Pull Up a Chair: Finding Your Place at UBC

You can tell fall is coming to Bloomington.

Not necessarily by the weather, of course. Indiana apparently did not get that memo.
It is still plenty hot outside, but Indiana University students are returning, classes are starting again, and suddenly a quick trip across Bloomington requires the sort of strategic planning normally reserved for military campaigns.

There is something we love about this time of year, though. People are beginning again.
New students are finding their classrooms. Old friends are reconnecting. Calendars are filling up. People are deciding where they'll spend their time, who they'll spend it with, and what they want this next season to look like.

Those are pretty good questions for a church, too.

At University Baptist Church, we've been thinking about the kind of community we want to be. Again and again, we've returned to a simple image: the Table.

A table is a place where people gather. You don't have to have everything figured out before you sit down. You bring your stories, questions, gifts, odd little areas of expertise—and probably a casserole if you're Baptist enough.

And you discover that you have something to contribute.

We don't want UBC to be a church where a handful of people do church for everybody else. We want to be a place where people belong deeply enough that, sooner or later, they ask:

“What's my next step? What can I bring to the table?”

One answer right now is worship.

After a quiet stretch for our Worship Committee, we're gathering again to imagine worship at UBC in this next season. What should we hold onto? What might we try? How can music, prayer, scripture, preaching, art, hospitality, and the occasional holy surprise help us encounter God and one another?
We'd like more people around the table for that conversation.

Our Worship Committee will meet after church this Sunday on September 23.

You don't have to be a musician. You don't need to understand microphones, hymnody, liturgical calendars, or why church people can have surprisingly strong opinions about where the announcements belong.

You just need to care.

If you've been worshiping with us and are wondering about a next step—a way to move from simply being here toward helping shape our life together—this is a great place to start.
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Come. Listen. Bring an idea. Ask a question. See whether this might be something you bring to the Table.
We're building this community together. And there's a chair here for you.