Doubly Marginalized, Part 4: The Advantages of Being in the Corner

Christians in the university very often feel like outsiders in both their churches and their institutions. In this series, I take a look at the different aspects of this situation of being doubly marginalized.

My previous post showed a little of the downsides of life in the corner, but I think the benefits far outweigh the struggles.

1. Christians in the university get to view God's world in detail and trace that view back to Him in praise.
2. We're able to offer a compassion and care to our students that outlasts and outshines that of our colleagues.
3. Each semester, we have the opportunity to serve as Christ's ambassadors to a new generation of developing culture-makers.
4. We can offer unique viewpoints or expressions of Scriptural truths that are often missed by clergy.
5. We can provide logic and insight to help church issues.
6. We can live a unified or non-compartmentalized life.
7. We live out daily the interaction between faith and culture.
8. Our schedules are often very flexible, increasing our availability to God's service and to our families.
9. We develop and present the academic framework through which our society views and responds to reality.
10. We are a prominent public voice for the reasonableness of the Christian faith.

The list could go on. Based on these thoughts, there are two things that I wish would develop in the church.

First, I would like to see local churches utilize their local Christian faculty more. This could mean encouraging college students (current or aspiring) to talk with them, or hosting a discussion panel, or hosting seminars about their thoughts of how their studies relate to their faith, or encouraging the Christian faculty to publish in Christian literature. What kinds of ministry activities have you seen that have successfully brought out the gifts and experiences of Christian faculty?

Second, I would love to see Christians of every vocation develop their own personal list like the one above. Just ask yourself, "How could God use me in my position in the world?" It's not a question of how many co-workers or clients you can share the gospel with in one week; it's not a matter of analyzing the moral quality or "holiness" of what you do; and it's not a matter of how much tithe money you generate each week. It's a matter of asking how God has called you to honor Him by making a difference in the lives of others, what the Old Testament calls "pursuing peace (Hebrew: shalom)." Perhaps if all Christians started looking at life that way, none of us would feel like we were in the corner.