It seems there is a common challenge among Christian faculty.
Many professors are not sufficiently relationally connected to other Christian faculty or with Christian organizations that serve students on campus; likewise, Christian faculty often feel a lack of competency in integrating their faith with their work in order to live in a missional, Christ-centered way.
We are piloting a new program we are calling Wisdom Groups, seeking to bring together faculty from various academic fields to explore what it might mean to be a truly wise Christian professor. Faculty will plan to gather bi-weekly in groups of 3 to 8 in order to read a prompt, discussing how we might follow Jesus as sage, while practicing group spiritual disciplines. Meetings will last no more than an hour and 15 minutes. Wisdom Groups will launch September, 2023. More details about time and location will be coordinated after we gather faculty’s availability (below).
This pilot program is a collaborative effort between The Thompson Institute and the Fellowship of Christian Faculty at OSU. It will be spearheaded by Aaron Badenhop, and is a fruit of his doctoral project called “The Wise Professor: The Skillful Art of Living in God’s Mission”
We imagine the biggest obstacle for participation might be our busy schedules. Though we cannot promise that a group will align with your schedule, our next step is to try to capture individual faculty’s typical weekly availability to form bi-weekly groups. Please fill out the form below to let us know what days and times are good for you.
Themes will focus on such questions as:
- Why “wise” professors?
- What is wisdom?
- Is Jesus truly wise?
- Does the academy foster wisdom?
- How does wisdom relate to God’s mission?
- Is wisdom more than knowledge?
- How might wisdom respond to antagonistic environments?