Count the Cost

As a new assistant professor last year, I couldn’t help but ask myself some hard questions:

• How could I serve Christ in academia, that most secular of institutions?
• What opportunities would there be, if any, to do Kingdom work on campus?
• Was I committing my time and energy to the right profession, the path that God would have me take?

As He often does, God surprised me. I was greatly encouraged when I learned of Faculty Commons—a national movement of Christ-following faculty members and graduate students. In 2019, I attended the Greenville, SC, Common Call Conference, and was especially struck by Dr. Jeff Hardin’s call to be God’s “person on campus.” But what does this look like within the legal constraints of the public university? 

In Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship, he writes that a person should have “nothing to expect from a follower of Jesus but unqualified love. In such love there is not inner discord between the private person and official capacity. In both we are disciples of Christ, or we are not Christians at all.” That is, there can be no distinction between our identity in Christ as it manifests in our personal and professional lives.

Though the university environment can sometimes be at odds with the Christian worldview, Bonhoeffer would suggest that not only in spite of this, but because of it, we should pour our hearts out in love as a testament to Christ living through us. Let us draw on our identity in Christ by sharing His love with our students and colleagues. What a ministry we have, to be examples of childlike faith, humble of spirit and thoughtful of mind.

Faculty Commons provided me the support, encouragement, and resources to do just that. In just my first year on campus, I’ve made new friends and met fellow believers—faculty, staff, and students—from whom I’ve learned how to best be God’s person on campus in my official role as a professor. My prayer is that God will continue to give me a careful courage; one that shines His light in wise, but no less faithful ways.