“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9 The trouble was—I had become just that: weary. On the outside, everything in my ministry at work looked the same. I identified myself as a Christian in the classroom, […]
As a young mechanical engineering professor in the 1990s, I was blessed to have senior colleagues who were strong believers. That made it easy for me to be open about my Christian faith with other faculty. I still had fears about sharing with students until I sat in a class with one of those senior […]
One of my favorite things about my job is mentoring students who hope to become attorneys. In my own college and law school experience, the Lord used people and programs for low-income students to help me get started. As a pre-law advisor I work with students who overwhelmingly come from backgrounds like mine. To equip and encourage […]
“Fall forward in faith” – one of my pastor’s favorite sayings – echoed in my head as the young lady in front of me started veering off topic during our 30-minute meeting. I was teaching a doctoral methods class and met with each student in the first couple of weeks to customize their final project. […]
In March of 2020, I was over halfway through my final semester of coursework for a full-time, in-person doctoral program when COVID-19 changed everything. As the wife of an essential worker and mother of two kids in 1st and 4th grades, I suddenly found myself homeschooling while completing my own courses virtually and drafting my dissertation proposal. […]
Sometimes the most familiar stories in Scripture hold the greatest surprises. Recently, while reading through Mark’s Gospel with a friend on campus who had never opened a Bible, God revealed something that completely changed how I see God’s grace. We had just finished the account of Jesus’s last meeting with the disciples before his arrest. […]
The Cru mission trip to Poland had gone well. Our Faculty Commons group had joined the student ministry group from Chicago sharing the gospel on campus with Polish students in Poznan. Everything had gone smoothly until that morning. We missed our train and lost our reserved seats to Krakow! The Plan Was to Get […]
Men and breakfast go together like hand and glove. Knowing this nudged me to invite two other profs to have breakfast in the dining commons where we could encourage each other in our faith and campus life. What started with two professors has now become seven, consistently, from across three departments. Our approach is […]
My eldest son, a professor at Indiana University, and I discussed imitating David Janzen’s “Life Lunch” after its publication in Missional Moments in February 2020. But we set it aside with the advent of the next month’s minor interruption known as Covid19. Fast forward to the summer of 2024… Prof Niewoehner (the Younger) sent Prof Niewoehner (the Elder) […]
Recently, I was asked by one of my pastors if I knew what the Greek word ekklesia meant, and quickly I thought: yes, the gathering of believers. He then told me to do a quick word study. I found that ekklesia is more than just a gathering or assembly; it’s a calling out for a purpose. This makes the command to “go make […]
