while i wish this one wasn’t true, it surely is. this one extends the boundaries of bible college to all christian colleges. one of the biggest draws to a christian college, chapels (which usually have the best worship teams and bring in the best speakers), are the reason many christian college students don’t attend a church and are not plugged into a community.
and why not? they get church three mandatory times a week in chapel, why add a forth?
so most students do not end up plugging into a community outside their college campus because they don’t have a need for it.
but the problem is, college doesn’t last forever. sooner or later they’re are going to e faced with having to find a community of believer outside college, and most just give up.
the amount of people who walk away from their faith after high school is staggering, let alone those who walk away after college and pursue their “real life.”
while this was not intended to be a shameless plug for my school, which, for the sake of face-saving will be remained unnamed. we’ll just call it school x. you see, i mention school x for this very reason: we do not have chapels. i have asked, in fact, many of our faculty why we don’t have chapels. there could be a lot of benefit for the students, and we certainly have enough talented worship leaders and connections to amazing teachers and speakers. the response was almost creepy how they all echoed in unison. the faculty at school x desires for students to look outside bible college for their community and church life. a lot of students do end up at churches together, though none are necessarily sponsored by school x. but they’re also making meaningful relationships with families, kids, teens, and old people and bunches of people who they would never come into contact with by staying in the bible college bubble.
and it has been amazing.
i would have never ended up in the community am i in if i had settled for chapels at my school. so for all those at christian colleges or bible schools, don’t settle for chapels! find a church, find a community, get involved and grow!
bible college is amazing, but is useless unless your putting what you’re learning into practice, (i think i read the some where in James…) and there’s no better place than your own community.
