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.