Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Big Brother Love/Hate

Check out my article on Big Brother Christianity at http://realitytv.suite101.com/article.cfm/big_brother_christianity

It's just another example of how love and hate play out in society, all though this time it's just reality TV!

Thursday, March 8, 2007

What Did Love/Hate Experience Teach You?

What did you learn about yourself, about others, about your relationships through this experience that might help others?

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

What's this all about?

Now I can finally reveal the truth behind the blog, the flyers, and the boards on campus. I am the leader of the Baptist Collegiate Ministries at UF and I wanted to find a way to let our students who are active in the BCM get a real glimpse of the attitudes of other students towards Christians on campus as well as what they thought about a variety of topics. So we posted the boards and let you write and type away. Without knowing who was behind it, you were more likely to tell us exactly how you felt about the topics in general and less likely to be influenced by whether you knew anyone who attends the BCM. I tried to not restrict the flow of thought too much, although I'm sure that I did more that I wanted to in my first effort as a blogger. Then when we met last night, our students were able to read the boards and the blog comments. Our members then wrote responses on boards that are being posted on the tables at Turlington and the Colonade for you to read today through Friday. You can still post on this site for a while and I'm going to encourage some of our members to write responses on here as well.
For me personally, it was an eye opening experience. Not because of the language that was used on the boards or the content, but the damage that is being done by some because we fail to represent Christ in a positive manner. I think many of the "Hate" comments about Christianity, the church, and Religion are well deserved. We haven't lived up to the ideals of Jesus Christ. It probably is impossible to do it perfectly, but we need to be more faithful to live a life of love, grace, and forgiveness. That doesn't mean we don't have strong beliefs or that we believe everything is equally true. However, I can believe your beliefs are wrong without hating you or judging you and I give you the right to do the same with me. I need to do a better job of telling you what I believe, why I believe it, and then living that out while letting you make your own decisions about Jesus and his teachings.
For the next few weeks at our regular weekly meeting, College ministers from local Baptist churches will be responding to some of the things you have written on the boards or on the blog. We invite you to come and hear what they have to share and then to ask questions of me or one of our members. We'd like to continue the dialogue because when you tell us what you love and hate, we have a chance to get to know you and let you get to know us. Maybe then we can actually begin to understand each other rather than pre-judge.
I hope now that you see that this was an informational search and an effort to hear what you have to say in order to better understand our neighbors. Some of our posters may want to challenge your thoughts on the topics, but I hope you and they will continue to dialogue with each other in a genuine effort to understand each other and to present what you believe are truths upon which you base you life.

Hope to see you this Tuesday at 8 or to continue this discussion either on the blog or my email at eddie.gilley@ufbcm.org. Our website is www.ufbcm.org.

Thursday, February 1, 2007

Love/Hate

love hate...love/hate.
We have seen them many times before. We are comfortable with love and familiar with hate. We would like to say that we love more than we hate wouldn’t we? We would want to say that we hate things that hurt and love things that help, but it doesn’t always work out that nicely. love/hate on the campus of the University of Florida is a perspective shift. love/hate is about looking at things, the world, life in a different way. As we spin around on this globe our experiences change and our perspectives shift, giving us a new vision of the things we have seen many times before. As we move may we see things we are afraid of and grow brave. As we move may we give attention to things we overlook. As we move may we love and hate as truly as we breathe. May we be able to honestly communicate what we love and what we hate on this blog so that we might share in this world a point of life that is beyond a mere passing so that we will have a greater ability to truly see the inner workings of the human soul. So either you love it or hate it, but let it be known. Submit you opinion but make it your own…What is your opinion of the following stuff? Do you love it (church for instance) or hate it, and what do you love and hate about each?

Posting without creating an account is fine, but creating an account will allow for more direct dialogue. We'll be able to know who is posting what rather than just guessing who is the anonymous poster.