It was the biggest house in the Brazilian neighborhood and the perfect place for Judgement House workers to set up a makeshift heaven.
There was just one problem — the house belonged to a notorious drug dealer.
Usually the walk-through presentation featuring a life-changing decision and a representation of heaven and hell is done in a church building. But the church in Brazil didn’t have the eight rooms necessary to set up the presentation, so workers went house to house to set up each scene.
“Can you imagine going to a house and saying, ‘Hey, can we put hell in your living room?’” asked Tom Hudgins, who founded Judgement House while serving as a student minister in Alabama. The nonprofit now provides materials to churches in 35 states and 10 countries.
The drug dealer not only agreed to provide his house for the heaven scene but also attended the presentation and made a decision to give up his lifestyle, Hudgins added.
He remembers the spine-tingling trip as one of Judgement House’s most incredible moments since its beginning in 1983.
While the nonprofit is now based in Clearwater, Fla., it began at Bethel Baptist Church, Moody.
The youth were spending their Halloween blowing up mailboxes and throwing eggs on the interstate, Hudgins said. So the 24-year-old student minister suggested a more wholesome church-based activity. The youth wanted a haunted house, but Hudgins took that idea and organized the first Judgement House.
So why “Judgement House” and not “Judgment House”?
Simply put, Hudgins liked it better that way — plus it set his ministry apart from other similarly named programs.
The Alabama church’s impromptu Halloween play has since become an international ministry that provides scripts, logo rights, DVDs and training to churches, called covenant partners.
Executive Director Sandi Hubbard said each covenant partner pays $599 to use Judgement House material for one year, including training materials and program scripts. The ministry is in the process of amping up its website, www.judgementhouse.org, moving away from snail mail and toward downloadable scripts.
Writers often pull scripts from headlines, but Hubbard said they stay away from politically charged messages or stories written solely to spark controversy. One of the most timely scripts features a student plagued by bullying.
Because of its strong message and sometimes graphic content, Judgement House is not recommended for kids under 10 years old, Hubbard said. Despite the age limit and haunted house theme, the presentation is designed for evangelism, not shock value. “The intent is not to scare anybody. It’s to present the gospel with love,” Hubbard said.
One of the eight churches in Alabama that has embraced Judgement House’s message is First Baptist Church, Ardmore.
This year, First, Ardmore, which usually has about 400 people in the pews on Sunday, will probably see between 1,000 and 1,300 people pass through Judgement House, Program Director Tracie Slayton said. It is the largest event at the church. “It gives someone an opportunity to invite a friend to go through it, and the story is a witness in itself,” Slayton said.
Shiloh Baptist Church, Somerville, was one of the first churches to host Judgement House to rave reviews. However, several years ago, Shiloh Baptist formed its own agency to avoid legal infringement issues and created The Judgment Seat. Like Judgement House, it is an eight-room walk-through presentation that includes life-changing choices and eternal consequences.
This year’s script features a divided family and tackles topics such as domestic violence, self-harm and gambling, said Michael Walters, minister of education and students who serves as director of the presentation.
“The choices this mother and father are making are affecting their children for eternity,” he added Walters expects about 2,000 people traveling from as far as Mississippi to The Judgment Seat this year. The presentation nets about 100 professions of faith every year, he added.
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