Have you ever wondered what students on your campus think of your ministry or the Christian community as a whole? Are you aware that your group has a poor reputation, but you’re not sure why? Conducting a short survey of students who aren’t Christians is a great way to get some feedback on what you’re doing and determine what changes need to be made.
In order for students to be interested in taking a survey you’ll need to keep them brief and focus on learning from what they have to say, not trying to reach them. Don’t make students give their contact information or even their name. This is not the same thing as evangelism surveys you may have done in the past. This is just for the sake of learning how to better reach unsaved students on your campus.
When you approach people to survey them say something like, “I’m a part of a Christian club on campus called BASIC. We’re interested in seeing what people think about Christians because we want to encourage unity on this campus. Would you take a minute or two to fill out a short anonymous survey?” Here are a list of questions that could be helpful for this:
- What do you think of Christians?
- What do you think of Christians on this campus?
- What are two words that you think best describe Christians?
- What has influenced your perspective?
- What would encourage you to come to a meeting of a Christian club on campus?
- Have you ever had a negative interaction with a Christian on this campus?
You shouldn’t use all of these questions and probably no more than 3 or 4 altogether. Some of these questions can be open ended, but others can have choices so that the survey doesn’t take awhile to complete. For instance, with the question, “What do you think of Christians on this campus?” you could give choices like friendly, loving, judgmental, hypocritical, and so on.
After you’ve collected a number of surveys sit down with your student leaders and try to read them with an open mind. For sure, you’ll get some answers from people who didn’t take it seriously, but others will be helpful. Ask questions to evaluate all the data you’ve received. Are there trends that you’re seeing? Is there one overall mindset on the campus that needs to be addressed? Can you think of any specific situations that may have contributed to the campus perspective of Christians?
I trust that this will be an exercise that gives you something to ponder and helps you learn more about how to reach your campus with God’s love. Have you ever done something like this on your campus? What were the results?