{"id":1312,"date":"2019-09-17T14:31:56","date_gmt":"2019-09-17T19:31:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tide4christ.ua.edu\/?p=1312"},"modified":"2019-09-17T14:31:57","modified_gmt":"2019-09-17T19:31:57","slug":"the-real-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tide4christ.ua.edu\/?p=1312","title":{"rendered":"The Real Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Lucas Emerson is from Garden City, Michigan. He is majoring in mechanical engineering and is the president for the 2019-2020 school year.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

September 5, 1975. Cobo Hall, Detroit, Michigan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            You notice\nthe cheers of the crowd, fans whistling between their teeth, and the first\naudible words: \u201cYou\u2019re here because you want the real thing.\u201d This is the start\nto Bob Seger\u2019s Live Bullet<\/em> album.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            We\u2019ll come\nback to the album, I promise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            When you hear\nsomeone talk about the University of Alabama, odds are they\u2019re talking about\nfootball. There\u2019s an expectation tacked onto the name. A stereotype, if you\nwill. You hear people talk about where they want to send their kid to school\nand oftentimes, in the church of Christ, that answer is not the University of\nAlabama. Most of the times with members of the church, that answer is a\nChristian college. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Now, I\u2019m\nnot here to denounce an education from a Christian school, or the\nChrist-centered environment that they offer. I\u2019m here to say that it\u2019s not the\nonly option. There is a way to be in the world and be set apart from it at the\nsame time. A way to show Christ to those who need it the most. Showing the\npraises of Him who called us out of darkness and into His light, 1 Peter 2:9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            It\u2019s\nimperative to us as Christians to let our light so shine before men (Matthew\n5:16). It\u2019s of the utmost importance to not put that light in a secret place\n(Luke 11:33). What we don\u2019t need to do is give continuously positive feedback\nwhere we don\u2019t face conflicts, where we don\u2019t face the worst of what our world\ncan give us, where we learn all the theology to be learned but have none of the\nexperience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus says in Mark 2:17, \u201cI came\nnot to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.\u201d In Luke 19:10, our\nSavior says, \u201cThe Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.\u201d\nWe\u2019re not in this world to convert Christians. We\u2019re in this world to go into\nall of it and preach the gospel to every nation (Mark 16:15). Every nation\nincludes our own. Every nation includes Henderson, Tennessee. Every nation\nincludes Searcy, Arkansas. Every nation includes Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Every\nmeans every.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The majority of Tide 4 Christ\u2019s focus is on evangelism. As a part and affiliate of a state school, we participate in intramural sports, we attend sporting events. We wear our name on t-shirts, we sing praises and study scripture openly in the Ferg (Alabama\u2019s student center). Most certainly we are in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, and Tide 4 Christ is striving to shine as a light within it. It\u2019s not anyone else\u2019s responsibility to reach the lost but ours. It\u2019s personal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saying that being a Christian on a\ncampus of 40,000 (when you and your group make up only 0.25% of the student\npopulation) is without challenges would be false. Of course there are\nchallenges, but isn\u2019t that what the real world is? Come here and face them.\nCome here and bond with your brothers and sisters in Christ and take on the\nwork of the Lord together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To ad-lib the late great Frank\nSinatra, if you can make it as a Christian here, you can make it anywhere. It\u2019s\nup to you. It\u2019s not New York, New York, but it is Tuscaloosa, Alabama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, do you want the real thing?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

September 5, 1975. Cobo Hall, Detroit, Michigan.             You notice the cheers of the crowd, fans whistling between their teeth, and the first audible words: \u201cYou\u2019re here because you want […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-student-blogs"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8LSHf-la","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tide4christ.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tide4christ.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tide4christ.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tide4christ.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tide4christ.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1312"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tide4christ.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1319,"href":"https:\/\/tide4christ.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312\/revisions\/1319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tide4christ.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tide4christ.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tide4christ.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}