Black Friday & Urbana?

I LOVED Urbana! Don't get me wrong here. There are only a few very tiny things that I thought could have been differently at the conference and this is probably the biggest one for me.

Before each general session (that's where all 16,000 gather in the "dome"), we could usually enter into the arena early. Sometimes an hour early, sometimes thirty minutes. Of course, people naturally want to save seats so they can experience the conference with their friends, their classmates, and their small group! All good.

Often times, people also wanted to get good seats because there was floor seating where you could be super close to the worship team.

In particular on New Years Eve, everyone knew we would be having a worship and dance party to ring in the new year. (This is an aside, but that night was CRAZY fun! I don't know if I'll ever have a New Years Eve as good and as fun as that one!) So more than ever, students really wanted to be at the floor seats where you could get some mosh pits going and have some more space to dance.

Unfortunately, this made the atmosphere eerily similar to Black Friday. People were getting pushed and shoved to the front as the herd tried to force its way forward. Stadium workers and servants had a very hard time making their way through so they could prepare the dome. Someone even almost got trampled.

And I wish I was kidding. We're a group of Christians, right? Are good seats really that important? We are all getting to experience the same thing. We can all hear the speakers and all hear the worship. Is it really that necessary that we compete with one another for the best seats?

It was one of the moments were I felt a little filthy to be honest. I felt like some collective repentance should have happened. That's not the way we should treat our brothers and sisters, especially the ushers and workers in the stadium just trying to make sure everyone stays safe and no one gets hurt. It brought me back to the passage where Jesus instructs people to not sit at the head of the table, the place of honor, but to put themselves at the worst spot. So either, 1) they can stay there and keep their dignity and pride intact or 2) get invited to move up to a better spot.

So in an effort to be honest: Yeah, that happened at Urbana and it irked me a bit. I really only witnessed it on New Years Eve, but that was enough to have some effect on me. This will be my last blog post for a bit, but in my next 2-3 posts I will really elaborate on some of my favorite and most meaningful parts of Urbana!!