Video Transcript:
I’m Beth Gardner, and I’m a campus minister with Metro mobile BCM. And I want to share with you some ways that you can show concern.
You know, one of the things that you need to do during this time is to identify needs that your friends and that your family have right now. And how do you do that? Well, you’ve got to stay connected and contact them. And you can do this through text, FaceTime, or even a phone call. And this only takes a few minutes for you to do. You know, make a list of people that you wanna contact.
And you can divide your list into categories, things like classmates, friends from high school, friends from college, family members, students that were in some of the same organizations that you’ve been involved in, maybe intramural sports, band, sororities, fraternities.
And then set a goal of how many people you’re going to contact each week, maybe one to two people a day. And then also, maybe you want to focus on contacting a category each week like, this week I’m going to connect with friends from high school. Next week, I’m gonna contact family members. Or maybe you even wanna set it up where on Mondays you contact classmates, on Tuesdays, you contact family members, on Wednesdays you contact friends from high school.
You know, you can get creative on how you want to contact people, but the important thing is connecting with them. And I do think that creating a list is gonna really help you to be intentional, and hold you more accountable.
So what do you say when you text them, or you FaceTime them, or you call them? Well, ask them, how are you doing? Is there a way that I can help you or encourage you right now? Or, how can I pray for you? Anna is a sophomore at the University of South Alabama. And she’s going to share some ways that she’s showing concern to others.
Student Testimony
One way that I’ve been able to show concern is by calling and texting some of my friends from high school, college, and even my church home here back in Tennessee, to see how they and their families are doing.
One of the few ways that I’ve been able to help out while still practicing social distancing, is by asking how I can specifically be praying for them throughout the week. This has given me the opportunity to encourage some of my brothers and sisters in Christ who have been struggling with their spiritual lives during this time of transitioning from school back home, as well as receiving encouragement from them in return.
This has also given me an opportunity to show some of my friends who are not born again believers, how Christians can still share the love of Christ and make a difference. While sharing about how we can have hope and confidence in our salvation in the midst of fear and uncertainty.
I think sometimes that we can underestimate or even forget how powerful prayer really is. But now we have a great opportunity to show people that we have our hope, and our peace, and our strength from the Lord.
Conclusion
One more way that you can show concern is by writing a letter or a card. You know, how many of you are going to the mailbox as a way just to get out of a house right now? Well, you know, what you can do is you can send a card to someone, and you can share the hope of Jesus in that card.
You can include your phone number, and invite them to share their thoughts with you. And some of you maybe even want to be a pen pal with another student at your BCM, or maybe from another BCM across Alabama.
I want to really encourage you to be intentional this week by making a list of people that you can begin contacting to show your concern and get started today. I also want to challenge you not to just text everyone you contact, but to identify people that you can actually FaceTime, or Zoom, or call because being personal is very powerful. And as you connect with others, listen to them, to their needs, and look for opportunities to share the hope of Jesus.
