A letter from our teaching pastor Josh Carney

Greetings!

If you are a family who is interested in visiting UBC I'd like to share a few things that might help you make a decision. First you should know this. If you visit UBC, you will see a lot of students from Baylor, MCC, and TSTC, which are the three collegiate institutions in the Waco area. We are a church that was started to minister specifically to this demographic. In the fall of 1994 our former worship pastor David Crowder and his friend Chris Seay (now pastor of Ecclesia in Houston), did a small survey and discovered that a significant amount of the student population at Baylor had either never been to church or stopped going to church. In response to this Dave and Chris had a conversation in which the phrase, "what if church was …" was thrown around a lot. In January of 1995 UBC had their first service. Since then we have been a church on a mission. Namely to challenge students to know God.

Second, you should know this. As time passed, those students got jobs and stayed around Waco. As a result they turned into "old people." At this juncture it might be helpful if we identify what we mean by old people.

What is old at UBC? See examples below.



As you can see we have a variety of old people ranging from the newly old (22) to the very old (60+). All are welcome and have found a home at UBC.

About twice a semester I get an e-mail from a family asking if my family would like to join them for dinner to talk about UBC. After we talk for a while, I discover a few things.

1. They were never going to visit because they heard it was a college church but thought they would come one time because their kids think it’s cool.

2. They have kept coming because they really like it.

3. Then the big one. They tell me they understand that it is a college church and would like to know if I think they have a place there.

This is how I always answer. I identify the church as it is and point out that there are probably many churches in Waco that could better serve their needs.

But I also point out that we have many folks who have stuck around and fallen in love with UBC. I point out that the "old people" demographic has been growing steadily for years and that we now have three different rooms dedicated to childcare. I tell them that we've hired a children's ministry coordinator. I tell them that when we hired two community pastors in the spring of 2010 I was given the freedom to concentrate more fully on ministering to the "old people." I tell them that this is an exciting place to be an old person because of all the positive things that are happening both for and with this demographic at UBC. And then I invite them to stick around for a few months and see if it feels like it is a fit. If after a couple months it doesn't … they leave with out any hard feelings. If it does … we have more people to love on.

I've tried to include as much pertinent information on this section of the website as possible. If you find that after reading information on the website, your question is still not answered please feel free to e-mail me.


Warm Regards,

Josh