Monday, June 30, 2008

What TU needs? Part 2

Sorry that it has been such a long time since i have blogged at all. It has been an wonderful weekend and i was very busy throughout the past couple days. My girlfriend Bethany came down to Indy and hung out with me for the weekend, so blogging wasn't really on the forefront of my mind. :-)

To recap, the idea of a church at taylor is what is being discussed. This church would be student run and student lead in almost all leadership positions and roles of responsibilities. The driving thought behind this is that we want Taylor to become more impassioned. We want taylor to be a true community of believers that is open and actively working toward the goals of the kingdom in both spirit and truth. The best way that I've seen that happen in every single community is when it clicks with people inside the community and when those people then influence others positively. I would rather listen to the guy down my hall who has struggled with pornography and gotten out of it than listen to someone that i don't know. When it is personal, it is stronger and more applicable. 

Hence the idea of a student lead church. When i think about the churches around the area of taylor, i think of taylor students as injections into those churches. We almost are like a cortazone shot. I don't really think that many of the TU students consider themselves members of a church at school. for me personally, I wake up, go to church, listen to the sermon, sit with my taylor friends, then i get up and go eat lunch back at taylor. At no point am i involved in the church the only time that we meet corporately. I know that this sounds bad or heretical or whatever, but i don't consider them my church family. I consider my church family the other christians that i'm living life with. This idea comes a little bit from Acts 2:42, but also it comes from some articles that I've read by Gabe Lyons. If anyone of you who reads this blog is interested in reading some of the stuff that has really reshaped the way that i have looked at church, check out this website. 

As I drove up to Michigan to pick up Bethany, i was given the time to sit down and call people about the idea for the church. All the people that i talked to helped me shape a little bit more of what the idea of a church at school could look like. Thank you to everyone that i talked to! Your input was very beneficial. One of the main points that i realized was that in order for the church to ever be operational was to be really organized and well thought out. This meant we would have to have some sort of a checks and balances system set up so that one person in the whole idea of a church couldn't "take control" of everything. As a community, we are going to be all working together, which will obviously cause conflict and strife at some point. Being organized helps avoid that. 

I would love to continue to have people become excited about the idea of a church, but i can't be the only person who is informing others about it. If you read this blog and you go to Taylor, please tell as many people about the idea for a church that you can. The more people that jump on board now and actively work toward developing it as a program, the better chance it has for actually happening. That means:
  • Questions
  • Comments
  • Concerns
  • Ideas
  • Networking
  • Resources
  • Complaints
All of these things are going to be essential for the idea to work! Also and most importantly, we need to be praying about it! Toss this up to God and see what he says about it. I know that everyone that wants this to happen will be excited and passionate about it, so lets spread the passion and cause change!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

After reading these two posts, I'm thinking that a fresh idea like having a student run church right on TU's campus would be a terrific idea! It would take a lot of work on the students' parts to make sure that this kind of idea would be a success. It also gives students the opportunity to see what actually being a part of a church is really like. Its really cool to think about a church that involves the ENTIRE congregation, not just a few people who lead the church.

Definitely keep me posted on this Bolte, I'd definitely be interested in looking into kicking this off at Taylor!

~BenA

Anonymous said...

jordan. i said it before and i'll say it again - i REALLY like where your head is at with this idea. seriously. sign me up. :)