The University of South Carolina Upstate has been abuzz with students moving into dorms before the start of fall semester. The students’ new neighbors have been in the process of moving in, too.
Spartanburg BCM director Tracy Turner said the South Carolina Baptist Convention purchased this property, which includes a 1,700-square-foot house and 3,000-square-foot building. BCM will move its offices into the building and transform part of the space into a “coffeehouse-type setting” where students can surf the Web and have fellowship.Missionaries and Spartanburg Baptist Collegiate Ministry have new homes on Tenosha Drive, just across Valley Falls Road from USC Upstate.
Spartanburg BCM director Tracy Turner said the South Carolina Baptist Convention purchased the property, which includes a 1,700-square-foot house and 3,000-square-foot building. BCM will move its offices into the building and transform part of the space into a “coffeehouse-type setting” where students can surf the Web and have fellowship.
It also will enable the ministry to possibly reach more students with the gospel message. Turner said BCM will hold Bible studies, worship gatherings and luncheons for students in the building just down the street from the house, where two missionaries will live.
Holly Harper, 22, is one of the missionaries.
“I am going to live there for the year and work on the USC Upstate campus, my alma mater,” Harper wrote in an e-mail while on vacation in Costa Rica.
Harper’s hometown is Merritt Island, Fla. She graduated from Landrum High School. Harper has served on mission trips to Florida, Central Asia and West Africa. She is a missionary with the Baptist Collegiate Ministry.
She will share the ministry house with Rachel Atwood, 22. The two women previously served together on a mission trip to Florida.
Atwood, originally from Delaware, realized she wanted to be a missionary during her senior year at Middle Tennessee State University. Atwood became involved with Campus Crusade for Christ in college and enjoyed working with other college students. Today she’s a missionary with Campus Crusade for Christ.
BCM also will have social gatherings at the ministry house.
“The Upstate campus is a wonderful university, but when you’re a college student, everything about the campus, even the dorm room in some ways, is kind of institutional,” said Suzanne Bachelor, associate campus minister with BCM.
“I think everyone needs a little bit of (an) escape, and every student, particularly freshmen who’ve left home, want to feel like there’s a place they can come home to,” Bachelor said.
She thinks the ministry house will provide students with more of a “home environment” that will help “let down their barrier” and allow BCM to build relationships with them.
BCM’s former office was on the Wofford College campus. Turner said the ministry sold its student center to Wofford in November 2008. He said BCM wanted to locate its base closer to USC Upstate because of the college’s growth.
According to USC Upstate’s website, it is “among the fastest-growing universities in South Carolina” with “a diverse and dynamic community of 5,500 students from across the world. With 36 states and 51 countries represented among the student body, the university reflects the Upstate’s international character.”
The Spartanburg County Baptist Network’s latest newsletter features an article on BCM’s ministry house. In the article, Turner writes that the college “is an amazing mission field for all churches in our area.”
American teens and 20-somethings, sometimes referred to as the Millennials, show some differences in faith compared to older generations, according to a 2010 report from the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. Fewer Millennials are adherents to a specific faith, they attend religious services less often, fewer say “religion is very important in their lives” and 1 in 4 “are unaffiliated with any particular faith,” according to the report. However, the report’s findings also indicate that as people grow older they “place greater emphasis on religion” and there are areas in which Millennials do share more in common spiritually with older generations, according to the report. The report’s data comes from Pew Research Center surveys, General Social Surveys and Gallup surveys.
Asked how BCM plans to reach students on the diverse campus, Turner said friendship was key.
“It’s all done through relationships – our students building friendships with others.”
The ministry house and adjacent building are not reserved exclusively for USC Upstate students. Bachelor said the location’s close proximity to Interstate 85 makes it accessible to other local campuses.
BCM has student leadership teams at USC Upstate, Converse, Wofford and Spartanburg Methodist colleges.
Kelsey Bradham, a nursing major who is also on the USC Upstate leadership team, said her non-Christian friends are leery when she attempts to talk to them about God.
“But if you start building a relationship with them, they’ll become more comfortable with you instead of, like, slamming the Bible in their face,” Bradham said. “You tell them that ‘Hey, I’m the same person as you are. I have problems. I go to school. I fail tests. I do the same things that you do, but I have someone who’s with me, who’s going to encourage me, and he’s helping me through it all – and I kind of want to tell you about it, too.’ Once they realize that you are a normal person like they are, they’re more willing to listen.”
– Reprinted by permission of Spartanburg Herald-Journal.