Have you or your kids been to Soul Survivor?

[Coffeeandcards]

You might want to read this if so:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/12/mike-pilavachi-soul-survivor-charity-watchdog/

And it makes me sad that I still know locally some lovely seemingly wise older evangelical Christians who think that way and look down on others from other denominations or who have a different worship tradition.
You can’t truly worship without a guitar and drums of course 🙄

Make sure the guitar has a rainbow strap attached to it as well.

I used to have a guitar with a rainbow strap as a teenager.😳
My only defence is that it was a long time ago.

I remember lots of rainbow guitar straps at word alive. (The one at butlins)

Bonus points for a sort of cube that you played with your hands or lots of percussion/shaker type things

Converse, double denim, guitar, microphone, hands in the air and breakfast afterwards in the trendy church coffee area.

And smart casual dress code?

I've been out of the scene for too long to remember.

A friend of mine recent told me that although she's still Christian by belief she doesn't go to church: the reason being that what she understands as church involves lots of encouragement to pray and share very personal things, and that's dangerous if you're vulnerable.

A completely obvious point that completely passed me by until she said it.

CU can be such a life saver for young people who feel overwhelmed by the heavy drinking and sex culture at uni. I remember well a conversation I had with my house mates.
'I'm going to a house party at the weekend'
'Doesn't sound like your scene. Won't there be a lot of alcohol?'
'No. Alcohol's banned'
'Where is it?'
'In a barn in a field somewhere'
'It's November! You'll be freezing!'
'I'm bringing a sleeping bag'
'Will there be music?'
'Yes, some, but mainly we'll be reading the Bible and praying'
'Doesn't sound like much of a party!'

I'm glad I didn't bother with the CU at Uni, I went a couple of times and then couldn't be arsed, was too busy with other things. Wise choice.

That rapidly became an issue for me towards the end of my time at church. I increasingly realised I didn't trust these people with information about difficult stuff, and I was sick of having my boundaries chipped away at.

Ah house parties.

I went to a posh uni. Half the cu knew each other before as they'd been invited to house parties - iewerne minster/stewards trust/type things.

Those from private school going to my college at uni had already all met up .... to my great surprise when I arrived!

That was a real problem for me. People tell me that a lot of my bad experiences could have happened in any badly managed work place, and I'm like, 'Yes, but do your colleagues then sit down and ask you how they can pray for you?' I should have had my defences up - you live and you learn, I guess.

Oh yes. And after sharing some deep problems and them praying for then.... you weren't supposed to have or show those deep problems anymore.

Gosh this whole thing has damaged me in so many more ways than I realised.

This is a very good article By Tanya Marlow about the UCCF statements https://www.premierchristianity.com/opinion/uccf-investigation-can-christian-orgs-be-trusted-to-mark-their-own-homework/15770.article. It looks like it is a serious problem with employees at UCCF yet is not being investigated independently.

Ooh... horribly familiar... The main university CU meetings were on Saturday nights too..! Because of course none of us had non Christian friends we might want to socialise with. .college ones were less conservative and midweek but still under the thrall of the main CU and it's uccf roots. Very judgy on what church you went to... 😕 I used to go to an uberhigh catholic c of E church on occasions which was definitely beyond the pale... And as for going to the Catholic chaplaincy with my friend😱

Oooh yes can imagine - all the chaplaincys were looked down on as "unsound" (despite there being an associated vicar factory) but the Catholic chaplaincy!!! Can just imagine those conversations.

The arrogance of 21 year old CU leaders ...

I knew Tanya years ago (I'll not say how). She's such a lovely person. She's seen a lot it seems, but I'm not convinced that any kind of 'reckoning' is coming. Like I said above, the focus will be on the sexual abuse. How do you have any kind of process to deal with the complaint 'they prayed for me'?

I cant read the article but agree its so part and parcel of the culture its not going to have any big reveal.

Although I think iewerne minster camps got stopped but that was due to actual historic physical abuse that is before my time and harrowing to read 😔

I never went to CU. In the first year It was on at the same time as I had an evening lecture and then in the 2nd and 3rd year's I wasn't living in halls so I couldn't be bothered to traipse over to the university campus in the evening. I did CU at secondary school when it was on, which wasn't often. Someone would start it up, it would run for a few weeks and then the person running it would quit. Every time someone started it up again they would say that they thought doing youth alpha would be the best way to start so I ended up doing youth alpha about 6 times.

Good escape Ellie!

It becomes some peoples whole social circle and becomes more of a "thing" than the actual uni course for a lot of CU types.

Big Student church + student church housegroup/student night + Big CU meeting + college CU meeting....

I also didn’t ‘gel’ with the CU. I went to a local church instead where I was the only student. They were really lovely and I viewed it as more charismatic than the CU.

I was all about the hands in the air, crying meltdowns and I was sort of addicted to that.

@MrsJamin thanks for sharing, it’s a great article and makes similar points to Natalie Collins blog post, we are all implicated subjects.
I steered well clear of the CU after my first year, where towards the end of the year there was voting for various posts and it became apparent there was an unwritten rule that the leader had to be a man from church x and the deputy leader had to be a woman from church y.
It was ridiculous, no woman was allowed to be the leader.
That was the end of CU for me.

Did you know that the Bristol CU recently got a lot of negative attention because only married women were allowed to speak, and only if their husband was present?

Oh gosh really. They don't learn. We had some femal cu leaders .... but always alongside a man.

It seems so archaic now.

I had some more positive experiences of CU than some of you, I think. We had a woman president one year and I was massively helped by a UCCF worker that I happened to bump into one day when I was emotionally very low and seriously thinking of quitting uni. It wasn't frowned upon to also go to events organised by the college chaplain.
I think we were arrogant in some ways and sometimes critical of other "flavours" of Christianity. We were kept in check a bit though by a famously liberal theology department.