Juices are flowing on this one and I think it’s kind of fun. If you haven’t read the posts yet I’d encourage you to do so. My desire for this series is simply to get thought going, for us to be able to have answers for the way we do things, and to take a look (hopefully a fresh one) at how we’ve been going about these environments. I also want to challenge the idea that we simply continue doing what we’re doing just because that’s always the way we’ve done it.
My desire is not to bash these environments in any way – although I smile a bit when people think that’s what I’m doing. Believe it or not I do think these environments are needed today and this post will in fact show that (hopefully).
That said, let me throw out this thought on these environments…
Mission or Education?
The question I have is in regard to the role these college’s see themselves having. Or, even more pointedly, what do parents and/or others view them having? What is the perception people have?
I’m a bit concerned that they have simply become an accredited “safe Christian environment” where people can be instructed in a particular field/major. We provide an environment and in some ways a sub-culture. Every college campus is a sort of sub-culture in itself, so some of this is inevitable!
But, personally I’d like to see more of a focus on mission. I’d love our Christian colleges to focus more on equipping missionaries in a particular sociological field! This is some of the mindset out there, but I don’t think the majority. The professors ought to be the top of the line in their field, ought to have lived out their faith in the particular field they are teaching, and be equipping their students to view that field as a mission. They should not only know the industry, but also the people in that industry. They ought to be educating our students with the knowledge necessary to excel in that field, but also modeling a missionary lifestyle in that particular area.
I’d love to see our college’s deconstructing the Christian college sub-culture (or bubble) as much as possible, helping our students to know what it’s like to live in the culture of our day and what it means to view themselves as missionaries in a particular field. Instead I’m fearful that we are graduating too many people that are comfortable in the environment we’ve provided, but don’t know how to function as a missionary in the area/field they’ve focused on.
By the way, I also think the church has the same problem in many ways. We all need to focus on mission more.
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Chuck Bomar is pastor of Colossae Church in Portland, Oregon and founder of CollegeLeader (
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I definitely agree that one of the advantages for a Christian college is the opportunity to teach vocational spirituality. That’s one of the key teachings college students need!
You state that the majority of Christian colleges (or people involved? I wasn’t sure which you meant) aren’t focusing primarily on teaching students to live out their vocation Christianly or “on mission.” Can you fill me in on the study/ies you’re referring to?
Also, what college ministries have you seen focusing most on this area (besides Christian colleges)?
Benson, most of my comments and insights come from the research we did at Cornerstone before starting Eternity Bible College. After our findings – data research as well as all of mine and Francis’ experiences at colleges – we wanted a place where everything was cohesive and everything worked with, for, and through local churches for missional reasons.
EBC is focused on training people to work in/through local churches – whether that be oversee’s or locally. It’s a para church organization. I do think there is a role for college’s to train in other fields of study (literature, science, etc.), I just think it would be great if it were all cohesively working together – spiritual directors, professors, and local churches.
Sorry; I meant to specifically ask about the comment that most colleges (or professors?) were not focusing primarily on “equipping missionaries in a particular sociological field.” Sorry if I was unclear.
Can you point us to that data / those studies you used (or at least the methodology of the studies) that specifically looked at vocational preparation issues? That’s kind of been a theme of what I’ve been learning about the last month or so, and I would love to know the positives / negatives of Christian colleges in this area.
Also, what are some good models of college ministries or entire Christian colleges doing that well?
I think the issue, more specifically, is what the Christian academy is teaching, or not teaching, concerning the relationship between faith and work. First, a Reformed perspective on work has been tremendously helpful for me. The Reformers, like John Calvin, eliminated the long held medieval distinction between sacred work and secular work. They elevated all vocations into a calling blessed by God. All work is significant because God himself engaged in the work of creation. Work also involves, for the Reformers, worship. That is, we worship God through obedience to him in our jobs; our attitude makes work meaningful. Work, furthermore, provides a context for our continual learning about God. Our job, if we let it, can cultivate godliness, moderation, perseverance, and self-control. Thus, any job has the potential to transform us.
Second, we have opportunities to integrate our faith and work so that we don’t end up having a working world and another world outside of work where the two never meet. David Miller in his book God at Work offers four ways of bringing our faith and our jobs together: connecting biblical ethics to concrete applications in the marketplace; seeing the workplace as a mission field to reach the lost; finding meaning and purpose in work through a Christian worldview; and, using my job as a means of personal change through working with others in community and fellowship.
Yes, all work involves a certain amount of toil and difficulty. But seeing it as the possibility of sharing in the work that God wants to do on this earth can help us in those times when we feel like we are going nowhere. In a day when the level of satisfaction for so many in their jobs is low, we need to recover looking at our vocation from a more biblical point of view. If college students can gain this outlook now, it can the means of transforming society for the better, and recovering a sense of mission in the world.
All these blogs have really been making me think. I’m very torn. On the one hand, I totally think Christian schools should prepare people to be missionaries in their vocation and to see that secular jobs are a God given calling. But on the other hand, I think that should not have to be the role of the Christian college. That should be the role of the church, shouldn’t it?
I’ve always thought the main reason we have Christian colleges in the first place is so we can get an education that is founded on a true worldview rather than a false one. A secular university would teach everything based on many presuppositions that Christians do not agree with, and thus come to conclusions that Christians should many times not agree with (e.g., relative morality, atheism / anti-supernaturalism, etc.). So a Christian would go to a Christian college to learn how to properly see the world and try and understand all fields of study based on what we truly believe is true about the world, and we will come to a lot of different conclusions.
But again I’m torn. Should Christians get a Christian education, or get a secular education and be encouraged in the church on how to discern truth from error based on solid biblical teaching?
Dave, phenomenal thoughts my friend. Reading your comment was very encouraging to me. I personally think you’re asking the right questions and are wrestling with the right issues!
I would say though, that I don’t think you’re as torn as you think you are. I think you know the answers you’d have – or at least think are biblically ideal. The “torn” part is probably less of what you think is right than it is about you wrestling with what “you’ve always known” with what you see biblically.
fun stuff!