“I do not like golf. Everyone expects me to like golf, but I just don’t have the time for it,” said former Pastor of Sports Ministry, Mike Malpass. In fact, he doesn’t consider himself to be much of an athlete at all. His passion has always been for missions and youth, making his new position as Colonial’s Pastor of Outreach a good fit.
God taught Pastor Malpass an important lesson about having a servant’s heart while he ministered to athletes. “Having Sports as my first pastoral position at Colonial was unexpected,” said Pastor Malpass. “I’m living proof that you don’t have to be a great athlete to be a sports minister; you just have to be willing to be open to however God wants to use you.”  That openness has played an important role in his life. Without it, he probably wouldn’t be leading at Colonial today.
Mike Malpass had a great career at IBM, helping to develop the award-winning ThinkPad® computer and medical devices used to detect heart disease. Then he felt God leading him in a new direction. At the time, he was involved in youth ministry; he went on too many mission trips to list and even attended a youth camp or two. It was at a youth camp that he was overcome with the feeling that God wanted him to go into full-time ministry. When the sky was dark and all the activities were over that night in 1997, Malpass was in tears because deep in his heart, he knew what God wanted him to do and it didn’t include a ThinkPad anymore.

“Seeing God work in such powerful ways in my life, in the students’ lives and in the lives of those we ministered to is really what led me to do this full time,” said Pastor Malpass. Now, ten years after first enrolling in Southeastern Seminary, he hasn’t lost his heart for missions. In fact, he hopes that more people in the church will share his passion. “We need to create, within the body of Christ, a passion for the gospel. It really needs to be central to everything we do and we need to take advantage of every opportunity,” he said. He put these words into action in a seemingly mundane setting recently. Two men were helping him with his new television set at a local store when God led him to take the situation as a gospel opportunity. The conversation began with two simple questions. “Do you live around here?” and “Do you go to a local church?”  It ended with a gospel presentation, two tracts that told of Jesus’ redemptive plan and a friendly invite to Colonial. Pastor Malpass hopes his brothers and sisters in Christ will keep their eyes open for similar chances to share the gospel.  “It’s really not that difficult to strike up a conversation with people,” he said.  “But, anyone can if they are willing to be open to however God wants to use them.”