October 5, 2011
For Immediate Release
By Natasha West, student news writer
CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky. – Jim Munroe’s mind-blowing ability to blend magic and the gospel is why Campbellsville University students are raving about him. On the evening of Sept. 30, Ransdell Chapel was overflowing with 900 plus people enthusiastically waiting for the m?ze magic show to begin.
Many students responded to his story, Ed Pavy, director of campus ministries at CU, said. “After we had collected the response forms, our Prayer/Usher team counted 172 professions of faith by CU students. What an impact for the kingdom!”
“Jim Munroe and his crew arrived right on time, were very friendly and were easy to work with.We utilized his street magic abilities in our dining hall during the busiest rush, with our football team as they prepared for practice, and with our marching band before their afternoon rehearsal,” Pavy said.
Many people didn’t know what to expect. “I don’t like magic shows, I never have because it’s fake, and I don’t find anything entertaining in that,” Celeste Presley, a sophomore from Georgetown, Ky., said.
“I went because a friend asked me to go, but then he gave his testimony and I realized why he did what he did. This was my favorite part. After seeing the show, it made me want to be a stronger as a Christian because if he can keep his faith with cancer and afterward use that as a tool to witness, it showed me that everything is minuscule compared to the fear of dying,” she said.
“The show was simply amazing. Jim’s connection with the crowd was instantaneous. His production was flawless, unique and very entertaining! The way Jim uses his personal story as a backdrop to incorporate his beliefs about the act he is performing as contrasted to the truth he puts his faith in is just excellent. We all know the message. His communication of it is personal, powerful and effective,” Pavy said.
“He blew my mind! As a Christian, it strengthened my walk with God, showing me he has a plan for us, and he has a specific purpose for my life,” John McCain, a senior from Rosehill, Va., said.
Munroe used tricks, humor and mystery in the show and always provided more substance behind it, making it relatable to the audience’s lives and to making the audience question what the truth really is. He gave his personal testimony and explained what God has done for him and why he is where he is today.
Munroe said he has been doing magic tricks since he was a young child. He said, “Having become a magician you understand that there is some kind of scheme or something going on behind the scenes that is ultimately fake or false.”
In college he was asked to attend church one day, and that’s when his life changed. He explains that he began to ask himself the God question. Maybe there is something more to this? If he was going to believe in this God, and the Bible, then he asked God to make it real to him.
He said, “Sometimes when you pray prayers, you don’t fully want them to be answered. Mine was getting ready to be answered.”
Munroe was 29 years old when he started having really intense pain in his leg. He decided that it would probably be best for him to go to the ER.
They began to run numerous tests on him. The doctor told him that his white blood test was very high. They ran more tests to later find out he had leukemia and basically that he was going to die in two months if they didn’t do anything.
Munroe said he went through a rough road, but God proved to be faithful when he received a perfect match for a bone marrow transplant. The transplant was successful and his body accepted this new blood and it slowly began to build a new immune system.
As he explained his story, “It’s no longer I who lives, but someone else who lives inside of me. When they look at my blood now, when they investigate it, they don’t see a 30-year-old male; they see a 19-year-old female. I literally have XX chromosome living on the inside of me, a substitution of blood on my behalf so that I could live again; and so that the deception of my body would die. That to me is really difficult to ignore when I ask God to reveal himself to me. That is very difficult to ignore.”
Munroe said he believes that all of us have a spiritual cancer that’s eating us away on the inside and that when we really take a look at it, we are dying and we are begging for somebody to intervene and step in on our behalf.
“He mentioned the show is called the ‘m?ze’ because it’s like our life, we don’t know where we are going, and we never know what God has planned for us, but he has a purpose,” Ashley Wilson, a junior from Russell Springs, Ky., said.
Munroe encouraged those students who didn’t have a relationship with God to seek him, and make the decision to become a believer, and to devote their lives to following him.
The M?ze was supported through the Eliza Broadus State Mission Offering received annually through the Kentucky Women’s Missionary Union and the Kentucky Baptist Convention. The M?ze is being brought to eight locations around Kentucky.
“What a wonderful blessing for our campus and another example of the benefit we receive to be affiliated with the Kentucky Baptist Convention,” Pavy said.
Campbellsville University is a widely acclaimed Kentucky-based Christian university with over 3,000 students offering 63 undergraduate options, 17 master’s degrees, five postgraduate areas and eight pre-professional programs. The website for complete information is campbellsville.edu.