I’ve spent the last few months working on a new resource for Fusion. It’s called University: The Big Challenge. Since a lot of people will be thinking about starting uni in a few month's time, I thought I’d give you a taster of what to expect with this excerpt...
Say hello to the new you
Going away to university provides a great opportunity to get to know people free from the preconceptions you’ve carried since playgroup. You can ditch the nickname attributed in year 6 after the unfortunate incident with the marker pen and no-one knows where you were in the school’s unspoken popularity parade. You may also find yourself questioning parts of your life that you’ve taken for granted so far. You have to work at building new friendships, instead of just hanging out with the same old group. Similarly, where your relationship with God may have been carried along by the familiar routines of church on Sunday, youth groups and mates, you need to be active and make good decisions to keep growing in your faith whilst at university.
For many Christian students, God is put on hold and this generally continues after graduation. Before you arrive, it’s worth spending some time thinking about why you believe what you believe. At university there’s no-one to wake you up on Sunday morning, so why do you think it’s important to be part of a church community? You’ll have no problem getting served in the student union bar and there’s no-one to avoid waking up when you get home. Why don’t Christians get drunk? What might be attracting you or friends to drink too much: loneliness, insecurity, boredom? Read between the lines, think about the value God is encouraging us to live by rather than it just being another rule or something a Christian just ‘doesn’t do’. If no sex before marriage is just a rule, it’ll be a lot harder to follow when someone you really like invites you back to their place for a ‘coffee’; and it’s likely no-one would ever find out. In contrast, if you believe that not having sex before marriage is about honouring God’s gift, creating stable, healthy relationships, helping you do life well long term and respecting our bodies and other people’s, you’re more likely to make good decisions in challenging situations...
