Dr. George Davis vividly remembers watching Dr. Walter Bradley stay for an hour answering questions from students after a lecture on science and faith issues. It was early in his career as a young professor at Texas A&M University that Dr. Davis became friends with and was mentored by Dr. Bradley, one of the founding professors of Faculty Commons.
“He made an impact on me in many ways,” says Dr. Davis. Now a professor at Virginia Tech, Dr. Davis emulates his mentor and is actively involved in ministering to students through Cru.
When his friend and Cru’s Virginia Tech director Jeff Highfield invited him to accompany students on a summer mission trip to Australia, Dr. Davis jumped at the chance.
His mission? To locate Christian professors at three universities in Melbourne, connect them with Cru’s student ministry staff there, and model for them what a “missional professor” does–just as Dr. Bradley once modeled for him.
It’s quite common for Christian professors to separate their professional lives from their Christian lives. Dr. Davis points out the Bible teaches integration, not separation. Dr. Bradley challenged him to integrate his Christian and professional lives.
Dr. Davis set up guest lectures at the Melbourne universities in his research area of food and health economics. He brought Jeff and a few of the Cru students along to each seminar.
At the end of each presentation, he mentioned, “I’m a Christian and the primary purpose of this trip is to foster links between Christian faculty and students. If you are a Christian professor or know of one, we would love to talk with you.”
Dr. Davis unearthed a number of Christian professors. He also discovered an existing group of Christian faculty at the University of Melbourne and introduced them to Cru’s student ministry staff over lunch one day.
With a six-month sabbatical in England coming up in June, he is now eager to pursue similar mission activities in post-Christian Europe.
George Davis is looking forward to his next mission adventure, saying, “If you told me 15 years ago I was going to do this, I would have said you’re crazy. The Lord does amazing things and works in mysterious ways.”