Annotated Table of Contents
- A small green sheet of paper with all the different weekly events. This will be great to give me insight into other areas to take fieldnotes and give me interviewee ideas.
- Two Business cards for the main leadership at the BSM: Joe Schmidt and Ashlee Stricklin
- A packet with a pamphlet and a tract from the Ridgecrest Baptist Church
- Business card for the First Baptist Church Sulphur Springs
- Bookmark for Authentic Life Fellowship
- Business card for Living Stones Church
- Advertisement for Commerce Community Church
- Pamphlet for Cedar Grove Baptist Church
- Flyer for the College Ministry of the First Baptist Church of Commerce
- Student Info card to fill out for the BSM
- “Go Now” missionary cards so students can pray for the missionaries
- “Go Now” student information card
- “Go Now” missions positions list book
- Ministry Outreach Info card for BSM members to fill out
- Pamphlet with a business card for Commerce Community Church attached
- “Women in Need” flyer
- Journeyman information tract
- Christian tract over the 4 spiritual laws
- 10/8/09 Fieldnotes from “Overflow”
- 10/14/09 Fieldnotes from a typical day at the BSM
- 10/22/09 Fieldnotes from “Overflow”
- 10/27/09 Fieldnotes from the “Freshman Leadership Class”
- 10/29/09 Fieldnotes from “Overflow”
- Interview (recorded and notes) with Joe Schmidt
- Research Journals with valuable insight from the assigned reading
- WA1, WA2, and WA3
Overall, I am very pleased with my progress so far. I have made firm contact with the BSM and they know what I am doing. This Thursday I will get to introduce myself formally to all the students and ask them to take part in my survey. I have numerous sources of “literacy” collected and detailed fieldnotes that will provide valuable insight for my final project. I’m starting to recognize recurring themes at the BSM. A major theme would be outreach. They have numerous small groups designed to outreach to their own students but they also expand on a larger scale by hosting campus wide events, taking mission trips, and supporting Go Now Ministries. I talked about this with Joe, the director of the BSM; he said they consider outreach very important so they can show the love of God to others.
Another common theme is leadership. They have a leadership team that consists of nine students. It takes much dedication on the students’ part to be a part of this team because they have to meet with Joe and Ashlee (an intern) every week to discuss their plans for their small group and they probably put in an additional 8 to 10 hours a week. There is also a Freshman Leadership Team that consists of four people. They want these youth to become mature spiritual leaders and guide them through their walk with Christ during this transition year. These two themes are very interconnected. The leaders are the ones responsible for coming up with the outreach programs. The BSM can’t effectively minister to other students if they don’t have the student leadership able to do so because this is a student run organization. These themes are very important to the larger part of my study because it is the outreach programs that get the BSM’s name out there and “advertise” it to the community.
I have several additional steps that I plan to take in my study. Next on my list is getting my survey sent out to all of the students. I also would like to interview Ashlee Stricklin and the students on the Leadership Team. These are all very influential people who would be able to provide me with much information. There is also a lot that goes on with the BSM that I am unable to attend due to my class schedule. However, I do plan on continuing taking fieldnotes at Overflow. I feel that I can’t take too many fieldnotes and taking these will get me in my research sight and in interaction with other students. For additional artifacts, I plan on using anything the BSM passes out to students as well as taking photos to document all of the bulletin boards displayed in the building.
