On Sept. 18, Compel Campus Ministries, which is a mini church service on Siena Heights’ campus, met. This event is hosted by Siena Heights student and football player Darius Price. Price has been putting on this event once a month since February 2016. He takes an hour to preach the word of God and bring unity to one another.

“Compel is a campus outreach ministry where we’re geared towards the spirituality of knowing who God is, having an intimate relationship with Him, knowing who you are and knowing your purpose in life,” Price said. “That is one thing that we value ourselves on, and for the freshmen that came, I just want them to know that life is bigger than just going to college and getting an education. That’s an important thing but one of the most important things is knowing who you are in Christ. Compel is that pillar we try to add to Siena, along with other college campuses as well, just to allow students to come and know who they are. If you know who you are as a student, anything that you may be going through or anything that you face in life, it’s just important to have that spiritual encouragement and that empowerment to overcome any circumstances that you may face in life. We come from many backgrounds, and some people may not have grown up in a religious background and not know who God is. But Compel is here to express that. It’s here to give you the opportunity to try it and give God a chance to help develop yourself and grow as a person.”

The turnout for the event was large for the first meeting of the semester. A lot of returning students were in attendance along with a good amount of freshmen. Kody Burton and Javaris Jackson, two freshmen from Saginaw (also the hometown of Price), commented on their first experience.

“I felt good about it. Darius said some great words,” Burton said. “The music was really good and it got to me and it was just a great experience overall.”

“It felt good because I haven’t been able to make it to church, so to have it on campus and with Darius being the leader that he is, it was good,” Jackson said.

Senior Zachary Flack has been attending Compel for a while.

“I loved it,” he said. “I’ve been going since they started the whole thing, and I always enjoy praising the Lord because back where I’m from. I praise the Lord every Sunday. It’s kind of a tradition, but it’s also a thing that’s prevalent in my life. Compel ministry here is a big thing and a big change for our campus. It involves the whole campus community and I love it. I love to sing. I love to just sit there and praise and learn more about the word of God and God Himself.”

“The title of our message today was the power of confession and salvation,” Price said. “The whole purpose of the message was to really emphasize how our identity is a reflection of our confession. Confession is pretty much a strong conviction that comes from the heart and through the mouth. We talked about Samson and Delilah and what was closest to Samson: his gifted, his strength and how it was released from his mouth. And that is how it was discovered by Delilah. Even in Romans Chapter 10, it talks about confessing our sins before God and he’s able to save us when we confess with our mouths that He is our Lord and He’s our savior then we’ll be saved. I tried to tie those two aspects; the words that we speak and how important they are in a reflection of our identity and our identity is found in Christ.”

The event is once a month and is developed for anyone who is a firm believer in God or wants to learn a about Him and His word.