Avoid TCF Time

For those in InterVarsity Trojan Christian Fellowship, you know that we have an unspoken policy known colloquially as “TCF time.”  Put simply, this is the fact that TCF events always start 15 minutes late.

Last weekend, I went on TCF’s annual Men’s Retreat. For those wondering why we have a Men’s Retreat, the answer I’m told is that, a few years ago, there were very few men in TCF (and the number was shrinking). So, to gain and retain more men, they started the annual Men’s Retreat. It’s also known colloquially as Men’s Conference or ManCon.

The speaker for the weekend was Elder Thornton, from Chante’s church and a supporter of Trojan Christian Fellowship. Among other things, I learned two points that I am going to remember and apply. They are to (1) overcome TCF time and (2) always take notes.

Regarding (1), he didn’t talk about TCF time specifically. This is a connection that I came up with (I’m admittedly a bit proud of myself for doing so). He said to keep our commitments. If we say we’re going to be somewhere at 5 PM, don’t show up at 5:05 PM. That was really convicting to me. It’s obvious that if we say we’re going to be somewhere, we as Christians should honor that commitment. But I mostly thought of this in terms of either doing it or not; that if we don’t show up at all, that would be bad. But being 5 minutes late? Come on. Actually, we do that all the time. And that’s not good.

Regarding (2), Elder told us that he takes notes on everything. And it’s true: he even showed us a page of his notebook, which was filled with notes from the day. Everything he observes, he writes down and, sometimes, he adapts these lessons for use in his future sermons. There is so much that we learn every moment of the day. Often, I’ve felt awkward taking notes in certain situations, especially during casual conversation or seemingly insignificant events. Obviously, there are times when it can’t be done. But I will try to take more notes (although I already take lots of them). Also, I need to organize these notes better. They definitely come in handy, as I’ve seen already, especially in my blog. Additionally, I learned from Joel Comm today to share more personal opinions and inject more personality into my blog (more on that later). Clearly, there’s a balance between too much and too little information. But Elder suggested that the notes we take could be used to teach others, and that sharing them was a primary goal.