Scaremare sees over 800 people find hope in Christ during opening weekend

Liberty University’s Scaremare opened on Oct. 9, kicking off its 53^rd year of providing thrills and chills with a message of hope and a promise of eternal life. By the end of the weekend, over 800 people professed salvation after going through the House of Death. Nearly 600 student volunteers are working this year to keep Scaremare one of Central Virginia’s most popular fall attractions.

Scaremare, located at 2300 Carroll Ave. in Lynchburg, will run for the next two weekends (Oct. 16-18 and Oct. 23-25). Tickets can be purchased at the door with cash; group passes can be purchased online.

Scaremare was started by youth pastors at Thomas Road Baptist Church in 1972 as a creative fall outreach, where guests walk through a house of scary rooms and experiences (called the House of Death) to help them grasp their own mortality and need for Christ. As the event grew, Liberty’s Center for Youth Ministries, now under the John W. Rawlings School of Divinity, began facilitating the event as a way to equip and train students with practical outreach opportunities for the community. Since its inception, Scaremare has attracted over half a million people from Central Virginia and up and down the East Coast.

Director of Scaremare and School of Divinity Assistant Professor Joshua Coldren said the Gospel is at the very heart of the event. There have been over 26,000 reports of salvation since Scaremare began over 50 years ago.

“We always come back to our mission of Scaremare and how we want to point people to the hope found in Jesus,” he said. “We do that by bringing people to the place of thinking about their mortality, thinking about the things they fear in life. And then we show them that you don’t have to fear because there’s hope in Christ.”

Guests walk through a trail, a wooded area, and 18 rooms in the House of Death that bring alive various scenes of death and human fears. This year, there are four new rooms, including an expanded fan-favorite checkerboard room (commonly referred to as “the strobe room”) and a room that focuses on childlike experiences. There is also a large military-style tent in the wooded area with a spooky surprise inside.

At the end, guests are directed to one of five tents, where pastoral leadership students are waiting to provide a message of hope.

Senior Caleb Malina serves as Gospel coordinator for Scaremare. As a friendly and welcoming face after the intense walkthrough, he directs guests to tents. During opening night, over 50 people professed salvation in Christ after the Gospel presentations.

Malina said his job is to mentor the other student Gospel presenters by praying over them, giving them tips and guidelines on how to present, and debriefing with them each night.

“Even though it was a little cold (on Thursday), we got to come together at the end and have a wonderful conversation and prayer time to celebrate what the Lord did that one night and look forward to how the Lord is going to bear fruit through our actions and through our surrendering in these moments for the days to come,” he said.

Malina said that before they start presenting each night, the students remind each other that the focus isn’t on them.

“We’re just instruments in the Savior’s hands, where we are submitting ourselves to Him, allowing Him to shape us to be used by Him,” he said. “We want to unite our Gospel preaching with the theme of Scaremare, and Scaremare highlights all the dark things. We want to say, ‘Yes, the dark things are true, but God is the light. He is the light of the world.’”

Sophomore Josh Stachulski, a Gospel presenter, said he initially heard about the opportunity during his church planting course.

“Christ commanded all believers to go and evangelize and spread the word, saying, ‘Go and make disciples of all nations,’” he said. “I felt that (Gospel presenting at Scaremare) is a great way to actually do that.”

Stachulski said this is the biggest opportunity he’s had to share the Gospel, and it is a great experience to exercise the skills and practices he is learning as a divinity student. He said Malina has been very encouraging to the group of Gospel presenters, always making sure their focus was on God and that they were well-equipped to present the message.

Coldren said the Gospel presenters did a “phenomenal” job during opening weekend.

“Afterwards, there were people who just had questions about faith, and they did a great job of being there and answering those questions and having follow-up conversations. I was really encouraged by their efforts and everything they did.”

Coldren said the efforts of Gospel presenters make lifelong impacts, noting how one woman at Thomas Road Baptist Church was baptized a few weeks ago, and during her testimony she mentioned accepting Christ at Scaremare years ago.

“For the community as a whole, what’s great is that it’s this opportunity that we have to be able to share Christ with them,” he said. “Scaremare is helping people to see that our time is short here on this earth, and we’re not going to be here forever, but there is hope beyond this earth.”