Failing at Faith at Uni - The #GoingToUni Series - 19 Sep 2014

I went to uni a Christian and I left a Christian and I stayed a Christian in between.

I didn’t hugely change as a person while I was there -  I didn’t overtly start living a worse or better life particularly; but I didn’t get a lot of life right. 

I really loved university. The campus, the city, the absolute best little cinema in the world and sometimes some of the work, some of the time; it was an amazing three years. But university is an opportunity - and I didn’t entirely take it.

For a lot of university, I felt a long way from God. And I didn’t really do anything about it

In my first weeks I went along to the Christian Union but I didn’t click with it. It felt very us-and-them, very – “we need to find ways to make friends with the non-Christians”, but for me, the ‘non-Christians’ were my friends. I’d been put in halls of residence with a group of people, pretty much none of them religious at all, and they were the ones who had gotten to know me and who I had so quickly clicked with. On the contrary, I didn’t really get on with the people in the CU - and so after a few weeks of (theoretical) perseverance, I left.                                       

But the thing is – me not getting on with the CU and its members was, really, my fault. It was on me - because I never got to know the CU. I never gave them a chance to be people I did or didn’t like. I persevered with zero perseverance and no particular desire for things to work out there.

You see - I grew up in an awesome church and I have a bunch of friends from there, but the majority of my best friends aren’t church people at all. 

I’ve always struggled in life more in Christian environments than non-Christian. And I think in many ways that can be a really good thing; it’s something I can take up as a real anointed gift and run with. But knowing this; knowing I had this trait that I (without basis) assumed other CU members lacked, lead to a willingness to isolate myself. I almost relished being an outsider in that circle. I arrived late and left early to every meeting. I have a bunch of introverted tendencies and uni had already pushed me into a lot of uncomfortable new circumstances, so why continue to put myself through that? I already had friends - why did I need Christian friends? 

Now, as a consequence of my refusal to leave my comfort zone, to push myself at all, I, naturally, never got to know anyone and that meant I never felt comfortable at CU - and I blamed the people there for that.  But that’s not how it works. There is often as much an onus on the outsider to accept welcome as there is on the insiders to be welcoming. Uni is an opportunity. Opportunities have to be given to be taken but have to be taken for things to change.

But, alas, I didn’t take them - and the same thing happened with church. I must have technically tried at least 10 different churches while I was at uni - but I never really tried any of them; I never actually gave any of them a chance to succeed. Again, I’d arrive late and leave early and then wonder why I didn’t feel a part of the community.                    

It got to being that I didn’t really want to be a part of that world. I never stopped being a Christian, I never became ashamed of my faith.

 I never walked away from God, I just stopped walking towards him.

Now, I know you don’t have to go to church, or be part of a Christian community even, to be a Christian. But there’s a reason these places spring up wherever Christians are. There’s a reason Jesus wasn’t some isolated, holy, lone-wolf figure; doing all his good works in silence and isolation and under the cover of night. Jesus wasn't Batman. He wasn't on his own.

Because active community is awesome. And not going through stuff alone is awesome. People are life giving. God works through people.

My life at university was that well worn old cliché of a sermon illustration - about the coal that’s taken from the fire and placed beside it: Left out on its own, separate from the coals and the flames, it loses its heat and cools to the temperature of the room around it.

You don’t have to go to church to be a Christian. But if we treat being a Christian as a verb and not a noun; as a doing word not a title, then why would we stand still?

And if we’re moving somewhere, community is an excellent place to get directions. And why wouldn't we want direction?

Because I used to walk the streets of Bath on my own in that time, praying over and over - “Lord, please don’t let me die before I’ve found you again” - and I still remember feeling that lost.We have to keep moving. And we have to take responsibility for ourselves by letting others take some responsibility for us.                

Please know, though - that this article is not a negative one.

It’s intended to be helpful, to be cautionary. God is bigger than uni and he saw me through it. But uni’s an opportunity for so much more than I got from it. I could have been so much more to so many more people, but I got it wrong. I loved uni but I got it wrong. In James 2 we read that faith without deeds is dead, but I don't think that's exclusively true for the helping of the needy and poor. It’s faith as an active pursuit – and faith without participation goes cold.

So here are some practical tips for keeping your faith at uni: 

Independence: Don’t do going it alone, alone

Get your head in the right place and when you’re feeling up to it, getting involved in some sort of church community will do a ton for you.

Challenge yourself out of your comfort zones.

Do yourself a favour. I’m bad at new places and new people but I made no concessions for that – I just accepted that and let those weakness’ leave me weakened. So give yourself a chance at a good thing. When I moved to London and looked for a church, I found myself making the same mistakes as I had in Bath, so I asked my very charming and very social girlfriend to come along with me. That way I had some one to walk in with, to stop me running off at the end and get a drink with, and when they started the service with a “please turn to the person next to you and discuss something inane that you did this morning”, I had a face I knew to turn too. 

Keep Moving Forward

Find ways to keep yourself going. When I moved away from church I moved away from all of my spiritual input. So read your bible. Read books. Listen to podcasts - (or watch ours). Don’t settle for feeling lost.

And don’t isolate yourself. I was so proud and so stubborn about putting myself out there - which, in hindsight, makes no biblical sense.

So let’s do it—full of belief, confident that we’re presentable inside and out. Let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps his word. Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching. 

Hebrews 10:25 (MSG)

This is Part 3 of our #GoingToUni Series; you can find the other parts here:
 'Getting Ready to Leave'   
'Alcohol, Acceptance and Compromise' 
The Biggest Secret I Learnt at University