Alex Lehr
Contributing writer
The Chi Alpha Christian fellowship organization is bringing new activities to SE campus this year.
Previously headed by Marlin Blankenship, who then worked for SE recruitment, the leadership role to Chi Alpha has been passed on to Anna Watts of Durant, who currently works as a secretary at Abundant Life Temple.
Restored after a one-year hiatus, Chi Alpha is being brought back to SE students as Watts prepares the group to involve themselves more in the lives of students on campus.
Chi Alpha’s mission is to reach out to students on campus to teach about Christ in relation to the students’ lives, according to the Oklahoma Chi Alpha site.
With this in mind, Watts will be introducing new practices that have previously been unseen by SE Chi Alpha goers.
One of these changes is forming fellowship events, which involved a Chi Alpha video game night on Oct. 14, as well as a series of fundraisers which Chi Alpha will host in hopes of sending students to SALT 2013.
Watts said SALT 2013 will be a mass migration of college students from Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico to Dallas.
SALT 2013 will take place from Dec. 30 to Jan. 2.
Watts said she plans to fund the travel and hotel arrangements for those who will be participating rather than making the students pay.
The group’s first fundraiser will be a car wash at Shamrock Bank in Durant on Oct. 26.
In addition, the Chi Alpha organization will be hosting a series of sports tournaments during the month of November and possibly December.
Chi Alpha will be hosting its first sports tournament, basketball, on Nov. 9 currently scheduled to take place in the SE Student Union gym.
The time of this event is still to be decided.
Admission will be $40 for teams of four people.
These events will involve basketball, football, volleyball and what Cord Carter, a student of SE and active participant of both Chi Alpha and the Baptist Collegiate Ministries calls “human foosball,” a game akin to soccer played in chairs.
“It’s really fun,” Carter stated. “It takes teamwork.”
Teamwork has been the focus of Chi Alpha’s new activities.
Watts took students to Breakaway 2013, where students come together for worship at the Spark Camp of America in Sparks in September.
The organization is hoping to add more fellowship events where Christians and non-Christians alike can get together, something that Watts has stated.
“We just need to focus on fellowship,” Watts said.
Currently, the group is gradually building up numbers.
Membership for Chi Alpha on SE campus has risen to nine frequent participants, who meet every Monday in the Student Union Lyceum at 8 p.m. for Bible study.
Added to these weekly meetings are prayer meetings hosted by Watts at Abundant Life Temple in Durant every Friday at 6:30 p.m.
Watts said that this involvement in student lives is intended to reach out to students on campus on a mass scale, allowing theological understanding to be added to students’ schedules as well as provide a place of comfort for anyone in need of it.
“Bring a good attitude, and a heart to receive,” Watts said, stressing that all denominations are welcome to join.