As professors we face some serious challenges in the church as well as in the academy. We show up in a local church community near our university—-educated, experienced and effective teachers, trained thinkers, researchers, and logicians. The pastors and church staff often turn to us to help give leadership as Sunday School teachers, as deacons or elders, as the head of this or that committee.
And certainly we can probably do those tasks well, but God may be calling us to something bigger, much bigger. The colleges or universities where we work, wherever they are around the world, constitute critical mission fields.
We have international students whose best chance to hear the good news of Jesus Christ is on our campuses. We have hurting colleagues, who might only listen to another colleague about the hope Jesus provides. We have students from broken, dysfunctional homes, who don’t want to go home on the holidays. And each term we get classrooms full of students, some of whom are asking, “Does anyone care about me?”
The Tension We Face
We professors thus live in tension. We are recruited to serve in a warm inviting Christian community, but we also have the opportunity to live out our faith in the sometimes frigid, hostile environment of the university. Our choice may not be “either-or” but could be “both-and.”
Certainly as faculty we are better positioned to minister in the university community than many others. Additionally, the university fields in which we serve are, as the Bible says, white unto harvest. Faculty on mission are certainly needed there.
And as faculty, we have the right to be on campus. We spend many hours there; we know the language, customs, and traditions inherent to the culture of higher education. Our campuses may be hostile at times, but so are many mission fields around the world.
As we introduce ourselves to our classes, it is appropriate to tell our students about our education, our families and our personal philosophy—built upon our faith in Christ. Colleagues may delight in attacking religious belief, but it’s only fair in an open marketplace of ideas to defend a warranted faith (see Sam’s recent FCMM). Appropriate expressions of our hope in Christ (a Bible on our desk, a encouraging poster, or short Bible verses on our coffee mug) can naturally allow others to know of this warranted faith that is changing our lives.
The Support We'll Need
In the beauty of the “both-and” of serving on our university and in our connection to the local church community, we can find the support we need. Some churches fear the campus environment, but we can help allay that fear. Some local churches even commission their faculty members as “missionaries” to the campus.
At the same time, we need the local community to encourage us. We need the worship, prayer, biblical teaching and Christian fellowship offered there to grow spiritually.
And the local church will more likely embrace as well as serve the “widow, the orphan, the marginalized”? Such selfless service can do wonders for our hearts. It’s an assault on the hubris common to our profession and can actually help inaugurate Christ’s kingdom in our larger community.
At the same time, for many faculty, an additional on-campus faculty fellowship or community helps. Hopefully, there’s some small Christian communities already in place in your department or elsewhere on campus. If so, join one. If not, start one.
FC Editorial Team