February, for many campus staff, is what my director calls “Funky February”. This is because staff and students are just settling into the semester, and there’s not a whole lot going on. There’s usually not much to plan and not many new students to follow up with, not to mention the weather is drab and unpredictable. Well, to remedy this (but really for other reasons) we decided to organize five different outreaches in the month of February! We finished them all this past week and now have the task of follow up with all the students that attended.
The most recent outreach we did was an event called “Porn Nation”. It’s a nationally-renowned event where recovering sex addict Michael Leahy gives a 90 minute multimedia presentation on the effects of pornography and a hyper-sexualized culture have on students and their relationships. He weaves in aspects of his personal story of sexual addiction, and after giving attendees a four minute intermission during which they can leave, he shares how a relationship with Jesus Christ brought him out of sexual addiction and enabled to fulfill his greatest need, to love others as Christ had loved him. Working with our students and partnering with many organizations on campus, we hosted Porn Nation at three of our campuses last week: the University of Central Oklahoma, East Central University, and Southwestern Oklahoma State University. Over the course of three days there were about 1000 students in attendance with almost 600 staying for the Gospel presentation and 8 students indicating that they prayed to receive Christ during Michael’s presentation.
Two weeks before the Porn Nation outreach, we hosted two other outreaches at the beginning of February at the UCO and at Cameron University in Lawton. At both of these campuses we hosted The Millionaire’s Forum, a formal dinner event where 30 of the top student leaders on campus come together to hear priceless business and life counsel from two accomplished businessmen who have built businesses with revenues in the millions. During the day of the event, the speakers spend time on campus as guest speakers in many of the business professors’ classes, sharing their business stories as well as some important life wisdom. Many of the students in the classrooms commented on how meaningful it was for them to hear personally from an accomplished businessman how to live well and make good ethical and financial decisions, and many of those student leaders who attended the dinner remarked on how encouraged and challenged they were by the speakers sharing not only about business practices, but also about their life and relationship with God. In fact, several said “Now I know that I can be a Christian and a successful businessman and that it’s okay to be successful as long as you use it to bless other people.” The Millionaire’s Forum was a great opportunity to reach out to the student leaders and to the faculty, and I’m looking forward to how the Lord will continue to grow those relationships recently established.
If you want to see some pictures from Porn Nation, or The Millionaire's Forum, just click on the links below.
Porn Nation @ SWOSU
Millionaire's Forum @ UCO
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