First off, I am a little curious to know who all is reading my blog. More specifically, I am wondering if the majority of my readership knows me from my pre-college years, if the majority is from my years while in college, or if you just happened to stumble across my blog. So, if you read my blog, and are willing to let me know, I would like to know who you are. So drop me a comment, send me an e-mail, shoot me a text, or mention something to me the next time I see you. If I get enough responses, then I can more effectively know my target audience.
And now on to my post! I'm not sure how many of you have heard of the wordless book, but the wordless book began in 1866 as a result of a message given by Charles H. Spurgeon. The modern wordless book is considered to have 5 or 6 colors that tell the story, although Spurgeon's message only introduced the first 3 colors (Black, Red, White). D.L. Moody is credited to first adding a fourth color (the gold page) in 1875 and many missionaries including Hudson Taylor are mentioned as using the wordless book in their ministries as tools while open air preaching. After the 19th century and much more recently 2 more colors were added. The first of which is the green page, and it became the new 4th page, pushing the gold page back to 5th. Also, blue has been used as a page, typically by Baptist Churches who use it to represent baptism, but the blue page is still from time to time omitted by Christians not wanting to cause people to misunderstand that baptism is not necessary for salvation, instead that baptism is simply a profession of faith.
So to catch everyone up, we will begin by considering the 3 colors that Spurgeon introduced. The black page was representative of the life of sin that all humans have by nature of our human lives. The red page was symbolic of the blood that Jesus paid as the sacrifice for our sin. The white page represented our sin being washed clean, as white as snow. D.L. Moody's gold page represented the reward of Heaven for all those who have salvation in Christ Jesus. But the green page is the one I will be talking about today.
The green page is representative of growth in the spiritual life. It is evidenced by a person's relationship with God. Ways to grow your relationship with God are through reading the Bible, praying to God, sharing the gospel, fellowshipping with other christians, among many other things.
I know in my last post I got into my own growth a little bit, but there is so much more than what I gave in the last post. After that trip, I started high school and began going to my church's high school youth group (FOOT). I was active in that for 4 years, as well as going on 4 mission trips to Cary, MS where we ran Vacation Bible Schools, and helping out as a sponsor for my church's middle school youth group (all through Christ Community Church in Beatrice, NE). I did countless activities through CCC during my high school years and in doing so built a strong relationship with many of my fellow students as well as our leaders. I could list off all the people that impacted me during this time, but if they read this, they will know who they are, and that is all that matters. But every story comes to a close, and for me it seems, that is when the growth happens the most.
As my high school career began to come to a close, I encountered the last thing any soon to graduate senior wants to hear. According to some weird strange error, there was a problem with my transcript. I had everything planned out in my head, and even some paper work confirmation, but that isn't always enough. Turns out, even though I was set to go to UNL and be a part of the Honors program and be on academic scholarship, that wasn't in God's plan for me. One of my classes in my final semester didn't meet the requirements for admittance that I needed in order for me to even attend UNL. All in one moment every part of my future went from being planned to going into complete chaos. (Another reason why I love the idea of fractals is that even when everything looks like complete chaos, God is still in charge, He knows everything that is happening, even if I feel abandoned. If you don't understand this little side note check out the rest of my blog.) My chaos spun around and around as my family looked for loop holes to allow my plans to stay the same. But when God is in control, there isn't anything anyone can do. So I waited and waited and waited.
Then just as abruptly as all the doors of opportunity slammed shut right in front of me, one door opened. That door was an opportunity to go to UNO. I was able to maintain status as an incoming freshman, and keep my same general plan, just at a different school, albeit with a handful of extra hoops to jump through. I was even awarded more scholarship money. But we are only scratching the surface of chaos. Even more than what school I was going to attend, when my mind became set on UNL, I even discovered the church I was going to attend and the college group I was going to be a part of. All of that was taken away from me as well. After realizing that UNO was my new reality I began scouring sources trying to settle this gigantic feat that of finding where my church home was going to be when I arrived in Omaha. I stayed up late at night sneaking downstairs to get on the computer and check the internet for church websites. I dedicated a notebook to listing out churches and everything I could find out about them. I took into account everything from: location, driving time, size, age (of the church itself and the people going to it), and the obvious of denomination. I made lists and ranked all the churches and mapped out when I would attend all the churches I considered "worthy" enough to give a shot.
My work continued into starting school and I was so detailed in my research that I paired multiple churches up on the same day so that I could attend 2 and sometimes 3 church services in a given weekend. When all was said and done I had attended 23 different churches in increments varying from 1 to 5 times and tried 8 different college ministries some on campus at UNO and others off campus. But now lets look at how I met the group that stuck. This group had people stationed all around the apartments helping new students move into their apartments.
Now for this next part its important for you to understand a little bit about my dad. He is the kind of guy that is not afraid to poke a little fun at someone to get them out of their comfort zone (and I have a very small comfort zone). Also, you should know that my dad tried, and I mean really tried to get me to go out on a date while I was in high school. He even offered to pay for the date, and pay me the same amount of money as I spent on the date, as long as it happened before graduation... which never even had a chance of happening. He was really adamant to get me out of my shell, and the day that I moved onto campus was not about to be the exception. (In fact, I think just about every time I see him I get asked at least once about a girlfriend that has never existed.)
On this particular day, the day I moved onto campus my freshman year, my dad points out to me that these two girls that were helping us carry my stuff to my new apartment had Bible verses on the back of their bright yellow shirts. So here my dad is... poking and prodding me to talk to these girls and make a move. All the while I am trying to get my stuff into my new apartment and try not to let these girls think my dad is a crazy person. When all of a sudden I go out to get another load of stuff and my dad is talking to these girls telling them that I am a christian too and looking for a good christian group to join. They got really excited and invited me to a barbecue that their group was having that night. They used terminology that no one on their first day in a brand new place would have any idea about to describe the location, but I scoffed it off letting my pride get the better of me. So when the time came to go to the barbecue, I had no idea where I was going, which almost kept me from trying. I literally walked outside and was lost for a solid 5 minutes trying to find this barbecue, only to discover that it was just down the hill from my apartment. At that barbecue I met the college group that I would eventually call my own.
Well, you remember all that work I did trying to find a church, turns out the answer was the simplest choice. The church and college group I settled down with was Candlewood Church and the Rock, a church that hadn't even scratched a list of possibilities for me to try. But this group did something that no other church or group even tried to do, they were out trying to find people. It is crazy to think that my introduction to this group was marked by me meeting a couple of volunteers that were set up to help people in the apartments on the north campus at UNO, simply by helping students unload their cars and get their stuff into their apartments.
The lesson I began to learn that day and am still learning now is that no matter how hard you try to force things to happen your own way, it will not work. When God is in control surrendering to Him is the only way to get anywhere in life, sometimes He works even when you don't expect Him to.
This is where I will leave you all for the time being. Until the next post I write.
Any questions, feel free to ask me.
Thanks for Reading!
Logan Cullison
PS - For those of you who are unfamiliar with the wordless book, you can find physical copies online or in most christian book stores, or you can make your own, also bracelets with colored beads are a more common substitute. But, for the more adventurous you could make a giant banner with the colors and use it as a conversation starter.
PPS - Hi Dad, I know you are reading this.
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