Kenneth Elzinga
Economics, University of Virginia
[Sept 6, 2009]–
At the start of each semester in an introductory class that I teach of over 1000 students, I tell them what my teaching philosophy is, but I don’t use the word “Jesus” and I don’t use the word “Christian.”
I tell them that I’m going to teach out of a Biblical model of leadership. That model means that I’m to be their servant; that they have every right to expect that of me; and that they can call me on that if I’m not doing that. I tell them that’s what the Biblical model of leadership is all about.
Foot Washing
How do we serve our students and “wash their feet” as Jesus did in serving His disciples on his final evening with them? I have discovered one very practical way.
At many colleges and universities, there are faculty members who restrain their enthusiasm for office hours. You can recognize this immediately when you see an office door that reads, “Office Hours: 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. Friday morning.” Or just “Office hours by appointment only”—that’s a real signal that students are not welcome there, that this is not a “foot-washing” professor.
Praying For My Office Hours
For years I found myself falling into the academic pattern of seeing office hours as an interruption. So some years ago I began praying about my office hours—that I would see them not as a necessary evil, but as an opportunity for foot-washing. And this remains one of the most difficult areas of connecting Jesus with my work.
But I’ve found it helpful to pray before office hours begin that the Lord would bring one student to my office that day with whom I could share the love of Christ—either through sharing something of what Jesus means to me, or serving a student in some special way that I know I wouldn’t do if I weren’t a follower of Jesus.
On the last day of class I do let students know that I’m a follower of Jesus. I know others who would say to do it on the first day, but I choose to do it on the last day. I have said this very brief and carefully-thought-out testimony to over 20,000 students.
I’ve never had a student complain to me. On the other hand, I haven’t seen hundreds of students “come forward and accept Christ,” like at a Billy Graham crusade.
A Sense Of Anticipation
But I have had people tell me how touched they were by this. More than once, I will get an e-mail or a letter from a former student—it might be five, six, or seven years later—that reads, “I became a Christian, and I thought you would want to know about that, because I know you are one.”
I’ve had students tell me that they have been left in tears by this very brief testimony that I give on the last day of class. Sometimes students have decided that following Jesus is really what they want. In my own heart, I know that when I let the Spirit lead, I now have a sense of anticipation about my work that was absent when I was a younger faculty member at Virginia.
© 2009 Ken Elzinga