The proper balance of hope and critical thinking will best prepare us to address deeper societal challenges—like racism, poverty, and inequalities—facing our communities.Read more…
Where Are You Planted? (Masterclass in Writing, Part 6)
The goal of writing is to communicate your message with authority to your intended audience in the form they expect and the limited time they have. This post addresses the first of these A’s: audience awareness.Read more…
Highlighting Community: Princeton Grad IV Social Justice Discussion
Restarting the Princeton InterVarsity Graduate Fellowship and talking about social justice. Read more…
Book Review: Called to Community, edited by Charles E. Moore
A collection of readings on Christian community centered around the Bruderhof Community but also including theologians and writers from throughout church history.Read more…
Highlighting Community: Graduate Prayer Lunch at University of South Florida
When I arrived to the University of South Florida (USF) in August of 2014 to begin my PhD in Environmental Engineering, I found that many Christian organizations existed, yet none targeted graduate students.Read more…
Highlighting Community: The Center for Christianity and Scholarship, Upcoming Events in North Carolina
The Center for Christianity and Scholarship explores intersections of Christian thought with the scholarly and academic life of the university in North Carolina’s Research Triangle. Learn about their programs and a few upcoming events. Read more…
Book Review: Faith-Rooted Organizing, by Rev. Alexia Salvatierra and Peter Heltzel
Summary: Most advocacy and activism efforts have been organized around secular principles. The authors explore what organizing and advocacy work that is deeply and thoroughly rooted in Christian principles would look like and illustrate this from their years of experience.Read more…
Science Reader Question: My Martian Neighbor
We should never stop looking for new ways to expand our sense of neighborhood; we should never be satisfied that we have found all our neighbors.Read more…
Science Corner: The Bottom-up Route to your Community (Pt 2)
Children can help you connect to your local community.Read more…
Finding Christ When You’re Busy, Part 4 (Scholar’s Compass)
The people who prayed me through graduate school included homemakers, staff members of a local food pantry, artists, lawyers, part time church secretaries, state tax employees, retail workers, and so many others.Read more…
Science Corner: The Bottom-up Route to your Community (Pt 1)
How can those in the hectic years of research . . . not lose touch with the problems within their own local community?Read more…
Science Corner: The Top-Down Route to your Community
Question: What I am seeing is that the understandably busy lives of even highly motivated Christian professionals often lead them to become more and more isolated from those parts of society most in need of outreach, friendship, and fellowship from Christians. So…how can those in the hectic years of research, working on getting those final papers done for the PhD, etc., not lose touch with the problems within their own local community?Read more…
My Calling at Church (Liturgies of Calling, Post 4)
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.Read more…
My Calling at Home (Liturgies of Calling, Post 3)
If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.Read more…
My Calling at Work (Liturgies of Calling, Post 2)
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.Read more…
Liturgies of Calling, Post 1 (Highlighting Community)
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.Read more…
Fall Preview: Highlighting Community
As we wrap up our fall preview series today, we’d like to highlight one more way to engage with community. We’re inviting members and friends of ESN to share more about their own communities on the blog this year. We’d love to encourage emerging scholars by sharing what other believers are doing to build community in their own localities or online networks. Read more…
Fall Preview: Interviews
Want to join our team of interviewers? Or are you willing to be interviewed about topics such as choosing graduate programs and applying, navigating different career stages, learning to teach, publishing your first book, etc.? Read more…
Just Being With (Scholar’s Compass)
For many (including me), conferences are seen as a welcome chance to get away from the business of office and family life and work on other tasks. We conference escapists sit tapping away at our laptops while making just enough eye contact with presenters so as not to qualify as intolerably rude. Read more…
Community, Excellence, and Joy, Part 1 (Closing Interview, Faithful Is Successful series)
It is too risky not to engage with a Christian academic community. Read more…
Pilgrimage: Life of a Pilgrim on Campus (Scholar’s Compass)
As we near the end of this series of devotions on pilgrimage, let’s return to where we began, on that highway to Jerusalem in Psalm 84. On that highway travelers have their hearts set on arriving in Jerusalem and worshipping in God’s holy temple. With their focus set on this story, the path they walk becomes one of refreshing springs even in the desert. When we encounter Paul in Athens, he is also following a story, a story that begins on a road to Damascus. Read more…
Pilgrimage: Communitas in the Academy (Scholar’s Compass)
As we muddle our way through liminal spaces on the path to a sacred center, especially with others who also see themselves on pilgrimage, not only do we change, but so do our relationships. A unique community arises that focuses on reaching that goal more than remaining within the usual boundaries and edges of social interactions. The lure of such a community often draws people to the academy.Read more…
Engaging Social Media
A taste of the resources I’ve been engaging for the upcoming “Social Media Workshop: Communications and Community” (Post Graduate & Faculty Ministries Staff Team Mtgs, 3/27/2015). Pray for workshop preparations. And please do not hesitate to share your top articles/insights 🙂Read more…
Prayers for Scholar’s Compass/ESN
What a joy it is to partner with you in prayers for God’s Kingdom to be reflected, and what a joy it is to see His hand at work.Read more…