For decades, CBFNC’s commitment to college students has been rooted in a simple conviction: the college years matter.
They are years when young adults are making decisions about vocation, relationships, identity, community and faith. For many students, college is also a season when inherited faith is examined, questioned, reshaped and increasingly made their own.
That is why CBFNC continues to invest significantly in campus ministry. Today, more than a dozen CBFNC campus ministry personnel minister to and with students on more than 20 college and university campuses across North Carolina.
And increasingly, we are asking an important question: What does campus ministry need to become to reach and form the next generation of students?
The developing Raleigh Campus Ministry Discipleship House, a partnership between CBFNC and Forest Hills Baptist Church, is one experiment in answering that question.
Located at Forest Hills Baptist Church, just blocks from NC State University, the Hood House will eventually provide affordable housing for up to four residents, including CBFNC’s Raleigh Campus Ministry Specialist. The hope is to welcome the first residents during the 2027–2028 school year.
From Campus Ministry Participants to Campus Ministry Leaders
One of CBFNC’s primary goals for campus ministry is equipping students for leadership.
Campus ministries thrive when students are not simply invited to attend programs but are empowered to shape them. Student leaders bring a voice to decision-making, help campus ministers understand the changing realities of college life and discover opportunities to develop and use their own gifts.
Our expectation is that campus ministers identify, equip and empower student leaders who can, in turn, expand the reach of the ministry. That idea sits at the heart of the Hood House.
The students who will live there, however, will not simply be tenants. They will be leaders.
Through shared meals, spiritual practices, mentoring, leadership development, hospitality and ministry responsibilities, student residents will be formed as leaders of the Raleigh campus ministry. And because they live alongside other students every day, they have the potential to extend the ministry into relationships and spaces a campus minister alone could never reach.
A student can invite a classmate to dinner. A roommate can welcome someone searching for community. A conversation that begins on campus can continue around the kitchen table.
In that sense, the house becomes a leadership laboratory, where students learn ministry by practicing it.
Creating New Points of Connection
That also speaks to another priority across CBFNC campus ministries: engaging new students.
Healthy campus ministries should be growing spiritually, missionally and numerically. Yet reaching students today requires us to challenge some of our assumptions about how campus ministry happens. We cannot simply wait for students to find us.
The Hood House creates another front door.
Rather than ministry being confined to a scheduled weekly gathering, the house can become a place where relationships develop organically through meals, conversations, study, hospitality, service and friendship. Resident student leaders can help determine how the ministry engages the wider university community because they understand their peers and their campus context from the inside.
A House Connected to the Church and the Community
CBFNC also asks our campus ministries to help students embrace their campus neighbors through missions and justice ministries.
College students increasingly want opportunities to participate in meaningful, hands-on work that makes a difference in their communities. The Hood House can become a launching point for that work, helping students identify needs around them, connect with community organizations and mission partners and move together from conversation into service.
But there is another relationship equally important to this experiment. The Hood House belongs to a church.
CBFNC exists because of and for churches, and our commitment to young adults is no different. One of our central campus ministry goals is cultivating stronger congregational connections through a two-way relationship of learning and support.
Forest Hills Baptist Church will be much more than a benevolent landlord. The congregation has an opportunity to know students, mentor emerging leaders, provide encouragement and resources, participate in ministry and learn from young adults about the rapidly changing intersection of culture, college life and faith.
And that partnership is already taking shape as Forest Hills and CBFNC work together to prepare the house for its next chapter. Churches across our Fellowship will also have opportunities to contribute professional skills, volunteer teams, resources and support as the vision develops.
There is something wonderfully fitting about that.
Before students ever gather around the table, churches will have helped prepare the table.
Helping Prepare the House for Its Next Chapter
So how do we set the table? That’s where we need your help! Turning this vision into reality will require more than imagination. The Hood House needs significant renovation before it can welcome students, and CBFNC and Forest Hills Baptist Church are inviting churches and individuals across our Fellowship to be part of preparing this space for ministry.
There will be opportunities for skilled professionals to contribute their expertise and for church groups and volunteers to assist with renovation projects. We are still in the early stages of this work, but we want to begin identifying people and churches who would be interested in participating as opportunities develop.
This is more than a renovation project. Every contribution will help create a place where students can experience community, grow in faith, discover their gifts for leadership and extend hospitality to others.
If you or your church would like to explore ways to help prepare the Hood House for its next chapter, we invite you to connect with CBFNC and express your interest.
An Experiment Worth Trying
The Raleigh Campus Ministry Discipleship House will not replace the campus ministry we already do. Nor is it intended to become the singular model for reaching college students. It is an experiment in expanding what is possible.
What happens when affordable housing, intentional Christian community, student leadership development, campus ministry, missions, hospitality and congregational partnership all inhabit the same address?
We hope to find out.
And perhaps the most important measure of success will not ultimately be how many students live in the house. It will be how many students are formed there, welcomed there, sent from there and empowered to welcome someone else.
Volunteer Opportunities: Help Prepare the Hood House
We are inviting CBFNC churches and individuals to tell us how they can help. The volunteer work itself will then be coordinated and scheduled over the coming months as the renovation moves forward.
- Bring your skills. Licensed professionals and skilled individuals or groups can volunteer for carpentry, plumbing, repairs, painting, and other renovation needs.
- Bring your church. Church mission teams can adopt a project and schedule a workday over the coming months.
- Join the mission day. Individuals and smaller groups can express interest in joining a future CBFNC-wide volunteer renovation day.
Together, we can create a place where college students belong, encounter Christian community, explore a faith of their own and become leaders who expand the reach of campus ministry to others.
VOLUNTEER OR EXPRESS INTEREST:
https://form.jotform.com/262294974003055
Thank you for imagining what we can build together!
