by Elijah Lutz, Web Editor
It doesn’t take much to know that Asbury is a special kind of place. There are many reasons for this fact: our connection and emphasis on the Lord in our lives, the personal interest that the professors and the faculty invest in us as students, the small campus making it more of a home than a school — the list can go on and on. However, for me, there is one fact that makes Asbury unique that has stood out more prevalently as of late than the others: the value of community and the benefits coming from it.
We all know that community is an “Asbury power word.” It is used so frequently that we tend to use it more as a joke rather than for its actual meaning. It is stressed so much to us that we should be involved in community that many people come almost to detest the idea of gathering together as one campus. Truth be told, I wasn’t always pleased with the seemingly overbearing emphasis on community. It came off as forced and fake, and as a result I spent a good bit of my time avoiding it, retreating to my room where I would be alone and unbothered.
I didn’t fully start to embrace the concept of community until late in the spring semester of last year. I had participated a bit with some new friends, but not as much as I should have. I didn’t realize what I had gained from the friends I had made: being led back to faith after a drought of two years, overcoming my fear of trying new things and meeting new people and learning that it really is okay to be weird, so long as you are being yourself.
Community isn’t just a power word here at the ‘Bury. It is a real thing, and it is a powerful thing. It doesn’t matter how well you know people here. It doesn’t matter if you spend much time with them. There is one undeniable fact that I think we must all first understand: we are more than just a community. We are family. The love and support that I have received since I came to Asbury has been, for a lack of better terms, overwhelming. I feel surrounded by people who I believe genuinely love and care about me, and who support the things I do and the goals I have. This fact alone sets aside the Asbury community from other colleges across the country, for it is far better to be surrounded by the people who lift you up and set good examples, rather than be surrounded by people who put you down or live their lives in ways that are poor and detrimental.
In John 13:34, as Asburians should know if they don’t already, the Lord says, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” This school is a place that truly does that. There is love. There is kindness. There is friendship.
So this is my challenge to you: if you feel outside of this love, if you feel like community is not for you, if you feel as if it truly is a fake thing like I once did, give it a real chance. Go out, meet new people and make new friends. Push the boundaries of your comfort zone and take an interest in the community and people of Asbury University. I promise you, it will be worth it. It may even change your life. Keep spreading the love, Asbury. Be the light that we truly need in the world.
