Book the show/speaker. See the sidebar, "On the Road," for an idea of what/who is out there and available to come to your campus. If you've got a very specific date in mind, I recommend starting this process six months to a year ahead of time.

Book the theatre/room. Considerations: number of seats, stage, technical support needed (lighting, sound), "feel", accessibility to students. Make sure nothing loud will be happening nearby. Bruce Kuhn recounts a horrible evening performing "Luke" in one part of a partitioned room in the student union while a showing of "Saturday Night Fever" was happening next door. Can you imagine?!

Solidify co-sponsorship of the event. If you are co-sponsoring with other Christian groups or other departments/clubs on campus, meet with the leaders to decide what that means (money, personnel, commitment to embrace the event as a collaborative outreach). Write up what you discuss and decide, then distribute copies to all. When the IV group at Pacific co-sponsored Bruce's performances with the theatre department, they agreed to provide the theatre and technical support free of charge. We agreed to handle everything else. It was agreed that Bruce would speak in one class and teach an audition seminar. And we agreed to split any profits. We also applied for and received financial backing from ASUOP and the Pacific Chaplain's office. When I performed at Bates College, the theatre department participated by kicking in financially. When I performed at Sonoma State, the Women's Resource Center participated by promoting the event as part of Women' History Month and publicizing the event among their members.

Form an event prayer team. These will be the people to email with prayer requests as the planning and preparation unfolds. These will be the people who will pray for the speaker/actor/etc. before and during the event, take prayer walks around the venue, lead prayer meetings for the fellowship to attend, and even pray for the very chairs students will inhabit at the event. The prayer team reminds the rest of us to depend on God and seek His mind and heart for the event. We're not talking God into blessing our efforts; we're seeking His presence and his perspective on the work of reaching our campus with the gospel. Prayer fires people up for action because God meets us there. Prayer doesn't "change things", prayer changes US!

Prepare a budget and secure finances. See paragraph on co-sponsorship. Will you sell tickets? We had great success with this at Pacific: $10.00 for community folks, $5.00 for Pacific folks, and $2.00 for Pacific folks in advance. Students plunked down their twenty dollars in exchange for 10 tickets to bring friends from their dorms. We had to pay the Pacific Box Office a small per-ticket charge and also pay the worker for the event, but it was worth it to have them handle it (plus, it was more "official" that way). I just performed at three campuses in western New York where the campus box office handled ticket sales for my performances for free. What other routes for funding can you pursue on your campus? Student Body funds? Interested departments? Chapter funds? When I performed at University at Buffalo, a local church paid my travel expenses. If you're clear about what you need and ask for specific help, you'll most likely get it. Lots of student groups get funding help from their universities-don't hesitate to make your request!

Order post-show give-away materials. These can be Bibles, New Testaments, books, or booklets connected to your topic. We gave away New Testaments after Bruce's performances of "Luke." The fellowship at Rutgers gave away copies of IVP's "Jesus with Dirty Feet," and the group at UNLV gave away an IVP booklet on feminism after my performances of "Always the Women". Look for give-away deals and buy a case or two!

Secure technical support. This goes differently at each campus and for each room. Know what you'll need in the lighting/sound department (ask your speaker/performer if you're not sure) and make arrangements well in advance for spotlights, wireless mikes, etc. At Sonoma State, two "tech guys" and a soundboard came with that request. At other places, they'll just hand you the mike, show you where to plug it in, and let you handle it. At Pacific, we did some actual lighting design with the Technical Director of the Theatre Department-and he ran the lights during Bruce's shows.

Plan refreshments/hospitality. You'll need ushers to hand out programs if you're sponsoring a theatre event. Certainly, you'll need "greeters" of some sort to welcome people and help them know where to sit. Arrange for good music to be playing in the background as people take their seats. Before the "Malcolm, Martin, Messiah" event at UNLV, we had tapes of Dr. King's speeches playing in the background. Also, plan refreshments. You might order drinks and cookies from the university food service. At Pacific, my church provided and staffed a beautiful table of special desserts and drinks following each performance. Humanly speaking, nothing promotes post-event conversations like high-quality refreshments and a hospitable atmosphere.

Plan publicity. I will say this again: NOTHING takes the place of personal invitations. (See sidebar: "Don't Invite Them; Bring Them") BUT a thoughtful publicity campaign can do a lot to support the event and encourage the people doing the inviting. It's a lot easier to bring someone to an event if they've been seeing posters, hearing about it in their classes, and receiving flyers about it! Bruce Kuhn says that someone needs to see/hear about something four times before it sinks in. It's true! Here are some "fronts" to consider in planning your publicity campaign:

Students

• Put posters all over campus 2-3 weeks ahead. (We copied these for free in the Religious Studies department.)
• Make announcements in classes, clubs. (Amy Smith, IV team leader at UN-Reno, says that their students can sign up on a list to be prayed for if they will be standing up in class to make an announcement about their outreach events, called "The Point." They also make special "The Point" T-shirts and ask their students to wear them every day during the week of the event!)
• Make lots of quarter-sheet flyers to be distributed by friends and at outreach tables. (At UNLV, we always had a table up in the student union with flyers and booklets the week of an evangelistic event-and artwork for each one in a glass case in the union as well).
• Put up large posters/banners in key spots.
• Explore stuffing mailboxes with flyers.
• Make table tents for the cafeteria or campus coffee place.
• If folks on your campus "chalk" the sidewalks to advertise events, do that, too. Consider designing an ad for the campus newspaper. Campus clubs usually get good discounts. Also, send a "press kit" (press release, photo, and contact information) to the campus newspaper for free calendar listings and for, hopefully, an article previewing the event. See a sample press release here (image 314KB).

Faculty/Staff

We gave copies of a letter signed by both me and the head of the theatre department to specific faculty members in specific departments well in advance of the performances. In addition, we included copies of Bruce's brochure and posters/flyers when they were ready. They were delivered by students who knew them so that personal conversations would flow naturally. We wanted these faculty members to understand the event, promote it in their classes and consider giving their students extra credit for attending. The personal touch is important here. I performed at one university where the students were so excited about putting flyers about "Always the Women" in all the boxes in the Women's Center, but they hadn't talked with anyone there because they didn't know anyone there. Then they didn't understand why no one from there came to the performance. Trust is huge, especially with "Christian Fellowship" on the publicity. Faculty will need help (and assurance) from students/staff they know and trust to understand how the event fits into their goals for their students. Most universities have a faculty newsletter; make sure to get a press-release in it. See a copy of the letter that went to the Pacific faculty here (image 366 KB).

Church partners

Depending on the event (particularly the size of the venue and the purpose of the event), you might not want church folks there. In our case, we did. We counted on their higher ticket prices to fund it and, more important, we saw promotion of the outreach as a key PR tool for local churches to connect with our work on campus. We put together packets of information and personally talked with pastors of supporting churches. The packets included an inviting cover letter (see a sample letter here (image, 320KB)) , poster originals and bulletin-sized flyer originals, a paragraph ready to go in the monthly newsletter and suggested dates/means for publicizing the event with their congregations.

City/Community Media

Again, you might not want a lot of people from off-campus at your event. We considered it a help in inviting students to a legitimate theatre experience. When posters went up all over campus, they went up all over town in windows of nearby stores and on community bulletin boards. Always ask first, and have tape and staplers on hand. Send a press kit with a press release (image, 314KB) (image, 314KB), photo, and contact information to all the local papers. It's important to plan ahead to get all the addresses and deadlines for each (especially for the monthly papers). Use the free calendar listing sections. If you know people at the paper, this is a good time to ask advice on getting the proper attention for your event-again, the personal touch. The theatre guy at our local paper did a phone interview with Bruce a week or so before he came and wrote a wonderful article, including the photo I had sent, in the theatre section the week before the performances. Many communities have websites with places to enter your event for free. And don't forget to send press releases to the popular radio stations among students (and the Christian stations) for free public service announcements.

Follow-up plans. Good follow-up is critical to the success of an evangelistic event. Many groups design a response card to complete afterward, with instructions given from someone up front. Don't forget to bring a stash of golf pencils. Give thought to how the students who attend will get cards and pencils, and how you'll collect them. Most cards give the option to sign up for GIGs (explain what these are). Include space for each one's contact information. The most effective GIGs will be those led by people the students already know or whoever brought them. Often, giving people the opportunity to sign up helps get those GIGs started. Make sure your GIG leaders are trained and ready to go. You might have some "loose" GIG leaders ready to form a discussion group with those who haven't come from a specific dorm or area of campus well-covered by the ministry. After I performed at UPenn, some of the guys in the fellowship planned a "men's breakfast" the following Saturday morning at a local coffee shop to talk about what they need to learn from Jesus' encounters with women. If local speakers are used, include an option on the card to meet with the speaker for coffee to talk more later. Some might want to know more about Inter Varsity, or find out how to become a follower of Jesus. Make sure to leave a space where they can tell you what they thought of the event. At my recent performance at University at Buffalo, the students collected all the response cards, then raffled off two dozen Krispy Crème donuts and an MPC/CD player from the front. When my husband, Larry did a lot of evangelistic dorm talks at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, the small groups sponsoring the event never used response cards, but they did meet about an hour after the event to write down the names of every person who came, then divided them up for personal follow-up within the next 48 hours. However you decide to follow up your event, that 48-hour time limit is crucial in getting to people while spiritual things are on their minds.

Nina Thiel is a graduate of University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, where she danced with the Pacific Dance Ensemble and studied acting. She has worked as I-V staff with several schools in California. She and her husband, Larry, have three children.