Hearing and seeing and encountering the ups and downs of everyone I spent those 3 "hot house" years with affected me more than i thought it would.
It was a wonderful, inspiring, tragic and powerful day. Thanks to the folks at Tyndale UC from putting it on. Great stuff.
Top Ten Reasons It Was Great to Go to Bible College in the 90s
10. It was affordable. 3 years at OBC will cost what roughly 1 year of university will cost my son today all in. No kidding. It was more expensive than university at the time, but looking back it was the best $30,000 my parents ever helped me save and that I ever spent.
9. It was confident. I graduated from within the Bible College movement at the height of their enrolment nationally. They knew what they were, where they had come from, who they were serving and how to get the job done. Sure, sure there were concerns and lots of questions. But OBC had confidence in their mission and method and it showed. You could transfer your credits to U of Waterloo but that was about it and that didn't worry any of them cause what they were doing - they knew- would stand up to anyone's scrutiny; academic or otherwise.
8. It was Biblical. They taught the Bible from cover to cover. I mean i know it sounds silly and all but that - in real terms - is the best legacy of my time at OBC... the profs and RAs, my dorm and classmates all modelled in their own way, a life of sustained Biblical study, reflection and obedience. It was fantastic. The early 90s were that sweet spot between the Higher Criticism/Inerrancy debates of the 80s and the inclusive language debates of the 00s. So unhindered by all that drama... we just talked about the Bible without our consciences being hindered by too much fundamentalism on the one hand or too little deference to the latest offended minority on the other.
7. It was communal. Like monks we ate in community, worshipped 5 times a week in chapel, prayed in our dorms, in our classes and on our teams. We recreated together. Ministered in the city together. WE even did gratis... free labour on behalf of the school to help keep our tuition costs down. The only difference between us and the monks that had built Regis College in the first place, was that the women were on this side of the valley instead of over at Morrow Park. And like monks OBC helped me sin less and live in obedience to Christ more fully. Seriously. But more on that in a later post.
6. It was self-important. Like every college and university it lived and died by its own headlines. Everyone needs a shot of that kind of white-hot narcissism in their early 20s. Its good to think the entire universe revolves around you and your cohort for a few years. Its the only way you'll get through Adolescent and Adult Development... you would never do the readings if you actually stopped and thought for a moment about how useless it all was. Its good to have this "not-too-large" but "large-enough" group of people to test and measure yourself against. It is the perfect mental preparation for the shocking tonic of the real world that crushes you upon graduation: the world has gone on and will go on without you, so you better find your place in it, quick.
5. It was safe. People came to OBC pregnant out of wedlock. People came to OBC right from prison. People came to OBC straight from Sunday School. People came to OBC from the killing fields of Cambodia, the suburbs of Oshawa and the Rift Valley in Africa. Yet somehow all of us together studied, prayed, worshipped, doubted, fought and lived in a way that gave each other space to fail and grow. I marvel at this even today.
4. It was diverse. I sat in class with men that had planted families of churches in Kenya and then came to Toronto to study leaving their wives and children behind for 3 or 4 years at a time. I sat in class with single moms, falied salesmen and missionaries returned home on furlough. People of every race and imaginable creed listened to John Franklin opine about something in Western Cult and Torture. It was a "big tent" as Dr. Gary Nelson said on Saturday. Because we were in Toronto and we the biggest "Christian" educational thing going at the time so all the major evangelical and conservative folks passing through came to speak. ICS hadn't really bloosmed yet downtown and Canada Christian College was just a gleam in Dr. McVety's eye. MacDiv was still liberal and Redeemer College was way out in Ancaster. I heard David Michell, John Hull, John Stott, Ravi Zacharis, Alistar McGrath, Greg Bauhnsen, etc,etc.
3. It was fun. One word: LOFTS. Yes that is right... male students (predominantly) built home-made wooden mezzanines in their rooms that effectively doubled their floor space without permits, drawings or inspections from the City of North York. Unbelievable. From dorm suppers to Senior Sneak, from dress up days to the 2nd floor lounge you could get into small t trouble all the time and capital T trouble if you really wanted. OBC still owned the football field on which every year the Commuter Team would brawl against either 4 Central or 4 South in the finals of the Toilet Bowl. Seriously. Plus there were all those fire alarms in my last year from the construction going on at the Sem. Good times. Everyone was recovering from the hair excesses of the 80s but looking back at our yearbooks....ouf... the early 90s weren't much better. There was no 24 hr. security. The lawyers and risk managers hadn't quite taken over the world, so things like piling all the desks from a 2nd floor lecture hall on the roof of chapel happened once or twice a year. People wired Christmas lights into their phone's "message waiting" indicator... so that when your mom called you, people out on Garner Cres. would know.
2. It was worshipful. In the early 90s we still sang hymns... 3 or 4 hymns in our 5 chapel services a week. We sang choruses too. We were accompanied by the piano and organ most of the time. Guitars and drums were just coming in too. We had gorgeous acoustics for choral and congregational singing. (nod to Prof. John Bell) We had choirs and octets and quartets and soloists. Worship Leader magazine didn't start publishing till 1992. So modern Christian worship music was still in its infancy. Sure we had Shine Jesus Shine and Keith Green, but all the Top 20 Worship Songs of All Time were ahead of us. Churches in the early 90s still had evening services, so the choir travelled. It visited supporting churches telling the story of how God was using OBC and thanking people in song for their prayer and gifts. It was a magical time.
1. It was experiential. They made you preach sermons on video and lead choirs in churches. You had to confront annoying people in your dorm or your RA wouldn't let you come to the weekly Bible study. You worked somewhere in the city at a church or mission doing something for someone in Jesus' name. You experienced for the first time often the thrill of sensing the Holy Spirit minister the grace of Christ to someone else... through you.
Truth be told a lot of these attributes - as i write them - are true of places like Tyndale today. But not all of them are true and certainly they aren't true in the way they were true back then.
A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education. - Theodore Roosevelt
I am glad that having gone to OBC from 1990-1993 i received both.
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