The French aristocrat and poet Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote: “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
The big idea is clear enough: help others yearn for a vastly more desirable future or goal. With all of Cru, we in Faculty Commons share a passion for helping professors and students yearn for the world. God has uniquely positioned the American university —faculty, students, and ideas—to bless that world and we long to be part of it.
We long to join the God of the universe who, as Walter Brueggemann describes it, “is at work to mend and redeem and repair and rehabilitate the world so that it may become the good creation . . . the new creation . . . that God has always and everywhere intended.”
Through its teaching and research, the American university is already addressing many global needs and touching the lives of millions. But we think it can do more.
By sending talented Christian professors and students together to advance the gospel in both its content and scope, we can help address both the spiritual and material needs of the world.
We often dream of a day when 1000s of faculty will be as motivated as the men and women of Medicins San Frontiers/Doctors without Borders–who provide medical aid where it is most needed, often at the very edges of conflict and disaster.
What if we had a movement of Christ-following professors, a Faculty without Borders, going each year into the spiritually dark places bringing both spiritual and intellectual resources to help redeem and repair and rehabilitate the world?
In part, it’s already happening. We’re beginning to see the harbinger of bigger things–the first fruits.
For 40 years, Cru has sent students internationally to the elite universities of the world, and they have gone in droves. Over 20,000 Christian students have gone in the past decade; currently 46% of these study and minister in closed countries. Right now, there are hundreds of students and some faculty headed on short-term teams to over 34 countries of the world.
This summer, for example, 10 faculty and spouses are joining our Faculty Commons staff and Cru students in:
Italy
England
Dominican Republic
South Africa
Costa Rica
France
Germany
Spain
But these are surely the first fruits; we dream of the day when teams of American professors are engaged all over the world, shoulder to shoulder with our student teams, in every one of the 81 cities in 39 countries we are currently sending to.
We believe these faculty will go to the world, not to advance their resumes, but because they love the God whose heart for the world is as big as the cross of Christ. And because God has given them as faculty both the passions and resources to serve that world in very practical and spiritual ways.
Pray for the faculty who depart soon for places around the world. Look for reports from these trips when we pick up these Missional Moments in the fall. We’d love to see many of you join us or others in the future.
Have a great summer.
FC Editorial Team