The Four Loves: Love Your Campus

How can I extend welcome to newcomers in my university and neighborhood?

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being, even as we are.  He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.  Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. ...

Sitting at their tables, my students listened to me with red-rimmed eyes or drooping heads. Many had half empty coffee cups near them. They were tired. Painfully tired.

Every summer, InterVarsity hosts the Midwest Faculty Conference as a time for faculty to rest, reflect, and meet with God and each other. This year's theme was The Faculty Vocation: Exploring a Christian Anthropology of the Academic Life. Mike Gehrling, InterVarsity's Director of International Graduate Student and Faculty Ministry, crafted liturgies for worship around the theme of vocation for the event. He shares them with us here.

O Christ, teach us to rejoice in our sufferings. Teach us what it means to fill up in our flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ. Teach us what it means to suffer for the sake of Your body, the church.

If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.

For beloved brothers and sisters, For faithful ministers and fellow servants of the Lord, For those who know our circumstances 
and comfort our hearts, For those who make known to us the works of God, We praise thee, O Lord.

Earlier today, I wrote a letter to my major professor from my Ph.D. program thanking him for all the time and work he put into training me. I told him that any accomplishment that I or my students might achieve could be accredited to him because of his dedication to excellence. Knowing him, this statement might mean as much to him as his winning of the Nobel Peace prize in 2007.

Oh Lord, You know what it is to be weary. You understand what it means to endure in hard circumstances. You carry our burdens as Your own.

New ESN Reading Lists Are you looking for a quick guide to some of our key starting point resources here at the ESN blog? We’ve designed a resource page that offers some great starting points for each career stage, and for InterVarsity’s Four Faculty Loves. Browse these if you’re looking for individual reading or small group conversation ...

What it means to love the university as an institution as participants, and not combatants, in a shared enterprise

What came of a vision students and faculty praying and worshiping God together.

“Rick, am I going to hell? Please tell me. I want to know what you think. I won’t be offended by what you say.”

“I really enjoyed the presentations and the conversation at my table. We had a stage 3 colon cancer survivor, a MD and a med student just beginning residency, so we had a rich conversation about suffering and how hope might be a cognitive process.”