Hard lessons from a “successful” outreach event

In late October 2004, the InterVarsity chapters at Rock Valley College (Rockford, Illinois) and Northern Illinois University (DeKalb) had the awesome privilege of seeing God move and do things that we could only have dreamed about. In my years of being on staff and in the years before that as a student at NIU, I never thought I would see 97 students at NIU indicate that they wanted to accept Jesus—and then another ten students at RVC—all within two days. If that were not overwhelming enough, 50 college students expressed interest in investigating Jesus further.

Despite these awesome results, our evaluation made us painfully aware of what we didn’t do. We continue to learn the lessons of how to have big events on campus, and how to follow-up when so many people respond to the compelling message of the gospel.

It all started in the spring of 2004, when the student leaders at Rock Valley College began to cash in on some of the relationships InterVarsity has been able to build with the administration and the student association. The Rock Valley Student Association agreed to pay for us to host a special guest speaker on campus. Sujo John seemed like a natural fit, with his natural delivery and powerful story of how he and his pregnant wife survived a near-death experience at the World Trade Center Towers on September 11, 2001. Even though the $2,000 cost seemed like such a large number to us, the college felt it was worth the money as they looked for student organizations that would be willing to host something to enhance student life and bring the college to the forefront in the city of Rockford, Illinois.

After our fall retreat, the student leaders and staff began to build on the vision to reach our campuses. Practically speaking, this happened in several different venues. Through well-attended and Spirit-driven morning prayer meetings, particularly at NIU, there grew in the students a deep sense that we needed God. Personal witness training was done at RVC’s large-group meeting over four weeks leading up to Sujo’s visit, and then for nine consecutive weeks at NIU we had meetings designed to equip and encourage students who are or might be gifted in evangelism. Besides these formal settings, student leaders and InterVarsity staff began to cast vision in and through relationships within the fellowship at large, asking again and again what God might want to do on our campus.

Leading up to the week of Sujo John’s coming, we worked actively on publicity. We printed thousands of personal invitations, gained attention from the NIU student newspaper’s religion desk and received coverage the day before and after the event at NIU. Prayer meetings intensified and small-group Bible studies did chalking all over campus. As the day approached, there was a buzz on the campuses about Sujo John. We heard stories about entire communications classes planning to come in order to satisfy public speaking requirements, and about professors who offered extra credit to any student of theirs who attended the Sujo John event.

Since RVC is a commuter campus, we held a daytime meeting on campus for students and then another one in the evening for the Rockford community. I wish we had done a better job at communicating to churches the opportunity they had. Perhaps four dozen people came to the evening meeting who were from the church community, but these were obviously regular attendees of local churches without any non-Christian friends with them.

At NIU, a large state university, we filled our 500-seat auditorium to capacity, with people sitting in the aisles and standing in the back. We had not involved other Christian groups on campus, but as we look to the future and plan to invite other evangelical groups to be part of what we are doing, it is easy to see that unless we want just a “Christian-palooza,” we will need a bigger venue to make room for the non-Christian friends people will bring.

Of the nearly 100 students who expressed a desire to accept Christ, how many knew what that implied? We had little opportunity to do direct follow-up that evening. With so many students expressing interest to begin following Jesus, why didn’t we see our numbers drastically increase? Students came to an event, but in the end they apparently did not make the connection that InterVarsity was a place where they could keep growing in Christ.

Some 50 students wanted to be part of a GIG, yet GIGs were non-existent afterwards. Had we spent too much energy talking about the event and casting a vision, and failed to plan effectively for what we would do in the first ten minutes after it was done? Definitely. We used 90 percent of our focus and energy in just doing the event. No one stopped to ask, “What are we going to do if this thing actually comes together?”

Ideas for next time
Overall, we learned many lessons, many of which we plan to implement as we look at another campus-wide outreach next fall:

• More funding. Besides raising the necessary funds to just do the event, funds will need to be raised for a variety of follow-up and integration plans.
• Follow-up party. Plan an outreach for the following Friday night to invite students to. Such a large-group event is a necessity. We need an avenue by which to invite people into our community; a fun movie-pizza-and-card-games party might be just the thing. I hope this solves some of the disconnect people felt who had never come to an I-V event before.
• Gift Packets. For the event at NIU, we had planned mini-GIGs to occur immediately, placing trained students strategically throughout the auditorium to have impromptu planned conversations with those around them. This just didn’t work. People who came wanted to leave, and very few actually lingered and took us up on our offer for meaningful conversation. So we need a different approach. Some of our funds could be allocated for follow-up gift packets. These packets would be offered to anyone who makes a decision to accept Christ. They would receive their special gift after a brief conversation with a chapter member or staff worker about their commitment to follow Jesus. They would also then get a personal invitation to the follow-up party that next Friday.

God can use us
The students of NIU and RVC were willing to do whatever it took to make the night a Kingdom success. We merely failed to include in that definition of success the integration of every interested person into InterVarsity. It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of planning and leading a campus-wide event, lose focus on what real results look like, and drop the ball. I know that I am called to excellent service and leadership because everything I do is for Jesus, but I also realize that God will use whatever we can give him.

I am comforted that throughout scripture God used leaders and prophets who were less than perfect. He will be pleased to work through us as well.

—Casey Beckley is a staff worker at Northern Illinois University. He and his wife, Karen, live with their wiener dog, Willie. Originally from St. Louis, Casey is pretty sure he’s the only person alive who cheers for both the Cardinals and the Cubs.