Praying for God's Influence and Direction

Jan. 17, 2023

Dear colleagues,

This past Friday, I sent out a message to the campus with a personal call for prayer and fasting for 24 hours, starting at 6 p.m. today, Tuesday, Jan. 17. 

This follow-up message is just to you as fellow employees, with some additional and deeper thoughts about where we should focus our prayers. This letter may be longer than many messages I send, but I do hope you will read it fully as I send this to you from my heart.

In that Friday email, I referenced a higher education leaders’ conference that I attended earlier this January and how I found that annual conference to be a sobering experience. It was indeed a sobering experience, as I wrote, but I also found that the discussion at that conference focused my mind on two particular areas that require our intense prayers and thoughtful and meaningful engagement.

The two areas are these—first, to urgently invite God’s blessings as we make plans and further our commitment to be beacons of light for God’s kingdom and second, to pray for His deep wisdom as we seek to understand and effectively respond to the culture wars that challenge our world, our country and our campus at this point in history.

The first is the seismic shift in attitudes and support toward higher education in our country and, as I reflected with my Seventh-day Adventist peers, within our church as well. These shifts have led to huge challenges throughout our country and our church, particularly the private higher education sector. 

As we know right here on our own Andrews University campus, the impact of these changes, including the long-term effect of the COVID-19 global pandemic (and other influencing factors) has meant we too have seen and directly experienced these challenges. While the impact on our campus has not been close to as severe as for many, nevertheless, you, the employees, have been on the receiving end of the very real effects of this impact. I, and my administrative colleagues, know that this has put significant stress on many of you. This is literally what keeps us awake at night. 

So the prayer I invite us to pray is this: that God will continue to bless the many plans and significant ideas across our campus in place to effectively respond to these current challenges and that, ultimately, God will work amongst us both on an individual and community basis to continue to identify and inspire innovative and strategic ways that will only make Andrews University a beacon of increasing light as we seek to change lives (and the world) for God’s kingdom.

My second reflection relates to the culture wars that challenge our country and our campus. Earlier this month, when I listened to presidents from across the country talk about the impact of social issues on their own campuses, the connection to shifting and intense political alliances, the challenge of balancing the right to free speech with the values and missions of their own institutions, I knew again that this issue must also be a focus of prayer for our Andrews University community.

In that regard and on these issues, this is what I believe is the Andrews University I love. Ultimately, as an Andrews University community, we are unashamedly Seventh-day Adventist, even as some of our community members come from different faith backgrounds and traditions. That is something we will never apologize about. In that light, please don’t let anybody tell you that is not the case.

Together, we are also unashamedly disciples of Christ and together we believe firmly in the Word of God. As a result, that means we have a responsibility to live out the gospel fully and clearly in our daily lives and we must relate consistently to each other and to our students with the same demands that Christ made of His followers when He walked among us. In turn, please don’t let anybody tell you that we do not strive toward this goal daily or that we do not expect this from all employees. These two powerful and intersecting identities as Seventh-day Adventist and Christian must always frame our teaching, drive our relationships and guide our decisions.

All of these things are unequivocally true. Yet it is often quite easy to frame negative conclusions about the University and colleagues based on rumor, speculation and half-truths. It is too easy sometimes to judge, often hard to seek understanding. It is easy sometimes to conclude, often hard to assess thoughtfully and with goodwill. 

And here is the prayer I invite you to pray with me:

I pray that God can speak to each of us individually and all of us corporately as we seek to be still and listen to the gentle, yet powerful, voice of God. I pray that He might truly show us—even and especially in the midst of the culture wars and political alignments and challenging decisions—how we can all have our eyes firmly fixed on exactly the same place and goal: the character of God that truly passes all understanding.

So, once again, this week we will pray. 

This week I also want to pledge to you that in the last few months of my tenure here as your president, I am committed to meeting with various groups of employees across the campus and key stakeholders in our community to reflect more deeply on the issues that are currently bringing us stress, both as individuals and as a community. Until my last day of service as your president at the end of June, I pledge that I will continue to work on pathways forward with my colleagues on these issues and in line with the aspirations that make up our current Strategic Plan. 

Finally, my door and the doors of my administrative colleagues are open. Please come and talk. We value each of you and we always need to listen and talk together, especially at remarkable and challenging moments like these.

And today—and every day—let’s start by praying together.

Andrea Luxton
President