Tampa BCM applies evangelism strategy from Big Apple

TAMPA (FBW)-South Florida college students have discovered evangelism strategies that produce results in New York City also work in Tampa.

Kind words and free cups of cider served to open doors to residents of the Park Slope neighborhood in Brooklyn, and the same personal touch is producing results on the Tampa campus of University of South Florida.

Courtesy photo

Krystal Kuntz (l), a member of the USF BCM mission team, encouraged Kids Klub participants during craft time at Park Slope Community Church. The young girl made a profession of faith during the team's trip to New York.

During their Christmas break from USF classes, 19 students from the Baptist Campus Ministry traveled to New York to minister to Brooklyn residents. Most of the students were visiting the Big Apple for the first time, according to group leader Kelly Paskoff who heads Friends of Internationals at USF, a ministry of Baptist Collegiate Ministries. Paskoff was recently appointed as a US/C-2 volunteer by the North American Mission Board.

Within hours of their arrival, small groups distributed fliers advertising a Kids Klub at Park Slope Community Church, the Tampa group’s base of operations. They also offered pedestrians free cups of apple cider and told passersby of their faith using the Evangecube.

“I think some of the people we met on the street were just excited to have someone speak to them,” Paskoff said. “And getting a free cup of cider—they couldn’t believe that.”

Scores of children representing dozens of ethnic and cultural groups responded to their invitation. While some students taught children Bible stories, songs and crafts, and directed recreation time, others worked in construction projects on the church facilities.

The historic church building, whose sanctuary seats 300, boasts ornate woodwork, stained glass and a pipe organ. Its classrooms housed the Floridians and another college group from Missouri. The church, however, had no shower facilities, so the students navigated eight city blocks to the YMCA to bathe.

Before the trip ended, the mission group not only saw results from their ministries in New York, but also envisioned new evangelism possibilities on their own campus.

“It was so exciting to see,” said Paskoff. “They began saying ‘We can take this all home. We don’t have to do this just in New York City.’”

When second semester began in January, BCM leaders soon recognized that the students’ ideas of campus ministry had changed, with mission group participants as leaders.

BCM members do prayerwalks around the USF campus and regularly use the E-cube in witnessing to their fellow students.

One project asked student witnesses to stop classmates to ask, “What can we pray about for you?”

“Hardly anyone turns a prayer down,” Paskoff said.