How do I share the Gospel with frat stars as a campus minister?

How do I share the Gospel with frat stars as a campus minister?

 

Becoming an insider

I placed my faith in Christ the summer before my tenth grade year of high school and from that time on began to consider working in full time ministry. My youth pastor, along with a few godly men in our church, had a huge impact on my life. Over my four years of college, I volunteered at a local church and ministered to high school kids but about mid way through my Junior year I realized I was living right in the middle of a mission field –my fraternity. Around November of my senior year I decided that instead of working with youth in a church, I would minister to young men in fraternities. I went on staff with Campus Crusade in 1990 and have been ministering in fraternities ever since.

I have been oversees around 30 times doing summer and spring break mission trips and have loved every minute of sharing the Gospel in other countries.  But every time I get back to the states and walk back into a frat house, I am reminded that this is where I need to be investing my time. I have preached in 6 or seven different churches over the years as a guest and have had many of those churches ask me to pray about becoming their pastor, but I always am led back to ministering to Greeks.

Over the next few pages I will briefly share with you how I share the Gospel with “frat stars”.

If you’re a campus minister and are starting to do ministry in a fraternity or sorority here are a few thoughts:

1. When choosing what Greek house you will start to minister in, I would choose one of the biggest chapters on campus because chances are high that they will have a lot of the top leaders on campus. When you get leaders involved then lots of others will follow.
2. You can confidently walk into the house knowing that if they do not know Christ, then you have something they desperately need to hear.
3. When I am ministering in a chapter for the first time I make friends with the actives but I share Christ with the pledges. And as you earn respect in the fraternity or sorority you’re ministering in then you can begin to share Christ with the actives. If you share the gospel with an active and they are offended they can make it where you’re no longer accepted are allowed to come over to the house. But pledges don’t have much pull so I’ll
4. When I am ministering in a new house, I never call the pledge trainer but go in the house and ask for him and meet him in person. He is less likely to trust me if I call him on the phone.
5. I know that they will have around an 8 week pledgeship and I offer several talks that I can come give from talks on manhood to myths pledges believe. *You can access several of my talks on my website: Greeklegacy.org and click on the manhood tab.
6. I find out what sorority they spend time with the most and try to set up a coed freshman bible study. I like to do it for around 3 weeks just before dinner at the sorority house. Girls don’t like walking into frat houses but guys absolutely love going to the girl’s houses. After the 3 weeks are up, I like to split the guys and girls up so that the guys can start meeting back at the fraternity house.
7. Your goal ultimately is to get comment cards during the     pledge meetings or comment cards from the coed study and find out who the followers of Christ are and who is spiritually interested.

 

So how did I share the gospel with guys when I would meet with them one-on-one?

 

When I would meet with a pledge for the first time there were a few things I would ask:

1. Tell me a little about your back ground. Where are you from? What denomination did you grow up in? Were you very active in going to church? This gives me an idea of how much they know or do not know about the Gospel.
2. The next question I always ask is, “So based on everything you just told me about your life, if you were to die tonight, on a scale from 1 to 100 how sure are you that you would go to heaven if you died tonight with 100 being that you are 100 % positive?” Very few guys ever tell me they feel confident.
3. Another question I may ask is, “IF you were to stand before God and He was to ask you why He should let you into His kingdom, what would you say?”. There answer gives me a good idea what they are trusting in for their salvation.

Most of the time I then pull out the four spiritual laws and read through it and have seen a lot of guys trust Christ over the years with it. But if I don’t have it I will use my bible and go through the four points and look up the scriptures that go along with each point. Also you can down load the app called “God Tools” and it has a version of the knowing God personally that you can show a friend. It also has articles talking about knowing Christ. Some of my friends through the training of the ministry Student Mobilization use what is called the bridge diagram. It is a great way to share the Gospel using Romans 6:8

 

The reason I like using the four laws or knowing God personally book is that it helps keep me stay on track and it also helps me bring them to the point of decision.  Every time I share the Gospel with a guy, I will close with a few questions:

1. Based on everything we have talked about today, who would you say that you are trusting in to save you? Christ or your good works? Usually I will not make then answer the question but will immediately go to my next question:
2. “If you would like to be 100% sure you are in Christ, when do you think would be a good time to make this decision?” If they say they really want to be 100% now then I give them a few options by saying:
3. “We can pray together right now and Ill lead you in praying to trust in Christ or you can pray silently or you can think about what we have talked about today and maybe we can meet up again next week but let me be honest in saying that I think this is the most important decision you will ever make and I would not put it off.”

 

I must say that introducing somebody to Christ is one of the most exciting things we can do in the Christian life. The reason I love it is because I know I’m just a small cog in the wheel of helping that person coming to Christ. But knowing Christ affects everything. Like who they will date; how they will raise their kids and even the career path they will choose.  I counted the other day that in the past 15 years at Ole Miss, our ministry has seen 7 guys trust Christ and go on to be pastors!  That’s a major career change from where they were headed.

 

Also your hard work in sharing the Gospel to Greeks may even end of being a blessing to other campus ministers down the road. A few years ago I received a phone call from a lady who had attended Ole Miss as a freshman in 1967 and pledged Chi Omega. She said that a cru staff spoke to here pledge class one afternoon and shared the Gospel. She decided right then to trust Christ and live for Him.  She went on to say that recently her dad passed away and she wanted to take some of the money she inherited and make a donation to cru at Ole Miss because God had used that ministry to change her life. She ended up giving our campus $10,000! Here we were 35+ years later receiving some of the benefits of those staff that were faithful to share the Gospel in Greek houses.

 

In closing, as I was halfway through writing this article I got a text from a staff on our campus informing me that a sorority girl at Ole Miss was tragically killed last night by a drunk driver. At least I have the peace that I shared Christ with her pledge class and that maybe she listened. 10 years ago, three ATO’s lost their lives in a tragic fire that completely destroyed their fraternity. I have a charred brick on my book shelf that I picked up out of the fire to always remind me how short life is.