PHILADELPHIA (BRN) – At the most recent Advance Conference, Rev. Stanley Williams, Baptist Resource Network (BRN) Next Gen Director, outlined the EXIT evangelism strategy. EXIT consists of four phases:
- The Essential Phase which is prayer evangelism
- The Christ Phase which is servant evangelism
- The Intentional or “I” Phase which is personal evangelism
- The Truth Phase which is proclamation evangelism
Baptist Campus Ministries at Drexel, with the support of the BRN and local churches, were able to work through these phases in connection to the Easter season.
On Saturday, March 9, Bucks County Community Church in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, hosted a packing party where we assembled Blessing Boxes for Drexel students. During the packing party, we encouraged the church members to spend time in prayer for the Drexel students who would be receiving the boxes.
The boxes contained a hand-written note or prayer of encouragement from a church member to the student. These boxes also contained many items purchased by a BRN evangelism grant, including the LIFE 3 Circles: Conversation Guide, which is a great explanation of the gospel story.
The boxes were distributed on campus by students to their friends during the last week of classes for Drexel’s winter term, immediately before finals week. The winter term at Drexel is hard. The work average universities spread out over 15 weeks we do in 10.
Add the inevitable gloomy weather of Philadelphia during January, February and March, and the winter term is hard both emotionally and mentally. These blessing boxes were designed to serve the students during this period; to help them get through. Along with the encouraging note and the 3 Circles tract they also contained snacks, candy, a stress ball and a devotional.
We passed out 100 boxes in three hours on Monday, March 11. Students from multiple Christian organizations joined us.
Several of these students are connected to our BRN local churches. Volunteers from Redemption City Church, Story College Church, Philadelphia Mission Baptist Church and Bucks County Community Church helped. Christian students were encouraged to use the box distribution as time to connect with their non-Christian friends. We wanted to know or establish a meaningful connection with all the students who received a box.
If the Christian student gave the box to a friend, they were encouraged to follow-up with that friend in a personal conversation about the 3 Circles tract that was in the box. One of the Christian students commented that they liked how the 3 Circles tract started the conversation from the perspective of brokenness. So many of his friends know what it feels like to be broken. That was an easy place to talk to his friends about the gospel.
Each of the boxes had an invitation to our on-campus Easter Celebration. On Easter Sunday, Baptist Campus Ministries hosted an Easter dinner for students. Several of the Christian students shared with the attendees their answer to the prompt “what does Easter mean to you.” We served a ham dinner that also included Thai red curry soup for our vegetarians.
Everyone who attended heard the gospel presented multiple times as students told their friends about the meaning of Easter.
Bucks County Community Church participated in the essential part of the strategy by praying for the Drexel students. We served the students through distributing the blessing boxes. Students were encouraged to use the 3 Circles tract in the boxes as a means to intentionally share their personal stories with their friends. And the truth was proclaimed during our Easter Celebration dinner as students communicated the meaning of Easter to their friends.
Have an outreach event you would like to host, but could use a little help when it comes to the cost? Apply for a BRN Evangelism Grant today by visiting brnunited.org/grant!
