FARMVILLE—It's no secret that one of the goals of Baptist Collegiate Ministries is outreach. At Longwood University we've integrated a new program into our activities hoping to attract new students with a non-threatening medium: videogames.
This year we've started hosting Guitar Hero tournaments, complete with easy, medium and hard levels of competition and prizes for the winners. Guitar Hero is an interactive video game in which two players duel on guitar-shaped controllers.
Guitar Hero captures the attention of Longwood students drawn to the BCM ministry there.
We also provide what every college student loves—food! Each month the posters go up, the Facebook invitations go out and gamers come together around our projector and Playstation2 to battle it out. We've been excited to have at least a new face or two each month.
The first week we hosted this event, a girl named Jane came. Her roommate is part of BCM and invited her. I was introduced to her that night and found out that while her mother is Protestant, her father is Wiccan and she didn't seem to have any religious beliefs of her own. Over the weeks I've developed a friendship with her and it has been a pleasure to see her open up to people at BCM. Though she still isn't quite sure what she thinks about God, she's more open to come to Christian events and she seems to be at least curious about what makes us different. The hope we feel is one of the biggest things that seems to stump her. We continue to pray that God will show Himself to her.
John's story is a bit more recent. He walked into our November tournament with talent-to-boot and a sparkle in his eye. He'd seen one of the posters about the competition and came to check it out. We had an amazing time competing, but more importantly we were able to talk with John. He asked about our organization, and I was more than willing to share. He's expressed interest in coming to our group meetings, but hasn't come—yet. We're all still praying he will.
Though our doors haven't been flooded with newcomers, I still view this program as a success. I hope and pray that over the coming semester more people like Jane and John will be drawn in and through this event and others like it, we will reach out to Longwood, one student at a time.
Trisha Wise is a BCM intern at Longwood University. The names in this article have been altered to protect identities.