By Carson Conover, Campus Ministries at Longview and Blue River Community College ([email protected]). Edited by Britney Hamm [email protected]
KANSAS CITY – Ministering to students at a commuter-based community college isn’t an easy task. But for Carson Conover, Campus Missionary at Longview and Blue River Community Colleges, it’s a worthy one.
In the past several months, a beautiful glimpse of the fruit has been evident. Here’s a glimpse of what God is doing through this college ministry at Longview and Blue River.
Baptisms
Last spring, three students professed faith in Christ. Two of those students—Levi and Emily—were baptized at LifeConnection Church in April. The other student—Maddie—was baptized at her local church. Levi participated in my summer discipleship group and is currently on the core team for Christian Challenge at Blue River.
Givea
ways on Campus
We began the semester at Blue River with Challenge table events through the first several weeks of the new semester. We’ve been inviting students to fill out 30-second surveys to win gift cards. We add contacts to a text group (we currently have 400+ contacts) so we can invite them to join Challenge Bible Studies and Challenge Socials.
Bible Study at Longview
This semester we’re partnering with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship for Bible Studies. The first week we started off with baked goods, candy, and get-to-know you Jenga. We’ve consistently had 7-10 students at Longview and 20-25 at Blue River throughout the semester.
Challenge Socials to Launch the Semester
Lawn Games & Lemonade
We gathered student
s for some fun lawn games and provided some cold lemonade on a hot day. We were able to meet some new students and reconnect with some of those who stopped by our table. Our aim at the beginning of each semester is to gather students to make new friends, build relationships, and encourage friend groups to form organically. It’s been said, “Students are looking for a friendly group. They’re looking for a group of friends.”
Ice Cream Social
We had ice cream for our 2nd Challenge Social. Our ministry reserved space on campus and provided 3-gallon tubs of ice cream with all the toppings.
Red Cup Proxe
Our most recent Challenge social was an evangelistic outreach. We gave away free 
bottled water and sodas and invited students to have a conversation with us about their deepest thirsts in life. The conversation concluded with a gospel presentation and an invitation to join a Challenge Bible Study. We had approximately 40 spiritual conversations.
Evangelistic Proxes Yield Spiritual Conversations
We hosted the Fake Proxe and the Awesome Proxe, evangelistic conversation boards. We’ve set up publicly in the campus center for 2 hours at a time on at least 4 different occasions. We’ve shared the gospel and facilitated spiritual conversations while giving away free drinks, candy, scantrons (for mid-terms), and popcorn. We’ve had probably at least 100 spiritual conversations during these events.
Please continue to pray for me and for students and faculty and Blue River and Longview Community College. Thank you!
