Scene Depiction "A Thursday Night in College? We're Getting Drunk on God's" Word

A Thursday Night in College? We're Getting Drunk on God's Word

The moment you think of a Thursday Night at a big time University like Kentucky, you think of a wild and fun filled night. The assumption is that all kids are going to parties cause it's "Thirsty Thursday', and why would kids not want to do anything else while they are in college? But I wanted to see if every college kid thought this way, so on a Thursday Night I went to a late night organization to see if these people had the same idea of a college Thursday Night as everyone else.

The organization I had the privilege to go to was University of Christian Fellowship or UCF for short.

A shy, soft spoken, thin looking man walks toward the University of Kentucky Student Center, wearing a black north face. With him is a friend in a orange north face, wearing brown khakis. These two men are Chris and Jonathan, and they are the guys taking me to the University Christian Fellowship tonight. They each ask me what I'm expecting to see tonight as we walk toward the Student Center on a cold and windy February night.

"You can expect pretty much a church service tonight", Jonathan tells me, as Chris points us in the right direction, as he turns to head back to his house to study for his two exams that are coming up next week. I soon learn that Jonathan is a freshman just like me. "We always have services on Thursday night, cause we can get away from the party guys that live next door to us. Gives us time to come and praise our creator and give him the proper time he deserves." It was alarming to hear someone describe a college organization like he did, and be so open about Christianity as he was. "Think we need to always have time during the day to talk to our God," as he continued. "How is your life with God been since you have come to college?"

As we walked up the stairs of the student center, I noticed a big group of people standing outside a room mingling, holding guitars and some other instruments. I thought that was where Jonathan was taking me, but I was wrong. We walked into room 230 of the student center. The room was filled with hundreds of navy blue chairs, and a line of windows in the back of the room. Two tables lined up on the right side of the room by a yellowish wall. A mural of a lake on a sunny day in the fall on the left side of the wall. A projector screen lowered down with a picture of the three crosses in front of a the navy blue front wall. Closer to back of the room a man is laying on the floor on top of a back pack. This man lying down in the back is Joseph, the screen coordinator for the group. We have a brief discussion over global politics as people start to fill into the room, and I ask him and Jonathan what time most of the people get to the meeting. "Most people come in around 8:20 or so," Jonathan tells me. Joseph nods his head, "We hardly ever start a meeting on time," while laughing as he speaks.

I watch as people start to fill the student center room, noticing how girls grouping together having discussion's, and guys are grouping together talking together. I notice two guys bringing in a guitar and drum into the room. I turn to a man who just sat down in front of me, with brown beard, blue button up on tucked into his jeans, and a wedding ring on his finger. I ask Dan if we have music during this service, "Yea, we sing three or four songs before a speaker comes up and gives a message." Then notice the 50 or so people in the room head to get a set, so I head to the back of the room to take my seat for UCF.

The meeting starts with a tall, thin looking guy, with a blue and white button up on asking, "Can everyone take there seat please. Lets go to prayer and think our creator God for this time to gather here tonight and worship him." I ask Jonathan who this guy is, and he tells me his name is Matt. Matt then prays and you can tell my the sound of his voice and the passion with how he is speaking that this is a time he looks forward to every week. Being able to come together with his friends, and praise together the man that gave us life.

The music starts, and I notice how all 50 people stand up as a man with a short sleeve V-neck shirt on, with a guitar starts singing, "You are the everlasting God. You will not faint, you won't grow weary, you comfort those in need, you lift us up on wings like eagles." Joey leads the group as I watch everyone singing at the top of there lungs. I notice Dan, Matt, and Joseph lifting there hands praising God as they sing. "You are everlasting God, thank you." Dan says in front of me. The music is encouraging and grabs your attention. The words intoxicate you, and you feel the spirit through the song as everyone is singing. I see girls with their heads bowed and praying as Joey and the rest of the people continue to sing. I even notice myself singing at the top of my lungs, and talking to God as I sing. We sang for songs, and every song was the same way. I watched as almost everyone in the room had a moment with God. Either lifting their hands or praying out loud as we sing. At one point I really thought I was back home in Harrodsburg at church with my family and friends, it felt that close during the songs. "Thank you God for letting us lift up your praise tonight, and know that you are everlasting." Joey then introduces our speaker for the night.

A watch as a man in a blue polo shirt, untucked, walk up to the mic. He has a gohte and a very moderate speaking voice. He is our speaker for the night and his name is Ben. Ben is from Woodland Church in Lexington where Jonathan and Chris go to church. "Are there any new people here tonight? Who are you?" I'm shocked when he points at me and ask who I am. Rest of the crowd laughs as I tell them my name and why I am here. This makes me realize that this group must be close cause the speaker new everyone there instead of me. So they don't just come here every so often, this group of people come to UCF every Thursday night. "Tonight I want to talk about the flesh of God. We are going to be reading from the book of Timothy." I watched as everyone opened their bible. No one was talking, no one on a cell phone. Everyone focused and listening to Ben as he preaches the word. Ben preached a service that seemed to be directly to the topic I was trying to figure out. "In todays world do we live with the world we live in? Are we following the standards the world has set for us. Are we living for the world or God?" I turn to see Jonathan with his head bowed, and see him praying in the middle of the message. I look around and see others doing the same thing, and while I'm looking around I hear people saying Amen out loud as Ben keeps talking. "I want to draw you all a picture, and explain what I'm talking about. Going to show how physics can describe what I'm talking about." Ben puts the screen up, and underneath is a white board. He picks up a green marker and draws a big circle, with two little circles on the lines. He explains what he was doing in physics, but I don't remember what the term was called. "We are the first little circle, as we move around the world, we follow what is going on in the world. We soon begin to fall backwards as the world falls backwards. Most people believe what we see." Ben caught my attention when he said that, I realized he was explaining we follow people a lot as we go on our everyday life. Just like people think college students just party all the time, we believe what we see portrayed by the world. "We make a plan and life for how we see it. We go on our life thinking we are doing whats best for us. Shouldn't we ask God what is best for us, and then make a plan depending on what God has told us." Ben knows exactly what he is talking about, speaking from the heart and showing what he knows from the Bible. "Here is the question I want to ask you all this evening, are you planing your life from what God is planing for you, or you doing your own thing and asking if it approves for God?"

Matt walked up to the mic to end the worship service with a prayer. "If anyone wants to come up to the front and pray, or put your head down and pray at your seat. Anyone needs to talk to me or Ben, we will be up here." Joey started playing music softly in the background and I watched as Dan got down on his knees and began praying. I then felt like I needed to pray and stood up and prayed that I wouldn't follow the plan of the world, and that God would give me his plan. A opened my eyes to see a man in a brown flannel shirt walking up to the mic after everyone was done praying. "I just felt the need to say this. I work in construction and I get a lot of people coming up to me and asking what I think about their designs. After listening to Ben tonight I realize that they don't want my ideas, they want my opinion. But my opinion doesn't really matter. It's the same thing Ben was talking about tonight. I don't need to make a design and ask God his opinion, I need to ask God what type of design I need to make before I make a design." Phillip made got everyone to stand up and say amen after he was done. The passion in his voice, the heart felt cry in his story touched everyone in the room, including me. 

The meeting soon ended after Phillip touched everyones heart and closed us out with prayer. After the worshiping was over I realized that this group doesn't go out on Thursday night to party and get drunk, they go to UCF and get drunk and intoxicated in God's word. Even thought the meeting ended, the gathering had not. I watched as everyone got together and began talking, and mingling. Not just guys talking to guys, and girls to girls, but I saw everyone together having a good time. Some people left right after meeting, but most stayed and continue to worship together. I can say from the experience I had at University Christian Fellowship that a Thursday night in college isn't all about partying, but getting together with a close group and people and enjoying and worshiping together.