By Billy Findley
Sports Editor
Last Saturday night at 8 p.m., four worship teams conducted one of the most elaborate worship events ever held at Bryan College. The event, Respond, was orchestrated by Seniors Timmy Sunday and Alicia Schulze and junior Patrick Roberts.
The purpose was to lead a worship service unlike any other, a service that would promote action, not just singing, and would evoke a prayerful mindset, not a passive gesture of piety. This was the goal of these three Bryan students, and the result was a thing of beauty, according to Sunday.
Sunday, Schulze and Roberts contacted no fewer than 30 churches in an invitation to join with Bryan students to seek God and pursue justice in the world. They also made arrangements to receive food donations for the Chattanooga Rescue Mission and money donations for Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee Company in Rwanda.
While he did not have an exact figure, Sunday said attendance to the event was smaller than he had expected. However, the worshipful atmosphere and enthusiasm of the attendees was much more important, Sunday said.
“It wasn’t really about the numbers at any point,” Sunday said. “It was amazing to see the support for the groups.”
The night was divided into four sections. Sophomore Luke Lillard helped lead the first section emphasizing the Fall of man. The subsequent sections gradually shifted to the redemptive side of the gospel with Schulze leading the second section, freshman Shelby Garrett leading the third and Sunday closing the event. In between each section of songs was a time of prayer, prayer specifically for the Dayton community and then for the world.
“People really were responding,” Lillard said. “It was an incredible success, I thought.”
The money being raised for Land of a Thousand Hills was to be used specifically to purchase a coffee bike for coffee farmers in Rwanda. By purchasing one bike for one farmer, profits can increase enough to allow other farmers to purchase bikes to help transport their coffee. Robert’s, Schulze’s and Sunday’s goal was to raise $200. They raised $269. There were also significant food contributions for the Chattanooga Rescue Mission.
“We should be led to action,” Roberts said in regard to Christian worship. “I think our worship, in general, has become lost. We’ve made it something that’s just comfortable.”
There was also a genuine attitude of participation amongst those in attendance, according to senior Phillip Kohler.
“Everybody was there because they wanted to be there,” Kohler said.
Sunday said he had been envisioning an event like Respond since his sophomore year and has been praying it become a reality. Roberts and Schulze said they had had the same longing. Sunday hopes to see more worship events or at least elements of what went into Saturday night’s event incorporated in chapels and other worship gatherings.
“I think this was the first bloom of using these ideas at Bryan and promoting the need for justice in the world,” Sunday said.
