Monet Heyward loves to see college students “get it and run with it” — that is, understand the essence of the gospel and take it to their friends, family and churches.
That passion, born out of her own experience when she was a student at Francis Marion University, fuels her new work as campus minister at South Carolina State University and other campuses in Orangeburg.
“I love to see the light bulb turn on, love to hear students say, ‘I understand now. I get it. And I want to share this with my neighbor, my suite mate, my friends, my youth group back home,’” said the effervescent Summerville native.
Heyward says the light bulb came on for her during her freshman year at FMU when other girls in her dorm “dragged” her to Baptist Collegiate Ministry events.
Heyward’s church background is Pentecostal Holiness — a tradition she says she was more than ready to step away from when she went away to college. But her friends wouldn’t let up. “They kind of dragged me to the cookout during Welcome Week and then to the weekly worship gathering. At first I wasn’t a fan. There were only two other African-Americans there. But they just kept being persistent and asking me to come.”
A weekend trip to Tennessee for the tri-state version of Converge, an annual statewide collegiate ministry event, cinched it for her. And once Heyward committed, she was all in, serving as outreach leader, praise band leader and a summer missionary twice.
Nearing graduation with a B.S. in elementary education, she approached Francis Marion’s campus minister, Kendal Danford. “I told him I just want to love on college students, and you know that I have a huge heart for African-American students,” she told him.
Heyward spent the next three-and-a-half years doing campus ministry at a combination of campuses in the Florence and Pee Dee region. Much of her work was focused on reaching and discipling African-American students.
Heyward said God has uniquely shaped her for this specific ministry. For starters, “I don’t think I could stand a 9-to-5 desk job,” she said. “I’m very much an interactive person.” But, mostly, her call to reach African-American college students stems from her own experiences in a primarily white campus ministry group.
“I’m all about diversity,” she said. “This is big to me, and so going into the BCM at Francis Marion, well, as a minority in that setting, you stick out, and it makes you uncomfortable. And for the average African-American student who doesn’t listen to Hillsong, the music is very different. Coming in and not really having anything catered to your culture — it can be a downfall.”
But the Lord used all of those differences in positive ways, said Heyward. “God used all of this to bring diversity,” she said. “I could bring a different perspective — not just of color, but also of culture. I’m constantly looking and watching to make sure we’re diverse in what we do, because that is what gospel-centered community looks like.”
She said many African-Americans, herself included, grow up religious but without an understanding of the relationship at the heart of the gospel. “I found my roommates to be more religious than relational. It’s easy enough to clap and dance and raise your hands, but where’s the relationship? Is it all about us, or is it about Jesus?”
BCM introduced her to the primacy of relationship — how to have quiet time with Jesus, how to serve and give, how to struggle through issues in the context of community, how to be sacrificial.
Danford says it is clear God has been shaping Heyward into the person and leader he has called her to be. “She is an incredible gift to the Orangeburg community and to the students of South Carolina State,” he said.
This marks the fourth year of consecutive BCM ministry at South Carolina State University, a historically black institution. About 35 students attend the weekly worship gathering there; a few also come from nearby Claflin College. The work at Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College is in the early stages.
“I am confident Monet will be used of the Lord to help churches and students lift high the banner of Jesus on those campuses,” said Ken Owens, collegiate ministry director for the South Carolina Baptist Convention.