On-campus Christian groups unite for night of worship

Students from different campus ministries gathered on Front Campus one night last week to worship and promote unity.

The OneLove event was one that “strives to bring the different Christian ministries together for games, worship and a talk,” Gabby Banzon, junior music therapy major, said.

The service brought together Campus Catholics, the Baptist Collegiate Ministry, Campus Outreach, Wesley and House Church along with the Christian fraternity and sorority on campus. OneLove is  primarily a student-organized event that  bridges the gap between the ministry groups on campus to promote unity.

The vision of bringing the ministries together began in 2011 when Banzon and a small group of people from different ministry groups wanted a way to support each other and unify the ministries. They began the United Ministries Community and planned OneLove and Unite For Impact at GC with the goal of unity.

Banzon believes that unity among different ministries is important.

“One thing that turns people off from Christ is that there are a lot of denominations,” Banzon explains. “I want to show we are united despite our differences.”

Senior math education major Kelsey Davis agrees with a push toward unity.

“The ministries on campus have been divided,” Davis said. “We want to find a way to unify them.”

The evening kicked off with games of corn hole and nine square, and then moved into a time of worship. The music team was made up of people from the different ministries. Following worship was a talk from senior political science major Zach Balkcom.

With a theme of unity for the entire event, Balkcom centered his message upon that idea of how the different ministries may support each other.

“I want us to have a greater knowledge of our actions and how they are helping or hurting our push for unity,” Balkcom said. “We have to consider what the point of unity is. I think it’s important that we decide why we’re doing this.”

Davis believes that unity between the ministries can impact the campus.

“As a campus, we need to be unified as a body of Christians,” Davis said. “Each ministry is great in reaching people in their own way. It’s good that we have these different ministries, and by coming together we can impact more people.”

Balkcom hopes that the unity will bring friendship among the different groups.

“Becoming friends with people in other ministries can open doors that were closed or ones that we didn’t know were there,” Balkcom said.

After the success of OneLove, the United Ministries Community will host the three-day Unite For Impact in the spring to work even further to bring the groups together.

With the focus of OneLove being on unity, Banzon left a simple goal for the night.

“I just hope it brings everyone together,” Banzon said. “That’s really all I want OneLove to do.”

Posted by Kelsey Cooper on Oct 25 2012. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.