Where Teaching Meets Ministry

Every school year brings new faces, new challenges, and new opportunities to influence lives for eternity. As educators we spend countless hours preparing lessons, grading assignments, and helping students succeed academically. Yet some of the most important lessons are not found in textbooks. The question every Christian teacher must ask is not simply how to teach effectively, but how to reach hearts in a way that leads students closer to Jesus. For that, there is no better example than Christ Himself—the Master Teacher.

In The Ministry of Healing Ellen White emphasized the significance of Christ’s method and highlighted the five strategies for reaching people. “Christ’s method alone will give true success in reaching the people. The Savior mingled with men as one who desired their good. He showed His sympathy for them, ministered to their needs, and won their confidence. Then He bade them, ‘Follow Me.’ ”[1] 

As we contemplate Christ’s timeless and universal method, how can we contextualize and integrate this method for a meaningful campus ministry?

He Mingled With People

The first step in Christ’s method is to mingle with people. It entails investing our valuable time. Unfortunately, teachers are often too busy with deadlines, making assessments, doing grade reports, and lesson planning. We often find ourselves so preoccupied that we don’t have much time to meet the needs of students. 

It is quite difficult to minister to students who have unrecognizable needs. Unless we mingle with them and engage in authentic conversation, we will never discover their real challenges. Interacting with people is the initial step to understanding their personal needs, whether they are emotional, financial, or spiritual.

Jesus loved to socialize with people regardless of their backgrounds. He was often accused of associating and eating with sinners and tax collectors. While true witnessing entails mingling, the love of God should be the driving force and the supreme reason for reaching others.

So how can we be more creative in interacting with students? This could include visiting students in the dormitory, helping them with homework, playing sports with them, joining after-school activities, or even just sitting and talking together at the cafeteria during lunchtime. 

He Showed Sympathy 

Sympathy is caring about and feeling sorry for someone else’s hardships, suffering, grief, or misfortune. Reaching students becomes genuine and meaningful, as sympathy serves as a bridge that connects two people—the sufferer and the comforter. 

The sufferer could be academically at risk or emotionally disturbed because of a broken relationship or personal issues at home. When authentic connection is established, it creates a space for understanding, compassion, and healing. “Any human being who needs our sympathy and our kind offers is our neighbor. The suffering and destitute of all classes are our neighbors; and when their wants are brought to our knowledge, it is our duty to relieve them as far as possible.”[2] 

If we want to become effective educators, we need to understand our students’ emotions and sympathize with their needs, just as Jesus did. 

We often think of sympathy as a feeling of sadness for others because of their situations. To sympathize, however, is not just to feel sorry for others but to take action in some practical way. This method is visible in the life of Christ. He didn’t just feel sympathy but took that sympathy to the next level—a compassionate action. The Bible says, “And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick” (Matt. 14:14).

The Bible is full of reminders regarding such action-oriented sympathy as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger, visiting the sick, visiting the prisoner, visiting the widows, visiting the orphan, and comforting those in trouble. 

Every teacher needs to be proactive and sensitive to students’ needs so they can provide essential support. If we want to become effective educators, we need to understand our students’ emotions and sympathize with their needs, just as Jesus did. Teachers and staff need to be more intentional so students on campus are touched through the ministry of compassion.

He Ministered to Their Needs 

Christ’s life is an example of how He met people’s needs. For instance, He addressed the need of a potential social embarrassment at the wedding feast in Cana. He met the physical needs of more than 5,000 hungry people by feeding them. 

On another occasion He addressed the private need of emotional security for the woman at the well. Zacchaeus and Nicodemus also sought Him out for their personal spiritual needs. Jesus is a perfect example of how to discover felt needs and meet them at the right time. 

Our human ulterior motives suggest that by nature we desire our own good. Just like the priest and the Levite in the parable of the good Samaritan, none of us like interruptions. Most teachers are busy. We have committee meetings to attend to, project proposals to submit, and jobs to get done. 

We set goals for ourselves and want to meet those goals, sometimes within a certain time frame. That’s why if a student comes with a request for help or a principal calls for an emergency meeting because of a misbehaving student, it can be annoying if the timing isn’t convenient. Sometimes you just can’t drop whatever you are doing. 

But most of the time the greatest opportunities to minister to people’s needs happen in the middle of interruptions. As we look at Jesus’ ministry we notice that some of the needs He cared for came as interruptions to which He lovingly responded. Ministering to the needs of others entails time and sacrifice. 

While God asks us to desire someone else’s good, we do good not because we want something in return but to show that we genuinely care for and love our students. One time I visited a student in the dorm when one of her family members died in a car accident, and she appreciated that I was there just to listen.

Students have also shared with me their frustrations and feelings of burnout from being overburdened with various leadership positions and their lack of time management. Sometimes you don’t need to do anything other than listen. The ministry of presence and praying with them are priceless, especially during the most difficult times.

He Won People’s Confidence

In any relationship integrity and open communication are essential to winning confidence. When people trust you, you can say the wrong things, and people will still understand you. But without trust, they’ll still misinterpret you no matter how carefully you craft the words.

The lack of trust happens when people have taken advantage of others. Putting trust in someone requires knowing their character. This is why winning someone’s confidence is a long process. It involves character: your integrity, your motives, and your intent with people.

The application of Christ’s method has the power to transform students’ lives.

The fishermen who followed Jesus had cast nets unsuccessfully, yet they trusted the Carpenter’s word when He told them to cast them on the other side of the boat. When you’re talking with people, do they trust you? Do they put confidence in you? Why would students confide in teachers they do not trust? Do they trust that any confidential and sensitive issues will stay within the walls of your office? 

Confidence is the willingness to trust or have faith in someone—and the starting point of earning confidence is listening. It’s hard to survive in an environment without conscious listening—a boss not listening to employees, students not listening to teachers, young people not listening to church leaders, and spouses not listening to each other. 

As a counselor, I always ask myself how to win confidence. Why would students come to my office when they can talk to their friends? When we listen, we gain trust, because it means we value people.

He Bade Them Follow

“Follow me” was the appeal to follow Christ. It came after He met people’s needs and won their confidence. This is a sequential and vital step in Jesus’ method.

It’s tough to win students’ confidence when you have not mingled with them, met their needs or sympathized with them. Leading people to God is a natural result of using Christ’s method as the solid foundation for an effective campus ministry. 

It arises from the first four steps in which real relationships are built. When students start asking about our motivation and why we live the way we do, it becomes spontaneous to introduce the source of our spiritual commitment. 

In my years of teaching and counseling students, I discovered we can truly impact students’ lives only if we become purposeful and intentional in applying Christ’s method. When our words are filled with hope and encouragement, they will draw students to Jesus’ feet. 

The application of Christ’s method has the power to transform students’ lives. While teachers may have profound knowledge in their areas of expertise, every educator can learn from the Master Teacher as we reach students that need help. 

Most important, living a godly life is an integral aspect of Christ’s method. Educators should not overlook Christian lifestyle and the fruit of the Spirit. There is no shortcut for reaching students, but Christ’s unique method provides an opportunity to break down walls and build bridges for true witnessing.

[1] Ellen G. White, The Ministry of Healing (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1905), p. 143.

[2] Ellen G. White, Testimonies to the Church, vol. 4 (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1948), pp. 226, 227.