The Waitlist

As a newly minted Assistant Professor in the Department of Health and Kinesiology at a public university, I noticed that we had no required courses about integrating spirituality into our field or even a more general sociocultural foundations course.

What if this rubs our administration the wrong way? … God never tells us that following Jesus would be easy. In fact, He reminds us to “count the cost.”

Really, it came down to one simple question: Was I willing to count the cost and follow Jesus anyway? And by follow I don’t mean as a passive listener but as a doer.

“Don’t merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” –James 1:22 (NIV)

So, I asked our administration about creating a Religion, Spirituality, and Sport course.

“Even if you get through the red tape, they won’t sign up.” was the initial response.
“It’s ok, I’ll be glad to fill out the new course proposal paperwork,” I replied.
“Well, even if you get the course approved, no one is going to sign up. And you know there is a minimum number of students for a course to ‘make.’ It probably won’t make.”
“I’d like to give it a shot.”
“Just send me a draft before you go through the curriculum committee.”

In reality, the paperwork was not that bad, the administration had no complaints, and the curriculum committee approved the course.

But now I desperately needed students.

I emailed academic advisors, student organizations, college ministry contacts, and anyone I thought might be able to make students aware of the new course.

As a professor, we can see the number of students registered for a class online and that number stayed far too low day after day. I worried about the class not making it, so I kept promoting it. I even spoke to a college youth group and posted approved flyers around campus. Still too low. I made a promotional video briefly explaining what the course was about. Still too low. Eventually, it came down to the last days before the administration canceled upcoming classes without enough students, and I needed just two more students for the class to make.

Only then did I do what I should have started with: fervent prayer. I reluctantly logged in one more time to see if the two more students had registered. No, two more students didn’t register; eight did!

Thankfully, the course made that year and every year since. In fact, it now has a waitlist because so many students want to register. Maybe all that time I was worried about the number of students and trying to do everything on my own to reach them, I was on God’s waitlist.

Maybe God was just waiting on me to trust Him and pray for His help.