What We Believe
B-Less takes its name and its ethos from the call of Abraham to be a blessing to the nations in Genesis 12. In a world shouting at us always to be more, God calls us to be less and, through humble and invisible service, step away from self-reliance and towards reliance on him in order to be a blessing to the world.
Vision & Ethos
In Genesis 12, the story of the call of Abraham is presented in sharp contrast to the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. Babel epitomises the degeneration of God’s world after the fall: they want to make it back to heaven on their own terms; they want strength in numbers; they want to make a name for themselves. But God knows that success in this enterprise will mean spiritual suicide.
Doesn’t this sound a lot like a modern university?
Contrast Abraham. In the Abraham project, God takes the initiative. Abraham is sent out from his familiar place and relationships depending on God alone. Abraham is told to be less – and, in being less, he is equipped to be a blessing. That is the vision that animates B-Less.
This ethos of being less in order to bless motivated Jesus’ ministry too: ‘For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’ (Mark 10:45). Rather than self-determination, self-reliance, and self-exaltation, Jesus calls us to embrace his ethos of serving rather than being served, in a spirit of humility.
The name ‘B-Less’, then, encapsulates our ethos and vision of invisible service: the radical call to embrace the fact that everything we have is from God, and that the right way to steward it is to spend it in the service of others.
Graduate students have much to offer when they’re sent out from the security of their peer group to serve struggling undergrads, sidestepping the constant barrage of messages about their future influence and earnings potential and devoting themselves to serving behind the scenes to make undergraduate ministries succeed. Graduate students have much to offer when they leave the question of their own blessings to God and concentrate on blessing others.
Doctrine & Mission
B-Less works in close partnership with the ministries of the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF), and joyfully embraces both the UCCF Doctrinal Basis and its associated statements of mission and ethos describing our shared sense of what we do and how to do it as evangelical Christians in the university context.