Letter to the Editor - Julius Ellis

A couple weeks ago my friend Eliezer wrote an article concerning the Adventist part of Union College. After a couple of days the article was being read by everyone and it seemed like everyone disagreed with his message. I agree with Eliezer’s article for the most part. However, I also understand why many people felt attacked and insulted. Recently I’ve been reading a plethora of letters to the editor and I can’t help but think that Eliezer’s article was vastly misunderstood.

Eliezer’s point to me was that at a personal and as a collective level we could all do better.

2 Corinthians 7:1 says “Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.”  This is a truth that hurts all of us; we are not perfect beings.

We won’t be perfect beings until Jesus comes. Although we’re not perfect we can try our best every day to be better than how we were yesterday. I know that in my life there’s an overabundance of actions, words and thoughts that I need to improve on. We all can’t have a blindfold on with this subject.

We know ourselves too well to lie to ourselves.

God loves who we are, but He loves us too much to leave us like how we were yesterday or the day before. This same principle applies to Campus Ministries. There’s a surfeit of people doing something in Campus Ministries. I am witness to the long hours put in by my friends Cainan Ming, Doug Barahona, David Kabanje, Jill Donald and many others. My opinion is that on a broader scale is they do evangelize, but on a personal scale it’s hard to see the evangelism working.

While reading Eliezer’s article; I realized that many students at Union College would love to lead out in worships or preach sermons. But they’ve never been asked. Many feel the same people are up front and it doesn’t give them an opportunity to lead. Numerous students believe that they won’t be able to lead because they won’t be asked. Another thing that I would like to elucidate on are liaisons. Many friends of mine and even students who I didn’t know can attest that I sat in the café for hours on end asking every student I saw if they had any knowledge to who their liaisons for Campus Ministries are.

Many didn’t even know what a liaison was.

Out of the several hours I spent in the café only three people out of the hundred knew who their liaison was. The liaisons names that were mentioned were Joslyn Lewis and Elizabeth McDonald.

This brings up an interesting question; if liaisons are to be the bridge that connects students from their departments to Campus Ministries, how then can we the students stay connected when most of us don’t even know what a liaison is? This is not in any way judging anyone and especially not Campus Ministries, but this is to show that we can all do better.

There’s a superfluity of solutions to these dilemmas. One would be for us the students of Union College to get heavily involved with Campus Ministries more. We can go into Campus Ministries; it’s an open door facility with a massage chair, kinetic sand, sometimes candy, and best of all they have great people. We could get involved with the community services that they have.

Secondly, Campus Ministries could find a way to get the students more involved with the things they are doing. They could find students who they don’t know and get them involved with vespers, V2 or even on Chapel on Tuesdays.

I recall filling out a paper of my talents and shortcomings. It would be awesome if students saw a new face up in front singing, preaching or whatever it is they do best.

We can all do better.

Let us work together so that we can accomplish our goals. Let us work together so we can all be better than yesterday. Let us work together so we can glorify Christ.

-Julius Ellis, Sophomore, “About the ‘Adventist’ Part”