Jess Senasack said campus ministry is a little different in the area where she lives than it is in Alabama.

In Maryland and Delaware, only 14 of the 60 colleges and universities have some kind of Baptist ministry going on. In Alabama, which has the same number of campuses, 44 have Baptist campus ministers at work.

‘Emerging’ region

Ben Edfeldt, director of the office of collegiate and student ministries for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, called Senasack’s area an “emerging” region — an area “where your access to gospel-believing churches is much less than it would be in more traditional states.”

That’s a big reason Senasack — who serves as state collegiate director for the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware — was excited about forming a new partnership with Edfeldt’s team.

Edfeldt said their “prayer and hope is that the Lord will open the doors for a pipeline of Alabama students who will spend some time in Maryland and Delaware reaching students there.”

That could be a week, a semester or longer. He said he and other Alabama collegiate leaders are “always challenging our students to leverage their gifts and passions for the sake of the gospel.”

Edfeldt said he thought the partnership would also sharpen Alabama’s Baptist Campus Ministries.

“What we’re finding is that our campuses in Alabama aren’t getting any easier to reach,” he said. “The way they’re engaging students (in Maryland and Delaware) would benefit us here in Alabama.”

They got to see that in action in mid-January when Senasack and a team of 10 students from the University of Maryland in College Park and Morgan State University in Baltimore came to Alabama, along with Jalen Stewart-Fuller, who directs the BCM at Morgan State.

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This article was originally published at TheAlabamaBaptist.org.