email novel

For those of you who have alot of spare time on their hands..(mainly Tyler Stiegy) I am posting this super long email describing how i grew up spiritually..(as we all know i still act like a child in physical form) It was an email from a group asking for college kids to come out of the woodwork and talk about college life and why there are higher numbers in recent years of people who leave the denomination than in years before....so here is my testimony of growth, and viewpoints on the topic...

Disclaimer: I will try to explain myself to the fullest in this email. My message is not to bash or offend the church body in any way, shape or form....later in this email, i am trying to show what some may struggle with in ideologies and beliefs in college. I fully support our church body and appreciate our heritage and beliefs. Our denomination is unique and diversified and I support our denominations traditions and practices.

I am coming out of the woodwork of just "lurking" on this list. i mainly don't respond or share anything is because I guess i feel not experienced than most people on this list that regularly post. I am a University Student, let me tell you a story:

My name is Ben Gerber from Leo, Indiana. I was born and raised in the Bluffton Christian Apostolic Church. I repented at the age of 15 at the Lord's calling and to this day i have NEVER regretted doing so. at the age of late 17, i graduated high school early and jumped head first into college. I moved into a house that was chuck full of brothers from our church. This house is dubbed the "truckstop", because we have road signs all over our house. Also becuase there were about 9 - 11 guys living in this two story house. Finally it is all called the truckstop because it served/serves as a central hub for commuters(male only) from bluffton and travelers visiting the Leo church where they could stay for a night or two or three.

Let me jump back a little bit to when I was 15. (forever ago) just kidding...I am only 21 currently....anyways...so back to 15, My big brother and his age group was at that time currently in control of the Bluffton Young Group. By "in control" I mean leading signings, organizing the events, and being the examples and spiritual leaders of our young body of believers. There weren't a whole lot of people my age in the young group at that time....so i hung out alot with people 3 years older than I... (when your that young.....3 years is a BIG difference) I started helping organize and leading the singing, and with all my wisdom and knowledge at 15 or 16; tried to help lead the young group. THen all of a sudden, a plague hit this leadership group. It was horrid, people caught this bug quick and it affected them to the point of rendering them incapable of leading our group anymore. this plague is known at Marriage... in the flash of light and a barrage of blue cards over the pulpit (blue cards signify engagements), There was only few leaders left, or those who had been "trained" to lead the young group. At this time, I was young, ambitious, and wanted to serve to the utmost in giving myself until I would literally crash from exhaustion. I actually remember a conversation I had with my Guardians whom i lived with at the time. They actually limited me and made me stay home for 1 night of the week. In bluffton there was soo much going on, literally every night of the week there was an activity of some sort. I Very rapidly became in charge of alot of things. I started organizing and leading nursing home signings, organizing singings, invites, family hymn sings, potlucks, bible studies, relief projects, etc. I had an extreme liking to serving, leading, and being a part of making things happen. By the age of 17, I would dare to say that I had a fairly large chunk of leadership in a young group whose size on average was about 200 people....

(on a side note: i would like to at this time share that I am not in any way trying to be boastful about my accomplishments and things that I have done. I feel like I sound pretty arrogant in the past paragraph. God has had me deal bountifully with leadership and high positions in the young for a reason. It is only by God's hand that I could have possibly done all that and He was gracious to allow me to partake of being a part of the leadership of his flock of sheep)

with that being said, at the age of 17 i moved to the truckstop and began college at IPFW, studying computers, AND i got a job at the International Harvester Plant in fort wayne at a computer fixer intership. It was awesome, I was going to school full time and working a full time job. After just one semester, i felt at unease with computers as my major. I switched to elementary education, a passion for kids I have had all my life, I love people, are incredibly sociable, and love teaching people things. At this time I started attending the Leo Church.

I am right now into my third year of college as and education major and still work at International, I like computers, but don't want to fix them for the rest of my life as my career. Over the past 2 years, I have slowly, (very slowly) transitioned out of the bluffton young group and leadership. Although getting pulled back in occasionally to help again. I thought at this time i could just relax and put it on cruise control for my college life, but God had other plans. I roomed with the two leaders of out house (when I was 17)... They started out small giving me responsibilities by organizing our IPFW bible studies, and eventually into running FreeBiblenow.org for the IPFW division. After these two leaders moved out, guess what.... you guessed..I became the house leader. Currently I am one of two leaders, I pay all the bills, and collect money and rent for our landlord. I organize social events and try to keep general order with 5 other college guys. talk about a challenge. I will note that IPFW does not really have the big of a solid AC crowd of young folks...so its mainly Leo YG and a few commuters from IPFW, there is no "president" for our college young group. but the President is usually the "most eligible" to lead a group....(can you guess whats coming?) yup... I was unofficially nominated the President. Soon enough the grandaddy of all grandaddies was set in my lap...organizing and leading the "College Weekend", where about 500 - 900 college students from all over come to your church and you have to organize 5 speakers, discussion groups, songs, and food for all of them. THis was by far the biggest challenge of planning I have ever faced.... to think that all the previous years of training in leadership and organizing were just coincidence and fate was foolish...I believe that God directly put in that line of things specifically to prepare me for that moment of college weekend and for what is to come ahead of me. College weekend was big and bad...I had a treasurer and Secretary... halfway through planning told me that they had never even been to one before.... after alot of prayers, tears, and sweat, college weekend was done! the people were blessed, challenged and God was glorified!!


up to current day, I am still in college full time, I work two jobs now. still at International at an intern, and now at olive garden at a host. I love traveling on weekends and meeting new people and being touched by other Christians and their lives and testimony. I just recently got voted in as an usher in the Leo congregation. I have come to accept that my life will never slow down and that He has called me to a life of servant hood by leadership and any other small way possible. I would never trade my life for anything else in the world. I have Christ in my heart and would have it no other way! I am currently single and love it that way. I wish not to be "plagued" as it would completely change my ambitions. I like to think of Christ's and Paul's Ministry, they accomplished much and were single. Being single mainly because there are less obligations. Less to provide for and more focus on the ministry around me.

This summer I will be teaching as an intern at the Gateway woods home... http://www.gatewaywoods.org/ , I would also like to put a plug in for anyone and everyone to come and fellowship with us!!!! we are soo blessed and want to share ourselves with the world!!

so with all that.... Being a victory of attending university and still staying AC.... I think that the main reason people could leave is because of soo many reasons I can't list them all. I think some of the more popular ones are, our culture is becoming more sex saturated...not that that had a direct effect on Christians, but i think in Essenes it has driven us more towards emotional feelings than in older days. The praise of even young christian groups and worship of songs is becoming more and more heart felt and you get more a sense of closing your eyes and feeling the presence of God around you and flowing through you. (that is the only way I can describe it, as I have personal experience with it)...don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the praise and worship songs of the newer generation...I also absolutely love and appreciate the hymns...i just love singing in general.. God has blessed me with a big mouth and a strong set of lungs... :-) but i think in general there is more of a longing to have a significant other and to have intimate relationships with one another... In a world of advancing technology, between chat, email, cell phones, and other things...there is less and less direct physical encounters and interactions, like talking face to face over coffee, or being at home...why when it's more convenient to call someone or chat, or video chat! so in summary, because of a lack of close physical intimacy, there is a much stronger pull to be in a close and connected relationship with someone....aka, dating, which we don't practice... the majority of my personal friends that have left the AC denomination is because of a relationship they wanted.

the second main reason I could see people leaving is because of the "indoctrination" of the church. I have even struggled with this myself. growing up in the AC church, we are taught to believe in the bible, in God, and the teachings and morals of the bible... also things in the statement of faith that our church believes in. everything in the list i just mentioned is absolute except the statement of faith... no one can truly refute the Bible, or God....but there are alot of logical and somewhat reasonable arguments against some of the positions that our denomination holds. ( I am not a rebel without cause) I am just pointing out to you what most college kids think...I was raised to believe in these view points, but actually never taught why or how. I was recently asked if I believed in the Rapture, I said yes...and was asked why i believe that... and the only answer I could give them was it is in the bible, and it's in Revelation...other than that..i had nothing...no real premise or study to back my own personal belief...a friend in college a few years ago asked me why i didn't date.... i had nothing... other than, "because my church says so"....it is not sound and not a good reason...I am not even sure if dating is talked about in the bible whether it's right or wrong... (i don't date, and have a more logical reason than a direct biblical one....obviously backed by scriptural teachings and thoughts) anyways...my point is this.... AC's are typically raised WHAT to believe, but not WHY, other than....the bible says so...and because my church does it and says we need to do it too... In University age students, alot of the knowledge is challenged...also beliefs...because even in our shelter lifestyle (sheltered from the world)(a good thing) in college you meet people who are not sheltered and have lived in the world to the fullest and have beliefs that can be to a point bizarre!! but yet they are still living, and seem to be doing fine for themselves.... which makes one question.... how can that be? I thought that i had to live by the bible..but they don't..and their ok.... why is that?? when talking to these people..they can't seem to make any sense of why I do what I do, because i don't really have a reason for it. Thus challenging all my beliefs and whether i have a sound reason for believing in it. At a time i found that for quite a few of my beliefs, i didn't have very sound answers.. which made me question in a bigger sense what I was believing in..

with that being said, I do not question God in any sense, nor do I think that I need to have all the answers to everything. Nor will I ever have answers to everything. That is what I experienced and what probably most others encounter in college as well.

with that being said, i will no list anymore because I feel like I have written a novel already... anyone want to try to get it published for me? :-) just kidding... and Kudos to those who have made it this far...wow..I feel like i should give you a prize or something..

after an hour of typing...i need to get going...if you have any questions, comments, or concerns....let me know and I will be more that glad to talk to anyone about them.... I am in a steady relationship with Christ my King, and have accepted his calling as a servant to His Kingdom and His people. to live the live of a servant by spending myself for others, so that they may prosper spiritually and grow closer to the Lord our King.

blessings,

Bro Ben