002: Supporting Your University

Welcome to the College Ministry Leadership Podcast, a conversation to glean.

Welcome to episode two of the College Ministry Leadership Podcast. Today's topic is supporting your school. We're going to talk a little bit about why we support our universities and some practical ideas on how we can do just that. We're here today with two assistants from Arkansas State University's Baptist Collegiate Minister.

And one of our students here, uh which we're gonna talk a little bit about later, but first we have Hannah Hickman here who just celebrated her birthday yesterday. So yeah, absolutely. Um you were serenaded like Good for you. So Hannah tell us a little bit about what you do here at the Bad. Food for lots of people. And Mark Parsley here. I'm we're really not sure what Mark does here. So tell us exactly tell us exactly what you do here, Mark. Uh I'm involved with the international ministry here.

And so just I guess I do a lot of the whatever Hannah doesn't do, I do and whatever Chad doesn't do I do. Anyway, I a a lot of different things. But uh definitely

And then one of our students, Tyler Hofpower, he's got kind of a dual role here. Uh tell us a little bit about ministry teams we have about six students and we do ministry work on um or for the campus and but Which is a great opportunity maybe for you if if you're trying to get uh some help with your ministry on campus, maybe connect to the PR department and uh while you can be a resource to them, they can be a resource. So it's been an incredible

The first question we want to start out with is uh why do we want to support our school? This is uh the first answer is going to be easy, super spiritual, but it's a good answer because it's kind of what we're called to do. We're supposed to minister to our Um and if we're not good time managers, let's be honest. Doing that can oftentimes be neglected, uh, but we we gotta cultivate these relationships. Um, we may be the only pastoral presence.

that our staff and faculty actually have. Um and so in many regards you're you're a chaplain for your college. Uh in fact two weeks ago one of our staff members told me that they just lost their mom and so I was able to pray

And so it it's it's been very advantageous on in that regard. But I think number two, we'll talk a little bit about this, is to leverage your existence as a ministry on campus and it earns you credibility uh to staff and faculty Um because of your relationship with the school, the more likely you're going to experience certain freedoms as an organization.

So make sure they understand that you're reputable. Uh may make sure they they see you as a colleague. Um'cause I know a lot of you out there and I've been here that you're living in a very frustrating situation on campus. One campus I was a part of uh was partial to certain organizations over religious organizations. And later I found out that it was simply uh we were failing as a religious organization uh organization at cultivating that.

So consequently we didn't have the same access to those students that other organizations actually Um when I was a chaplain for one baseball team, I sat down in the coach's office and I convinced him that if I were to be a chaplain it would help his recruiting because mom and dad would actually Their child would be And so this has been my strategy ever since.

school. Last year at Orientation I talked to one parent from Florida who was a concerned about her daughter leaving and she was so pleased with our conversation that she told her track coach and the office of admission And so as a result of that conversation, we're actually available to all of uh the incoming students as C. Um and so we're providing tables at recruiting events, not just orientation events, but recruiting events for high

Um, I know uh one university, uh Southern Miss, uh Lloyd Launchford, the Baptist Student Union uh minister there, Arles Dixon was telling me this story that he actually provides a steak dinner for his uh admissions department. And uh and as a result of their bringing students to the Baptist Student Union um during Orientation. And so um I know for a lot of you in in emerging regions, you're experiencing some freedoms as a result of disaster relief.

And so there are lots of great ideas out there. Hannah, talk to us a little uh about maybe some of the things that we do here at Arkansas State to try to cultivate that. Sometimes Yeah. busy major. Um there's a lot of facets to that. But No, I love what you said about you know doing the Christian And so I think as a result of that we have a better reputation on campus with our uh university.

And so as a consequence of that, um, we've started what's called the naked guys and and Mark's gonna put that into context. So Mark, tell us a little bit about maybe uh some of the things that we do with the naked guys. Golly, I don't even know where to start, but let me just let me start here. Uh like yes

This year alone they've got like three hundred and fifty followers on Twitter and so start following the naked guys and see all the updates. Uh but anyway, the naked guys are just a group of guys that paint their chests and support But there's just so much more than that. They're being used as marketing tools and being on promotions.

respective students. And and what's so good about that is uh not only is that good for our campus, uh but that's so good for us as a religious organization, I think, to just say, okay, these are D. C. M naked guys and so uh it's really neat. Another neat thing that's happened this year is uh we have a Pride Day celebration in the spring, and uh this group uh won the outside. Really, really, really great. They've they've met with uh uh marketing uh folks here.

athletic director has sat down with them. Our basketball coach John Brady has tweeted him back. basketball season. Um and so just they have relationships with players. Uh you know, if you if you go on the their Twitter page you'll see nothing but pictures with players and at the at the bowl. Really, really. Mark, what would you say to the university or the co uh the college ministry who says that's a great idea, we've tried that, but it doesn't work. We always attract the wrong guy

Heckle football players and it we're embarrassed by'em. What would you say to that that ministry? Yeah, that's a good question. And uh you have to I think you just have to snip it out in the beginning. Uh you know, our our naked guy have to almost abide by this contract. And it's just a it's just a document that actually one of our students that really lead

We had to just sort of cut it because yeah, it was a taunting group and it wasn't something that was um was good. It wasn't a positive thing and that's what we wanted to be. So each naked guy, if they're gonna if they wanna paint their child And so there there's Yeah, the naked guy's wonderful. We we use the naked guys just for about anything, you know, we we want people. And the school asked us. The coaches ask them. Oh yeah on Twitter Coach Brady, that's his background on Twitter.

Beating by like twenty-seven, but Coach Brady was tweeting, Thanks to you, naked guys, you know, and just making it real personal. And again, it's BCN. We're all about supporting our campus. Um, and then the other thing I think that is really good for your campus.

to incorporate people into your program. So faculty and staff, we we have a weekly program, it's an outreach in itself, uh it's called BCM Lunch. And uh we'll have like just a couple weeks ago we speak. Uh our women's basketball coach has has spoken. We've had Coach Freeze here before, a former coach.

So just we honor faculty and staff at that. They eat for free if they come. You know, we honor student groups and athletes. And so we really try to not only go to our and for them to see what we do and uh just establish a uh a really good It's a good thought. One quick thing on the on the athletes, I know it's important to to know the fine line between providing them

Thought of that. Sure. Sure. Hey, uh Tyler, talk a little bit about the the outreach team and maybe how you can can join us in trying to support our our faculty. as much as the relationship with the student game. And so um something that we

I I mean that's a great word. I also think it's very important uh for you to to meet individually with these staff and faculty. As a colleague, you know, don't don't show up looking like a college student or they'll treat you like a college student. Um I think it's important to uh, to be a colleague and and pray pray for them and meet with them.

Um I also think it it would be uh advantageous to create a religious alliance group, all the religious organizations to to meet together, maybe pray together and uh meet with somebody uh to talk about student affairs. Um to make sure that you are compliant with everything you're doing with school policies. Uh one of the things that that keeps me up at night is uh is the restrictions and power that the university has over

it may be coming your way. But we here at Arkansas State are extremely blessed with friends throughout the staff and faculty. And one of the reasons that uh we work really hard at cultivating that relationship is because that's what we're called And so um in fact after one meeting with our leadership center this week, I tweeted how grateful I was for their work and our president um from Little Rock actually sent me a personal message of thanks for all

So uh there's just just one example of of how cultivating that relationship can pay off. Thanks for joining us today with our podcast. We hope that uh Helps you out. Normally we're we're gonna try to update our podcast on Sunday night so you can download those, listen to those on Monday morning on your way to work. We'd love to hear from you what topics

that you want to hear about, you can email me your thoughts at C Logan at ABSC.org. We'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas as well. Follow me on Twitter at Chad Logan, C-H-A-D-L-O-G-A-M and C-M Leadership. You can also follow Hannah at uh at Hannah L. Hickman, uh Mark at Mark Parsley, and Tyler at T-H-O-F-F underscore. Until next time.