Welcome to College (Read First!)

Warm Up: I Timothy 1: 12-19, I Timothy 4: 12

I remember getting ready to go to college. It was not too long ago, in fact. My discipleship group leader decided we should read a book that would prepare us for all the spiritual matters we would encounter in college. Unfortunately, he had trouble finding anything that was both good and aimed towards future college students. Eventually, we wound up reading a book that had excellent things to say and touched on college, but was still not exactly what we were looking for.

I later decided that I, being a college student, should do something about the lack of writing that pertained to the college student’s Christian life. I cannot promise it will be any good, but at least I can properly aim for the subject matter. I enjoy writing and even if I do not make a cent off this blog, I can still hope that it will impact someone out there. Speaking of cents, here is lesson number one about college: Most students are poor and always trying to make money and are as cheep as possible. Some people may think we have money since we do not have any “real” responsibilities, but this is simply false. For instance, guess what happened to me during my Freshmen year. A couple of my friends paid me two dollars to go up to the sweet tea machine and drink straight out of it. Now normally, I may not have done that. But seeing as I did not have money and was quickly running out of soap I knew there was only one thing to do. I promptly walked to the machine and stuck my mouth right under the flow of sweet tea in front of the entire dining hall. There are two important morals for this story. The first is to accept anything that someone offers you for free in college (Unless it is illegal! Or from someone you do not know and is consumption based!). By senior year, my wardrobe was made up entirely of free t-shirts. The second moral is to take advantage of the summer jobs and save as much as you can before you get to school. And now, to the real deal…

Just so you have an idea of where I am coming from in this blog, I am (or was if this is being read after 2009, possibly 2010 or 2011 depending on how my grades work out) a student at The University of Georgia in the great city of Athens. It is currently one of the top ten party schools in the nation and the second best sports college town in the nation (according to magazines who know what they are talking about). Academics are fairly tough here and will be getting tougher. People are friendly, and for the most part there is little hostility towards Christianity, but there is also a severe lack of authentic belief. Everything in this book/blog is the result of something I have either learned or relearned on a deeper level while in college. I hope that my little collection of thoughts and ideas will help prepare future or current students for college in a spiritual way that has never been done before. To those readers who are already in college, I am sure you will be able to identify with and appreciate many things I blabber about in the future postings, and hope that they will give you some things to think about.

College is one of the most significant transitions a person will make in life. Kids no longer live with their parents and no one tells them what to do. People take on new responsibilities like doing their own laundry and feeding themselves. Everyone will encounter more temptations than they could even imagine existed in the world. Students will meet countless new people and some of them will become truly lifelong friends. College is a blast, but if you are not prepared spiritually than you are going to get hurt.

Universities have become more and more diverse over the years. As a result I have met people with different backgrounds, skin colors, religious beliefs, study habits, political beliefs and anything else you can think of. From my interactions with all these people, from spending time in God’s word, from listening to people who are smarter than me, and from screwing up I have learned a great deal about what it means to be a light in the dark and salt to the world.

I am asked to write tons of thesis statements for papers in school. You probably are too. Consider this my thesis for the book: God is perfect. We cannot even come close. I blew it, and so did you. You are just as bad as everyone else who is a sinner at your school. Thankfully, God has pulled some serious strings and now we have the freedom to not blow it anymore. The only way we will stop blowing it and actually have an impact on our campus, however, is to realize that we are jacked up and in dire need of God’s grace and forgiveness. Maybe you have heard what I just said many times in your life, and maybe you have not. Either way, experience after experience has taught me how little an “upstanding intellectual” like myself really understands about grace. So stay with me through this blog, and maybe you will learn more about grace in the same ways I still am.

One last thing, the format of this baby is simple, and you have probably figured it out for yourself. Each topic should take you about ten or fifteen minutes to read, including the “warm-up.” The warm-up is at the start of each topic and is a bit of scripture that has to do with the topic being discussed. Devotional and supplemental materials like this blog can help you in your walk, but they cannot hold a candle to what scripture can do in your life. I even make it easy for you; if you click the scripture in the warm up it is a link to the actual scripture. And now, if you have made it this far without falling asleep, congratulations, you’ve done more than I normally can when reading. I hope you enjoy my ruminations (that's right, college word baby!) and keep coming back for more!