University of Memphis students gather every Wednesday at Baptist Collegiate Ministry (BCM) to serve and enjoy a free lunch with their fellow students, with the goal to encourage new friendships and to foster new relationships with their fellow students.
The event is called Free Lunch on Wednesdays, otherwise known as FLOW, and its purpose is to give students a chance to casually meet each other, discuss faith, serving others and to just chat about their daily lives. The lunch is free for any current student and is $2 for anyone else who may want to come by. For many, it offers a chance to get to know someone new, and a way to become further involved with BCM.
“I’ve only been coming for three weeks,” said 19-year-old commercial aviation major Marc Agravante. “It’s been great, though. It’s given me a way to get my foot in the door for other events BCM has. If I come to one now, I know I’ll have someone to sit next to.”
FLOW is led each week by a group of students known as the FLOW team. The team is responsible for setting up the area, checking in students who come to eat, and cleaning up afterward. For most of these students, being on the FLOW team is a way to serve their fellow students, and offers them a chance to give back to their community.
“There’s fruits, and there’s labors,” said Landon Shelby, 19-year-old political science major. “The fruit is when you’re able to see someone understand or comprehend the Gospel. So, these are the labors, you know, we’re just cleaning tables, swiping people in or serving food, but really what that is, it’s the first step for someone to hear the Gospel.”
Each week, a local church sponsors FLOW, donating a meal of some sort for the students. The meal is sometimes served by volunteers, dropped off by the church and served by the FLOW team, or the church gives a donation for BCM to purchase the food for themselves. This ensures that the meals stay varied and that not one church is solely sponsoring a large meal every week.
FLOW is currently coordinated by Sam Horne, a 22-year-old electrical and computer engineering major. Although he accepts the title of "leader of the FLOW team," he is quick to point out that the titles don’t mean that much to them, and that they are all there to serve.
“Here at BCM, we’re all Christian, so our purpose for this event and for everything we do, is trying to love God and to love our campus,” said Horne. “So one of the biggest ways we can do that is by inviting others in for a free meal, and we hope that at some point that the people who come in here have a chance to hear about the Gospel of Jesus. And that can happen just through conversations at a table.”
FLOW continues to be a major event for BCM, serving on average 250 students a week during fall semesters, and 200 students a week in the spring. FLOW is every Wednesday during the regular semester, and BCM encourages any student who is interested in attending, even if it is just to enjoy a meal and meet someone new.
“You never know who you’re going to meet,” said Stephen Scott, a 20-year-old mechanical engineering major. “Somebody you might meet, you might think you have nothing in common with them, but you find out you have a whole bunch of stuff in common with them and you find a new friend.”
