Introducing: Who Will You Be

This student at the USC test looks like she was the model for the T-shirt design!

It's the time of year when we come up with a brand new New Student Outreach Campaign ala Red Cup (last year) and Choices (two years ago). I've been working hard, brainstorming, drafting, writing, testing, with a team of 5 other staff including Doug Schaupp (Los Angeles)-our fearless leader, Beth Roselius (West Virginia), Sam Rizk (Los Angeles), Daniel Lui (SoCal) and Troy Tisthammer (Reno).

We've just completed our first on-campus test at University of Southern California...

It went well! The student leaders liked it and they had many curious visitors and good conversations. Lots of students heard the gospel.

The theme and title of this campaign in "Who Will You Be"--that is, identity. Students, especially freshman, are thinking about who they want to be: what image, and the character traits beneath, they want to create for themselves on campus, and in the world it prepares them for. Do they want to be the same person they are with their families? In high school? Do they like who they are becoming? 

Here's how conversation at the display (called proxe) goes....

We ask students to identify celebrities who have changed their names (Panel 1), and then ask students to share their own nicknames (Panel 2). Then (Panel 3) we ask them to think about and share what they want to be more or less of (more courageous? less fake?). In the test, once students talked about what character traits they struggle with, all of them were willing to read the story (Panel 4) of a Son who wanted to go off on his own... and the father who rejoiced at his return (Luke 15:11-32). What do they think of the character of father? Do they think the son did a good job forming his own identity? Who do they identity with? Who do they want to be like? Do they think that God, as Jesus said, is like that father? These questions and their answers lead a student leader to share the gospel, invite the person to a Bible study and pray for them.

The campaign's look and script are still flexible, but...

We are presenting it to field directors at Spring Meetings this Thursday night. Please pray that directors would be excited to use, and encourage the campus staff to use, this new tool! 

After this meeting the race is on to get everything online and printed for staff to share with their student leaders at Chapter Focus Week (retreat and planning time at semester's end).