MTP 74: "Why do many Christian professors feel alone on campus?" Dr. Lanny Griffin, California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly)

Lanny Griffin is a longtime professor of mechanical engineering at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly). Over the course of his career he has served as a department chair, Army Reserve officer, and faculty member at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

If you’d like to learn more about Professor Griffin, you can find his profile at: https://meettheprof.com/view/professors/entry/lanny-griffin/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• God often pursues people before they begin seeking Him.
• Many Christian professors feel isolated until they intentionally look for other believers.
• Simple relational invitations—like coffee conversations—can open doors to spiritual discussions.
• Mentoring students and discipling young believers creates lasting impact.
• Introverted professors can still build meaningful relationships by taking small steps of initiative.
• Interruptions in daily life can become opportunities for ministry.

Resources from Faculty Commons, a Cru ministry:

• Find 500+ Christian professors at https://meettheprof.com/
• Faculty Commons – https://www.facultycommons.org/
• A Grander Story – https://a.co/d/8VoYXSV
• EveryStudent.com – https://www.everystudent.com/

Watch MTP on YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@MeetTheProfOfficial/videos

You can support Shane Hartley's ministry with Faculty Commons, a Cru ministry, at this link: ⁠⁠https://give.cru.org/0424344⁠⁠

Transcript

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Well, hey everybody and welcome to Meet the Prof. I am Shane Hartley and I'm so glad you joined us now. This is the podcast where we interview Christian professors and we use questions we get from college students and our goal is to encourage Christ-centered conversations on the college campus. So if you would remember, please to click on subscribe. If you're watching this on YouTube, it doesn't cost anything. If you're listening on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, to click follow. And we have the privilege now of getting to know Lanny Griffin. Lanny has been a professor for almost 30 years at Cal Poly. And so Lanny, thanks so much for joining us today. How are you doing? Doing well, thank you. Thanks for the opportunity yeah, I've been looking forward to this. Can you give sort of uh explanation, introduction to your career, uh where you've been and what you are doing now? Well, you might call me the reluctant professor. I didn't start off with a view towards becoming a professor at any particular point. It was more because God directed it. My senior year of being at Cal Poly as a mechanical engineering student, God sort of laid in my heart the desire to become a professor. I don't know why. I bounced the idea off a couple of friends who I trusted and they said, well, if you feel like God's doing it, I think you'd be good at it. So I pulled on that thread for a while and then I was working for a year at a company in Santa Barbara doing design, two blocks from the beach, nice, nice place. I put one application into grad school. and basically told them, if, you know, you're the only place I'm applying and I would love to come to your school and study engineering at your school. I don't have any money to pay for it. So if you want me to come, you'll have to pay for me to come because I'm living two blocks from the beach. I don't really. Anyway, they. They said, sure. I went up and interviewed with him, and we both liked what the other person was doing. so God opened the door. Like I said, I one application at UC Davis. And so I just felt like that was what God was calling me to. And I wasn't married at the time, so I thought, I can just pick up a move. So I went up there and started my graduate career at Davis. Then that year, I got brought woman into my life and somebody I'd known for years but really hadn't had much, we mutually didn't have a lot of interest in one another. We liked each other, we were both believers. It wasn't one of those things that we said, oh, this is the person for me. We just started the relationship and within a year we were married. And so my wife of 31 years has been with me and yeah, so it's been wonderful. And so she spent two years enduring the life of poverty as a grad student. So she went from a pretty well-paying job. to come and I'll extol the values of poverty as a college student again. It was true love. True love. The Princess Bride. Exactly. Yeah. I'd say this about Dorenda too, that sounds like both of us married up, me and you, because uh for me and other buddies, I'd say, yeah, we definitely married up in life. Oh, that's, that's true. Yeah. She's, she's most definitely the A side. I'm the B side. funny. That's funny. Well, so I'd love to go backwards to on meettheprof.com, you shared some of how you came to Christ and started growing in Christ. And it involved you hearing Billy Graham, I imagine on TV or on the radio. I was wondering if you could tell me like what what you remember feeling during that, what really resonated for you, because you were a non-believer, you listened to Billy Graham and that was a turning point for you believing in Christ. So, what was happening then? Well, let me give you just a, I'm gonna back up about two or three steps prior to that because I didn't grow up in a Christian home and I didn't, was, you know, absolutely, this verse would be, you did not seek me. I didn't seek God. I don't know how, I don't know why God. decided to pick me. There was no point where I said, I'm gonna search for the truth. That was not me. I was reluctantly dragged to church on Wednesday at college, my first year of college by my friend who wanted to take me to college, to church. And we would go to church and then afterwards we'd go to the bars and drink till we were completely stupid. And that was my experience with church. Somebody later on, during that time on the Wednesday came up after us and said, would you guys like to go to Bible study? And I said, sure. My friend goes, no, no, no, we're going to church on Wednesdays, we're good. That's what we need. We need church on Wednesdays. And so I said, I guess that's Christianity. So that was my experience with Christianity. I was in Army Reserve at this point. So I had about two years Army Reserve. And after my first year of college, I just felt like I'm wasting my. parents' money. They can't really, they're paying for me to come here, but I can't stay here. I'm wasting their money and I'm not, so I said I'm just going to join the Army, go active duty in the Army and just try to figure my life out. My mom was not too happy about this. I I'll pay for your college, you didn't go to college here? I said, no, this is, this is. Huh. already in the Army, I'm just going to go on active duty, I'll figure it out. So while I'm waiting to go on active duty, I couldn't find a job. This was back in 82, I was having trouble finding a job. I have the skills, I mean could drive heavy construction equipment, I was quite good at it, but there just weren't any jobs. So apparently God was saying, no, no, if you get this job it'll be a distraction, you're going to just suffer. I'm just be alone. So I was wondering, I'm asking myself, what in the world am I doing with my life? Why am I doing this? I have no hope, I have no job, I can't do anything. I'm a loser. you know, we're just going out, going fishing and drinking till, it wasn't anything. So anyway, I was driving down the street in the main street in Boise, Idaho, and I saw this billboard that said, Billy Graham crusade on TV. So I said, okay, I'm gonna watch it. I don't know why, somehow Billy Graham, for whatever reason, I don't know if I've even heard of him, but somehow I've said this guy knows what he's talking about. This guy's got something, so I didn't, was in, the crusade was actually in Boise, but there was no way I was gonna go to that, but it was televised, so I went ahead and. and watched it on TV. And as he's doing the crusade, I don't really remember too much of what he said. His message is pretty clear, but it was, you're a sinner and God really wants to take care of that. Jesus died. And so people were coming down as he made his invitation. He said, you know, for those of you out there, you're seeing people come down and respond. You can respond too. If this message has spoke to you, call that number on the bottom of the screen. So I wrote it down and said, I'm going to call the number. So I run over the phone and I called and I said, you know, and she said, well, what would you like? What can I help you with? I said, well, I was watching the crusade, the Billy Graham crusade. said, you know, if this message has spoke to you, call the number. I want to do what he said." And she said, well, what was that? And I said, oh, it's about Christ and things. So she shared the gospel with me. And then she, on the phone, over the phone, she goes, is that what you want? I said, yes, that is, I want to receive Christ as my savior. And I was about 20, 18, I was about 20. About 20. Wow. I said, yeah, that's what want to do. I did feel a sense of relief and like, OK, I finally did something that was good. But I mean, what do you do? I mean, my experience with Christianity was go to church on Wednesdays and then go to do whatever you want. That's all you have to go to do. And I there's got to be more to it than that. So they sent a follow-up material, you go to church, read your Bible, pray, find fellowship. And so I got that before I went to active duty. And then I started trying to do those things, but it didn't really take. I I'm like a little chicken that pops out of the egg and says, I'm here, what do I do now? And I didn't have anybody to help me along the way. So I'm trying to struggle to figure it out. And then it didn't really take. So about six or eight months later, I'm in Hawaii at my first duty station. Just walking across the quad, and on a Thursday evening, and these guys had Bibles underneath. were playing hacky sack, had Bibles next to them. And I knew there was Bibles. I what else was gonna be a big book like this. That's gotta be a Bible. So I walked over to them and said, what you guys doing? They said, oh, we're playing hacky sack. I said, oh yeah. You want to play? I said sure. I said, where are you guys going after this? They said, we're going to Bible study. I said, can I go? And they said, yeah. They're probably thinking, whoo, I didn't have to convince him at all. But I'm thinking myself, I was asking, and I asked about a Bible study. That seed was dropped a year and a half prior to that by that guy who asked me in college. Do you want to go to Bible study? And I said, yeah. My friend says, no. But I said, I kind of want to go. so this is, God dropped that seed. God dropped that seed. This is God leading to a person who had absolutely no interest in Christianity or following God. God sought me. And I still, to this day, I say, why? Why would you do that? I mean, I didn't. I certainly wasn't one of those people who said, I'm going to follow every little detail. I'm going to peel back all these layers. I'm going to do my research. that wasn't me. My story was, I didn't seek for God. God sought for me. to this day, I marvel and say, why would you do that? So anyway, I got involved with the Navigator Ministry through these guys. My brother had become a Christian at the time. And he said, you've got to be involved with the Navigators. He was involved with the Navigators of Boise State. I asked the guys, well the book says Navigators, well I'll just ask. So turns out they were. They actually did help me. They came alongside and helped me to grow in my faith. They taught me what it means to walk with Christ. And that's the kind of thing that people need. You know, it's one thing to share the gospel with somebody and help them to come to Christ and see Christ, but it's also, it's a more, important responsibility to take the time after the person has come to know Christ to follow up with them so that they can know how to walk with Christ and to be allow him to teach you and to follow him and to learn what pleases the Lord. And so I have nobody to do that but the navigators came alongside. So that's one of the things that I... have tried to do over the years is I get to know people as try to see where they're at and as imperfectly as I may do it, know, say let's figure out how to walk with the Lord and count for Him. Because we need, it's a journey with people, it's not a solo thing. Yeah. What was your journey like then spiritually when you were a professor? Like how did you see God building your faith early in your early years as you're teaching and how did you grow? Well, as a new professor here, I was involved heavily in my church, but I think I had like a a couple pot thing, a couple pot faith. Okay, my work thing is over here and my spiritual thing is here. hear about all the things, and I think some of it is probably just bias. I hear about people who say all of... Professors don't really believe in Christ. They're very skeptical. If you're really spiritual, if you're really smart, you don't really think about Christianity. You certainly wouldn't believe the Bible is true and that we have a God who actually cares about how we live and that there actually is a place where evil forces, world forces are at work. That's just... Nobody believes that in academia. So I sort of bought into that and was like, I'm just gonna kind of keep my head down and do my work, do my work well. And if somebody asks me about how things are going, maybe I'll talk to them about it, but I'm not gonna offer up anything. And consequently, I sort of siloed myself and for, you know, I'm kind of wondering, are there any Christians here at Cal Poly? Is there anybody here? who actually does want to follow the Lord, or is it just me? And you know, it's sort of like the Elijah syndrome, and it's like, oh, Elijah, what are you talking about? I've got 7,000 people out here. Just open your eyes. And I'm thinking. You mean there's more than just me? Of course there are. I've got people everywhere. And I was like, oh. So I took a long time before I actually found people at Cal Poly who are on faculty who really want to walk with Jesus. And I thank God that he brought people like that into my life. that came about mostly through Faculty Commons. And it helped me to realize, oh, wow, there are people. here who really do love Jesus who want to and so it's helped me over the years to kind of say I can I can do this and I can I can actually talk to people about Jesus I can so I've been over you know progressively over the last probably 10 years I've become more vocal about my faith and talking to faculty and students both about about my faith. It's interesting as a reserve officer I spent good deal of my career at West Point teaching as a faculty, as a reserve officer. And every time I would go out there, I would make a point to be involved and to say, well, are there any Christians here? So I'm very vocal about saying, okay, we're at the military academy, there's gotta be Christians here. Military people love Jesus, because that's been my experience. So I always found people who were involved at the faculty and to this day I still keep in touch with many of those both both cadets that have become officers and gone on to careers and as well as uh faculty who have you been there or retired and it's just you know that has been an extremely powerful time in my life but that was I made a point to be very vocal about and intentional about trying to be involved in people's lives there. I kept asking myself, why don't I do that back at Cal Poly? That's where my school is. Why can't I do that there? was like, duh. God's basically saying. had a professor that, was just two weeks ago, a professor was telling me how uh she came to one of our Christian faculty luncheons on our campus, they're just once a month, and came out of it saying, you know, I've known that there had to be other Christians on campus who are faculty, but just seeing the other Christian faculty here, just really encourages me because I can feel like I'm alone out there. So I appreciate you sharing how sometimes it might take some initiative to go and find other Christian faculty. Are there other things that either helped you connect with Christian faculty or you've seen work in helping others? Well, you know, over the years, one thing that our Faculty Commons group does is each year we go out to the new faculty and we bring a welcome bag, a coffee cup, and it just introduces ourselves as being part of Faculty Commons. There's a goodie bag, there's a coffee cup, there's different treats, there's some, you know. information about who faculty, who Christian faculty are, what faculty commons is, and as we pass those bags out, I started thinking to myself, well, this is an opportunity just to follow up and see how, you know, so it's, everybody wants to talk about the little welcome bag, and it's like, why are you here? It's like, oh, you know, they're very grateful to receive the welcome bag. And so I... stands out of a professor who was really encouraged to get a welcome bag like that? Well, several. Just this last year, had a, you know, we have, have a, one thing I've noticed over the years, and David and Molly have both made, I guess, well, we've got so many, half, yes, of course, uh half of the faculty are, appear to be from outside the country. They're not, they're not US citizens. They're either from India or China or the middle, some Middle Eastern country. And he says, you know, I said, God is bringing the world to us. So we don't have to necessarily go to other countries to evangelize the... the world, God is literally bringing the world to our doorstep. And so I've said, this is an opportunity. I've had a couple of Christian, a couple of faculty who are in other departments who are Korean. And I took my welcome bag over to him and he said, wow, this is so wonderful. Thank you so much for this. And then he said, well, then a couple, about a week or so later, he came by with a gift. for me. said, thank you so much for bringing this. So it was, know, and so, you know, we've developed a friendship and we have, we go out for coffee every now and then. Well, I've never heard of that happening, but do think that's a cultural thing too, to return a gift? That's beautiful. in the Koreans, I think also the other Asian cultures, it's very common to, if you give a gift, they bring a gift. It's sort of very Solomon-like. When the queen of Sheba comes, she brings this big gift and he outgave her his gift. I go, you gave me yours, I'll give you mine. So I think it's an Asian thing, You know, and I've had, we've had, I think one thing that's been really encouraging here is we've had over the years, I was department chair for many years, like six years or so, and during that time we had hired some faculty, and one of them was from India, really wonderful guy, but over time he felt alone. He didn't feel like, He had his group of people at our school, so consequently he said, you know, I'm going to move on to another school where I can find my people. And I thought, well, that's kind of sad. So I've been trying to reach out to people, to lecturers in our department. and say, you know, I know that one of them is from India, the other is from another place, but I said, you know, sometimes the lectures might feel unappreciated. I said, I'm going to reach out and try to make them feel welcome. So my wife and I invited them over and had dinner with them. so we tried to make them feel. It was wonderful. mean, they both appreciated just coming over and having dinner. You know, they're not believers, but they will certainly talk with me about Christianity. We go out for coffee quite a bit actually now. I've had times when one of the lecturers will, he'll start sharing things on a more personal level and then we'll. I'll pray for him and then a couple weeks later he'll say, thank you so much for praying for me. I listened and here's what happened as a result of the issue. And it's just, it doesn't take that much. Most of it is just. let's go have coffee. And I've actually had, one thing that's been really interesting, I have a student who's involved, I'm gonna do a little ministry with this student here, and he asked me to go and talk to his professor about Jesus. So he said, well, you know, so. I tried to follow up and it was like, well, didn't. And finally, I said, okay, let me just make a point to do it right after. I could have some time right now. A couple weeks ago, I said, let me just make a point. So I said, I got time right now. It's after the department meeting. So said, I'm gonna just go up there and see if I can find him. I walked in and knocked on his door. It turns out the same student who said, could you meet with this professor? He was in the office. And I said, hey, you know. And so I introduced myself and then he says, well, what can I do for you? I well, you know, I'm one of the faculty in the department. you know, there's a lot of things I'd like to share, but I'd rather just, you know, can we maybe just make a time to have coffee and then we'll go talk later? So, you know, I did. he was, we did, you know, it's been good. think we've. found we have a lot of common ground. another faculty, I just, I don't even know the faculty. I had no connection with him at all. I just saw his office door open and another department knocked on his door and said, you know what? See, you've got these 10-second-read models here. I know what that is. We use it in biomechanics for modeling cellular structure. and so we developed a connection and then... you know, after talking with him for a while, he said, can we do coffee? So he offered, and we went and had coffee a couple of weeks later. So he initiated it. How'd that go when you had coffee? Did y'all get into spiritual things? did, and afterwards, I actually had to cut the thing off. said, I really have to go to a meeting. He says, thank you so much for taking the time to meet. He says, I've been here for about three years and nobody in my own department has actually asked me to do anything like this. So I said, I really appreciate that somebody from another department just came over and... international faculty also? No, he's not. He's not. He's a... But he's a... But he just was happy to spend some time. Yeah. And so, you there's times that, you know, we still meet for coffee and... Now I'm getting to the point where I don't have to invite faculty to coffee more often than not. I'm starting to more applications, times when faculty will say, can we get coffee sometime? It's like, yeah, let's do that. How is that happening? How do they know you're available for that? Well, because I think it's because I've invited them for coffee so many times. it's a, you know, there is an old Saturday, there's an old Saturday Night Live skit that was called coffee talk, where you get together and have coffee and talk. That seems familiar. I'm thinking about the copy machine guy. That's different, isn't it? oh I have to look up coffee talk. talk, yeah. So we get together, we have coffee and talk. but I started to say... Oh, hi. So, anyway, I would do this. I started doing this when I was at West Point because, you know, it's like, you know, there's a little coffee shop right there at just... five minutes from our building, I would just stop in a various faculty's office, say, hey, you want to take a few minutes, go have coffee and just chat? always, people, you know, they're really busy there because they have many schedules. say, I can't do it now, but I would love to. Let's set it. Let's make a calendar event and we will schedule it a little set of times. So I always. People always enjoyed it, very disarming. I could talk to them pretty much about anything and they just liked not having to go and there wasn't any pretense. It's just come out here and just, what you're struggling with it, they would share, I would share and it just was really good. I felt a lot of, it's social and I like the aspect of social and relational types of things. dinner, coffee, these are things that are just very disarming for people. I don't go out to, I don't drink beer or things so I can't go to the bars or things like that. Not that I have a diverse, I have a background where my parents were alcoholics and I a lot of bad experiences with alcohol in my own life. So for me, it's like I'm just not gonna do that. Other people say, let's have a drink. I can't do that, I'll have coffee with them. my mind and my stereotypes of a mechanical engineer because I tend to think of engineers being more introverted and you're initiating constantly with people to go have coffee. That's a very extroverted type behavior there. Was that something you feel like you learned over time? Is this just part of who you are? Have you always enjoyed I would say this, I am quite introverted. I am quite introverted. But what I've found over the years is that in order to meet with people, I have to get outside myself. know, like when I go to a church, I have no expectation that anybody is going to greet me at a church. I just don't. And most often that's true. So I've found if I want to be part of the group, I actually have to introduce myself. And so it is funny because, you know, I am as an introvert. I wind up in front of people. every day. And sometimes I can be in front of 200 or 300 people and it's like, okay, I can't be introverted here. I have to adapt. so God just has worked on me to say, okay, you need to get outside yourself. You just have to take some initiative and, you know, if you want to be lonely, You can be lonely without having to do too much effort. But if you want to get involved and be involved with people, you're going to have to. make an effort to reach outside yourself. God is continually reaching out to us. I I marvel at some of the accounts where God is reaching out to us. I think particularly of Jonah, where God makes a desire, has a desire to reach out to, use Jonah to reach out to the Ninevite people that he's concerned about. Jonah has no interest in that, so Jonah goes the opposite direction. Yeah. and God eventually brings him back. And then when Jonah is used of God to accomplish God's work, Jonah's upset with God for doing that. But Jonah, but God keeps reaching out, not only to the people of Nineveh, he reached out to Jonah and pursued Jonah, even though Jonah was, he kept saying, come on Jonah, let's talk about that. It reminds me a lot of the prodigal son. where the father keeps reaching out to the older son. we have to do this. The books end up basically, the prodigal son and Jonah end up basically the same. never know if the older son comes back and is reconciled with the father. We never know if Jonah really comes to peace with God. But I just marvel that God continues to reach out. people. So I think over the years God's just helped me to say, you got to reach out to people. I care about them. So you got to care about them too. And you have to get outside yourself and just be comfortable enough to say, you can do this. You can do this. It really is not that hard. And if it's just one on one, that's a little less disarming than just, you know. And so let's do the, let's go out there and speak in front of, you know, 50 people. I don't like that. I can have coffee with somebody. I love that. That's very inspiring. I love those biblical examples too. What about the student? You said that you have done some ministry with a student. What have you all done? So over the years, our church has a lot of they call growth groups, sermon-based types of studies where the church's vision is to use those groups as a means to disciple people. And we've tried to do that with some modest degree of success. But it never seems to take, so what I started saying is, well, this doesn't seem to be our thing. But I had some students ask me if I would do Bible study with them. I got, well, they're actually, they're actually, they go to our church and they go to the college group at church. So I started saying, and I've been involved with them through discipleship types of things, I'm mentoring them, so I said, look, here's what I'd like to do. Because they would say, can we read a book? I said, I don't really have a desire to read a book, but what I would do is, would, how about if we go into the Bible and we will do a study of shorter books of the Bible. So the first time we did this, it was about a year ago in the winter quarter. So let's do the one chapter books of the New Testament, Philemon, second, third, John and Jude. And we'll just do those every two weeks. sweet. We'll do it. We'll get through four books of the Bible over one quarter. And they said, man, that'd be great. So we did that. And then they said, can we do this again over the summer? So we said, OK, let's do Philippians. So we did the book of Philippians over the summer. And then they said, can we keep going? I said, OK, let's do James in the fall. We just finished up the book of James this fall. And now we're getting ready to just jump into 1 Timothy. Yeah. So you said that they already knew you though through some discipleship things. Like how did you even begin to connect with the college students in your church? Well, part of it was it was really just God. I mean, ultimately, because our ministry at West Point, we spent from 2018 to 2022, spent my wife and I spent two and a half years. We spent more time at West Point than we did at Cal Poly. Is that right? And so, here I am a colonel in the army, but I've got students. We live on post, and I'm teaching, but the students want to be involved in your life, which is interesting. They say, can we come over for dinner? So we got to where my wife and I felt like this is how God really has equipped us. The students want to come over and they want to have dinner and just want to feel like... I want to be part of your life. So we do the same thing. We took that little experience over there of having students come over, you know, for them they could walk over because it was like, you know, half a mile to a mile from where they were at. But here they have to drive, but they still will say, you know, we want to come over and have dinner. And so sometimes we've had students invite themselves for dinner or bring friends to dinner. We invite them. And we live 20 or so minutes from campus. it's a little bit, it's not really close, but they'll do it. But what we did is we were going to a church here in our town, which is not near, since we felt like our ministry, God was leading us into a campus student-centric type of ministry. We said, I can't do it here without you know, let's try to find a place where students are. So we changed churches and started going to the church in San Luis Obispo where there was plenty of students. And so we tied in with the college student ministry and we got involved and made ourselves known to the college pastor and he would start pointing students at me and say, this guy wants to be discipled, would you disciple him? And so, you know, consequently we've got to know a lot of students and we'll have at the beginning and the end of the year, we'll have a barbecue order house where we just invite as many students as we can and when I come over, just have burgers, dogs and fellowship. Wow. Can you tell us about like one of the students who was really encouraged by being a part of a group like this and having you pour into him or her? Any success stories? well, I've got one student now who, you know, most of the opportunities I get are not things I pursue. have students just come up and ask me. Can you give a talk on prayer? Can you talk at Epic Group? So about a year ago, I was asked to speak to the Epic Group on anything that they felt like God was talking to me about. And so I prayed about it for a while and I went to the Epic Group and was praying about what should I talk about. And so afterwards, this one student came up and started talking with me. I was talking a lot about fruitfulness, and how God wants us to be fruitful. And as I was talking with him, I started feeling like God's saying, you know, why don't you ask him if he'd like to meet? So I said, would you like to just start meeting and just get together a little bit? He said, you know, I've been wanting somebody to mentor me and I wasn't going to ask you, but that would be exactly what I need. So he started talking with him and it turns out he's a really, really kind of a new believer. It's fun working with new believers because they just are excited about walking with or they get excited about small things. Just, God, talk to me about this. um the student's energy. been meeting with him, going through a navigator study on how to just follow up with the person and what does it mean to walk in obedience to Christ. so we meet regularly. I meet with him later on today. We go to a coffee shop and then we talk about the book or whatever's going on in his life. And he said, you know, I'm graduating now, but can we continue to do this even if I Can I still keep in touch with you?" It's like, yeah. And he's actually, another student we worked with are going on a mission trip to El Salvador with the Campus Crusade Ministries here, go on a short-term mission over the spring break. And he's going, my wife and I went a couple years ago. I really wanted to go, but I probably have a grandchild being born. in about two weeks, so it doesn't really work out. But there'll be more opportunities. Yeah, so, but we're excited about that. But I so wanted to go because it's like, I want to go down there and be with you guys while you guys are, you know, but it just, the door was kind of closed. mean, I asked a couple people here if I could go in and say, no, no, it's just too, no, can't, so. everything then. It's encouraging though to hear your heart for them. yeah, so I'm excited to see, this is a new Christian, and his desire is to reach out, he said, I really want it, I just felt like God wants me to reach out to people and be involved in this. I was like, yes, he's catching the vision. Go out there and be Jesus, bring the light of Christ to the world. And I was just excited that this guy has a heart for, you know, wants to reach out and do that. So I just feel really grateful that God's brought these people into my life and said, you you don't really have that much to offer. But what you do have, what you do have, you know, be, you know, just spend time with them. And I think that that's, for me, that's been really encouraging. And like I said, I'm retiring here in a... When people ask me, you going to miss teaching? I was like, no, no, I'm not. What are you going to do? You know, I don't know, but the things that I don't have to be a faculty member to be involved with students life. It doesn't mean I'm not going to go out and be involved in faculty life. I have two sets of, basically two ministries. have ministry to faculty and a ministry to students. I'm going to continue to do both. I don't have to be a faculty member to do it. It brings me lot more joy. I've been really, really excited about just looking forward to continuing. ministry to faculty on campus. I love the relationships I've developed with the faculty here and it would be such a shame not to continue to be involved in their lives and in fact, without none. to do that after you retire? can easily, I don't have to, I can still talk to them. I can still, I still have access, I have a parking permit. If I want I could probably get an office as an emeritus faculty. Yeah, anyway, but like I said, I really enjoy just meeting with faculty and encouraging them and continuing to. to lead G3 groups and I love the faculty ministry. So I'm going to continue. Well, G3 group is. group of three. So where two or three have gathered together at my name, I am there in the midst. So I think it's based on that. it's sometimes hard to get group any more than three or so faculty together because of divergent schedules and things like that. Faculty are just busy. So the G3 groups are faculty fellowship groups where we get together and pray for one another and talk about a topic. of spiritual interest so that we have a prompt with devotional thoughts on it. We read through that and we talk about how God has been at work in our lives. We pray for one another, encourage one another. For me, I enjoy that a great deal. I would really be sad if I couldn't continue to do that. And I'll continue to do student ministry because I'd still love to hang out with the students. I have some other men around church that I find time to encourage. And I find that actually the more that I try to encourage people, the more encouraged I get from them. I don't really know if I have that much to bring, but boy, they bring a lot to me. So I've been really blessed by that. I know Yeah. Well, so this has been so rich. so I want to ask you some lightning round questions. First, could you give like advice to other Christian professors who may be wondering how do I take the next step of faith? How do I be a little more bold in my faith on campus? I would say just invite somebody out to have—so invite a colleague out to have coffee. Most people will do that. I've even had things like this. I've even ministered to janitorial staff on just— interruptions, you know, because I'll have, I'll talk to pretty much anybody who will talk to me, but occasionally a janitor will come in and empty the trash, and I'll thank them, and I'll also, you know, ask them their name, or, and after a while, I noticed one time this one fact, this one janitor, her countenance was just different. She's not the same. I said, what's going on? And she said, well, so-and-so died over there. He's a good friend, and so-and-so died. said, that's tragic. I said, can I pray for you? And I've had students come into my office and they're sullen or sad. Something's not right. And then I'll say, look, can I pray for you? And they'll say, sure. And I say, can we pray now? They're like, I said, no, you know, cause they might say, yeah, sure, pray for me. you want to pray now? And just that little invitation. I have not had anybody. turned me down on that. Very simple thing, office hours, know, I think that being willing to be interrupted, I think of Jesus and how many wonderful opportunities he had. I think some of his richest interactions with people came about by being interrupted. Jesus was okay with being interrupted. The one I'm thinking of specifically at this point, that's the only one I can think of at the time, is the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years, and it says, she suffered greatly at the hands of doctors. She even said, if I just touch his cloak, I'll be better. That is so much faith. And so, you know, there's all these people around the crowd, and this woman, Jesus, goes, who touched me? It's like, Jesus, come on, man. There's, you know, what are you talking about? There's hundreds of people around you. No, somebody touched me. And then the woman, you know, he stopped everything for this woman who touched him. He stopped everything. He said, oh, she confessed, he said, You know, your faith has made you well. Go on. It was like, what a wonderful thing. He let himself be interrupted. You know, so often interruptions can be opportunities for us to do that. So think for me, not allowing the busyness of my, or my perceived busyness to get in the way of what God might want to do with an interruption. love it. That's great advice. oh types of things. What about your advice for any student who is struggling with doubts about God? Can you give that student any advice? Well, you know, think that God reaches out to us. It's not really the work that we do. It's what God does in spite of us. God's not asking us to be perfect. surely, I was thinking about this this morning, about how God really is a father. I was reading Psalm 68, it is a father to the fatherless. And we don't really think of God as having that type. We kind of think maybe he's not concerned about. what's going on in my life. The very fact of the matter is that God is intimately concerned. I think of the prodigal son who said, you know, he's gone. And it says when he was a long way off, he saw him and run. The only way he could have saw him, he must have been looking for him every day. He's out there wondering if he didn't come back. The father was always looking. You don't have to teach a father, well you shouldn't have to, I mean guess it doesn't always happen, you shouldn't have to. A good father, wouldn't have to teach them to love their children. And even if we have had bad fathers or bad examples, we still know in our heart of hearts that that's not the way a father should be. And there is a father who is always concerned about what's going on. He cares deeply about the things that are going on. and he's always reaching out. He's always... I mean, I didn't, from my own self, my own experience, I didn't look for God. God didn't... I had doubts. Could God possibly love me? I mean, look at all the bad stuff I've done. He cares about us. Why? I don't know. It's just, it's too wonderful for me to understand. the fact of the matter is he does, he cares, he loves us deeply. No other God does that. So, if you... I mean, how can we doubt the love of God? Paul says, know, he gave his son. He gave his son for us. He gave his son. Even when we were sinners, you know, if God told him to do that, when we didn't merit it, man, he's going to do what he says. He's going to forgive us. He's going to deal with us. as a father does his own children. think it's just amazing that this God cares about us so deeply that He'll hunt us down. He'll follow us even if you're not pursuing Him. So, Most of my life has been, I didn't look for any of the opportunities I wound up with. I didn't look for my opportunity at West Point. I didn't look for my opportunity to do research with the Army. didn't do, I didn't really, Cal Poly was not my first choice. I wanted to go to a research institution, but I felt like God was calling me here. And my wife agreed, and I said, okay, if I can do the type of research I want to do and attract funding at Cal Poly, which is an undergraduate, primarily, institution, then I'm going to stay here. And within three years, I had to stop—after five years, I had to stop writing grants because I had— I had so much money coming in that I couldn't, I know I don't know. I can't understand. of that problem. It's an unusual problem and it's not because I'm so good at it, because I'm really not, but it was because God wanted to show me that this is where he wanted. He had to do this because otherwise I wouldn't have stayed here. He says, I got to give him some money because if I don't, then I want him there. And if I don't give him this, then he'll walk away and he'll be too stupid to figure out that I want him to stay here. thankful that he kept you there when I hear about your relationship with these students and the faculty. That sounds just like God. long time to actually get to that point because for many years I didn't really have that. it's been, it's actually has brought, you know, actually like I say, most of it came about because I was actually, I mean, I'm an Army officer, but. Instead of getting deployed to go to Afghanistan, I actually did get a call to go to Iraq for a year and a half. I didn't go because of the back surgery. didn't. But my deployments from that point forward were being deployed to West Point. that right? It's like, okay, hardship tour. But, you know, over the years, God used that experience to really develop and change my heart towards both faculty and students and to help me to realize, oh, and I kind of needed that. I kind of needed to get outside myself. I think getting outside of myself is... being brought out of a place where I thought I have control. I've come to realize I have almost zero control over how my career has gone. It just happened. It wasn't the way that I planned, but God brought me where he wanted me to go. I think, oh, that's pretty wonderful. Yeah. Well, Lanny, so the last question I have for you is what do you think might be the next step of faith God would have you take? Well, as a retiring faculty, the big thing is to say, you know, I've got a lot of unstructured time. And so I have to, I think a lot of what happens that's really in terms of goodness is going to have to do with what do I do with my unstructured time? How well do I manage and steward that unstructured time? So I'm trying to figure out ways in which I can count for him. going to have to be accountable to my wife to make sure that I am really being a good steward of that. There's opportunities that have come about to... maybe go overseas and speak at college campuses over time. I had to turn one down this year to talk at university in Mexico, but there'll be other opportunities for that. So I'm looking forward to saying, what does God want me to do? I'm just trying to keep my ears and my eyes open to to do what he wants me to do, to take his invitation and say, this is the way, walk in it. know, honestly, a friend of mine put it this way, he says, know what, Lanny God's more interested in you and telling you what he wants you to do than you are in finding out about it. that helps take the pressure off of me to think of it that way. wants to show you what to do. So I think it's really important that I just say, OK, God, what do you really want me to do? And he says he's more excited to tell you what his will is than we are finding out about it. Because sometimes we say, if that's what you really want me to do, now I don't want to do that. Yeah, You know, I don't know the answer to this question, but I know you've been involved in some leadership with Faculty Commons out there in California. Are there some opportunities you know of as you retire to serve more in an official capacity with Faculty Commons? I would very much be open to that. I I'm not ruling anything out. If this is what God leads, I'm certainly happy. I've even toyed with the idea of going to seminary. But, you I don't know. We'll just to wait and see what God points out. What I don't want to do is shut off operative. I no, can't do that. I mean, kind of like... I don't be old. I don't want to be old. Yeah, yeah. So my other pastor used to say, if you're not dead, you're not done. So I just want to make sure that I'm not cutting off opportunities that God may say, this is what I really want you to do. I can't do it, I'm too old. It's like, no, you can still do things like that. I mean, it's interesting. one of the things that was interesting was Enoch. Enoch was 62 years old. when he actually started walking with God. And he said after that he walked with God for 365 years, but it happened, you he said, okay, 62, God called him. said, then he got to where God enjoyed walking with him so much. says, hey, you know, Enoch, it's been so great walking with you. You want to walk with me up here? And he said, yeah, the view's much better up here. So says, I just took him away. That's a good story. I know, isn't it? But God is like, I think I just want to try to figure out, you know, because I'm about Enoch's age. So I want to try to say, well, yeah, maybe I can start trying to walk with God more and enjoy just being with Him for the sake of just. walking. mean that's a fun thing to do. Let's go walking together. I've even done that with faculty. Just at lunchtime, let's go walking. That's another opportunity. can just do simple things, relational things. But if we just do those types of things, think God will use this as long as we're... He's going to guide us. He's going to teach us what He wants us to do. It's just simple things, if we're just willing to listen and say, okay, I can do that. Yeah. Well, Lanny, thank you so much. I feel really grateful and honored to be getting to know you in this season of your life. And I would very much like to be a part of watching and seeing and supporting you in this next season as you retire. It sounds like that you're setting yourself up well for God to walk you into a new season. So thank you. Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about or say? Just trying to find ways to enjoy the Lord. mean that's, that's I've been... It seems to get a little better every year, every day. So I'm starting to enjoy the excitement of what's next. for our audience, thank you so much for joining us. And remember, you can read even more about Lanny on meettheprof.com and search for him by name, Lanny Griffin, And please remember to subscribe or like where you're watching or listening. And thanks again. We hope until next time this helps encourage you to have a Christ-centered conversation on your college campus.