Shine the Light

The purpose was to provide a safe place for students and faculty to mingle and talk about God. I’d kick off the luncheon with a bit of my story, and then students and faculty could talk around the tables as they ate.

Just a low-key lunch with no agenda that wouldn’t require much prep.

After some prayer, I agreed to do it and decided to take a step of faith to mention it to my classes as well, which was a bit scary for me.

My classroom style is to announce job opportunities, current events, and activities I’m participating in, so I decided that announcing the lunch would just be the normal course of business, despite my hesitation. I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t receive any odd looks from the students or negative comments when I said it. Not one.

But I put off mentioning the lunch to my graduate class, as I admit, I’m a bit shy in that environment. Fortunately, God created an opportunity.

The day before the lunch, my graduate class was discussing personality types and values. One student volunteered that spirituality was important to him, and he considered himself a Christian. I immediately took the opportunity to mention the free lunch on that very subject. In fact, I would be sharing about my spiritual journey. What perfect timing!

On the way out of class, another student came up to me to explain he was exploring his faith seriously, having grown up going to church but not practicing since he came to college. He wanted to know more – could he come to lunch too?

It ended up that three of my students came to the lunch where I shared about my faith in Christ to the group, and then had further conversation at my table about faith, the future, and Jesus’ role in our professional lives.

I am reminded of Matthew 5:14-16 where Jesus says to let our light shine before others. That’s a big challenge in today’s colleges. It’s easy to hide my faith based on what I perceive others would think.

I want shining Christ’s light to be a more normal and consistent part of my role on campus since it is a fundamental part of who I am as a believer.

I was encouraged because the student/faculty lunch gave me a natural opportunity not only to talk about my faith with students, but also to identify as a follower in all my classes.