Befriend-a-Student
College students and community members fostering friendship, living life, and forging faith together.
Who Can Join
Any college student or young adult aged 18-24 in the Kansas City area looking for friendship with someone in a different life stage, and community member (whether individual, couple, or family) who wants to invest in the life of a college student.
What to Expect
College students are paired with local community members, which we call , who offer friendship, encouragement, support, and opportunities to hang out with them (and their families, if applicable) on a regular basis. This friendship can evolve into mentorship if/as desired.
What’s a Philos?
“Philos” (pronounced “fee-loss”) is what we call our community members. Why did we choose such a strange term, you might ask? For one, “community member” is a mouthful. Nothing else was quite right.
Philos is the ancient Greek word for “friend.” It has the same root as the word philia, which refers to brotherly love. In ancient Greek culture, friendship wasn’t a one-way street. Friendship came with a profound sense of reciprocal responsibility to one another.
That’s what we hope our Befriend-a-Student participants will experience. A deep, two-way friendship built on brotherly love in which both parties are better off for it than they were without it.
How It Works
START: After students and Philos are paired, Philos make initial contact set up a time to get to know each other.
CONTINUE: Philos keep the relational heart beating by consistently doing CPR!
- Contact: Philos contact their student on a biweekly basis
- Pray: Philos pray for their student on a weekly basis
- Relate: Philos relate to their student face-to-face on a monthly basis.
BEYOND: Beyond those basics, the rest of the relationship is up to what students and Philos want it to be. The sky’s the limit!
*To become a Philos, community members must be followers of Christ who are active participants in a local church body and agree with our statement of faith. We ask our Philos to submit references, undergo a background check, commit to the program expectations, and go through our Philos training.