Our college story

Sending your teenager off to college can be a fearful thing, especially for Christian parents. Both the statistics and stories we’ve heard can fill a parent with anxiety. I spent time at a state university, and I know how that environment can actively work against spiritual development.

When my son Will was in his early teens, my wife and I decided he should experience God outside his normal life. A home that emphasized prayer, the Bible, and conversations about faith was essential, but he also needed to see a God bigger than our home and local church. God was at work in the world, and he just might call Will out into it.

When Will was 17, we sent him to Israel for 12 days with a friend’s church. When he was 18, he spent a week in Central America doing missions. And when he struggled through a first semester of Covid-induced online college courses, in faith commitment during young adulthood, Barna reported. Additionally, 30% of young adults are nominal Christians who self-identify as Christian but haven’t made a personal commitment to Christ, and 52% don’t identify as Christian or don’t know of Jesus.

Christian universities have a challenging mission to help students deepen their personal faith and develop a love for Christian community, while also charting a course for their future in an increasingly secular world. In the bubble but not of it, one might say.

“I think parents are looking for a place where their child can development a sense of vocation,” said Ben Wayman, chair of the theology department at Greenville University in Greenville, Ill. What does it look like to be a Christian in whatever discipline a student decides to pursue? The goal at Greenville, Wayman said, is to prepare students to lead an integrative life where faith is an active part of everything they do.

“When Christian colleges are doing their job well, they’re helping their students do that well, whatever they decide to study or do.”

The greenhouse effect

When Suzanne Davis meets with prospective students and their families, their conversations include the expected questions about academic programs and degrees. “They have questions like, ‘Do you have my major and are you excellent at it?’” said the president of Greenville University. But they really want to know what the institution is all about. Parents want their children to have a well-rounded experience in a faith tradition that will last after graduation, Davis said. They also want to know their child will belong there.

That’s the kind of experience Davis had during her own time as a student at Greenville. As her brother’s health was failing at a St. Louis hospital, people at Greenville came around her and changed her whole life, she said. They gave her a safe space to ask big questions, like why a good God would allow such a terrible thing to happen. “There were people who weren’t afraid to have those conversations,” she said.

Now, even if her conversations with families start with questions about majors, she said, this is what parents ultimately want to know about the college their child will attend.

Some Christian universities like Greenville admit both Christian and non-Christian students, encouraging students who already have personal faith to create a hospitable, winsome community where people who don’t know Jesus are drawn to him. Other Christian universities, like Cedarville, ask students to share their profession of faith before they enroll.

“Most every student is following Christ, and that really transforms the learning environment, because you’re around brothers and sisters in Christ who are trying to do the same things in their life,” Dearden said.

At Cedarville, two-thirds of students are from out of state and a high percentage live on campus. That creates a vibrant community where students are growing in their faith alongside one another, Dearden said. Students are encouraged to be part of local churches, and the university’s mandatory daily chapel services rank highest on graduates’ lists of their Cedarville experiences. Those on-campus conditions create an environment that’s less of a bubble and more of a greenhouse, he said.

I believed it was time for a bigger version of those experiences.

I asked him to consider a Christian college. I knew the right school would expand his intellectual horizons and deepen his spiritual roots. For us, that meant sending him 800 miles away from home. There were good choices close by, but this was the right choice for us. I had spent three years at Liberty University in Virginia for seminary. Our family remained there another six years as I served as faculty.

It was hard for us to drive away, but Will would have an entire community supporting his spiritual development. His professors pray for him. He hears godly speakers every week. His residence hall has small group Bible study. He has made amazing friends who are passionate about Jesus. He has been given responsibility to lead other students’ spiritual growth.

I once read that as a parent, you shift from being responsible for your children and become responsible to your children. My responsibility was not simply to release him and hope for the best, but to release him to others who are invested in him becoming the man God designed him to be.