Preparing For UniversitySample

University – The Culture

When you start university you will be confronted with lots of opportunities and choices. If you anticipate some of those opportunities you can think about what choices you will make ahead of time. 

As Paul found in Athens, there are many idols that students worship and many competing ideas and ideologies on campus. But like Paul and Jesus, we can learn to engage these well rather than avoid them. Although some areas of university culture can be testing battlegrounds for Christian students, these same areas can also be opportunities for fun, friendships and faith to be shared in a natural and everyday way.

In Luke 7 Jesus is accused of hanging out with the ‘wrong crowd’. However, he made wise choices in their company. God desires a generation of Christian students who will live in the pressure areas of student culture, who don’t apologise for or hide their faith, and who build deep friendships with their fellow students.

Questions

What are the potential challenges in the culture for you? 

Where do you need to create boundaries?

How can you better prepare yourself for relationships at university?

We all need help to live the lives that we know are best for us. We all need strength in areas we are weak. Accountability (being honest with a friend about these things) is a springboard to living free in student culture. Having people journey with us who really know us and want the best for us is the foundation for accountability. Friends who we can trust will say the things we need to hear even if they hurt a bit. 

How will you create accountable relationships at university?

In John 17, Jesus prays for you his disciples’ protection as he sends them into the world. What do you want to ask God for as you head into university culture?  

Pray

Father God,

Thank you that you know me.  You know my hopes, my fears, my strengths, my weaknesses, where I’m confident and where I’m not. Thank you that you know my university and all that lies ahead for me.  As I go, please give me __[that thing]__ Walk with me in this new adventure. I trust you.  

Amen.