Welcome to IU!

Here at Clearnote Campus Fellowship, we want to equip you for the challenges of college life, but we want to do more than that. It may sound strange, especially if you just started college, but our goal is actually to prepare you for life after college. We want you to know what it means to honor the God who made you, and how you can joyfully serve Him in all of life. Here are some of the ways we're doing that this Fall semester…

We strive to see IU students come to know, love, and obey Jesus Christ.

We want to produce students who are committed to "contending earnestly for the faith which was once and for all handed down to the saints" (Jude 1:3).

– The Melting Pot @ the McNeillys'. Fridays, 7 PM. Weekly college-student gathering with games, music, food, and more!
– Examining Your Worldview. Sundays, 10 AM, Clearnote Church. Sunday School class for college students on what it means to think like a Christian, complete with donuts.

– Sciences w/ Ben Burlingham. Tuesdays, lunchtime, A206. A weekly Bible study in a professor’s office, geared towards science majors, pre-med, and med students.
– Law w/ Brian Bailey. Every other Thursday, 5 PM, Buffalouie's. A reading group with seasoned attorney Brian Bailey, discussing what it means to be a God-honoring lawyer.
– Music Students. Contact us if you're interested!

– Chinese Bible Study @ Jason’s. Fridays, 7 PM.
– Melting Pot @ the McMansion. Every 2nd Friday of the month.
– Chinese Service @ Clearnote Church. Sundays, 11 AM.

It's a new year. It's a perfect time to recommit yourself to bathing every day in God's Word!

Instead of hopping on Facebook every spare moment, why not read a chapter of Scripture when you sit down by yourself?

Quite a number of CNCFers are joining me this year in doing a year-long reading plan called "Reading God's Story." It's kind of a combination of a chronological reading plan and a topical reading plan that gets you through the whole Bible in 365 days. The basic structure is chronological: you read the Bible in the order in which it was written. But the creator of the plan mixes in passages that relate to whatever event is happening in that day's reading.

For example, after reading the account of the Flood in Genesis 8 and 9, the plan has you read this Psalm on the same day:

We've got exciting plans for 2017, and we hope you'll join us!

CNCF's Summer Bible Study starts on Tuesday, May 24! We'll be meeting at the IMU (more details on room to come) on Tuesdays at 7 PM throughout the summer to study The life of Elijah.

In the New Testament, the prophet Elijah is kind of a big deal. He's mentioned in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Romans, and James. John the Baptist is said to be the Elijah prophesied about way back in the book of Malachi, and Elijah himself shows up (along with Moses) on the Mount of Transfiguration to speak with Jesus before His death and resurrection.

So why's Elijah so important? What's so special about him? Well, for starters, he called down fire from heaven, raised a boy from the dead, and ascended into heaven on chariots of fire. And most of all, he trusted God and was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Join us Tuesdays this summer for a study on The Life of Elijah. Starting May 24, we'll be meeting every Tuesday at 7 PM throughout the summer at IU's Indiana Memorial Union (IMU). Stay tuned for more specific details.

See you there!

This Thursday at 7 PM in Read, Landes Lounge, we'll be wrapping up our semester study on prayer with an open Q&A session. What questions do you still have? Is there something theological you'd like to understand better? Something practical you don't know how to manage? Anything is fair game! Use the form below to let us know what questions you'd like answered this Thursday.

Last night at our weekly CNCF Bible Study, we took a break from focusing as much on the content of our prayers, and we looked at some practical resources we can use as tools to discipline ourselves in the spiritual discipline of prayer.

I've found that few things stir in me a desire to pray than reading good books by faithful men of the past and present. Aside from Scripture, here are some good ones:

Prayer to the One True God is one of the clearest things that sets apart the people of God from the rest of the world. And yet if you ask any self-professing Christian, most will indicate that prayer is one of the greatest areas of weakness in their exercise of faith. We all have many rebellious excuses for not getting around to this duty: busy schedules, cold hearts, other responsibilities.…But without prayer we suffer. And we must ask ourselves, If we lack a desire to seek blessings from our Father in heaven through prayer, are we really His sons?

At our Bible studies last week, we asked the question, "Is Jesus really all about love?"

First, we read well over a dozen passages from the New Testament which talk about Jesus' love, compassion, and mercy. Here are two:

After reading many such passages, we came to the conclusion that, in His time on earth, Jesus was indeed driven by love.

But then we asked the question, "If Jesus is really all about love, then what's different about the love that Jesus teaches, as compared to the teaching of other philosophers and religious teachers?"

Isn't that a claim you've heard people make? That Jesus' teaching boils down to the same moral message as Gandhi's, Buddha's, Lennon's, Gaga's…? Have you made that claim? What's supposed to be so different about Jesus' teaching? Is there anything different?

Here's one big way to answer the question…

Last week at our weekly Who Is Jesus? Bible study, we took a closer look at the humanity of Jesus Christ. We spent some time discussing the importance of Jesus the Son of God coming to earth in real human flesh. Christ's humanity was a crucial factor in His liberation of us from the slavery of sin: "For if by the transgression of the one [Adam] the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many" (Romans 5:15). Jesus had a real body that truly died and truly rose from the dead. "He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed" (1 Peter 2:24). Furthermore, He is a great High Priest for us who can sympathize with our weakness, because He took on our flesh (Hebrews 4:15). Even now, He acts as a Priest for us in heaven, mediating between us and God the Father: "For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5).

As we dwelt on Christ's humanity, we ended up zooming in on an aspect of Jesus' human-ness which we easily overlook:

Jesus is a man.

In case you are confused and think that I just restated an obvious truth, let me put it a different way:

Jesus is not a woman.

Still struggling?

Let me see if I can put a finer point on it:

Jesus is a man, and He has to be a man; He could not be a woman.