Instructions for student leaders:

  1. Complete and then delete these instructions.
  2. After making all edits, save this document as a PDF, (so none of the formatting gets messed up).
  3. Email this letter or print for speakers.

Edits to Make:

1st paragraph:

  • If you have two lunch periods, indicate that.

Rally Schedule:

  • If your lunch period is longer or shorter than 36 minutes, adjust the schedule accordingly.
  • Put real times to match with the number of minutes for each item on the schedule.
  • If you have two lunch periods, input the times of every part of the event for both lunches.

Contact Cards:

  • Concerning the plan for contact cards: Let the speaker know what your plan (like when and where and how) for passing out and collecting the contact cards is.

Final Announcements:

  • Specify whether the announcements at the end will be done by student leaders or by the speaker. If a student plans to do this section or part of it, you can delete the unneeded information above (including changing the important things they need to know number in the first paragraph to 4).

Dear ______,

Thank you so much for agreeing to speak at our rally! We’re excited to have you! The rally will be on ______(date). Lunch is from _____ to _____(time). Please see the schedule below for how long you’ll be speaking. The rally will be held in ______(location). Please arrive ____ minutes before lunch starts and sign in at the front office. A leader from our club will come and get you.

The goal of this rally and of the whole Outreach Week that we’ve planned is to help students who don’t know Jesus on our campus take the first steps in becoming mature, passionate, lifelong disciples of Jesus. To do that, our aims for this rally are two-fold 1) clearly present to our fellow students about Jesus and what it means to have a saving, lasting, and satisfying relationship with God (through 1st person testimony), and 2) gather the contact information of the interested students so we can follow up afterwards with them and help them grow.

With these goals in mind, there are four very important things relating to your role in our rally that we want to prepare you for: the rally schedule, the content of the message, the contact cards, and final announcements.

THE RALLY SCHEDULE

Please stay within your time frame that’s on the schedule, so we can make sure to fit everything in the short time we have.

Schedule: ____ to ____ (36 minutes)

___ to ___ (8 minutes): Performer or music playing

___ to ___ (2 minutes): Student leaders: Welcome everyone, talk about the rally and outreach week, and introduce speaker

___ to ___ (18 minutes): Speaker: Message

___ to ___ (2 minutes): Speaker: Contact Cards

___ to ___ (2 minutes): Student leaders or speaker: Final Announcements

___ to ___ (4 minutes): Time for students to turn in contact cards, get flyers, food, and Christian materials, and exit.

THE CONTENT OF THE MESSAGE

Please share your testimony. We would love for students to hear the gospel message through your presentation.

  • Share the gospel of Jesus Christ, including the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and the impact that those events have for our lives and for our relationships with God.
  • Explain the relationship that God intends for us to have with him, including the importance of growing in our relationship with God and bearing fruit, and include some of the main ways that we grow in our relationship with God.
  • Explain the decision that a person must make in order to be saved and reconciled with God.

However, because you are speaking outdoors where students will not have a choice whether they want to listen to you or not (considered a “captive audience” in legal terms), please explain the above truths within the context of your own personal testimony. Please keep everything in the first person. Please also avoid any sort of an “altar call” or time for them to make a decision to follow Christ. It is important that we use this legal opportunity to share Christ wisely.

You might say something like this:

  • That's when someone told me that God loves me.
  • I realized I was a sinner.
  • I learned that Jesus died in my place.
  • I decided to choose to accept Jesus’ love and follow Him.

Later this week, we’ll have an indoor rally where students will have the chance to receive Christ. But for this event, please respect this line so that we can keep proclaiming our message all week long. So please avoid saying things like:

  • You should receive Christ.
  • You need to repent.
  • You are sinners.
  • You have to believe that…

Please include our rally’s topic and our week’s theme into the message. Our week’s theme is ______. Our rally’s topic is ______, and we want to communicate that ______. (take-home truth for rally)

Please keep these values in mind:

  • The purpose of this rally is to reach unbelievers who may not have much church background. Remember that the majority of students listening will be non-believing students with very little understanding of Christ or Christianity, so please make sure to explain any terms or phrases that they might not understand, or avoid using them in general.
  • Although we definitely want to be clear that all people have fallen short of God’s standard and are in need of being forgiven by Christ, please avoid any type of “hellfire and brimstone” message. We want you to be bold and honest, but by sharing of God's love in our lives as the solution to our very real sin problem.

THE CONTACT CARDS

The goal of this rally is to serve as the first step in many students’ relationships with God. We students, along with local pastors and church members, will follow up with students who are receptive to the message and offer tohelp them grow into mature disciples of Jesus.

Because you will be outdoors, some students will come close to where you are speaking, but many will stay with their friends, while still listening to you speak. With this unique situation, we will still pass out response cards to those close by. So please make sure 1) all students close by receive a response card 2) to explain to them the concept and purpose of a contact card, 3)talk through each question of the card, 4) give students a moment to fill in each section.

FINAL ANNOUNCEMENTS

We want students to get plugged in further after this rally, so please include the following announcements at the end of your time.

  • Turning in contact cards – Before leaving, remind them to turn in the contact card. Give clear instructions for what to do with it.
  • Promote the next rally - We are having another rally tomorrow at ______(location) at lunch, where we will be talking about the topic of ______. Invite students to come back to learn more.
  • Follow-up events – Next week we’ll be gearing our club meeting to talk about the rally topics, answer questions students have, have pastors available to talk, etc. Invite students to come check it out.
  • The Christian club–Our club meets on ______(day) at ______(time) in ______(room). We meet weekly and all are welcome to attend.
  • Getting free Christian materials – Before leaving, encourage students to come get free Christian materials at the materials table. All are FREE.
  • Getting food – Encourage them to grab food on the way out!
  • Dismiss

Thanks again for partnering with us to reach our school. If you have further questions, you can reach me at ______(cell number).

Sincerely

______(your name) on behalf of our entire leadership team