| Academic Event |
Issue in Spiritual Formation |
Helpful Spiritual Disciplines |
| Adjusting to graduate-level workload |
Establishing and adjusting rhythms of work, rest, and sabbath |
· Sabbath
·
Setting boundaries on work
·
Periodic retreats |
| Isolation and loneliness |
Finding and choosing community |
· Prayer partnerships
· Small groups
· Discipline groups
· Giving of time and resources |
| Recognizing cognitive dissonance between dominant ideas in
your field and your understanding of the Christian faith |
· Understanding the relationship of doubt, faith, and unbelief
· Choosing among bifurcation, outright rejection of academic discipline
or faith, and integration |
· Discipline groups
· Inductive Bible study
· Reading of theology and integrative Christian works
· Mentoring and spiritual direction |
| Awareness of hostility toward or indifference to God in the
university |
Acknowledging and believing in the presence and providence
of God in one's work |
· Praying the divine office
· Prayer walking
· Journaling |
| Encountering arrogance, competition, and politics |
By which rules will one "play the game"? |
· Intercessory prayer
· Acts of service
· Biblical reflection on "servant" passages |
| Preparing for major exams (general, qualifying, or comprehensive) |
· What is the source of my identity and hope?
· Anxiety versus trust |
· Supplicatory prayer
· Learning to be served by others |
| Failure or rejection (qualifiers, positions, articles, tenure) |
· Identity (false self/true self)
· Sense of purpose or meaning
· Grieving loss |
· Relinquishing false self, embracing true self through confession
· Self-examination, detachment, discernment
· Spiritual direction and submission |
| "Heavy lifting" phase of dissertation research and writing |
· Loving God with one's mind
· Structuring one's time and efforts
· Figuring out new patterns of productive work and renewing rest
· Dealing with fears of failure |
· Dissertation support groups
· Praying the divine office
· Meditative reading of Scripture (not intensive Bible study)
· Sabbath |
| Dissertation defense, interviews, post-docs, job offers |
· Discerning God's leading
· Assessing one's motives |
· Dissertation support groups
· Counsel of friends
· Mentoring |
| Publishing and grant-raising necessary for tenure and promotion |
· Living by faith rather than anxiety
· Renewed identity concerns |
· Faculty prayer and support groups
· Faculty mentors
· Prayer and meditation on biblical promises |
| Balancing teaching, research, and departmental service within
the larger context of one's calling and place in life |
Establishing and adjusting rhythms of work and rest |
· Sabbath
· Boundaries on work
· Non-negotiable commitments to worship and family life
· "Tithing" of time
· Faculty support groups and mentors
|
| Figuring out how to be salt and light in one's immediate
setting and academic discipline |
Discerning how God is working through one's life, gifts,
temperament, and personality |
· Faculty prayer and support groups
· Gift, temperament, and witness-style tools
· Journaling
· Writing a "mission statement" |
