Zooming In

Christian Union Faculty Transitions to Online Ministry During Pandemic

by tom campisi, managing editor

In the blink of an eye, the collegiate academic year was relegated to online courses due to the COVID-19 pandemic in March. No campus life. No spring sports or activities. No May commencement.

In the midst of the chaos, Christian Union Universities transitioned to an online ministry—Bible courses, Leadership Lecture Series, and mentoring sessions were hosted online via Zoom and other portals. Ministry fellows were there to provide continuity by shepherding students and offering counsel to those grieving over what was lost.

While the new season of ministry definitely has its challenges, it has also presented some silver-lined blessings, according to Tucker Else, Christian Union’s ministry director at the University of Pennsylvania.

“We have settled into a sense of normalcy, but we definitely miss meeting in person,” he said. “And there are the big existential challenges: When will this end?’ Will life ever go back to being normal? Will students be able to return in the fall? How does this affect internships/jobs?”

When Penn’s on-campus semester was cancelled during Spring Break, students with Christian Union Martus began gathering online. Bible courses were connected, and a Leadership Lecture Series (LLS) was organized. The ministry’s Seeking God Lifestyle team hosted a 24-hour prayer session, which continued weekly.

“Our students have prayed, corporately, in a way that we’ve never prayed before. It has been a concerted season of prayer,” Else said.

The ministry director also noted the resiliency of students and how COVID-19 has brought a renewed sense of awe and repentance in the things of God.

“Students (and all of us, really) have been forced to acknowledge that razor thin veneer of thinking we are in control,” Else said. “When we were reminded in March that there is much completely out of our control, it forced us all to our knees in repentance: for taking God for granted, shelter in place, from fear, anxiety, anger, grief, loss, frustration, and impatience, to gratefulness for a time to rest, reevaluate priorities, and reach out to God.

“Facing an uncertain future is a big challenge that brings a great deal of stress,” Kovoor said. “However, I strongly sense that God is birthing something very precious during this transition. It is a sacred time offered to us to seek Him fervently and connect with each other in new ways. This waiting period has been a very sanctifying process. I am very encouraged by those who are allowing themselves to be pushed to seek after God even more in this alone time. One of my Bible courses has

been regularly trying to memorize scripture and the books of the Bible together. Others are striving to be witnesses for Christ in their homes, some reaching out to their non-Christian friends to share the hope one has in Jesus in the midst of this pandemic.”

Credit: Sara Beth Turner

Chitra Kovoor, a Christian Union ministry fellow, said, “God is birthing something precious.”

for our hubris and pride, and it has forced everyone to consider transcendent things rather than just the rote ‘get good grades, get a good internship, get a return offer, make a living, and live happily ever after.’ We know that the materialistic way of life is not God’s way, but it is the air we breathe, and God, in His grace, has stripped away many of the idols that we trust in.”

Chitra Kovoor, a Christian Union ministry fellow at Yale, said students have expressed a wide range of emotions as they

Garrett Brown, ministry director for Caritas, Christian Union’s ministry to students at Stanford University,

noted the pastoral challenge of leading students through “a fairly catastrophic change of rhythms and freedoms.” He called the initial transition to virtual ministry “quite jarring,” but found the students to be hopeful, engaged, and still very hard working.

“Our students are incredibly adaptive, and they have the advantage of being digital natives—they were born into an online world,” Brown said.

Justin Woyak, a Christian Union ministry fellow at Stanford, praised the hospitality of Caritas’ students who opened up their homes to internationals during the shelter in place time. Woyak said leading a Bible course over Zoom has its drawbacks, but also a few positive features.

“It’s challenging to not be face-to-face over a meal or cup of coffee, one-on-one or together as a Bible course,” he said. “The kind of deepening of friendship that can happen in those settings doesn’t easily transfer to Zoom. However, the listening element is almost enhanced when your only

Solomon lauded a core group of Columbia students with Christian Union Illumina who have shown leadership during a difficult season.

“They have responded by leaning into community and coming up with creative ways for students to connect ‘virtually,’ spiritually and socially, with 24-hour prayer nights, a Holy Week fast, testimony nights, and video game and bingo nights.”

Another highlight at Illumina was an online Leadership Lecture Series that feaNova, is “encouraged by the way God is using this season.” He has been impressed with how students are serving in community, and even noted how incoming freshmen have joined some online meetings.

means of communication is your voice (over the phone) or your facial expressions (over Zoom). Additionally, the Bible course comes to them, there is no travel time/ distance, and there are fewer extracurricular activities vying for students’ attention.”

Christian Union faculty at Stanford and other universities called “online fatigue” a real challenge.

“Virtual community is not the same as face-to-face connection, especially when you’re dealing with college students who are on Zoom all day because of classes,” said Yolanda Solomon, a ministry fellow at Columbia. “Zoom fatigue is a real thing.” tured Dr. Jo Vitale, dean of students at the Ravi Zacharias Institute. Vitale—who spoke on the topic “Is God Sexist?”—dealt with the misperception of the Bible being misogynistic and addressed so-called “problematic” passages in the Bible.

Christian Union Lux gathered virtually for an Easter sharing and song event.

At Princeton University, Christian Union Nova, in addition to hosting virtual Bible courses and its weekly Leadership Lecture Series, recently presented a training seminar for its evangelism team on a Saturday.

“The Gospel is still going forth,” said Ministry Fellow Jayne Babij.

Darren Saint-Ulysse, an intern with

“Though we may be far away, God is still at work, still doing amazing things at Princeton,” said Nova Ministry Director Christopher Heslep. “He is preparing our students for the time when they come back—that we could continue to build his family here.”

Likewise, despite great challenges and uncertainty, the faculty of Christian Union Universities is exhorting students to seek God fervently and trust Him for the future.

In a video devotional based on John 21, Brown talked to Stanford students about how Jesus challenged Peter to shepherd His flock when He met with His disciples on the shore of Galilee.

“It’s a call to both intimacy and mission,” Brown said. “We are all in the midst of an uncertain, unique time. I believe that our call is the same: use this as a time to seek Him in deeper intimacy, and discover new ways to step out on mission.” | cu

Coronavirus and Christ

‘Behold the Kindness and Severity of God’

by john piper

It matters little what we think about the coronavirus. But it matters forever what God thinks. He is not silent about what He thinks. Scarcely a page in the Bible is irrelevant for this crisis.

Our voice is grass. His is granite. “The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever” (1 Peter 1:24–25). His words in Scripture “cannot be broken” (John 10:35). What he says is “true, and righteous altogether” (Psalm 19:9). Listening to God, and believing him, is like building your house on a rock, not sand (Matthew 7:24).

His voice is not only true; it is perfectly wise for every situation. “He is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom” (Isaiah 28:29). “His understanding is beyond measure” (Psalm 147:5). When he gives counsel about the coronavirus, it is firm, unshakJohn Piper able, lasting. “The counsel of the Lord stands forever” (Psalm 33:11). “His way is perfect” (2 Samuel 22:31).

God’s words in these times are not only true and wise; they are also precious and sweet. “More to be desired are they than gold . . sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb” (Psalm 19:10). They are the sweetness of life: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). And with indestructible life come words of unshakable peace and joy: “Your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart” (Jeremiah 15:16).

And the sweetness is not lost in this moment of bitter providence — not if we have learned the secret of “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10). The secret is this: Knowing that the same sovereignty that could stop the coronavirus and doesn’t, is the very sovereignty that sustains the soul in it. Indeed, more than sustains—sweetens with hope that, for those who trust him, his purposes are kind, even in death.

“Behold the kindness and severity of God” (Romans 11:22). His providence is

sweet and bitter. Naomi did not sin when she said, “The Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me” (Ruth 1:20). That was true. And it was spoken at the very moment when all her fortunes were about to change.

This is not a season for sentimental views of God. It is a bitter season. And God sent it. We know this, because he “works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11). All things. Not a sparrow falls to the ground apart from our heavenly Father (Matthew 10:29).

Nature is not sovereign. Satan is not sovereign. Sinful man is not sovereign. God rules them all (Luke 8:25; Job 1:12; 2:6; Acts 4:27–28). So, we say with Job, “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2).

Therefore, God not only comprehends the coronavirus; He has purposes for it. God does nothing, and permits nothing, without wise purposes. Nothing just happens. Everything flows from the eternal counsels of God (Ephesians 1:11). All of it is wisdom. All of it is purposeful. For those who trust Jesus Christ, all of it is kindness. For others, it is a merciful wake-up call: “Let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price” (Revelation 22:17).

This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;

his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,

“therefore I will hope in him.” (Lamentations 3:21–24) | cu

Reprinted with permission. © Desiring God Foundation. Source: desiringGod.org.

john piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For more than thirty years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis. He is the author of more than fifty books, and his sermons, articles, books, and more are available free of charge at desiringGod.org. His latest book is entitled Coronavirus and Christ.

Q & A with Dr. Timothy Flanigan

Infectious Disease Specialist Talks COVID-19, Students, and Spiritual Warfare

interview by tom campisi

Dr. Timothy Flanigan is a member of the Division of Infectious Diseases at The Miriam and Rhode Island Hospitals and Alpert Medical School of Brown University. At the Alpert Medical School, Flanigan mentors students who work side by side with staff in clinical medicine. For the last ten years, he has taught a popular course at Brown, Beyond Narnia: The Literature of C.S. Lewis.

Flanigan came to Brown Medical School in 1991 to help establish a network of primary care for HIV-infected individuals with a focus on women, substance abusers, and individuals leaving prison. He is the associate director of The Miriam/ Brown Fogarty Program, which trains and mentors overseas investigators in HIV/ AIDS. Flanigan (Dartmouth ’79, Cornell Medical School ’83) is also the founder of the Star Kids Scholarship Program, which provides educational opportunities to disadvantaged children.

In 2014, he spent two months in Liberia training health care workers to maintain safety in the face of the Ebola epidemic and to reopen St. Joseph’s Hospital. More recently, he has initiated research projects in the area of Lyme disease and tickborne illnesses.

How has COVID-19 impacted your work at the hospitals?

I have been spending most of my time on the inpatient consult with patients that have coronavirus pneumonia. You want to have great medicines to help them; you want to have something akin to penicillin to treat bacterial pneumonia, and we do not. Medical care works, but it works slowly and it is a hard road for our patients. They get better over seven or ten or fourteen days—that is a long time to be sick. off clinical services because of concerns That is a hard thing. So we need to walk about not having enough personal protecwith our patients and help them, give time tive equipment (PPE). But that is going for the miracle of the immune system to to change, and students will, hopefully, be really kick in and be able to fight the virus back working with the medical team. It is successfully. critically important that this happens. Some students will be nerAre you hopeful for a vous and fearful and that is resurgence of faith understandable. It is someamong people in thing they will need to grapresponse to ple with and they will have COVID-19? to make decisions. We saw

That may very well be. this at the beginning of the And the message of the cross HIV epidemic. Folks were is that Jesus is right there in very nervous and did not our worst suffering. We are want to care for patients with never asked to carry our HIV because of uncertainty own cross because Jesus is related to transmission. going to carry our cross with But the students improve us... When you are short of Dr. Timothy Flanigan, the care on the ward. They breath with pneumonia professor of medicine at provide important parts of from coronavirus, it is a Brown University care to the patients. They scary thing, and it is a relaspend time with their patively long illness, too… Knowing that our tients, and provide some TLC. And that Lord is with you means everything. is a very important part of healing. So this is not just about educational opportunity, How long do you think it will this is about patients receiving better care. take to develop a vaccine? Throughout the history of medicine, med

I think very highly of Tony Fauci, diical students played a strong role in prorector of the National Institute of Allergy viding care. and Infectious Diseases. He has the best If you look at the influenza epidemic knowledge, the best mind for this. We are of 1918, medical students manned wards lucky to have him. He has said twelve to and did a superb job taking care of patients. eighteen months. I hope it is quicker, but This is the first time that clinical students that is probably the best guess. have been pulled off the ward, and for good reason. It’s also odd that they’ll be expectHow has this pandemic impacted ed to care for patients as doctors on July the medical students you work 1, and on May 1, they were not allowed with and mentor at the Alpert to work with the medical team providing Medical School? care to patients.

One of the sad things is how medical students have been pulled off the ward and