Ohio Adventist Christian Fellowship: ACF offers Bible study options to students at OSU

About Ohio Adventist Christian Fellowship

Here’s a surprising fact: Did you know that 65% of Seventh-day Adventist young people attend secular colleges or universities? Studying at a secular college or university presents challenges to a student’s faith. Being at college may be his or her first time making decisions of their own, without mom and dad there to guide them. University studies are stressful, and social pressures are strong. The Ohio Conference has long hoped to minister to students—Seventh-day Adventists and others—on secular campuses. In September, we started a pilot program to place chaplains at three of our state’s universities: Ohio University in Athens, The Ohio State University in Columbus, and Wright State University in Dayton. Here are some of their experiences.

Monday, February 7, 2011

ACF offers Bible study options to students at OSU

The Adventist students at The Ohio State University love to study the Bible. In fact, they love to study the Bible with their fellow classmates. So, we decided to prepare a survey and see how many students we could find who were also interested in Bible Study. We also included community service, and prayer on our list. After a very successful Sunday afternoon of survey collecting we had names and contact info for 20 people interested in Bible study. Some of those are already being followed up on by students. The interest we found paired with the enthusiasm of our group led us to wonder how we could offer Bible study options to students in the best way possible. We are now seriously considering starting a Discover Bible School on campus. Aside from offering one on one study options, an online school would also allow us to reference interested students to a website where they could complete the Discover studies and direct any questions or comments to a member of our student group for personal follow-up. What an exciting opportunity to grow personally while introducing others to Jesus.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Our Campus Ministries team

Columbus, Ohio is the home of Ohio’s largest university, and one of the largest campuses in the United States. There are 55,000 students on the campus of The Ohio State University. Gina and David Helbley were serving as missionaries in Kazakhstan, when they felt a calling to do campus ministry. David is an engineer, and Gina is a graduate from the ministerial program at Walla Walla College. Now in Columbus, they’ve made their home a center for campus outreach.

Wright State University is located in Dayton, Ohio. Many Seventh-day Adventist students are in the 20,000 student body. We’ve invited Sabrina Araiza, a young adult psychology graduate from Arizona, to become our campus chaplain at Wright State. Sabrina will be working with a team from the Kettering church, under the mentorship of Kettering young adult pastor Elliot Smith.

The state’s oldest university is located in Athens, Ohio, in the foothills of Appalachia. Although Athens is a small city, 20,000 students attend Ohio University. The church in Athens has a vision to reach out to the university community. They’re being assisted by Darrin and Cristine Thurber. The Thurbers come to Ohio from California. Darrin is a ministerial student, and Cristine (known to her friends as Beamy) is a social worker. With the help of other Seventh-day Adventist students and faculty, they’ve started a strong outreach program to students.