When I drafted my portfolio for pre-tenure review, I was uncertain that I was doing enough service. During the worst period of my husband’s illness, it was all I could do to stay on top of my teaching load; I wasn’t as involved as I wanted to be in most areas of service. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the semester after pre-tenure review, I felt panicky. What if I didn’t manage to accomplish the kind of service that I want to be able to give to the institution, my guild, and my community before going up for tenure?

Now, as I look back at this section of my portfolio, I can see that I’ve actually accomplished a lot in the last seven years. Several opportunities came up in the last two years, and I have said yes to them all: I’ve joined the IRB, become a faculty senator, and agreed to take charge of institutional effectiveness for the GST (I discuss this role more in my collegiality section). There are other responsibilities that I’ve held almost as long as I’ve been working for ACU, such as being the Master of Divinity advisor. And, of course, even if I wasn’t working at ACU, I’d feel called to serve a local congregation in whatever ways I can—being better equipped to serve the church is the very reason why I came to ACU as a student many years ago. Better equipping ministers to serve the church is why I’ve stayed and desire to remain here permanently.

Many years ago, when I was a teenager, I remember my youth minister pointing out examples of Christlike service for us to imitate. My youth minister taught us how to look for Christ in one another. Above all, he lifted up the kind of self-giving service that Christ did for his disciples, like washing their feet. He encouraged us all to do likewise: to look for the tasks no one really wanted to do and do them with love and without fanfare. When we divided up communal cleaning tasks, he volunteered to clean the bathrooms; he practiced what he preached. It was a lesson that stuck.

The discontinuities between my youth minister’s lessons on Christian service and my own service to the university are obvious. Though a few tasks are the “well, somebody has to do it” things that we all take turns doing, I’ve usually enjoyed the opportunities I’ve had to serve. The service I have performed could never be described as menial. And I can hardly say, after writing all of this, that I’ve served without at least some fanfare.

But I can say that I have served with love—love for the shared mission we have at ACU and in my department, for my academic discipline, and for the church at large. I want to keep serving, taking on some acts of service that I find fulfilling and especially ones that will help the university accomplish its work.

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