Over the past two years, our Regional Representative Dr. Osam Temple has been seeking to network with Christian professors in the Middle East and help them be missional in their academic work. Thank you for your prayers and support of this vital outreach. I received this recent report from Osam and wanted to pass it on to you. I hope you are encouraged by how God is at work! Osam writes:
Because of the danger of being identified with a Christian ministry, it has been a challenge getting scholars in the Middle East to commit to being missional academics. I recently spent six weeks visiting a few Middle Eastern countries to connect with Christian professors there. My visit reassured them, brought a few more into our network, helped me to identify potential leaders, and inspired the desire to collaborate.
The high point of my visit was my invitation to give a lecture at a local university. This institution has over 400 faculty, but only one is a Christian. He is a member of the Society of Christian Scholars. Like other universities in the country, this university has been getting rid of Christian professors over the years. But God used this Christian professor to ask the university to approve my lecture. His connection with the Society of Christian Scholars has made him more conscious of his calling as a Christian professor.
For him to request that I meet with his students to discuss Philosophy, Ethics, and Cultures was an extremely courageous act. The Dean and the Deputy Vice Chancellor granted approvals, and the Dean introduced me to the students before giving me the floor, I prayed for God’s help. I sensed in my spirit that each student there had a crisis of identity and needed to express themselves to someone and ask deep questions about life. I centered my lecture on the question Who am I? This allowed me to talk about our value as everlasting spiritual beings who are marked by the image of God.
After that session, one professor told me that in all his 10 years in that university, he had never witnessed such bold interaction and feedback. I believe that the Holy Spirit used that session to unlock invisible doors in their hearts and prepare them to be more open to the gospel of Christ.
Thank you for being part of life-changing ministry opportunities like this one. You are making a difference in the lives of students and professors in the Middle East! Please be in prayer for good follow-up from this lecture and for continued growth for Global Scholars in this gospel-starved region of the world. I am grateful for your partnership in ministry!
For Christ and the university,
Stan
In this episode of the College Faith podcast, I discuss dealing with doubt with my guest and dear friend, the late Randy Newman. It is a given that college students, including those heading off to college as believers, will have questions and doubts about the Christian faith. Randy’s wisdom and care for other’s spiritual journeys will be a great help to students (and all others) who navigate the journey through doubt.
In this episode of the Thinking Christianly podcast, J.P. Moreland and I discuss how to have better conversations. We discuss how three informal fallacies (the Red Herring Fallacy, the Genetic Fallacy, and the Ad Hominum Fallacy) can shut down healthy dialogue and how to develop habits that help us avoid using them.
Our June prayer calendar is now posted on our website. Download the prayer calendar to pray for professors, students, and current needs in higher education.
