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Getting Started with Professors


1. CULTIVATE VISION for a professor-student ministry

Ponder: How would a professor-student movement change the face of your campus?

  • Dream together at a staff meeting or student leadership meeting about professor-student ministry opportunities.
  • Read through and discuss the “Students + Professors = Campus” card.

Discuss with your staff team or your small group: How could a professor-student movement affect your campus and the world?

2. PRAY

  • Pray for the whole campus—students, professors, and specific departments.

Think of your campus a tad differently. Make a list of the academic colleges and/or departments (e.g., School of Education, etc.). This way you’re including every student and every professor, every administrator…the whole campus! Do this with your student leaders. Next, make a list of Christian faculty. Take a prayer walk around the academic portion of campus, praying for the faculty and the students who study there.

  • Pass out 3×5 cards at weekly meeting or leadership meeting.

Ask students to write out names of Christian professors with the student’s name on the other side. Take time to pray for these professors at your staff or leadership meeting.

3. BUILD RELATIONSHIPS with professors you already know

  • Meet with Christian professors for lunch or coffee and build a relationship with them.  Initiate with a professor you already know or invite a new professor from the 3×5 cards gathered from students.

Ask about their spiritual journey.

  • Encourage Christian professors you know by sending them Monday Ministry Minutes. These short emails are written by a professor and are delivered every Monday during the school year. You can subscribe to these as well as forward them onto your ministry friends.

4. INVOLVE PROFESSORS in what you are already doing

  • Invite a trustworthy Christian professor to a staff meeting/student leadership meeting to share about life as a Christian professor.

Establish a monthly student-professor prayer time. Have “30 minutes of prayer” with students and professors together. Provide coffee/donuts. 10 minutes—professors pray for students; 10 minutes—students pray for professors; 10 minutes—pray together for the campus.

  • Invite a Christian professor to share his or her testimony at your weekly meeting.
  • Invite professors to give the main talk at a CRU meeting. Or host a panel of professors at a CRU meeting.
  • Bring a professor to something your group is already doing, such as a Habitat for Humanity house, or the day of outreach at the Winter Conference, or a campus outreach. Just as with students: “involvement breeds commitment.” Invite them along when appropriate.
  • Invite Christian professors at your university to share their story on the Meet the Prof website. This website provides an avenue for Christian professors to minister to students, a safe place where they can post their personal testimonies, and a easy way for them to respond to students who have questions or wish to begin an online dialogue.

5. Building a Faculty Group

  • As you get to know professors, identify those that you think have the spiritual maturity(and interest) in helping lead the faculty efforts at your university. Develop a leadership team of 3 or 4 professors who will “own” and “lead” the faculty group.
  • Learn about what other local faculty groups are doing. For a partial list of Faculty Common ministries around the country, see  here.
  • Have the professors develop a student newspaper ad strategy. Here are some examples of ads that have run in student newspapers.

6. Professors and Students reaching the Campus

  • Host a “favorite faculty dinner” on your campus.
  • Host an evangelistic lecture on the campus, sponsored by professors and students.

7. Professors and Students Reaching the World

  • Bring a professor with you on a WSN trip for a week.

NOTE: Nothing will ever replace what you can bring to the faculty movement on your campuses: 1) a local friend/relationship between you and various professors and 2) an opportunity for professors to be involved to “turn the corner from getting to giving” and 3) a vision for how God can use them.

The Goal: Building movements of professors and students to bring the hope of Jesus to the world.