How Do You Pray?

Recently I had a great conversation about academic faithfulness with students at a nearby college. The students were honest and open about their own struggles to be faithful to Christ in academic pursuits. What hinders academic faithfulness? Many responded that they were overwhelmed, fragmented, lazy, and only motivated by grades. We then discussed what practices might lead toward academic faithfulness. Prayer was mentioned. I asked, “How many of you pray about what you are learning?” Again, the group was honest: academics is rarely on their prayer list.

What follow comes from page 105 of The Outrageous Idea of Academic Faithfulness. This is a challenge to us all as we consider how to pray to the Lord of education:

Would you be willing to commit yourself to a week-long prayer experiment? Pray for your professors, for your classmates, for your research interests, for wisdom. If you are part of a prayer or Bible study group, pray about taking learning seriously. Pray before each class. A brief prayer will do just fine, and pray before you begin to engage your readings and assignments. We think that this is a good place to start the journey of academic faithfulness and this is something tangible that you can do. We also think that this experiment will help you to establish an important practice that in time will change you. Saying a little prayer like this before a class or before you study would be a good start:

God, I trust that you have called me to this institution, this major, this class. Help me to discern the lies, to retain valuable insights, and to contribute humbly as I may. I ask for your wisdom as I learn more about your world. Watch over me as I study and engage this material. Through my work here prepare me to serve in your kingdom.

Marks of Academic Revival

Recently, my wife and I were given a book that has become the catalyst for rethinking the notion of revival on our college campuses. The book, Accounts of a Campus Revival, by Timothy Beougher and Lyle Dorsett, is an account of a spiritual revival that unfolded on the campus of Wheaton College in 1995. It records testimony from those at Wheaton and other colleges throughout the country who have experienced similar spiritual movements and revivals.

Accounts of a Campus Revival captured my attention because as these events were occurring I was an undergraduate at Geneva College, a small Christian school in western Pennsylvania. I distinctly remember the desires of many students and a handful of staff for a replication of the Wheaton revival. We prayed, sang, read the scriptures, and engaged in communal confession. When the dust had settled in the early hours of the morning, people were exhausted from crying out for the Lord to come. I staggered to my room and slept through both of my classes that day. These steps were repeated for a few weeks until, feeling as defeated as the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel, I fell back into the normalcy of college life.

Over a decade later, I am reminded of that moment, of that event. In 1995, the question that haunted our minds was, "How do we create a campus revival?" Now, after years of working in campus ministry and having entered the simultaneous roles of student and teacher, the question has been reformed. Instead of asking how to create a revival (as if it were ours for the creating), it seems that the question more properly should be, "What is campus revival?" Or, perhaps as I want to pose here, "What is academic revival?"

Robert E. Coleman, in Accounts of a Campus Revival, defines revival this way: "to wake up and live" (derived from Psalm 85:6). Further, Coleman looks to Charles Finney in suggesting that revival simply "consists in obeying God." These are worthwhile and faithful pursuits. Yet, there seems to be an inconsistency between these definitions and the testimony of what occurred, what I hoped for. The accounts of campus revival consisted of a wildly irregular occurrence of the "spiritual," including nightlong prayer, healing, confession, and a diligent pursuit of traditional spiritual disciplines. Not to be misunderstood, I am not suggesting that those who inhabit college campuses should not pursue traditional disciplines, nor do I suggest that the hand of the Reviver was not at work on these college campuses in the mid-1990s (I cannot declaim this enough). But what I want to call on my friends and colleagues to pray for is a different type of revival.

A peculiar characteristic of the accounts of revival is that they had very little to do with the academy. The revival happened at a site, disembodied from the purposes, mission, and primary pursuits of the institution of higher education. I recall nowhere testimony of how the Spirit moved in the lecture halls, in library study carrels, late night study groups, or in the writing center. The revival or, better yet, the renewal that I pray for is one that is rooted in a place that is intimately connected with the intent of its locus.

If, as Finney asserts, revival is obedience unto God, then campus revival would be composed of the renewed pursuit of traditional disciplines. But the primary thrust should be distinctly marked by a passionate pursuit of living fully in the roles and vocations to which we are called as students, as professors, and as staff workers. To truly "wake up and live" on the college campus would see Christian students, faculty and staff chasing after university life, together. It would consist of students taking their studies seriously in a transformational way, and faculty members seeing their teaching as a holy calling from the Lord of education Himself. These things would be pursued as spiritual disciplines. Instead of skipping classes to take part in prayer meetings, students might even skip their fellowship groups to create and craft serious scholarly work that exemplified and added to the Kingdom of God.

I want to briefly suggest a working list of nine marks of academic revival in the hope that it can be built upon and added to.

1. Students' pursuing the vocation of learning
If this sounds self-evident, I would invite you to visit and talk with undergraduates at colleges and universities. Within the halls of learning many or most students are in college for the sake of acquiring a $100,000 ticket to a higher paying job. This desire is created and sustained by a culture of upward mobility. The dominant paradigm screams, "Get a degree, make more money, buy a big house and things you don't need." To engage in learning, in my experience, is clearly not the primary telos (purpose) of many college students.

2. Students and teachers' stewarding the resources of learning
There are many resources available that are radical, transformational, but eminently accessible. Students and staff alike should pursue books, online resources, conferences, and people who aid in the pursuit of loving God in the academy. Sources of learning would end not with a class syllabus, but would extend creatively "beyond." Those who are not within the contexts of classrooms pursuing a faithful study of disciplines from a Kingdom perspective would engage in double-study. They would not only work within the confines of their assignments, but they would also be working overtime to understand content from within the grand narrative of Scripture.

3. Students, teachers, and staffs making friendships
I do not mean that they would be buddies or merely congenial. I pray that students and staff would cultivate a deep care for one another, engage in dialogue, and push one another toward further faithfulness as co-laborers in their related vocations. I am delighted that I have had the benefit of open doors and standing invitations from professors. Some of the most memorable and substantial learning moments I experienced were in a professor's living room, drinking exotic teas and delving into the ideas and events of the world. Even more radically, this semester I was invited along with two other professors to have dinner and fellowship in one of the men's resident halls on campus. These young men had prepared an amazing meal for us, so as to show their gratitude and to ask questions regarding faithful living as students.

4. Students' "leaving" their colleges
One of the things I regret most about my time at Geneva is that while I was waiting for "revival" I did not take advantage of leaving. When revival comes, students will use their time to leave and see what is beyond: they will study abroad, they will use their summers to become wise, they will live off campus to live in communities so as to meet people embedded in life outside the academy and to remember what is beyond the walls of the learning.

5. Students' praying
They will pray about the things commonly seen as revival, but they will also pray for wisdom and diligence in their pursuit of knowing deeply, of working tirelessly, and of developing an understanding about what academics have to do with the entirety of life.

6. Students and teachers' engaging academic breadth
The future caseworker will plunge into the required earth science class, the engineer would drink of the humanities, and the special education teacher would taste the glory of God in their political science core class. Likewise, professors will be proponents of an understanding of the breadth of the creation through support of a strong core and the exploration of classes outside of their disciplines.

7. Working to the glory of God alone
In an environment where evaluation reigns this pursuit certainly is difficult. The majority of students are driven by grades, whether it is those who try to determine what is the least amount of work required to attain the best grade possible or those who toil vigorously for the sake of the highest esteem and opportunity beyond graduation. Meanwhile, many professors teach and publish for the sake of tenure and status. When academic revival sweeps through our college campuses, we will experience an excellence unlike any other we have seen before. As the apostle Paul exhorts the church at Colossae: "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men" (Colossians 3:23). This sort of wholehearted work will result in entrance into graduate schools, tenure, and positions of great significance, and will bring an "inheritance from the Lord" as our reward.

8. Desiring and praying for constant renewal
Revival is often marked by a sudden, irregular, and short-lived movement. Our hope and prayer should be for a deeply rooted, consistent, and lasting transformation on our campuses. Borrowing from Eugene Peterson, may our academic work be "a long obedience in the same direction."

9. Embracing the whole
Are we suggesting a revival limited to the academy? Let me say that this renewal will spring forth within the classroom and move beyond its walls. A responsible pursuit of the normative roles of educator and student is not one that merely casts aside other aspects of life. It integrates them. The roles of student and teacher include care for practiced justice, love of genuine relationship, and the appropriate practice of recreation and play, as well as academics.

In discussing some of these markers of revival with students and staff I know and appreciate, I have been met with diverse responses. Some are inspired and have begun the long journey. Others dismiss them as characteristic of the idealism of youth, as if it would take a miracle to see these marks realized. The former offer me hope. The latter are more correct than they know. It will be miraculous. And this is why we cry out like the psalmist to the God who administers miracles in our lives and vocations:

"Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?"

-- Keith Martel

This article originally appeared in Comment magazine, the opinion journal of CARDUS.

Born to Learn

My son Jacob Henry was born on November 12, 2007. It’s fun to watch him learn new things. Now, he hasn’t had any outrageous ideas yet or anything. He’s more in the discovery mode. Everything is new! That must be my hand. Oh, look at that light. Who is that guy making weird faces and talking funny? Jacob is a learner. Mostly learning fills the spaces between eating and sleeping.

In the beginning God created learners. It’s there in the text. God “took man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” (Genesis 2:15). Think of the learning involved in that task. And, remember, Adam couldn’t run to Home Depot for a shovel! In fact, you can trace “learning” throughout the whole Biblical story. The Psalmists speak of meditating on God’s law day and night. Proverbs is concerned with turning knowledge into wisdom. The Prophets decried that the people of God didn’t know God or his Word. Jesus came as a teacher and said we were to love God with our minds. The Apostle Paul told us to take everything we learn and make it obedient to Christ. Learning, it seems, is central to being a Christian.

Here’s the deeper point: Learning is central to being human. We were born to learn. God has graciously given us a whole world to explore and discover. There are always new things to learn. But here’s the flipside: if we are not learning, if we are not continually using our minds in God honoring ways, we’re not living up to our God-given potential. Do you know people like that? They’ve stopped learning. You know the guy who hasn’t read a book in five years. Or, the person who has everything figured out and figures she doesn’t need to learn anything more. I know people like that. Sometimes I go down that road.

And here’s the weird thing about our culture: school sometimes hinders learning. Imagine that. If we don’t have good reasons for learning, or if our learning becomes disconnected to everyday life, it can become boring or meaningless. Jacob is growing by leaps and bounds. My prayer is that he continues to grow as a learner.

NEW Leader's Guide

While the book The Outrageous Idea of Academic Faithfulness can be used for individual study, we have found that students grasp the content of the book much more thoroughly when read under the guidance of a mentor, small group leader or teacher. The leader’s guide is designed to assist leaders in their preparation for leading discussions around the themes in the book. Our hope is to see a generation of young scholars take both their faith and studies seriously. May this new study guide help toward that end!

Click here to learn more about the Leader's Guide

Click here to download the Leader's Guide (.pdf)

Advice for the Young: Develop a Craft?

Matthew Crawford’s new book Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work makes a strong case for the value of “working with one’s hands,” or manual labor. With a PhD in political philosophy, Crawford has worked at universities and think-tanks, in what he calls “knowledge work.” But it was never satisfying. The “work” was too abstract, without much to show for it. When he opened a motorcycle repair shop things began to change. Not only did he find this work more meaningful and enjoyable, but he also noticed that it required him to think more. Repairing motorcycles was more intellectual in a richer, deeper sense of the word. (Click here to learn more about the book and to view a video of Crawford’s appearance on The Colbert Report.)

Crawford wonders, "Given the intrinsic richness of manual work - cognitively, socially, and in its broader psychic appeal - the question becomes why it has suffered such a devaluation as a component of education." Where have all the shop classes gone? As a culture do we tend to look down upon work and workers who do manual labor? In attempting to answer these questions, Crawford has some important things to say about education in general and higher education in particular. I think his concerns warrant consideration for those thinking about academic faithfulness. He writes:

“So what advice should one give to a young person? If you have a natural bent for scholarship; if you are attracted to the most difficult books out of an urgent need, and can spare four years to devote yourself to them, go to college. In fact, approach college in the spirit of craftsmanship, going deep into liberal arts and sciences. But if this is not the case; if the thought of four more years sitting in a classroom makes your skin crawl, the good news is that you don’t have to go through the motions and jump through the hoops for the sake of making a decent living. Even if you do go to college, learn a trade in the summers. You’re likely to be less damaged, and quite possibly better paid, as an independent tradesman than as a cubicle-dwelling tender of information systems or low-level 'creative.' To heed such advice would require a certain contrarian streak, as it entails rejecting a life course mapped out by others as obligatory and inevitable.”

Readers of this blog are diverse. Some are current and former students, some are on faculty and staff at colleges and universities, and some are considering whether or not higher education is the best next step for them. I’m curious, what do you think of Crawford’s advice for young people?

Love Correction?

My guess is that since the invention of grading academic work, students have disputed with professors over their marks. But during my college years, more and more professors were noticing a shift in the way these conversations were going. Here’s the change: if a student was not satisfied with her grade, she would bring it to the attention of the professor with the expectation that the grade would be changed. After all, students are consumers and consumers know best! Some professors were even getting phone calls from parents of students complaining about grades.

Since working with college students for several years, I’ve noticed that the shift that had taken place when I was an undergraduate is now commonplace. Disputing and having grades changed (for the better, of course) is simply part of playing the “college game” well. Everyone is doing it. I was thinking about this recently as I was reading through the book of Proverbs. This one caught my eye:

“Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid” (Proverbs 12:1).

Eugene Peterson translates it this way in The Message:
“If you love learning, you love the discipline that goes with it— how shortsighted to refuse correction!"

Now, I’m sure that there are grades worth disputing. Students shouldn’t be reluctant to talk to professors about why grades were given. But this passage reminds us of something about academic faithfulness that is often missed: real learning comes through discipline and correction. We can’t shortcut the process by arguing our way to better grades. If you find yourself wanting to dispute a poor grade on a paper or test with a professor, begin the conversation by first asking: what could I have done to make this better?

Keep this in mind: if you hate correction the Bible calls you stupid. Don’t be stupid, instead, consider a bad grade as an opportunity to grow in wisdom.

--Derek Melleby

Growing Up Well: Reconciling Piety and Engagement

The May/June 2008 issue of Relevant Magazine features key thinkers in the Christian community answering questions about “burning issues” like war, consumerism and homosexuality. Question number one is, “Is our focus on social justice out of balance?” A theme in the responses, particularly in comments made by Jim Wallis and Shane Claiborne, is that social justice and evangelism should not be considered separate things that Christians need to attempt to “balance;” rather, they’re both part of an all-things, wholly encompassing faith in Jesus. Talking about balance assumes that one without the other can be complete. Wallis explains, “If we’re not calling people into deeper levels of personal relationship with God, we’re not taking the Gospel seriously. If we’re not engaging the world, bringing empowerment to the marginalized and addressing the specific injustices of our time, we’re also not taking the Gospel seriously. It’s that simple.”

For me, related to the question of balancing things that shouldn’t be separate in the first place is the false dichotomy of personal piety and cultural engagement. In my work with students at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, I’ve met many Christian students who want to take personal piety and leave cultural engagement. These students, the Devotees, are kind and diligent and thoughtful. They attend chapel regularly and they strive toward daily disciplines like prayer and devotions. They are leaders in their dorm communities who readily head up mission trips and start Bible studies. I’ve also met many Christian students who want to take cultural engagement and leave piety. These students, the Engagers, tend to be well-read intellectuals with broad artistic taste. They like to do wonderfully nerdy things like discuss films and go to museums.

While both types of students are passionately living into a vision of Christian faithfulness, they’re both lacking a particular type of rootedness that threatens the fullness of their identity as followers of Christ. The Devotees have grown a deep taproot through scriptural study, service and spiritual disciplines, but lack the nutrients that can be gained by sending roots out into the soil around them, which eventually starves the whole tree. The Engagers, on the other hand, continue to send horizontal roots further and further out into their cultural context, but risk being blown over by a strong gust of wind because they have weak centering rituals reinforcing their primary story of faith.

Do you identify yourself with one of these types of believers? Most of us tend to have a bias one way or another, but a healthy, mature tree has both a strong tap root and diverse, widely spreading horizontal roots that help it flourish, different kinds of roots that all feed the same healthy organism. Mature believers, that is those who see the interconnectedness of all things in the Kingdom of God, contribute together toward a healthy, diverse forest of believers that serves the whole world as a manifestation of the Creator.

So how do we become such mature believers? Praying unceasingly might be a good place to start. And by unceasing prayer, I don’t mean only on our knees in the chapel where the Devotees might gravitate, or through exclusively intellectual exercise that is the specialty of the Engagers (though both activities have their places). Rather, unceasing prayer is a communal orienting of all of our branches and growth toward the Light. Eugene Peterson offers some clues about how to do this in The Message: “So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering” (from Romans 12:1). What would it look like if our choice of transportation to work were an offering to God? How could a meal itself—the shopping, the preparation, the eating—communicate our love for Jesus, in addition to a prayer of gratitude before we eat? What rituals can help us turn off some of the noise from both inside and outside of ourselves to discern the voice of the Spirit?

We all have unique callings in the Kingdom. However, what we all have in common is the call to devote our whole selves—heart, soul, mind and strength—to the God whose Kingdom has implications for every square inch of life. Personal piety and cultural engagement, social justice and evangelism are all aspects of, as Wallis puts it, “taking the Gospel seriously.”

--Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma

Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma and her husband Rob share the Research and Program Coordination position in the Student Activities Office at Calvin College.

The Right Use of School Studies

"Students must therefore work without any wish to gain good marks, to pass examinations, to win school successes; without any reference to their natural abilities and tastes; applying themselves equally to all their tasks, with the idea that each one will help to form in them the habit of that attention which is the substance of prayer… To make this the sole and exclusive purpose of our studies is the first condition to be observed if we are to put them to the right use.

The second condition it to take great pains to examine squarely and to contemplate attentively and slowly each school task in which we have failed, seeing how unpleasing and second rate it is, without seeking any excuse or overlooking any mistake or any of our tutor’s corrections, trying to get down to the origin of each fault. There is a great temptation to do the opposite… Most of us do this nearly always. We have to withstand this temptation."

--Simone Weil (1909-1943), Waiting for God

Finding Calcutta and a FREE Book

One aspect of college life that is pretty central to the experience is reading. There’s a lot of reading that is (supposed) to go on during the university years. Recently, it seems, reading has taken a hit. According to some studies, fewer and fewer people, especially young people, are reading. This is sad. Books can be transformative.

One of the best books I read last year was Finding Calcutta: What Mother Teresa Taught Me About Meaningful Work and Service by professor Mary Poplin. I had a chance to interview her about the book and when the interview was finished this thought occurred to me: Finding Calcutta should be required reading for all college students. Poplin tells the story of spending a sabbatical with Mother Teresa, learning what it means to serve the poorest of the poor. Poplin then explains how she integrated that experience with her work as a university professor at Claremont Graduate University.

Finding Calcutta is a powerful story with this central theme: All work should be done in service to Jesus and others. That would include academic work as well as future occupations. This book has transformative power. It’s the kind of book that I wish I read in college. Here’s the good news: I have one to give away for FREE!

Here’s how it works: First, “comment” to answer the question below. Second, if there are more than 10 comments, I will select a winner randomly (I typically put all of the names in a hat or ask someone to pick a number between 1 and however many people commented). Third, I will announce the winner in the near future and explain how to receive the free book. Here’s the question:

What do think was the most important book(s) you read in college?

Please, only one comment per person.

The Academic Fruits of the Spirit

While there is some overlap, the gifts of the Spirit that are listed by Paul (Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4) display a considerable range. Add to those lists the gifts of craftsmanship given to Bezalel and Oholiab for the making of the tabernacle (Exodus 31), and a picture of God’s lavish and diverse generosity is revealed. I am convinced that the college years ought to be a time for students to discern and develop the gifts that they have been given. Unfortunately, educational institutions are generally designed to provide a common education, not gift discernment and distinctive opportunities for each peculiar student—like you.

Instead of developing an approach to education based on gifts, let me make a more modest proposal. Let’s imagine an approach to education based on the fruits of the Spirit. There is really only one passage that employs this phrase, the fruits of the Spirit, and that is Galatians 5:22. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. The Holy Spirit wants to produce these attributes, these virtues, in every believer. Can you imagine academic work with these virtues in full view—where our studying is done for the sake of love, and it is done with joy, and pursued patiently and kindly with others? And I don’t imagine that these are the only virtues that the Holy Spirit is interested in producing in us.

Recently I was talking to some students, and we were trying to imagine a different list of the fruits of the Spirit, one that Paul might have written (in our imagination) for an academic community. No doubt the fruits listed in Galatians 5 apply, but what other virtues do students need to develop in order to honor the Lord of learning? We came up with a couple, and perhaps you will be able to imagine a couple more.

Humility. People who think that they know everything are not prepared to learn anything. Good learning doesn’t begin until one becomes a student—curious, open, teachable.

Industry. Learning isn’t like falling off a log. Granted, we do learn a great deal quite effortlessly. But by the time college rolls around, most of what we are trying to learn requires a good bit of effort. Good students work hard.

Collegiality. Good students not only work hard, but they work together. A number of qualities need to come together for you to become a good partner in the learning process. Humility and industry, along with kindness and gentleness seem like a good start. But I imagine that you can have these qualities and still be a bit of a loner. Being collegial first requires this—valuing your partners.

Wonder. Too much learning is merely instrumental—to get a good grade, a good job, a little prestige. And much learning is certainly instrumental—to solve a problem, to reach a goal, to benefit a community. These are more selfless goals. In my experience, however, learning comes alive when it is not merely a means to an end. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom—or so the Proverbs remind us over and over again. Awe and wonder before God, and in the playfield of all that God has made, adds a depth and richness to learning. Sadly, much about our own education has wrung the wonder right out of us. It isn’t too late to find it again.

It may seem strange to think about the connection between the Holy Spirit and academic work. I don’t think this connection is at all strange. In fact, I think that God’s Spirit loves to connect people to truth, and to the one who is the source of truth and wisdom and knowledge (John 14:6; Colossians 2:3).

--Donald Opitz