April 2006

Freshmen Leadership Team

“Involvement Breeds Commitment” is a true statement within any organization or ministry. The trick is how to get people involved.

For us the key is to get freshmen involved. Much of our focus throughout the year is on reaching freshmen because they are the most open to being involved in our ministry.

But, as in any organization, it can be difficult to become a leader and influence the direction of the organization without being involved for some time. This is because the current leaders do not know new people or their gifts, and because of this there is an inherent lack of trust.

Based on the experiences of other campuses in our region, including Ohio State, we decided to form a freshmen leadership team this semester. Some key freshmen we personally invited to be a part of this team. Others decided themselves to be a part of it.

We gave them multiple things to take charge of including outreaches, socials and one of our weekly meetings. At the first meeting 38 freshmen showed up to help.

A great example of why involvement can be so critical in the development of future leaders came from these quotes from a couple of the guys who were at this first meeting.

Frosh 1: "Well, if we are talking about reaching out to others then I guess we need to learn how to share our faith, we should be trained in how to share our faith." 

Frosh 2: “Yeah, we should learn how to use the four laws!”

There were no questions about whether they should be personally involved in evangelism. It was obvious to them that because they were talking about reaching people for Christ that they needed to know how to share the gospel. They grasped this critical aspect of our ministry and it didn’t need to come from one of us!

Through the rest of the semester this team did a great job leading various aspects of the movement. They did a good job leading the meeting during a weekend where many of our upperclassmen and all of our staff were away at a conference. They ran multiple socials, and just a couple of weeks ago ran a major outreach centered around our evangelistic website (www.everywolverine.com).

The freshmen who were a part of this team throughout the semester are fully committed to what God is doing through our ministry, and they are now in a position to be key leaders in our movement next year.

Dan (left) is a freshman guy from my area of campus and was a key leader on the freshmen leadership team. He also went with me to Hungary and is going on summer project. Eric Johnson (right) is one of our new staff and was able to facilitate this team’s meetings.

Kids' Column

I lost my first tooth! I had been wiggling it for days and it fell out while my Papa and Grammy were visiting. The new tooth is already growing in. And when I went to the dentist I saw on the x-rays lots of new teeth just waiting  to pop up. Now I am working on wiggling another tooth!

I rode my bike all by myself at the chiropractor’s office across from our house. It is still scary to try to stop. When the weather gets warm again I will have a lot more time to practice! Gymnastics is over now. It was really fun and I liked the uneven bars. I called them the “high wires”.

Now that Caleb is trying to walk I keep telling him “You my friend now!” It will be so much fun when he  walks all by himself. I will get to teach him so many things! Hopefully we won’t get in too much trouble!

I am officially 1 now! I’m not sure I like it too well. Mommy keeps trying to get me to drink from this new cup thing. When she puts juice in it I humor her, but don’t mess with my milk! I like it in a bottle. Now that some furniture has been moved to storage I can explore more things. I never knew we had a fireplace! And there’s a fun shovel and brush that go with it!

 Caleb

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