I was praying, well at least I was on my knees.
I began prayer by going through a few items off my regular laundry list of things I needed God to do. In the haze of my monologue, my thoughts began to drift, and before I knew it, I was fast asleep. I don’t know how much time passed before I awoke to realize what had happened.
I was sleep, on my knees.
I consider this state of being “sleep on one’s
knees” the problem of Christian colleges and universities.
They have drafted a mission of what they want the school to achieve but they are unable to fulfill it because many of the faculty at these institutions are spiritually asleep. And just like I was not demonstrating true prayer by drifting off when I was talking to God, they are not demonstrating what a truly Christian university should be by not representing God and thus failing to achieve their mission.
Faculty members of Christian higher educational
institutions must recognize the reason they exist.
A.F. Holmes (1975) author of, The idea of a Christian college, posits that there are a number of reasons Christian colleges do not exist.
- They do not exist to offer biblical studies
and theological studies.
- They do not
exist to cultivate piety and religious commitment. They do not exist for social or
extracurricular benefits.
- Nor do they exist to train people for church-related
vocations.
While all of these are good motives for the establishment of the Christian college, Holmes believes the distinctive is that they offer an “education that cultivates the creative and active integration of faith and learning...” (p. 6)
While some view the integration of faith and
learning as simply having prayer or reading a devotional before class, Rasi (as
cited in Korniejczuk, 1993) says that it is a deliberate and systematic process of
approaching the entire educational enterprise from a biblical perspective. Its
aim is to ensure that students [are] under the influence of Christian teachers
and by the time they leave school will have internalized biblical values and a
view of knowledge, life, and destiny that is Christ-centered, service-oriented
and kingdom-directed. (p. 241)
(Excerpt from "Sleep
on our knees: Promoting Spiritual
Awakening in Mission-driven Faculty at a Christian University")
