“As the church, we are in community together trying to fulfill this Great Commission that Jesus left us with. As we gently press into each other, we form one united thing, His church. As we work together, sharing the space God gives us to do His work, we all become shaped a little different. We all become a little more like Him.” ― Jennifer L. Lane.
As I’ve passed on from high school to college, I’ve noticed a series of distinct difference between the two. Granted, this may not be the case for all, but considering I’m contrasting a Christian education with a secular environment, there already appear to be a world of dissimilarities.
When I was in high school, pretty much everyone said exactly what they thought—for better or for worse. Classes were small and typically, disagreements during class discussions were fairly common. When it came to views on important matters, everyone had an opinion. Sometimes the opinions were loud, and sometimes they were quite militant, but they were opinions nonetheless.
Now that I’m in college, the dynamics have done a 360. Few people really seem to have strong feelings about anything, and if they do, they manage to hide it well. The hallways are quite sterile, and it’s infrequent to even really make eye contact with anyone. The overall mentality seems to be “You stay out of my business, I’ll stay out of yours“. I hung out with one of my friends recently who’s still in high school at a local public school and she said that she rarely shares her opinions with anyone, as that only causes drama.
From what I’m noticing, it seems that the general consensus in Christian environments is “I’m going to give my opinion very loudly whether you like it or not” and the general consensus in secular environments seems to be “Stay out of my business and try not to get in anyone’s way“.
Both approaches fall short in interacting with the world as Christ would.
When someone only wants to yell and point fingers, they fail to care about the very people they’re supposed to be loving. When someone never stops to give advice or to try help someone work through a problem, they communicate coldness and apathy. As Christians, we’re supposed to love and be a family, which presents an entirely different vision than either approach offers.
When you’re in a family, you don’t just spew off disagreements without a relationship and the other person’s best interests at heart. You also don’t only chat casually and avoid any subject that could potentially bring conflict. Both of these approaches are dysfunctional and both fail to live up to Jesus’ calling to “Go and make disciples” (Which could also be thought of as, “go bring people to the family“).
Many times in the media, we hear the word empowerment being used frequently. I believe this word best sums up my point here. Our goal as Christians is not to condemn or to be cold and uncaring, but to empower people to find their best selves in Christ. This means caring about forming relationships with other people, helping them sort through the messiness of life, and helping them to find God’s will in their lives. Clearly, there are many matters where it’s best to “agree to disagree” but we should never, in our pursuit of kindness, default to the booming, loud apathy of disconnection.
Our love needs to come from a deeper place than silence and rage, it needs to come from our living breathing Savior, who loves us and has adopted us as His own.
We can only become all that God intended us to be through caring, building up, and watching over our family and potential family-to-be.
Anger and apathy will never be enough.
1 Timothy 4:12 Girl 
Excellent Courts Excellent I loved this and you are so spot on about college. I thought this was great because you showed the good and bad in both communities instead of highlighting positives in the Christian community. The bible does that all of the time it, all of the good is right alongside of the bad haha. I hope college is going great for you and I am glad to see you are stilling keeping up with the blog 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks bro! College is going pretty well, and I still have my high school friends to keep me sane.😂 I’m going to try to post something at least once a week, if not more.
LikeLiked by 1 person
awesome that sounds like a great plan!!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow! This is absolutely powerful! I’ve been part of the ‘stay away from my business and I stay away from yours’ so long that I rarely start up conversations with strangers. But if we are to make disciples of all men, we need to be more welcoming. I like all the points you raised, I’ll definitely apply them going forward. I really do enjoy your ‘Chronicles of a College Student’ 😀 God bless you hun!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Mfon! I think it’s easy to fall into that. I know I’ve been like 100x less social in college than usual, but I’m going to try to get better about being more talkative. And thank you, God bless!😊
LikeLike
Great post! Very inspiring to a fellow college student 🙂 it’s definitely a tight rope between balancing my views and life and loving others. Especially when everyone’s so busy!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Emily, definitely! I hope things are going better with your family, I’ve been keeping them in my prayers!🙏🏼
LikeLike
Courtney – so sorry I have fallen behind in reading your blogs and others : )
Teaching has kept me busy the last few weeks but I absolutely LOVE this blog !
I grew up in the 80’s and saw people connect a lot more than now ~ maybe not on a
deep level but definitely show love & compassion to others and make eye contact : )
I wish people would realize how much we really need one another and to see others
through the eyes of Jesus not our own !!
God created us to love him and love others but somehow we find it difficult to do
this … maybe the distractions and noise of life …
God bless you always – keep letting that light of your shine : ) ❤️
PS Loved the comments from others and your replies : ) too
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s OK! I understand being busy and I’ve definitely been there.
I do think that for whatever reason, we’ve become more disconnected over the years, just based on what I’ve seen on TV. It seems that it’s becoming harder and harder in society to form meaningful friendships, and I pray this changes in the future.🙏
Thanks for commenting! 😊
LikeLiked by 1 person
I completely agree and I pray people begin to connect and have meaningful relationships too ~ That friendships like David and Jonathan are admired and emulated in our society ~ God bless you and your heart for sharing truth and all that God puts on your heart
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very profound, Courtney! This is so true and admitedly, I find myself just keeping my mouth shut rather than expressing my opinion and the love of Christ. As a Christian in a secular workplace, I deal with this everyday. I cringe at some of the conversations I hear around me but choose to “say out of their business” rather than shine some of God’s light on the matter. Great post!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, and I can understand that! At college, I’m noticing that people are very open about questionable behaviors and speak about them as naturally as they talk about the weather. I know a lot of this stuff was still going on in high school, but people were generally more low key about it, as those kinds behaviors were discouraged in a Christian environment. Plus, I heard the “F-Bomb” dropped about four times last week in one day, which was a bit shocking.
I think the best thing we can do is just be a light and try to point others to God through our actions and words. One of my favor singers once said that “When we look different and carry something different, people are going to see that and want it too”. Thanks for sharing, Mary Rose!
LikeLike