By: Whitney Knight
Six years ago, Kevin Dugay moved to Oklahoma to begin a new life in Christ. He enrolled at MACU as a Music and Worship Ministry major, setting him on a path to use his love and passion for the performing arts for the glory of God. And now, that path has led him right back to MACU. This spring, Dugay was hired as MACU’s next Campus Pastor.
“It feels like coming home,” he said. “MACU made an incredible impact on my faith walk, an incredible impact on my life. It changed my life in a really great way.”
MACU’s former campus pastor, Matt Cossey, stepped down this year to pursue a full-time position as Lead Worship Pastor at The Bridge in Mustang. He texted Dugay about his decision and asked if he and his wife, Linda, would pray about the opportunity. “I prayed for a whole month because I wanted it, but I wanted to make sure that God wanted me to do it,” Dugay said. “Any time there’s an opportunity in ministry, the first thing I do is pray. No matter the paycheck or location or the ministry, I just want to be where God is calling me to be.” Dugay said it’s been a wild ride filled with a lot of prayer – but there is nowhere else he would rather be than back home on the MACU campus.
“I can’t imagine another scenario where I would have been better equipped to do this if I hadn’t gone to school here,” he said. “I push MACU to everyone I know because I truly believe in it. My professors developed me as a person of high competence but also high character.”
He said he doesn’t want to just be a good speaker or a good worship leader – he wants to represent Jesus. “If there’s anything I want students to take away as Kevin Dugay as campus pastor, it’s that they left knowing that this was an invitation to a relationship with God. I want people to see Jesus in me and I definitely feel like the university prepared me for that.”