College Ministry

     Lake Shore’s College Sunday School Class Teacher is Dr. Tom Hanks. This is his view of the aims of the College Group at Lake Shore Baptist Church:

     College students, more than almost all Christians, are in a good place—especially at Baylor—to explore Jesus' important addition to the Deuteronomic commandment to love God with heart, soul and strength. Jesus quoted Deuteronomy, but added an important phrase emphasized below:
                            Love the Lord your God
                                     with all your heart and
                                              with all your soul and
                                                       with all your mind.

     We at Lake Shore Baptist Church honor the life of the mind, and agree with Mark Noll, who said in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind that the scandal comes from NOT USING one’s mind. The whole point of Lake Shore’s College Ministry is to foster the use of the mind in exploring some of the major questions faced by Christians in our day.

     How we do it: we meet on Sunday mornings at 9:30 a.m. and discuss questions like those below:
     1. What must one believe to be a Christian? Do we have to accept the miracles?
     2. When Jesus says “I bring not peace but a sword,” what did he mean?
         Does he counsel violence from us?
     3. We know about the Ten Commandments: what commandments did
         Jesus leave us?
     4. Does Paul always agree with Jesus? Does he give a different message
         than Jesus did?

     We also meet on Wednesday evenings at 5:30 p.m., when the church serves supper—which is FREE to college students, who can meet with Tom Hanks at dinner if they want to join him.

And in the past, Lake Shore’s College students have, among other activities:
     1. Gone on retreats
     2. Worked in the Children’s Program
     3. Sung in the choir
     4. Taken part in “College Sunday,” when college students present the
         worship service
     5. Helped build our children’s playground
     6. Walked our Labyrinth, which is Waco’s only permanent Labyrinth.