Campus Ministry Activities

Newman Center Outreach
Our overarching goal is to prepare students to be leaders in the Church wherever they journey to after graduation. Our emphasis is to help them find compatibility between their faith and the marketplace they will be a part after graduation. We believe the most effective evangelization in this day and age is to live and be an example of Christ-like values in the workplace. At St. Lawrence-Newman, we provide our student participants with skills and opportunities to live their faith in the day to day life during and after their University studies.

Coffee House Evenings
Once a month the Peer Ministers host a Coffee House which provides a venue for musicians looking for a place to play and gain experience performing. It serves as an alternative to the bar scene. These have been a big success in the past, averaging about 60 students each evening. Since we focus on presenting good secular music, we give local musicians a venue to play their latest hits. The music played at our Coffee House nights ranges from Jazz, to blues, to country, and even to a cappella arrangements. We frequently have a waiting list of musicians to perform.

Small Group Peer Ministry

The goal of each team is to develop a small group of students who will be involved in planning supporting the events in their area. Each team of Peer Ministers provides hospitality (popcorn and lemonade) for our Sunday Evening Mass. They also perform monthly announcement skits all the Sunday Masses. We also do a first week outreach blitz. We grill and distribute hot dogs on the sidewalks of all the dorms on Labor Day Weekend. Over six hundred hot dogs were distributed this past year.

The Peers are also responsible for two large social gatherings open to all students. This past year, these included a Fall Mid-Term Party and a Mardi Gras Swing Dance, which also served as a fund raiser for our Mission Trip.

We meet bi-monthly as a team for prayer, formation, planning, and sharing a meal. To begin each year's outreach, we take part in a three-day retreat and have a one-day retreat later in the winter.

Additional Campus Ministry Activities:

• A refreshing fall retreat
• A spring Busy Persons retreat

• Spring Break Mission Trip to learn and serve the needy in Memphis
• A "Catholicism 101" seminar offered fall and spring
• Vocation Discernment opportunities
• 7 Ash Wednesday services coving all 3 campuses to kick off Lent
• Monday Night open Volleyball and Volleyball Tournaments
• Soup and Bread Lunch during finals week

The St. Lawrence-Newman community greatly encourages students taking on leadership in liturgical roles and in the Children's Faith Formation program.