Jess: I’m pretty sure we’ve never written about the awesome Bible study we attend on Sunday nights. It’s a Bible study that our good friend Josh Scott started when he was an intern at Prince of Peace Lutheran in Princeton Junction. We go to a local restaurant, read some Scripture or a book or something, have a few drinks, eat some good food, and talk about Jesus. It’s called Theology on Tap, because Lutherans are awesome. We drink and talk about Jesus.
This group has seen a couple of reincarnations over the past year and a half. Wes and I first started attending during Lent in 2010. Josh had started the group as part of his field ed work, and they were going through a book study during Lent. Wes and I attended off and on, since I was at work sometimes on Sunday nights. We made a couple of friends and were happy to see friendly faces in worship on Sunday mornings.
After Lent, the Bible study ended, and in June, Wes and I stopped going to Prince of Peace because he started work at Crosswicks and Ellisdale. We spent some time with our friends from Theology on Tap, having a couple of parties and hang out times together. Then in the fall, a couple of the people from the group decided to start it again. And they invited us, even though we weren’t at Prince of Peace anymore. What a blessing that has been!
Since last fall, we have gone through a couple of different changes. Without Josh to lead us, we were unsure of what to do at first. We eventually decided to appoint a different leader to read a passage from Hebrews, then read some resources and make up a little Bible study on the text. We eventually decided we were talking about the same thing every week, and we wanted to move on to something different. We ended up doing the Bible study that Prince of Peace did as a church. For the summer, we read Love Wins. We have gotten to a pretty organic Bible study. We read something, and then at some point during the dinner, we ask questions, bring up points, and generally discuss what we care about in relation to the text.
The people in this group have become some of our best friends in New Jersey. We have deep connections with them through our shared faith and Bible study experiences. I don’t know where we would be without this group, and I love each week spent in conversation and Christian fellowship. Thanks be to God for the many blessings he rains down upon us!
Wes: I love my TOT friends and the conversations that we have. It's been a special blessing to me because I was never really able to plug myself into the seminary community. I mean, don't get me wrong, there are some amazing people at the seminary and I am blessed by the relationships I have formed with the people there, but I have never really felt like I was really a part of the life on and off campus.
Chapel services are wonderful, but I go in there, sit down, worship, and then leave. There is no community fellowship time for me afterward like there was at TLU and like there is for so many people that go to PTS. I look around the chapel, recognize many people by face or even by name, but can only find one, two, or at the most three people that I could really call my friend. It has been disconsolating for me at times, causing me to disconnect from worship. My classes are wonderful and I am blessed that I have yet to find myself in a position where I feel like I am fighting against the other people in my class for a grade, but I don't really have a group of friends to sit with during lecture, or a group to study with or commiserate over paper assignments.
Really, with the exception of a handful of people I truly have connected with, the only time I feel integrated into any part of the PTS community is during The Well, the tuesday night praise and worship service. I look forward to it every week, and last semester when I was unable to attend because of scheduling conflicts, it really messed me up spiritually. It is my one corporate worship outlet where I get to really let loose and worship. No one there looks at me funny for bouncing while I sing REALLY loud (or at least they do it behind my back), and after I get to talk to people and fellowship with other students. It's been wonderful.
But my true time of fellowship and community growth is TOT. I love the people that come to it, and I love the close friendships that have grown out of it. The youngest guy that comes is a great guy who tries to play it off like he just comes to drink and hang out, but he is one of the deepest-thinking people I know and always brings wonderful insight to the discussion. One of the couples has not been able to come recently because they just had a baby, but I loved having them because I felt like we fed off each others' energy and made the discussions even more fun. Another of the couples is made up of good ole southern folk like me, so we end up making fun of our roots a lot and can talk about the same struggles in the church growing up. And the last couple have become some of our best friends because they're Cowboys fans, so we spend a lot of time outside of TOT watching football together.
I've absolutely loved our time together, and cannot wait to see how else we grow together in the future.
Well, that's all for now! Good day! Good night! Good bye!
You stay classy, World Wide Web!
-wes and jess
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