WELS MSU and LCC Campus Ministry Center Pack

The WELS MSU / LCC Campus Ministry Center Pack is a compilation of two separate downloads for The Sims 2, centered around an effort to re-create the actual building as it was being utilized between the years 2004 and 2007, with emphasis on 2005 and 2006.

Description
This in-game Greek house tries to re-create the sort of traffic that existed at the real building in that time period. The real-life building was located at 704 Abbot Rd. in East Lansing, MI. The Dozerfleet founder was once part of the Wednesday night domestic student devotional group, as the center at that time cared just as much about ministering to domestic students in need as it did to foreign exchange students. (This changed in later years, until domestic students were all but completely neglected in favor of placing almost all emphasis on international students.)

While willing to provide its services to students of Lansing Community College, the center's primary target for influence was predominantly international students that were attending Michigan State University at the time. The ethnic communities most targeted for evangelistic outreach were the Chinese and Korean communities, though Russians were also given attention in the late 90s and very early 2000s.

In late 2005 and early 2006, the founder of Dozerfleet accepted a challenge to design a new flyer for the center - as well as redesign the website. The old one, put online in the 90s, featured an outdated look that also was littered with obsolete details. The old website was made for when Rev. Joseph Dietrich was in charge of the operation. However, Dietrich left on a call, and was replaced with Rev. Mark Eckert. Dietrich would go on to take a hiatus from the ministry, after recovering from losing his wife.

That website and signage featured a semi-dynamic design loaded with glowing pictures, spinning cross logos, and a lot of purple to replace the green of the Dietrich era. The website was in the works since late 2005, but wasn't finished until May 30th of 2006. Its development corresponded with the flyer design, the new new sign proposal, and with a sign made in The Sims 2 in order to promote the idea. Likewise, Kurse of the Kryptonite was first developed around this same time period.

While the building did go with the new design at first for its website, it replaced that design a year later with a much less interesting design. Not long after that, outreach all but entirely ceased to LCC students, and the color scheme reflected that MSU was what the center truly cared about. Eventually, the campus center lost its website, when its provider service through MSU's website pulled the plug, leaving the center without any means of online representation apart from Google Maps and e-mails, or mentions on other groups' sites.

The sign proposed, while implemented for online promotion using The Sims 2, was never adapted for the building's exterior. Instead, its sign was replaced with a very similar one - one which merely added a now-obsolete website link (and also removed mention of Dietrich.) The color scheme was still very much green and white, revealing that the outreach to LCC was never a serious pursuit.

After 2020, the center's future remained uncertain, as it was unable to convince international students to take any risks to travel outside their small community homes to visit the center.

Package contents

 * CampusMinistrySign.package (173 KB)
 * CampusMinistryCenter.Sims2Pack (1.67 MB)
 * Sign
 * Building

Requirements
The item is a "Greek House" according to the game, made with some Nightlife references. As such, both the University and Nightlife expansions are required to run this lot.

Of the sign
The building's sign was made first, in late 2005, and incorporated with a very crude early model of the building's re-creation in the game for purposes of a chapter near the end of Ciem 3: Curse of the Millipede, in which Candi and Donte at one point visit the center. They meet Sims there based on real-life attendees, including a Mun-Yi Sim that was modeled after the real life Younghee Kim. Ho-Yun, jealous that she didn't feature in Ciem 3 when Younghee did get a cameo, was given her own Sims 2 comic: Lo-Mun's Cooking Adventure.

Of the building
The building itself was designed next, with improvements made to it after Nightlife was installed. This building was initially to be tied in with the new website, and the two cross-promoted. However, those ideas were scrapped after the Campus Center abandoned the sign design and new website appearance. Its cartoonish cross logo was a reference to the design used by the WELS for its promotional materials in that era. However, as the publication Forward in Christ eventually abandoned that purple cross logo in favor of a red emblem of a more traditional liturgical bent for design, the WELS in general adopted that new direction too. The modernist purple cross design was retired - making the new website with a cartoonish variant instantly obsolete.

Distribution
November 20th of 2005 marks the release of the original sign, for its use in Ciem 3. It was then sidelined for inclusion on the WebCD. However, it was later incorporated in with the Campus Ministry Center building upload, which was then submitted to Mod the Sims around April 30th of 2006. Some improvements were made in May of that year, before the building was accepted as finalized.

After it was taken down from Mod the Sims, the pack was later uploaded to Utterly Sims on Tumblr. When that was taken down, the Campus Ministry Center re-creation lay in Ivan's Vault until June of 2020. It was then re-released to Dozerfleet Labs' blog on Blogger.