Evangelization on CSU’s Campus

    “Damnation upon all those who refuse to follow in the footsteps of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!” On days when preachers visit, this bark can be heard from across the plaza.
    “Hey, would you want to join me at church this Sunday?” Friends often exchange this invitation in a more personal setting. 
    So, which approach would compel you to open up the pages of a Bible?
    Students can hear the Christian gospel through public preachings, namely the screamers out on the plaza who condemn bystanders innocently sauntering towards class or the well-known “Grace Christian people” who ask students whether they’ll visit the white pearly gates of Heaven, or the raging flames in Hell if they were to die tonight.
    The gospel is further proclaimed in more personal settings, such as booths with smiling faces directly behind set up by campus ministries in the LSC Flea Market, or even a friendly conversation between peers, encouraging nonbelievers to attend Sunday mass.
    Spreading the gospel to a secular college campus brings to mind a word most nonbelievers cringe at: evangelism. In its most simple form, it is the practice of communicating the Christian faith throughout the world and converting people to accept Christian beliefs.
    Many religious organizations around the Fort Collins area, some being ministries exclusively on campus, and others being churches external to the university, focus their efforts toward college students. College is a time when young adults discern their own religious beliefs, apart from or more closely to what they have been taught at home until now. Because of this, Christian ministries firmly believe in the importance of preaching the gospel to college students.

Why Evangelize?

    “Biblically, it says you should go out and evangelize,” Bryah Jackson plainly put it. “They are sinners, just like me, that are separated from God. This is an opportunity to come back through Jesus.” Jackson partakes in Bible studies and serves on the Evangelism Team for the CSU Navigators, a campus organization called to making Christ known among college students.
    “It is a joy and a gift, not that I’m gifted,” Jackson humbly admitted, “but that [evangelization is] giving the gift of God to others.” By proclaiming the gospel around campus, Jackson said he hopes to show other students they can receive the same happiness and blessings from God that Jackson has seen in his own life by following Jesus Christ.
    With different religions, come different reasons why Christians believe they should preach their message to the CSU campus. Connie Winter-Eulberg, an ordained pastor at Lutheran Campus Ministry at CSU, seeks to be of service to those who feel “lapsed” in their faith. She sits behind a booth every Thursday in the LSC Flea Market and commonly asks students who approach the table to “tell me what you’re looking for to enhance your spiritual journey.” The message she aims to disseminate by evangelizing is quite simple: “God is love.”
    The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints spreads God’s word to positively change people on the individual level, according to Dillon Eldridge. As Acting President of CSU’s Latter-Day Saint Student Association, he explained the church has an individualistic approach that is passed on through its evangelization.
    “People aren’t perfect, and we’re not condemning them for not being perfect. The past is the past,” Eldridge emphasized. Communicating the teachings of Eldridge’s church, he continues, should not only influence students to work on an individual change, but make it a meaningful, life change and not merely a “momentary answer or decision.” Above all else, Latter-Day Saint evangelists want to “help the person to know the importance of God and act on it,” Eldridge sincerely expressed.
    Conveying these messages to students who may not share the same beliefs poses a challenge for those making Christ known. However, students can be effectively reached when one couples the art of persuasion with evangelization.

Persuasion used in Evangelism

    Influencing students to accept Jesus into their life can be linked to the Social Judgment Theory, first introduced by Muzafer Sherif and Carl Hovland, which determines a range of message acceptance based on an individual’s current judgment on the issue. Changing a student’s attitude depends on the evangelist’s message’s falling within either a “latitude of acceptance” or “latitude of rejection” in relation to the student’s current attitude.
    Say the targeted student were an atheist. Discussing how many Apostles Jesus chose in the Bible would not suddenly convert the student; the message discrepancy in this scenario is so large that no attitude change will come of it. This is when the evangelist’s message falls within the “latitude of rejection.” Contrast effects can happen when the message falls in this range; the student judges the message to be farther away from his own opinion than it actually is. This is shown when a student thinks an evangelist is annoying or obnoxious. Instead, the message should be closer to the student’s attitude, in the range of acceptance, yet still in the direction of the desired outcome.
    When Jackson roams around campus to evangelize, he shifts his message depending on the message discrepancy with each student he encounters. Sometimes he happens upon students who are stronger in their faith than others. For these specific students, Jackson encourages support systems or bible studies for the student to turn to for his or her faith. Jackson’s approach when speaking to fellow believers of Christ falls within the student’s “latitude of acceptance” while still nudging the student deeper into his or her faith.
    Considering this theory, each ministry outreach at CSU has diverse methods and tactics to spreading their religious beliefs. Depending on the approach, the responses to each message vary; some students counteract the message by testing the evangelist’s knowledge and others are programmed by the media to refuse their teachings. Yet, the same churches who are rejected also realize some students respond with a “yes” when the numbers on Sunday mornings climb higher.

Approaches given and responses received by different Campus Ministries

    Matt Miller, student intern at the Fort Collins Faith Evangelical Free Church who oversees their CSU campus ministry outreach program, defined three main ways in which the church passes on its religion to others: promotional advertising, word of mouth and traditional evangelizing teams. The first includes flyers in the dorm and handouts in the dining halls, neither requiring face-to-face interaction. The second, word of mouth, is the most personal.
The third and less frequent approach is traditional evangelism, when Evangelist Equipping (EE) Teams visit students at the LSC to inquire about their faith.
    “We never want to pick a fight,” Miller affirmed. The team begins with diagnostic questions, such as “If you were standing in front of the gates of Heaven, why would God let you in?” They first want to let the students answer themselves, then the team will offer their view of the posed question according to the gospel they are trained with. Although the goal of EE Teams is to bring students to come to know the gospel, Miller agreed this is not the most effective way to evangelize.
    “Personally, people are not equipped to handle the questions people have,” Miller revealed. “However, it’s really helpful with getting people started. A vast majority [of newcomers to the church] is through personal invitation.”
    Jackson can attest to the difficult questions students respond with to evangelists.
    “Questions testing me are designed to debase and show the faith isn’t real; their pure intent is to find a hole.” In the past, Jackson has been asked “nonsensical questions” such as “Why would God make a rock so big if he couldn’t move it?”
    Yet, not every student responds so harshly to evangelist’s outreach. “Sometimes I just get a ‘no’ ” and other times it’s a subliminal hostile mood they’re giving off, Jackson said.
    Despite negative feedback, Miller has seen the number of students involved with his church grow every year, reaching well past the triple digit mark this year.
    In a similar fashion, Eldridge begins his evangelization work with diagnostic questions that “everyone has.” Sparking discussion, he poses questions like “Why am I here?” or “Where am I going?” When preaching to students, Eldridge has received more negative comments than positive ones.
    “The Internet, social media, and media in general have led a rising generation to believe religion is bad,” Eldridge noted. Even so, he said, “Success makes opposition worth it.” He is still grateful to reach only one person out of 100. The Church of the Latter-Day Saints, according to Eldridge, is increasing in converts world wide by about 200,000 every year.
    Following a more passive approach to evangelization, the Orthodox Christian Fellowship (OCF) works to support members of the Fort Collins Orthodox Christian Church. Mary Timby, chapter officer of the fellowship, said in an email that the OCF does not follow the traditional Christian way of evangelizing.
    “Myself and my Orthodox Christian peers do not typically approach students. We have never set up a booth or directly evangelized to those in class,” Timby said. The OCF focuses on leading by example and waiting for other students to initiate a conversation about faith. Then, they hope to “plant a seed” about their own faith.
    “Not every student is looking to be evangelized to. I think students are more interested in discovering and researching religion on their own, and the Orthodox faith is available to be explored on the student's own time and terms,” Timby wrote. She has never experienced negative comments from students and the OCF had “four students come to church on a semi-regular basis, attend Bible studies and Orthodox education classes” this year.
    While CSU’s institutional research does not track students’ religious affiliation by the numbers, the SLiCE office accounts for around 25 Christian campus student organizations, each with active members.
    For these evangelists, their religion is their way of life and sharing it with others is a bliss. They simply wish for other students to experience the same faith they take joy in every day.  Whichever way that happens, the end goal according to Jackson, is to “point [students] toward God, point them looking to God, and wanting to have a relationship with Him.”