Faculty Ministry Writers' Guidelines

Who We Are

InterVarsity Faculty Ministry, a ministry of InterVarsity Graduate and Faculty Ministries, encourages and equips Christian scholars to flourish and be a redeeming influence among the people, ideas and structures of higher education.

The Vision of InterVarsity Faculty Ministry is that Christian faculty have a redeeming influence within higher education as they:

  • Establish witnessing communities of Christian academics that reflect the diversity of the body of Christ
  • Follow God’s call in spiritual formation and vocational discipleship
  • Live faithfully in all areas of their lives and thereby flourish in their callings as teachers, scholars, colleagues and mentors for the renewal of the campus and the glory of God
  • Practice their disciplines from a profoundly Christian viewpoint

Audience

Our audience is Christian faculty of all disciplines and career stages. Our primary focus is faculty at secular universities, though our readership includes a significant minority at Christian universities. Because we recognize the diverse needs among faculty, we often share publication materials among all of the GFM ministries. For guidelines specific to their ministries, you can also visit the Emerging Scholars Network and The Well for detailed requirements.

Authors

Authors are typically faculty members or campus ministiers who serve faculty. Faculty of all career stages are welcome to contribute. If anonymity is desired, consideration can be made to have the article posted anonymously or with a pseudonym, with only the editorial staff knowing the identity of the author.

Style

Although we are serving an academic audience, we choose not to have a formal academic voice. We appreciate writing with a personal voice and, even in an informative article, appreciate personal examples. Although we address a primarily Christian audience, articles should avoid Christian jargon. For references, we use the Chicago Manual of Style’s parenthetical citations-reference list format.

Since the Lamp Post is an online publication, you may wish to review Jakob Nielsen’s Writing for the Web series of articles.

Length

Essays for the Lamp Post range between 1,000 and 2,000 words. Longer pieces may be published serially.

Contract and Payment

Work published on the website is covered by InterVarsity’s Author Agreement. Writers are not paid for their work. As publication of the Lamp Post is covered by contributions from donors, writers and authors understand that by waiving the right to any payment, publication costs are reduced, enabling us to make materials available at no charge to faculty readers.

Submissions

To inquire about submitting an article, contact InterVarsity Faculty Ministry.

Photo credit: KRSPOS’ Photostream

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We value the contribution of writers who are not employed by InterVarsity, some of whom may not necessarily agree with all aspects of InterVarsity's ministry, doctrine, or policies. These writings are the words of the writers and may or may not represent InterVarsity. The same is true of any comments which may be posted about any entries. Submitted comments may or may not be posted at the writer or the editor's discretion.