Faculty members have the capacity to love and be invested in the campus more than we as InterVarsity staff do. Since 2015, I have been serving at Middlesex Community College (MCC), Lowell Campus, partnering with a PhD professor of science who had been leading a Bible study club for students there for 10 years. While this co-laborer in the gospel served so well and so faithfully for 10 years all alone, she desired help. She didn’t have the time, capacity, or resources to take the Bible study club to another level. By God’s grace, this sister and I met, and since then have partnered to create spaces for Christians and non-Christians to experience Jesus on campus.
Background:
The undergraduate ministry has been blessed and has been a blessing, but recently I’ve been wondering how to integrate more professors into this ministry. That is when Dr. Alice Brown-Collins (Dr. ABC) stepped on to the scene. I met with her a few times in the fall semester of 2018 and we connected with each other, built trust, and prayed with each other. We decided to intercede for the campuses in Lowell, and that led to the phrase about faculty that has reverberated in my head ever since Dr. ABC uttered it, “Let’s just get them praying for the campus.”
So we started reaching out to the faculty we knew at MCC, and invited them to a breakfast. The invitation to these faculty members was to intercede for their campus in light of the brokenness they see on campus. Only the initial professor and myself showed up to the breakfast. There were three others who were interested in being there, but for one reason or another (mostly time constraints), they didn’t or couldn’t make it.
Observations:
So we chose to change our methodology; we decided to host a virtual prayer time on Zoom. Dr. ABC joined us along with a professor of science and a professor of business administration. The first one was powerful. Dr. ABC and I observed the following:
1. This was the beginning of broadening the vision for missional prayer at Middlesex Community College. Both professors expressed the need to invite others to pray and expand the network. They clearly understood the need to create a community of people who prayed.
2. Using zoom video as a way to communicate was clearly a "win-win." To quote one of the participants, "Using zoom is not threatening." Also, since faculty, staff and administrators are on overload at the community college, it allows for flexibility in terms of when to pray.
3. The professors were grateful for this time to pray. They expressed thanks for the ministry of InterVarsity, nationally and globally, as well as how wonderful it was to have this time, in a secular and sometimes hostile campus, to receive encouragement.
Right now our plan is to meet every other month to pray communally. We hope to host an in-person event at the beginning of the next school year where we’ll have food, community time, and prayer in person.
Conclusion:
Because faculty love the students in a deeper, more intimate way than I am able to, empowering and gathering them to cry out to the LORD on the students’ behalf just makes sense. The challenge thus far has been finding a time that works for them. However, when I hear the hearts of these faculty, and I hear about the brokenness that the students are experiencing, the small but real barrier of time is worth tackling.
Please pray for us here at Middlesex Community College in Lowell, Mass., as we continue to lift up this campus and listen on behalf of this campus to the LORD in prayer.
