Part of Our Scholar’s Compass Discussion Guide
Unit Introduction: One crucial way to think about faith and work is also one of the most approachable starting points: How can you love your neighbor through your work? That’s where we begin in this unit, offering several reflections on different ways to do that.
This group discussion guide is designed to be flexible, so some groups will be doing all four units and others may only be exploring one. We have provided short notes on: 1) How the unit fits into the overall discussion guide 2) How the unit functions individually.
How This Unit Fits Into Overall Discussion Guide: How confident do you feel about connecting your deepest beliefs and your work as a scholar? It might be something you have been eagerly exploring for years, or it might be a completely new idea. Wherever you are on that journey, we hope this first unit helps you brainstorm some new ways to connect faith and work, or further explore some you’re already practicing.
How This Unit Functions Individually: The goal is to help you explore ways of loving your neighbor through your own specific work in your field. This could be as simple as cleaning lab equipment or as complex as setting up your research around a project that can help a whole community. After 3 sessions, we hope you’ll have 1-3 ideas for loving your neighbor to start putting into practice in your work as a scholar.
Session 1: Sharing Wonder
Reading: Sharing the Wonder, by Ruth Bancewicz
What does it mean to love your neighbor through your work? There are many ways to do it, and one is sharing what you’re learning about the world God made. We’ll return to the idea of talking about faith and work during this discussion guide, for two reasons. One, talking about faith and work is a key way to find and develop your own understanding of how they connect. Two, sharing your work as a scholar is a way of sharing insights into God’s world, whether that means a specific insight into how God created nature or a growing understanding of how human societies can flourish. The wonder or knowledge you are finding in your work is a gift to others that can help them see God at work in the world. In the reading below, Ruth Bancewicz describes the joy of sharing the wonder she discovers in the natural sciences. We’ll start there as we reflect on our own ideas for sharing insights into work and faith with others.
Here’s a quick guide to exploring in small groups. If you’re having a fantastic discussion of one point, feel free to spend longer on it even if you don’t get to everything.
Small Group Discussion Guide:
Introductions: Each person please share your name, field area, and one funny misunderstanding of your field you’ve seen in tv/movies/books. Examples could include lab results that take only a few seconds on tv but days in real life, glamorous professor characters who never grade papers or go to faculty meetings, etc. (If you participated in a Scholar’s Compass retreat, you may have ideas on this already).
Reading: Take 5 minutes to read the Scholar’s Compass entry silently & write a few personal notes on what stood out to you.
Discussion Questions:
- Each person please share: What is one thing that stood out to you as you read?
- We started today by sharing funny misconceptions about our fields. Learning to articulate your academic work clearly can be a long and complex process, as Ruth describes in our reading today. What is one helpful way you have found to describe an aspect of your work to friends or family who are not in your field? If the question feels too big, feel free to share a very small example.
- If someone asked you to share something that fills you with wonder in your work, what would it be? It might be an aspect of nature, the work of another researcher that inspires you, progress made in your field on treating a disease or improving a societal structure, etc. Do you see any connections between that sense of wonder and your experience of faith?
- Do you find it easier to talk about connections between faith and work with Christian communities, or with colleagues who have a different belief system? Over time, what might help you feel more confident about exploring faith and work connections with your different communities?
- Next Steps: Take 5 minutes to write down 1-3 ideas on how you might be able to share your sense of wonder over time, either with Christian communities or with colleagues who might have other belief systems. Close with each member of the group sharing one idea.
Session 2: Loving Our Neighbor in Daily Work
Reading: Grading as a Spiritual Practice, by Anna Moseley Gissing
In our first session for this unit, we explored the idea of finding wonder in what our work reveals about God’s creation. But what about the times when we are simply doing the day to day work and not feeling particularly enchanted by it? Sometimes we have to debug software, read long lists in the archives looking for one fact, or grade a stack of quizzes. All of these things are important, but they don’t always feel exciting.
Yet often, these everyday details do provide us with a chance to love our neighbors in our work. We have the chance to approach them with care for colleagues, students, and staff around us. Every one of these activities might also improve the lives of people we have never even met, by supporting functional software systems, providing necessary knowledge, or preparing graduates who go on to contribute to their own workplaces and communities. Here, Anna Moseley Gissing reflects on grading as a spiritual practice where we have the opportunity to pursue justice and wisdom for our students. In our discussion, we’ll explore everyday tasks that might offer similar chances to love our neighbors.
Here’s a quick guide to exploring in small groups. If you’re having a fantastic discussion of one point, feel free to spend longer on it even if you don’t get to everything.
Small Group Discussion Guide:
Introductions: Each person please say your name, field area, and something you do often in your field. Examples could include lab experiments, writing papers, designing course prompts, etc.
Reading: Take 5 minutes to read the Scholar’s Compass entry silently & write a few personal notes on what stood out to you.
Discussion Questions:
- Each person please share: What is one thing that stood out to you as you read?
- What is an everyday task your field requires, like grading, reading historical records, or cleaning lab equipment? Does that task offer any direct opportunities to care for students, colleagues, or other neighbors in the university?
- Anna talks about how she seeks to adjust her approach to grading in order to make the results of her work good for students. She prays and works to be fair, just, and wise. How could you practice love for your neighbor in how you work with students? If you aren’t teaching right now, do you have a story of a way a teacher supported you well?
- It’s difficult to remember sometimes in the rush of everyday academic life, but many academic tasks have the long-term potential to help people we may never meet. Medical research may help cure people in the future, or art history research may help people express their creativity. Take a moment to imagine ways God might use your daily tasks for the good of others over time. Who are some of the unseen neighbors you may be able to bless through your work? Consider praying for them as you do your regular tasks.
- Next Steps: Take 5 minutes to write about the following questions. What are 1 or 2 ways you could love your neighbor through your work this week? What other ideas from the discussion will you think about this week? Close with each member of the group sharing one idea.
Session 3: Participating in Each Other’s Stories
Reading: Stories for Life, by Beth Madison
In this unit so far, we have explored two ways of loving our neighbors through our work: sharing our sense of wonder in the work, and loving our neighbor in the way we do our daily tasks. In our closing session for this unit, we’ll reflect on a third way of loving our neighbors in our work: participating in each other’s stories. If you think of each person you meet through your work as being on a journey, you have the opportunity to share part of that journey with them, to be a aprt of their story. We can learn to listen more fully to others as they invite us into the unfolding stories of their daily lives. We can pay more attention to what God is doing in our own stories day to day. And we can develop the practice of sharing our past stories to encourage others as we walk together on our present journeys. In this session, we’ll read Stories for Life by Beth Madison. Then we’ll reflect on the stories we are part of right now, and how we can love our neighbors as our lives unfold together.
Small Group Discussion Guide:
Here’s a quick guide to exploring in small groups. If you’re having a fantastic discussion of one point, feel free to spend longer on it even if you don’t get to everything.
Introductions: Each person please say your name, field area, and one thing you enjoy about your work.
Reading: Take 5 minutes to read the Scholar’s Compass entry silently & write a few personal notes on what stood out to you.
Discussion Questions:
- Each person please share: What is one thing that stood out to you as you read?
- Beth talks about one of her mentors and how she is still sharing stories from and about him as a way to encourage her own students. Is there a mentor in your life whose stories encourage you as a person and/or a scholar? Tell the group about that person, and perhaps share a story.
- As we grow in connection to those around us, we often become part of each other’s stories. As you think about the people you know, who stands out as someone who is already becoming a part of your story of life in the university? How could you listen more deeply to that person as their story unfolds? If you haven’t found that kind of connection yet, how could you start looking for it?
- Listening to others is a very important way to love our neighbors, and so is having the courage and generosity to share our own lives with them. How could you invite colleagues and friends more deeply into your own unfolding stories?
- Next Steps: Take 5 minutes to write down 1-3 ideas on how you might be able to participate in the stories of your colleagues and/or invite them into your own story. Since we are coming to the end of the unit, take a moment to look back on your previous ideas for loving your neighbor. Pick 1-2 ideas from the whole list that you want to think more about and put into practice soon. Close by each sharing one idea with the group.
Unit Conclusion & Next Unit
On the journey of connecting faith and work, this unit focused on loving your neighbor in your work as a scholar. There are many ways to love your neighbor through your work. Here we focused on 3: Sharing Wonder, Loving Our Neighbor in Daily Work, and Participating in Each Other’s Stories. One skill required by all three is the practice of giving attention to something. In Sharing Wonder, we give attention to how God is revealed in the wonder of nature and human life. In Daily Work, we learn to pay attention to what our neighbor needs even in small and mundane tasks. In Participating in Each Other’s Stories, we pay attention to the lives we and our neighbors are living. We look for the ways God is at work in our stories as they unfold. There are many ways to connect faith and work, and these models are meant to get you started. May God bless your imagination and your actions as you grow in loving your neighbor through your work!
Next Unit: Explore Unit 2
While each unit can stand on its own, those wishing to explore further can go on to Unit 2.