Spreading the vibe

Campus Outreach has sponsored a series that is back by popular demand. 858 Vibe, formerly known as Word Up, prides itself on not being "your normal Bible study."

Tony Dentman, coordinator, said he talks for 10-15 minutes and then lets the students talk freely. A session is scheduled for tonight at 8:58 p.m. in the University Center room 304.

"Some students got together and said we needed a Bible study that is appealing to college students and we came up with 858," he said. "Our first four-week series focused on love, sex and relationships."

 The series started on Jan. 25, and was scheduled to end last week with at least 100 students in attendance.

"We understand that everyone doesn't know Christ, but we invite everyone to come together and search for answers," he said. "We talk about things that are relevant to college students and look in the Bible to see what God says about it."

At the series' end, students requested that it continue. At their urging, Dentman decided to allow the women to meet for the next two weeks and continue co-ed studies after spring break.

"This week the ladies will be talking about love," he said. "They will be listening to Eve's song ‘Love is Blind' and discuss it. According to God, love is not blind, but culture has degraded love to be something that God has not intended to be."

Lashall Mcclain, sophomore psychology major and 858 Vibe leader, said college students need to seek God to learn what love is.

"As females, we tend to settle for guys who don't appreciate our worth because we don't know what it is," McClain said. "We need to find out what love is before we say we are in love."

Mcclain won't speak during tonight's Bible study, but will facilitate the discussion.

"I don't like speeches because we want to get deep with the women," she said.

McClain asked Dentman to continue the series for the women after she received many requests from students.

"We saw that the Lord was working heavy on people's hearts, so we said it was just better to keep going," she said.

Taylor Dodd, sophomore accounting major, said she attends 858 Vibe because of its laid-back environment.

Dodd said it was important to her that 858 continued providing a place for students to gather and discuss the Bible.

"I think, as college students, we need that continuous contact with everything going on on campus," she said. "As students, we are under so much pressure and presented with so much temptation every day."

Dodd told her friends to come to 858 and said the main attraction for her was how much she could relate to those in leadership at Campus Outreach.

"I brought my friend with me last week, and he wanted to know when the next one was," she said. "He was disappointed that he wasn't going to be able to come back until after spring break. But he told me to let him know when it was starting back, so he could come and bring a friend with him too."