School me, Brother!

Today I stopped in to the lunchtime Bible Study of the Christian Students Association on campus, whom I visited last week at the table they had set up for the first of week of school (all the clubs had their tables out). I didn't really know what to expect, and was a bit surprised to see their form of opening prayer (I came in a little late--bought a sandwich at the HUB to chow on while discussing scripture). There were more people than I thought, formed in kind of a snail shell formation. The prayer was not led by just one person, but it was very participative. The group leader started the prayer, and then others could join in to throw in a benediction of some sort. This initially freaked me out, sort of "Shiny, Happy Christian" groupspeak stuff. They also read aloud the 3 questions posed for the passage of the day--all together now.

I struggled to get over it, to value my fellow Christ-follower no matter what the flavor, in order to open up to the small group discussion, which was of 2 Corinthians 1:1-14. Our small group had a great discussion of comfort and suffering, Paul's history, the context of the passage, personal experiences, etc. I went in one direction interpreting verses 8-9, and another fellow in the group suggested a different interpretation. Since these folks are students and younger chronologically, I find that I have to work at assuming an attitude of the student myself. These are people with more Bible-reading experience than I have. I find myself out of my comfort zone as compared to the All Saints vibe, and wonder what to do with that. I still think there's a place for remaining on my guard regarding certain groups with "Christian" attached to their name. But, no one offered me red Kool-Aid....