Collegiate Ministry Directors for Greater Boston and New England Will Equip Churches to Evangelize and Disciple Students
Boston (above) has been called the “Higher Education Capital of the United States.” New England is home to about 250 colleges and universities that need a gospel witness.
“No plan to reach New England for Christ would be complete without a collegiate component,” said Terry Dorsett, Executive Director of Baptist Churches of New England (BCNE), who appointed directors to lead the network’s collegiate ministry. Fady Ghobrial, for Boston, and Daniel McGhee for the rest of New England, are serving part-time with funding for three years by the Baptist Foundation of New England (BFNE).
Ghobrial’s new ministry provides the immigrant pastor, who was a ministry fellow at Harvard University, with a huge responsibility: to develop relationships with pastors and church leaders to encourage and equip them to more effectively reach and disciple college students on nearby campuses. Greater Boston counts about fifty colleges, universities, and special-focus schools, according to an online list.
Networking Churches for Collegiate Ministry
Fady Ghobrial
Ghobrial is taking a two-fold approach to his new assignment: First, on August 12, he is gathering participants for a “Fall Huddle,” at which collegiate ministry leaders will pray together and encourage one another. Second, he is networking with church members and training them to evangelize and disciple students. He mentioned connections with a “handful of churches that already have a campus presence,” including at two of the city’s largest, Boston University and Northeastern University.
A fall conference for students, which was called “Fusion” and is now known as “Momentum,” is in the works for October 17-18. The weekend gathering in downtown Boston at a location to be determined will feature a Saturday afternoon schedule for outdoor evangelism and compassion ministry in partnership with Send Relief Boston, which calls itself “a hub for restorative ministry [that] collaborates with local churches and ministries to strengthen communities.”
Boston is “a desirable location for international students looking for a top-notch education because of its illustrious past, vibrant higher education environment, and varied population,” according to an online article published by USA International, a Florida-based international education consulting company.
The article dubbed Boston as the “Higher Education Capital of the United States” and reported that “over 10,000 students from more than 140 nations were enrolled at Harvard University as of 2022, accounting for more than twenty percent of the total student body,” a reality that has been much debated by national lawmakers and media in recent months.
When asked how he will tackle the huge responsibility of collegiate ministry in Boston, Ghobrial, who was a ministry fellow (2017-2024) for Christian Union at Harvard University, said, “I think, first, with God’s help and lots of prayer—and also excitement. I love college ministry because I came to faith as a college student, and so I have a huge heart for college students.”
When he was at Harvard, and as he is doing in the new BCNE staff role, he enjoys “just meeting students, doing a lot of outreach, evangelism, and teaching weekly Bible courses.” Reflecting on his previous ministry, he added, “I also did a lot of leadership coaching and one-on-one discipleship with our students.” “Student ministry is, essentially, in my blood,” he noted.
A Pivotal Time in Students’ Lives
Collegiate ministry is a rewarding ministry for Ghobrial to invest his career because, he added, “First of all, it’s a really pivotal and critical time in students’ lives. It’s a time when they are searching for the truth and trying to decide for themselves, ‘What do I believe and what’s important to me?’”
If students arrive on campus with a Christian faith background or if they grew up going to a Bible-preaching church, the Boston Collegiate Ministry Director said, the college years are a “time for them, basically, to own it for themselves,” to choose Christianity for themselves rather than leaning on a parent’s faith commitment (if any).
Northeastern University (above), located in the heart of Boston, needs a gospel witness.
“Then, additionally, for students who did not grow up as Christians, it’s an opportunity for them to explore Christianity and get to know who Jesus is for themselves,” he added.
Ghobrial is an Egyptian who was born and raised in Cairo. In 2002, when he was twelve years old, his parents “sacrificed everything,” applied several times to and eventually were accepted for green cards through the US State Department’s “immigration lottery.” The family moved in search of “a better future” to the Central Massachusetts community of Shrewsbury.
When Ghobrial was still a teenager, a friend, George Habib, invited him to a church conference, “where I gave my life to the Lord.” Habib and his brother, Mark, drove him to the church, an hourlong drive from Shrewsbury to Newton every Friday night, an act of selfless service because of which, Ghobrial said, “I have a huge heart for helping empower students to love and to serve their friends in practical ways, in order to make the love of Jesus tangible in their lives.”
He graduated from Shrewsbury High School (2008) and from Worcester State University (2012), with a Bachelor of Science in Urban Studies. In the summer between freshman and sophomore years, he committed his life to Jesus Christ.
Arabic Baptist Church in Newton, Massachusetts, was instrumental in his parents’ lives and in his own life, as was his mother’s prayers. “It’s how my entire family came to faith... through the ministry of faithful people there” at the Newton church, a BCNE affiliate.
He then moved to South Hamilton, Massachusetts, and enrolled at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he received a Master of Divinity (2015). Ghobrial’s seminary roommate was Jonathan Moseley, whom Dorsett appointed in May as director of BCNE’s new Faith and Work initiative.
Immediately after seminary graduation, he continued to serve, until 2023, as a staff pastor in the youth and music ministries of Arabic Baptist Church, when Sinote Ibrahim was the senior pastor.
Also, immediately after completing study at Gordon-Conwell, on August 23, 2015 (to be precise), Ghobrial married Renée Selim, a New Englander with family roots in Egypt and an abiding love for mentoring teenagers and young adults. As BCNE’s Youth Ministry Director, she leads the Youth Encountering Christ (YEC) conference, the Quest leadership-development missions experience, the CrossWalk summer camp, and the CheckPoint retreat for youth ministry leaders.
Ghobrial is a member and a ministry associate at City on a Hill Church, Brookline, Massachusetts. He also hosts a podcast, “Following Jesus in College and Beyond,” which attempts to “give students a vision for what it could look like for them to follow Jesus in college, prioritize their walk with the Lord, and grow in their faith.”
Collegiate Ministry Beyond Boston
A serial church planter and international student ministry leader in New York City, Daniel McGhee was appointed in May to a part-time BCNE staff position as the New England Collegiate Ministry Director. He will continue to live in and work remotely from his home in Astoria, Queens, and he plans to travel to New England twice a month.
Dartmouth College (above), which was founded in 1769 in Hanover, New Hampshire, needs a gospel witness.
At first glance, it may seem like he has a much higher mountain to climb than does Fady Ghobrial, who directs collegiate ministry in the Boston area, because there are about 200 colleges and universities in New England beyond Greater Boston, according to a list kept by the New England Board of Higher Eduction.
In reality, though, evangelism and discipleship happen one person at a time or in small groups regardless of how large the field of responsibility, and the same may be said of those who develop relationships with pastors and church leaders to encourage and equip them to more effectively evangelize and disciple college students on nearby campuses.
“New England is a big, big territory. As the BCNE’s New England collegiate director, I’m going to have to cover a big swath of land—six different states. No matter where I live, I’d have to travel.” Most of the time, McGhee will meet people remotely online, conduct meetings on Zoom, and connect by email and phone.
That’s what he has been doing for the last nine months in a new full-time role as the New York City area director for International Students Inc.
“I haven’t been working with International Students for a year yet, but I found that, even within New York City, many times I’m meeting my staff remotely because it takes an hour to get to them by train, or whatever. I think it’s probably a silver lining that COVID made video conferencing a lot more, not just convenient, but a lot more normalized. It’s not that big of a deal.”
College students in New England, he noted, “are coming from all over [including] from closed countries that we just can’t go to easily with the gospel. They’re influential students, and we get to share the gospel with them here. We also want to be a resource to them during a transformative time of life when they are trying to figure out who they are.”
“Many of these college students are going to be tomorrow’s leaders. If we can impact them with the gospel, then I think that’s a strategic ministry that’s worth living your life for. If we can get churches engaged with those universities then, hopefully, some great relationships will be built and students can get the spiritual care they need during their college years.”
Doing Ministry Development Remotely
Is collegiate ministry development enhanced or made more efficient by using Zoom and other remote connections, including phone calling? “I don't know. I think in some ways it is,” McGhee responded. “I’ve scheduled meetings back to back to back to back. I don’t have to travel and lose time with that, so that’s definitely more efficient. You can talk to a lot more people [remotely]. I also like phone calls, too.”
Dan McGhee
On the other hand, he stated, “There’s just something more appealing and more in-depth about meeting in person [and] there’s a lot of nonverbal feedback. You get to establish a better relationship.”
McGhee’s goal over the next year is “to really establish some good relationships with our churches and with some universities around New England. I would like this first year to do a lot of listening to our people who are already in New England, that have been doing collegiate ministry. I want to listen to what’s being done [and discover] what they would like to improve. I don’t have a three-point plan or something.”
McGhee, who was born in Star City, Arkansas, received a Bachelor of Business Administration (2001) from Henderson State University, Arkadelphia, Arkansas. After five years as a Financial Professional with New York Life, he accepted a position as a youth pastor in Corinth, Mississippi, while he was attending Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, Cordova, Tennessee.
He completed the degree, a Master of Divinity (2010), at the seminary’s extension campus in Schenectady, New York, before he and his wife, Kari, and their daughters, Emma Kate and Ella, moved to lead Grace Baptist Church, Whitehall, NY (2007–2011) before they relocated to Astoria, Queens, New York.
In 2012, McGhee planted and was the Lead Pastor of Connection Church in Astoria. Seven years later, the church’s associate pastor, Larry Mayberry, planted a second congregation twenty blocks away, Queens Church in Woodside, which started following a “simple day of picking up trash.” The two churches merged in the summer of 2024. Since then, while McGhee ministers with Baptist Churches of New England and International Students, Inc., Mayberry has been dividing his time between being pastor of the Woodside church and, since February, as Executive Director of the Metropolitan New York Baptist Association.
Investing in the Collegiate Fund
“New England is the heart of higher education in America. Although faith historically played an important role in colleges and universities, today most students are still searching for truth. As a network of college ministries partnering with local churches, we desire to see a generation of New England students passionate for Christ and his Church. Working together, we equip collegiate missionaries and student leaders,” the BCNE website states.
As “thousands of students flood into Boston for the new school year,” Dorsett wrote in an email on July 19 that he celebrates his birthday (July 27) each year “by asking friends to reach college students in New England with the gospel by donating to the Collegiate Ministry Fund." When he started, in 2015, to seek birthday gifts for BCNE collegiate ministry he “was stunned by the response. Since then, by God’s grace and your generosity, we’ve raised over $100,000 for college ministry across New England.”
Give to the BCNE COLLEGIATE MINISTRY FUND to support today’s needs or, for future campus ministry, invest in the BFNE CHAIR OF COLLEGIATE MINISTRY FUND
New England is home to more than 200 world-class educational institutions. Many historic colleges and universities educate the world’s social, political, economic, and cultural leaders. If we hope to reach the world for Christ, we must reach college students in New England. Baptist Churches of New England has thirty collegiate missionaries on New England college campuses.
Fady Ghobrial and Daniel McGhee are supervised by Joe Souza, BCNE’s Associate Executive Director. Before their appointments and before the major impact of COVID-19, Andy Haynes and Chris James led BCNE’s collegiate ministry. Since then, they have been pastors of Massachusetts churches, Haynes at The Church on Seven Hills in Worcester and James at Mill City Church in Lowell.
“I am thankful to have the McGhees and Ghobrials on the BCNE team reaching the next generation. They continue the long line of excellent leaders we have been blessed with, including Andy Haynes, Chris James, and so many more,” Dorsett said.