UNH Ministry: What You Need To Know

The University of New Hampshire is a TERRIFIC place to engage with students with compassion, urgency and love.

Your Job:

Whatever you’re comfortable with! You can watch. You can pray silently. You can hand out gospel tracts. You might even start up a Gospel conversation!

And I need at least one person for safety sake (and also to watch the equipment should one of us need to use the restrooms.)

IMPORTANT INFO ABOUT UNH:

UNH is a great place to minister, but, as a college campus, it is a sensitive location.

For decades cults and other religions and other Christians with a confrontational manner have come to campus to make noise, be harsh with the students, even use name-calling. They believe if they use harsh methods, they’ll reach more people.

Our Team DOES NOT USE THESE TACTICS.

God has given favor to our team in the eyes of the UNH Police for over a decade, and they know us to be respectful. We intend to keep our good relationship with the UNH Police. If you use rude tactics, then this isn’t the Ministry Team for you.

Code of Conduct:

Every member of this Ministry Team must agree to the following in order to come to campus with us:

• Knowing that all men and women are made in the image of God, we treat every person we meet with dignity and respect, regardless of how they treat us.
• We only engage with people interested in engaging with us. We trust that God will send people he’s preparing, and he always does.
• If someone calls us names or raises their voice, we never do the same. We use a “soft answer” () and “overcome evil with good” ().
• We do not engage with people as they’re walking away. If they walk away, we trust the Lord to work in their hearts, and, since we go to campus often, perhaps God will send them back to us.
• We keep our volume down as we are very close to classrooms, the Library, and administrative offices.
• We do not Open-Air Preach at UNH. Open-Air Preaching can be an effective tool to reach people, but it must be done in the right place at the right time. Crowds of students do not gather anywhere it is appropriate to raise our voices. Open-Air Preaching may work at other larger campuses, but not UNH. Open-Air Preaching would compromise our strategic long-term relationship with the authorities at UNH, so we’ll gladly hand out tracts and start-up conversations instead. We believe we’ll reach MORE students in the long-term this way.
• We act in a manner that is beyond reproach, and so represent Christ peacefully.

“the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 2:24-25).

If these terms are not agreeable to you, then this is not the right Ministry Team for you.

Where We Setup:

Dimond Library
18 Library Way
Durham, NH 03824

To see the location on Google Maps, click here: https://goo.gl/maps/EYPADkh1YxZbmsRPA

Where To Park:

Set your GPS to:

Edgewood Road Visitor Lot
Main Street
Durham, NH 03824

To see the location on Google Maps, click here: https://goo.gl/maps/2EJM2okHKzFDLP1N7

How To Walk From Parking Lot to Ministry Location:

Depending on which direction you're coming from, you'll either turn your car left or right off Main Street and onto Englewood Road. Then the lot is on your left.

The view from Main Street. Turn onto Englewood Road.

Here's an overview of the walk from the Parking Lot to the Ministry Location. Estimated 6-minute walk.

Another view of the same walk.

At the parking lot you pay at one of these stations. There's one in the front and another in the back. Please note that the credit card reader isn't very good, so you might have to try to insert your card a number of times.

Walk out of the Parking lot toward the main street (which is called "Main Street.")

Cross Main Street.

Walk to the left on the sidewalk toward the bus stop. You won't go as far as the bus stop.

Before the bus stop, turn right and head toward the Clock-Tower building (named Thompson Hall).

Keep walking toward the Clock-Tower building.

Keep walking to the LEFT toward the Clock-Tower Building (Thompson Hall).

When you get to the courtyard, the Library is in front of you (the building with columns) and we setup in front of the library.

Your Job:

Your job is to do whatever you think God is asking you to do. If you just want to pray silently, that’s great! Your prayers are needed and watching will encourage you!

The first step would be to hand out gospel tracts. It’s that easy. Just pass them out with a smile as people walk by. You’ll get rejections, but you’ll get A LOT of people to take them and even thank you! If you’re not sure about gospel tracts, please read this post I made about them here: https://luke-15.org/tracts/Okay, so you gave out gospel tracts and didn’t die. So let’s go for the next step. You ask someone what they think about the question on the tract, “Where Will You Spend Eternity?”

The Good Person Test:

One of our banners says, “Will You Go To Heaven? Take The Quick Test to Find Out!”

We even have that on small yellow “A Frame” signs as well.

Don’t be surprised if a student approaches you to take the test.

Or you can engage them and ask if they’re interested.

“The Good Person Test” is a survey that we’ve found to be very effective in promoting conversation, and hardly anyone has gotten “offended” or “mad” over it. On the contrary, almost all conversations end with the person thanking me or my team members for the great discussion.

And when you’re done walking someone through the survey, you can give them the piece of paper to keep, and it goes with them as a gospel message they can look at later. 🙂

The “Good Person Test” is also helpful for Christians who aren’t trained in sharing their faith, as it provides a helpful framework.

Click on the graphic below to download a copy of “The Good Person Test” to see it for yourself.

You can always find the latest version of “The Good Person Test” at: http://luke-15.org/good-person-test.pdf.

Pre-Evangelism Riddle:

Often we have a banner with a series of riddles on it.

As students walk by, they sometimes slow down and even stop in front of the banner and stare at it.

All we need to do is ask them, “So, can you figure it out?”

Sometimes they ask what they’ll win if they get it right. I typically tell them I’ll give them a million dollars (and I show them one of my Million Dollar Bill gospel tracts.)

Please remember that the point is to transition to a Gospel conversation, not to make someone feel stupid! So if someone is struggling to get the right answer, don’t wait long to offer to help them. If they get it wrong, don’t shame them. Tell them lots of people get them wrong (which is true). The idea is that the person should have fun with this.

To help someone through the Pre-evangelistic Riddle, just say something like the following:

• Want to solve these riddles? Just figure out what comes next on each line.
• First we start out really easy. The first line, the red one, 1, 2, 3, what comes next? They say “4” and you congratulate them.
• Next line, a little harder, what comes next on the yellow line? Often people get this wrong by saying “0.” That’s a common mistake. If they say that, just kindly say, “not 0, a lot of people say that. What’s one half of 2?”
• Third line, a bit harder. What comes next on purple? People often get stuck here. You might ask them, “Have you ever heard of the Fibonacci Sequence? It’s a mathematical pattern that nerdy people know about.” If they don’t get it quickly, point out (and use your finger to point at the numbers) “1 plus 1 is 2. 1 plus 2 is 3. 2 plus 3 is five. Soooooo, what’s 3 plus 5?”
• Now for the green line. What comes next on that one? (You know what’s funny? I’ve found that older folks get this right away, but younger ones don’t. I have a theory that it’s because younger kids don’t use a paper calendar as much. Anyhow, it’s days of the week and the answer is W for Wednesday.)
• You’re doing great. What comes next on the next line? The answer is “Earth” but some people have a hard time coming up with that. They’ll guess Pluto, Mars, all kinds of answers. One hint I often give is, “I’ll give you a hint. You’re STANDING on the answer.” If they still can’t get it, just tell them “Earth.”
• This last one is the most important. Life, Death, What comes next? (And this gets us into the Gospel conversation. Plainly ask them, “What do YOU think happens after we die?”)

After hearing them out, you can ask something like, “So, how do we know for sure? Can you know? Can I know?” They’ll usually say that we can guess but we can’t know. Then I ask, “But what if God came down and told us himself. Then can we know?” And that’s why there’s a graphic of the cross and empty tomb is there. Point out that Jesus is God and he came to earth to reveal the Truth of God to us so we can know. Ask them, “Have you ever STUDIED the Bible? Would you like a copy?” And you’re in a great conversation…

You’ve got this! Jesus will help you and be with you!!!

If the Police Show Up:

• Remember, the Police have been overwhelmingly kind to use over the years.
• Still, it is Police Protocol that they must show up and question us if even one student or faculty calls them to complain about us.
• Nearly every time they merely ask to see our permit and remind us to be respectful, which we always are.
• Police do not like to be crowded by people, so let only the Team Leader speak to the Police. Everybody else pull back a bit.
• We keep our voices down and only speak respectfully to the Police (and everyone else too).

And please pray pray pray leading up to the outreach!!!

Want Some Encouragement???

I’m REALLY excited about UNH Evangelism because God has opened up this fantastic Mission Field and God will use us to reach the lost!

Jesus said that His mission was “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). What an honor for us to be a part of that!!

To be encouraged by how God has used this tremendous Mission Field in the recent past, please check out some blog posts about Campus Evangelism at: https://luke-15.org/category/colleges/.

Any questions? Feel free to contact me!