By Bobby Gross, Director of GFM
InterVarsity, since its beginning, has been both a student movement and a university ministry. We could never be content working with 18-22 year olds gathering in church fellowship halls who had no connection to the university. No, we are about students in the setting of the college campus. This is our mission field. God sends us to the campus—to love it, to pray for it, to engage it, to form witnessing communities within it, and to seek its shalom.
The first of InterVarsity’s twelve core values identifies the university as our missional context and declares:
We are called to be a redeeming influence among its people, ideas, and structures.
You know who else is called to our mission field, by the thousands? Christian faculty and administrators! They too have been sent by God to be part of this powerful academic enterprise that influences millions of lives and shapes every aspect of our world, for good or for ill. They too are called to love students and bear witness to colleagues and serve as a redeeming presence in their institutions. This is their vocation, their calling.
All of this carries two compelling implications for InterVarsity and for those of us on campus:
- We should be cultivating Christian faculty and administrators as some of our most valuable ministry partners.
- We should be encouraging and equipping faculty and administrators as a crucial part of our ministry audience.
Let’s think in turn about each of these opportunities.
Faculty as Ministry Partners
When I started as an InterVarsity campus minister at the University of Florida (yes, this was well back in the last century!) I leaned on a small group of Christian faculty who were committed to me and to our mission. They prayed for me, gave financially, helped me understand the university, and offered great encouragement. They were willing to open their homes. They spoke at our chapter meetings. They offered to meet with students who had questions. They helped at Fall Conferences. They made a difference in my campus work.
I long for each of our campus staff ministers to have such a circle of faculty allies on their campus. I urge CSMs, whether new to staff or veterans, to make it a priority to search out Christian faculty on your campus. Finding them should be a key aspect of “spying out the land.” These men and women should be key members of your MPD team. After all, they are called by God to the same mission field to which we are called!
Faculty as Ministry Recipients
Starting out on campus in Gainesville, I wanted to be of encouragement to the faculty I knew, but as a twenty-something staff worker, what did I have to offer? I had already learned that we shouldn’t just take from our ministry partners but should also seek to minister to them, even if they were much older. So I did my best—asking questions about their spiritual lives, taking an interest in their work, listening as they talked about their challenges, and offering always to pray with them. To my surprise, they seemed appreciative and felt encouraged, even emboldened to be faithful to Christ as professors.
Faculty and administrators face difficult situations in their departments or uncertainties in their career situations. Too often they do not receive support from their churches for the unique challenge of being Christians in academia. They are tempted to hide their light under a basket. Many long to more directly interact with students as Christians, but don’t know how. InterVarsity staff can fill a unique role in encouraging these women and men to be thoughtful, faithful Christ followers in the vocational settings in which God has placed them.
An invitation
This year, the Collegiate Ministries Leadership Team has set a goal to:
Increase motivation and expectation for undergrad staff to enlist more Christian faculty and administrators as ministry partners and also to offer encouragement to them as they serve God through their academic vocation.
We were a bit dismayed, after looking at AFR results for last year, to discover that of 818 undergrad fellowships, 400 reported having not one faculty person involved in the ministry in any way and 271 reported merely one (probably the faculty advisor). Only 147 staff reported being connected with more than one Christian faculty ally. We are eager to see this change over these next few years.
So, on behalf of the Collegiate Ministries leadership, I invite all campus staff to make it your goal this year to cultivate at least one new Christian professor or administrator as a ministry partner with you in your work on campus. And then to begin to think of how you could invest in that person as someone called to do good work and bear witness on behalf of Christ within our shared mission field. The faculty ministry department has resources to help you. GFM staff will also be ready to chat with any undergrad staff at SC17 about these things—look for our “Got Scholars?” buttons.
May the Lord give us new eyes to see the role of faculty in our mission and our mission to faculty in their roles!
