Spoke at a University CU last night. The specific CU shall remain nameless, but it wasn't deeply encouraging.
Don't get me wrong - it was well attended with 60 or so students, and the folk there appeared taken up with meeting together. It wasn't that.
I think that it started to go wrong for me when the young lady leading worship exhorted us to remember that we were there to praise The Big 'G'. Hmmm.
Do you like Matt Redman? Maybe you have heard the song written by him and Beth Redman:
You are God in heaven
And here am I on earth
So I'll let my words be few
Jesus, I am so in love with You
And I'll stand in awe of You
Yes I'll stand in awe of You
And I'll let my words be few
Jesus, I am so in love with You
The simplest of all love songs
I want to bring to You
So I'll let my words be few
Jesus, I am so in love with You
I'd never heard it until last night. No problem with the lyrics, I suppose. Bit gooey and cuddly in places, but hey. Thought it was ironic though, that in all, we sang the refrain about 'letting our words be few' 8 times.
The fact that they weren't expecting a bible reading was a bit of a niggle, as was the absence of a lectern of any sort and the presence of only 4 bibles in the whole audience. Expecting too much? Maybe.
My given topic was 'Rahab'. Simple outline?
Her Condition, Her Conversion, Her Cord
Main thrust? God saves very lost, very empty, and very hopeless people by amazing grace. God can save people like her and us from our equally depraved and lost society. God's grace in giving her a future and multiple blessings is thrilling. New heart, new start etc. We talked about the grace of God in Christ and our inheritance and blessings. Then we talked about the outworking of her faith - the scarlet cord, her necessarily changed behaviour as a new child of God, and how in our godless society we need to be seen to be different. Holiness as an outworking of inner grace in practical ways amongst our university friends. We concluded with a reminder that a coming Christ is as certain and more glorious than the trumpets of Israel and the collapse of Jericho's walls.
Think it was clear.
Concluding comments by the earnest young lady who ended the meeting for us?
"Thank you so much to our speaker for such a helpful message. Now, I know that you are all eager to get over to the pub as soon as you can, so we'll just pray..."
Is it just me?
Posted by pencils at December 8, 2004 11:12 AMCan't have been Keele CU.
Those guys have such a passion for Jesus, they stay long after the meeting.
Word has it that security have to come break up their ministry time Coz they want to go to bed.
And besides, the worship their is awesome. Some chick called Debs heads it up. She's sorted.
Keeps.
Posted by: Dave K at March 31, 2005 07:13 PMMaybe they were eager to go witness to the heathen down the pub?...........
Posted by: Me at December 9, 2004 08:20 PMIn a strange kind of way, this would actually encourage me to attend CU.
I was never in that situation, the CU I attended as a first year was lead by a lad from my church, who handed it over to one of my best friends (I was then on the committee also), and we were sure about the faith of the people that we passed the baton on to.
The thing that would encourage me to attend and actively help is the slight off chance that I might help make a little difference.
We are often reminded that Universities are one of the best mission fields for Christians who attend, but I think that the actual CUs tend to be forgotten in that respect.
We know that God is able and willing to use us in whatever way - even if it seems incredibly unlikely that we will have any effect on the committee, there may be a surprise!
You can only change things from inside ;)
Posted by: Owen at December 9, 2004 07:13 PMYey! So it's not just me....
Posted by: Jon at December 9, 2004 06:33 PMDo you think that this would be a CU that I have either spoken at or attended in the past? The number of members certainly rules out one or two that I know of. It sounds very like Keele CU to me.
Posted by: Al at December 8, 2004 12:36 PM