Christian colleges and universities excel at offering students the prospect of learning as they serve. Some are distinctly faith-based, while others are geared more generally toward community needs, but all these opportunities enable students to apply their classroom knowledge to making life better for others.

The right application of knowledge is a hallmark of wisdom, the ultimate goal of learning for people of faith: "Get wisdom, and whatever else you get, get insight." () Not surprisingly then, Christian schools give due attention to service-learning because it turns knowledge into wisdom, at the same time building character and fostering a sense of caring.

From this sense of caring, Christian schools make meaningful contributions to their communities and constituencies and to the nation as a whole. Concern for social justice, building community, and becoming agents of peace and reconciliation characterize the educational goals at these institutions of higher learning. Their educational purpose includes setting Christ followers on countless paths of work and life, all the while urging them toward academic excellence.

Christian schools work intentionally at preparing students to be effective in their fields by taking their learning outside the classroom and into the laboratory of life. "Students gain greater knowledge of themselves, the world, how to work with others, and how to solve problems," says Greg Carmer, dean of A.J. Gordon Chapel at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts.

Today's students may even go to college with a bent toward service-learning. A Roper survey indicates that "Millennials," those born between 1980 and 2000, are a confident and hopeful generation that has a high rate of volunteerism. "We consistently see more than 60 percent of Seaver students (from the college of liberal arts) engaged in service every year," says Brad Dudley, director of the volunteer and career center at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California.

Not only does service-learning resonate with youth today, but it broadens their skill set and perspectives on life, and prepares them to confidently take on adult responsibilities.

Gordon's director of career services, Pamela B. Lazarakis, has learned from job recruiters' feedback that service-learning plays an important role in their evaluation of candidates. A financial services recruiter confirmed that service-learning was a positive factor in the hiring process, because it suggests a candidate possesses desirable traits such as self-initiative and entrepreneurial thinking and strong relationship-building skills.

Lazarakis says a recruiter for a large social service organization drew a correlation between service-learning and the attributes of maturity, ability to work independently, and having an approach of kindness and compassion when working with the clients that they serve. In addition, a manager of talent acquisition for a national manufacturing company responded that she finds these job candidates are able to effectively juggle multiple priorities, interact with different communities, and understand the importance of community involvement.

At Pepperdine, Dudley finds that students engaged in service-learning get an opportunity to clarify their goals for work. For instance, he says, "Many of the students who serve in Jumpstart (with preschoolers) are not teacher education students; however, quite a few of them realize their interest in teaching during the year they serve."

"We encourage all of our students to get involved in some form of service, but it takes different shapes depending on a student's interests and abilities," says Matthew Reitnour, director of admission at Houghton College (Houghton, N.Y.). He explains that the business department sponsors a tax workshop for accounting students to help local residents file their income tax forms. The chemistry department provides water analysis and the education department sponsors reading events in local schools.

Service-learning can be applied in all disciplines and may involve an individual student or group of students. The Reverend David F. Smith, chair of the division of religion and philosophy and associate professor of biblical studies at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Indiana, says some courses require significant practicum assignments, which lead to intercultural experiences and internships in community development and urban ministries.

Baylor University in Waco, Texas, sends students on "disciple-specific" missions to make use of expertise in their major. [See Energetic Engineers.] While service-learning that fulfills the Great Commission of making disciples is typically called "mission work," all service-learning sends students on educational missions.

Hands-on mission can take students far out of the classroom: Houghton students, along with faculty and staff members, have traveled to India, Zambia, Russia, Czech Republic, Mexico, and other countries to teach English, conduct sports camps, and build houses. "There are literally dozens of opportunities for our students to get involved, and we're happy to say that many of them do," says Reitnour.

Staying close to home, Gordon offers weekly opportunities for students to be involved in the metro-Boston area through the Gordon in Lynn Program, a partnership between the city of Lynn and Gordon College. Through relationships with various organizations in Lynn, students learn and serve in a diverse, urban community.

The choices available to students offer a wide variety of contexts that provide plenty of growth points. "Students who have service- learning or missions experience," says Rucker, "are given the opportunity to be exposed to different types of environments and diversity. This exposure gives students an edge as they prepare to enter a diverse work field, and the experiences help them become more knowledgeable and more compassionate people."

The confidence that students gain in their service-learning assignments helps them to approach the demands of work in the twenty-first century. "Multiple supervised handson mission experiences provide students with opportunities to put into practice what they are learning in the classroom and to reflect on those experiences," says Smith from Indiana Wesleyan.

Career advising helps students understand how newfound abilities can be applied to a future workplace. "In the Gordon College Career Services Office, service-learning experiences are an important topic in conversation between students and employers," says Lazarakis. "Service-learning is often a place where students have distinguished themselves and where their contributions speak strongly to the type of professional and personal character that they have and will continue to develop."

Programs that support peer leadership provide these students with opportunities to help set the tone for structured activity and motivating others. When programs are student initiated and student led, their drawing power is often multiplied and they have longer term sustainability. As Dudley explains, "The leader recruits other students to serve and also builds a relationship with the organization, leading their student volunteers in reflection about the issues involved. … Employers are always seeking people who have high ethical standards and know how to work well on teams."

Many of the skills employers look for can be learned in service-learning settings. "Our graduates have earned a reputation as good workers in the variety of fields that they enter," says Biola's Rucker, "due to the theological grounding and standards set for students. The missions experiences and servicelearning are just an added bonus for job recruiters, because it shows them that Biola students are serious about meeting needs."

Christian colleges and universities are attuned to how they are preparing students for the job market, even as they maintain high educational standards. For example, Houghton assesses employment outcomes for alums each year. Over the past 25 years, about two-thirds of its graduates are employed within a year of graduation and one-third attends graduate school full time. More than 65 percent of Houghton graduates have obtained an advanced degree, which attests to strong academics.

In the case of Gordon College, surveys taken 5 years after the class of 1998 graduated and 10 years after the class of 1993 graduated showed that all respondents worked immediately after finishing their studies. Job satisfaction levels were high: 89 percent declared that they were very satisfied or satisfied.

One student at Gordon, Aimee Cole ('07), put her skills as an English and literature major to work with the America Reads Program. She decided to do literacy tutoring at a local elementary school, because she could share her love of reading and mentor kids. Aimee says, "After two years of tutoring, I also discovered that I had improved my knowledge of the educational systems due to my time in the schools, had honed my methods of instructing and encouraging a variety of students, and had strengthened my professionalism as an employee of an established program."

Service-learning has the dynamism of any genuinely mutual encounter, whereby neither party leaves unaffected.Central to the experience is this action of one upon the other: a community receives services at the same time a student receives an education in real-life issues.

"Whether our students participate in a service opportunity that is local or international, students often comment that they have a broader perspective on different cultures, people groups, and social justice issues as a result," observes Pepperdine's Dudley. Smith from Indiana Wesleyan says, "These experiences are designed to facilitate life transformation in the students' knowledge and understanding, attitudes and values, and behavior." [See Seeing the Faces in Statistics.]

Reitnour at Houghton has often heard how these experiences have enriched and challenged students. "It is not atypical to view a mission or service experience as 'something I can give' to someone else. What frequently winds up happening, though, is that we walk away feeling like we've been blessed by the people we've encountered and the experiences we've had."

Disciplined followers of Christ have life transformation in view because it is central to the gospel of redemption and, in a service-learning setting, this redemption takes place right in front of the students' eyes. According to Dudley at Pepperdine, "Our Christian students have commented that service or mission experiences have helped to develop their personal faith, as well as strengthen their commitment to service as an embodiment of Christ in this world."

Service-learning is well-suited to the ethos of Christian institutions of higher learning. It is a familiar theme in the pedagogy of the kingdom of God: You must lose your life in order to find it. Rather than focusing most particularly on personal goals, students involved in service-learning become good workers as they strengthen a heart for service. In the process they also become closer to their best selves in relation to being productive in the world.

Diane Vescovi is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. Her writing for online and print publications has focused on holistic mission and ministries.

Diane Vescovi is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. Her writing for online and print publications has focused on holistic mission and ministries.