Column

by Michael Meyers

Back to Table of Contents | Back to Main Index
Previous Columns | Send mail to The Voice

MBC Should Engage Its World

We all want to make a splash for Christ and participate in His intention to restore people to Himself. That's why we're at Bible college; that's why Stugo was excited about hosting a benefit concert at Franklin High School this spring.

The event's motto was "to give the gift of water to Africa and the gift of music to Portland."

Stugo had never set this sort of goal previously. We were excited because the plan fit our purpose statement: "To bridge the theories [of Christian education] with Christian practice in the world around us."

We made good progress in planning this event. Franklin High School principal Charles Hopson signed on with the idea; he allowed Stugo to use the FHS football field for the concert and said we could work with the faculty to involve Franklin students in fundraising. FHS activities coordinator Mark Tucker and teacher Susie Bartley bought into the vision.

On the music side, we asked Sally Custer, the owner of Lupin LLC production company, to help us find a band. She previously orchestrated productions with The Who? and Beatle's member Paul McCartney. After running into Custer, Karrissa Clark (who helped with much of this effort) and I really believed that we were on to something.

World Vision was willing to help us fundraise but lacked an efficient way to educate FHS and MBC students about the need for wells in Africa. We were in a time crunch.

By November, I was forced -- for the good of our team and that of the school -- to cancel the concert.

Although no benefit concert will happen this spring, MBC can still realize the vision of this concert. We had hoped to reach out to the community of Portland and the world.

Although we will not be able to do this in a big-group fashion as the concert would have allowed, we can still ask each other, "How am I going to make a difference in Portland or in my world this semester?"

The world needs to see Christians act on this question. How can our ministries, studies or free time show people Jesus? Concert or no concert, we can still act on this question.

Back to Table of Contents | Back to Main Index
Previous Columns | Send mail to The Voice