by Carson Conover
Carson and his family
We’re 5 weeks into the new semester at Blue River and Longview Community Colleges and we’re off to a great start! Christian Challenge (our ministry at Blue River) spent the first two weeks meeting new students and getting the word out about the ministry by raffling off an iPad. We invited students to fill out a 30 second survey to enter the raffle. As of now, we’ve been able to make contact with 290 students. Of those students, 170+ indicated some degree of interest in learning more about Challenge. We have been setting up gospel appointments. During these meetings we initiate spiritual conversations, share how they can connect, and in many cases share the gospel. In one case, we shared the gospel with a student named Makyla who prayed to receive Christ in the Campus cafe!
We just finished our first week of Challenge Bible studies at Blue River. We launched 6 Bible studies this week. We had 20+ students show up our first week. We’ll be studying and discussing the Gospel of Luke. Please pray that the Lord will grow our number while also growing us in character and faith as we consider Christ together. I’m also co-leading a Bible study at Longview on Thursdays through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. We currently have 11 students who are a part of that Bible study, most of whom are brand new to the Bible.
We recently hosted an open forum on campus at Longview to give students an opportunity to voice their honest doubts, questions, and objections concerning God and faith. We spent several days promoting it by giving away donuts and inviting students to write out their questions on sandwich board signs that we posted in various places on campus. During the open forum, I joined two other students and another college pastor on a panel to respond to students’ questions on the spot. We had 31 students fill out communication cards who wish to continue the conversation. This week, we set up several boards to help us initiate conversations about the gospel. I was able to share the gospel twice and invite three new students to our Thursday Bible study.
If you’d like to join my text message prayer team, simply text “PrayUp” (without the quotes) to 781-728-9542.
