I was a bit nervous that first day of class.
Not just the normal concerns about having all my stuff together to launch the semester. Or getting set up in an unfamiliar classroom in a building across campus in which I’d never taught. But this was going to be the first time I was going to mention my faith to all of the students as part of my personal introduction in my first lecture.
How would it be received? Would I get myself into trouble by mentioning the name of Jesus in a mechanical engineering course that had nothing to do with religion or faith?
Unobtrusive and Incontrovertible
I picked up the idea to let students know that I was a Christian from the examples of colleagues in Faculty Commons over my years of involvement with them. Doing so as part of my personal introduction seemed to be an unobtrusive and incontrovertible way to be a witness for Christ.
After all, it was part of my personal background, really no different than sharing about my educational and professional background or other things that would provide context for the students as to who was standing in front of them and would be their teacher for the semester.
Nerves and All
So, the last bullet point on the slide highlighting my background under the heading of ‘Personal’ said:
– Most significant: my relationship to God through Jesus Christ and underneath that was a reference to MeetTheProf.com (where I have a full account of how I came to faith).
So, nerves and all, I stood and delivered my first lecture, which included mentioning my faith in Jesus.
I’m happy to report that the sky did not fall, no one threw a rotten tomato at me, and the rest of the lecture went on like normal. Or did it…?
Significant Spiritual Conversations
The very next lecture, one of the students came up to me afterwards and excitedly told me that he was Christian and a Residential Assistant in a dormitory on campus. He was so impacted by hearing me share about my faith in the first lecture that he decided to do the same thing when he introduced himself that evening to the students under his care. He said that his sharing led to some significant spiritual conversations that same evening.
In addition, my simple profession of faith even stirred a Muslim student who had come to one of my office hours to exclaim that it was so encouraging to know that one of his professors was a person of faith (ostensibly not his faith, but in God nonetheless!).
Advance His Kingdom
Over the semesters since that first one, it has been remarkable to see how five seconds of testimony about Jesus has opened up many other opportunities to connect with students on a spiritual level.
While I still get anxious about all the details involved in the first day of class, I look forward now to sharing that five seconds about my faith and trusting that God will use it to advance His kingdom in the lives of my students.
