust by presenting himself as a local pastor. He knows all the local High Schools so he talked to incoming freshman about theirs and what he is doing on them. Kimy is the student and shared her heart and what she is expecting God to do. I was able to bring the InterVarsity vision and give the bigger story of a student moment across all of Greater LA. It was and is an amazing team!

Cults

One of the two cults on campus was the next door booth. We had a few moments of run-ins with students asking “Why don’t you just join up? Why have two clubs?” It was really confusing for some people. On the other hand, we were able to tell all the students we met, “Do your research on the clubs. On us and the other “christian clubs”. There are cults on this campus and you need to know what they believe. People thanked us. We are going to write up an article to give students on “how to know what a cult is?”

There isn’t another public club on campus that isn’t a cult that we are aware of.

I don’t know what we are going to do

I have a strong feeling of “I don’t know what we are going to do with 100 contacts”. That is a lot of people to follow up with in just a little time I am giving to this. This is a 4/hr a week project. I need help and Sean and Kimy are fired up.

But we do know what we are going do at the same time. We have a plan.

Weekly: Bible study outside on the lawn on Tuesdays at 12

Monthly: Worship at Light & Life Church on Friday nights

Semesterly: Conference at Catalina with other colleges.

We also are inviting everyone to our regional evangelism conference next Saturday. We are hoping for a solid core of students to go with us and get fired up with the other 500 that will be there!

So please pray for us! We are just getting started. Lots to follow up with, and people to disciple. We will see who shows up Tuesday at our noon Bible Study!

[This post is part of the “4 Hour Campus Plant” series. I am live blogging my attempt to plant a ministry at a new campus with only 4 hours a week. This is a continuous story that builds, so make sure to start at the beginning.]