A Pastor’s Story

By Chris Stanfield

As United Methodists we know the rewards and surprises of our itinerate system. One such surprise came last year after my family and I moved to a small college town to serve Trinity United Methodist Church in Wise, Va. We were told that our neighbors were the town's "animal house" – the rowdiest of the three fraternities at University of Virginia College at Wise. At first the loud, late-night parties were a burden, but soon they became something different: an opportunity.

Earlier this summer, our church approached those "wild" boys from the fraternity, Pi Lambda Phi. We did not knock on the door and invite them to worship – those guys have outgrown that evangelistic strategy. Instead we did two things that would appeal to college students: We invited them over for food, and we challenged them to a game of volleyball. If they won, the church folks would wash their cars. If we won, the fraternity would come to church.

On Saturday, June 15, at high noon, a group of 10 college guys and two dogs stepped out of the fraternity house, walked down their hill and into our back yard. We exchanged pleasantries and decided to get one of the games out of the way, best two out of three. I don't remember the score, but they won the first game.

After hamburgers and watermelon, we all took our places for the second game: the fraternity on one side (young men who were very active in intramural sports), and the church folk on the other (a high schooler, a college student, three men in their 30s, and a retiree). This would be the longest of the three games. We won the second game – surprise! As for the third and final game, no one knows exactly what happened. I'm not sure if we caught them off guard, or they didn't believe that church folks could beat them. Or maybe we were caught off guard and just couldn't believe that we could beat them. Everybody knows that the fraternity guys should have won that game, but the fact of the matter is, they didn't. We did. We were more amazed than anyone.

The next day, seven fraternity guys showed up at our church for Sunday morning worship. Our own members brought visitors just to see if they would come. People who've been inactive for years came to watch the volleyball game and have been regular at church ever since.

This one event seems to have sparked interest in what the church is about. The college and community are talking about what this one church did with a group of "animal house" fraternity guys.

Over the summer, our relationship with those guys has changed. They are no longer visitors, but friends. They slow down and wave when they pass by the church and parsonage. We talk at the grocery store. Two of the guys have become regular attenders on Sunday morning. One stopped by for coffee at the parsonage last Saturday. We're making plans for a pig roast this fall, and the guys are helping us hand out water to incoming students on moving day this month.

Was God a part of this? I believe that He was a part of it in more ways than I know. Yes, we fed a bunch of guys who normally don't have a cooked meal. But they were hungry in more ways than one. During my first visit with the students, when I challenged them to the volleyball game, one of them said, "We have been thinking about that church. We noticed you all have kids, but your backboards to the basketball poles were broken. We would like to donate a backboard to the church when we can get some money together."

God had already planted a seed in those boys' hearts. All it needed was some watering.

This is truly an odd sort: a fraternity and a church. I'm not sure where God is going with this, but I know that we will do what we can keep up with Him.

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