CSF

“May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Theses words were proclaimed from the mouth of Andrea, the leader of Christian Student Fellowship prayer night on Thursday night. The air in the room wasn’t cold, although chills all over my body had grown. The way everyone was so engaged in the opening reading was moving.

Christian Student Fellowship (CSF) is a non-denominational campus ministry on the University of Kentucky’s campus. Although Christian Student Fellowship has a building located on Woodland Avenue, CSF is everywhere on campus. Recent graduates of University of Kentucky, who give their first year or two after graduation giving back to the University of Kentucky community lead bible studies, lectures, or volunteer activities, mainly staff CSF.  Christian Student Fellowship organizes over 150 unique events throughout the school year for enrolled members of CSF as well as students who have no affiliation with the organization. By undertaking these fun activities, the leaders and members of Christian Student Fellowship have the hope of familiarizing their organization to students and draw them closer to God and spreading His word. People like you and me who donate their time and money allow this organization to flourish on the campus at Kentucky support CSF.

Upon my entrance to the Christian Student Fellowship building, I was greeted with warm welcoming faces. I entered with my friend and sister of my sorority, Chi Omega, who has been an active member of CSF since the beginning of the year. Many people knew Bitty. Immediately she introduced me to all of her friends. Being so overwhelmed with names, none had stuck in my brain. Everyone was so overjoyed that she was bringing a new member to the “family.” Walking further into the main room of the building, I was floored to at the amount of people in attendance. Just for this one worship there were around 400 students gathered together. Taking up one of this plethora of chairs in the main room of the Christian Student Fellowship building, the socialization was at a maximum. We set our bags down and talked to the people around us. It seemed to me that seats were not assigned the same for every prayer night because Bitty introduced herself to the people behind us. To say that people were friendly here was an understatement. All of the foldable chairs were facing the main front stage, containing a giant speaker, microphone stand, and three people who would later lead the prayer night. I was calming down from the overwhelmed feeling I felt at the beginning of the night being introduced to what seemed hundreds of people. I was beginning to enjoy myself and realized what I had been missing out on.

While looking around and taking in the scenery, I noticed that although this was a religious function, church attire was not a necessity. Many girls were wearing yoga pants and sweatshirts, while the men were dressed in khakis or jeans and a t-shirt or sweatshirt. Furthermore, while unintentionally eavesdropping on the group of girls sitting behind me I heard them discussing their weekend saying “the party was so f***ing crowded!” the blonde said in a raised voice. I was a little taken back by the vulgarity of this sentence, although thinking twice about it, even though theses people are at a bible study, they are still college students.

 In high school I was apart of a club similar to Christian Student Fellowship called Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA.) I had also attended church bible studies for 17 years of my life at the church I attended every Sunday. Comparing all three I would say that Christian Student Fellowship is smack dab in the middle of the formal scale while my church bible study in the front-runner. Although, out of all the bible studies I have attended, I feel CSF was the most informative and useful.

 “Attention please while we get started!!!!” leader number one spoke loudly into the microphone to catch the attention of the large crowd. Finally after a few seconds, the room grew to a silence. Beginning by introducing herself, Andrea, the head leader of Christian Student Fellowship prayer night began. Andrea looked to be about mid-twenties and she enlightened the crowed that she had just graduated from University of Kentucky this past fall semester. Unlike the audience’s attire, Andrea was dressed in a more formal way, wearing black dress pants and a bright colored blouse. Looking back on prayer night, Andrea was the most outgoing of the three prayer leaders that night. I asked Bitty if there were the same presenter every night and I was surprised to hear that almost every week there is a different group of people presenting to the members of CSF. I was lucky enough to attend the prayer night with the head leaders. To begin the night Andrea spoke about the importance of coming together to worship the Lord Jesus Christ. Following the typical introduction of thanking everyone for coming out, the topic of conversation was love. This was fitting considering it was Valentines Day.

One of the most prominent things I observed while attending this prayer night with Christian Student Fellowship was the attention given to the speaker. Nowadays it is very common to see young adults and teens preoccupied with their phone while someone is speaking. While looking around, out of the huge crowd I spotted only one person looking down at their phone. The fact that these students wanted to be there and learn about God’s word was just an amazing and inspirational feeling. One of the things I found to be awesome about the way that Andrea prepared her part of the night was that everything she said was so relatable. Everyone has had their fair share of relationships and heartbreaks and the way that Andrea connected these relationships to the relationship that everyone should hold with God was a great way to relay God’s word to college students.

The next speaker, Wes, was next on stage. His main topic was a little different than Andrea’s although following the same main topic of love. People seemed a little more energized for Wes to speak. As I looked around the two girls and boys who sat in front of me scooted to the front of their seats in anticipation to listen to what Wes had coming next. Wes looked a bit older than Andrea with full-grown bread and dress in casual clothing: a t-shirt from a mission trip in 2008 and khaki pants. Maybe people felt so compelled to listen to him because he seemed to be more relatable and less formal than the first speaker. With a big smile on his face welcoming all who came out for prayer night tonight, Wes encouraged us to take a couple minutes and meet the people sitting around us. As we were doing so, a screen to the side of the stage lit up as a projector projected lyrics to a song onto the huge white screen. A loud burst of music sounded from the back right side of me causing everyone to stop their socializing and pay attention. The whole prayer night audience began to joyfully sing the words of the song that was being displayed and lead by Wes while he strummed a guitar on stage leading the song. Following the song, Wes gave a similar speech as Andrea only talked about loving yourself rather than Andrea’s stance on loving one another. I feel like more people related to Wes’s talk in the sense that everyone knows how important and difficult it can be to love yourself. Using stories rather than a lecture, I feel there was more to take from this talk. Before closing with a song, Wes had everyone take out their planners or phones and go to the day of the week that is most difficult for you personally and had us write “Smile and love yourself!” on that day.

Last but not least Brian came on stage. Dressed in a flannel button down, his goal was to show us how Jesus Christ is present in all of our lives. He was the more traditional speaker I was used to. Brian read verses out of the bible and then picked them apart, making them relatable to college students. This is how I would have described my hometown church prayer night. Although it wasn’t as exciting everything was still hitting home. Just hitting the hour mark in the prayer night, I observed the audience once again. This time people I could spot many more people checking their cell phones and not being as attentive. Although there were more than before, it was not a very noticeable amount. While Brian was coming to a close, Andrea and Wes came up on stage and everyone applauded all of the speakers in prayer night. I was shocked to see that everyone around me gave them a standing ovation. This really demonstrated how well these three speakers did on presenting the way love was and should be present in all of our lives.

When prayer night concluded, everyone picked up their foldable chairs and took them to the back. It seemed as though this was a ritual after every meeting CSF has because it was done without any direction. Due to the large amount of people in attendance, a line was formed to place put the folding chairs away. Once again I was introduced to an overwhelming amount of Bitty’s friends. Following clean up, Bitty and I filed out while there were a few circles of people socializing in the main room.

Being in college I can sometimes find “more important” things to do or other excuses to skip weekly mass. Christian Student Fellowship really gave me a reason to WANT to go to weekly services and continue to grow closer in faith. I am very thankful for this project and how it forced me to become a part of something I really wanted to be a part of, just did not have the motivation.