University of the Nations

By David Joel Hamilton, edited by Dawn Gauslin

Have you ever met someone who told you, “I don’t believe in God!”? And you asked that person to tell you about the characteristics of that God, the description was so vague that you said, “I also don’t believe in this God!” Just like these people need a new understanding of who God is, also we need a new understanding given by God about what “university” means.

What comes to your mind when you hear the word “camel”? Hunchback? Knees protruding? Big lips? What if God created a new camel with different characteristics? And if that had no humps? And if his lips were exchanged for a long proboscis? It would seem strange and unfamiliar.
Regarding the concept of “university,” God needs a new animal to a new time – with infrastructure, facilities, models, systems, and different curriculums of the traditional concept of the university that come to our mind. Things that were, will be no more; and the things that were not, will be.

What is the purpose of the traditional university? Education?. Training. Get a degree. Get a job. Get a position. But for what? Usually for money. Education is a degree that equips people to climb the social ladder in order to get economic gains, especially in an underdeveloped world.

For example, Santiago in Chile has more doctors in medicine than they can employ and use. In contrast, the islands in southern Chile have no medical care and are in dire need of the most basic medical treatment. Will the doctors of Santiago go to the south of Chile to fill the need? No, because it would not be financially beneficial. Instead, they try to gain more education in areas of expertise that will allow them even more economic profit.

It is true that some people go to college for humanitarian or Christian causes. But what they receive from a traditional university is incomplete and lacks the proper Biblical foundations to sustain the traumas of the real-life of a refugee camp or an AIDS hospital.

How does that U of N is different from traditional universities?

1. The University of the Nations is global, with more than 300 different types of courses offered in over 60 languages and in 330 locations in 120 nations around the world. The UofN requires its students to study on two different continents in order to help them to understand the global village of the 21st century.

The University of the Nations did not seek recognition in any country of any system. As a truly global university is important that will not be placed under the educational laws of any country in particular. To get placed under the requirements or restrictions of a country has the risk to prune the growth and development of the UofN in other nations. Instead, the UofN prefer, as did Harvard University, to establish a new model and standard of excellence.

2. The University of the Nations is modular. Students study for a period of three months which focuses on an intensive study area, instead of studying a variety of topics all at once. This modular system involves a greater focus and produces an increasing learning curve.

3. The University of the Nations integrates theory with practice. Students apply what they have learned in the classroom in a practical stage or in the field. UofN believes in the doing then teaching rather than hearing and then teach.

4. The University of the Nations uses visiting professors. Instead of having only one teacher of the house, the UofN benefits from the diversity and richness of the instructor’s guests who come directly from involvement in their field of expertise to share firsthand with the students. This leads to a high level of educational quality with much less stagnation. It is also more economical because there are smaller resident teachers.

5. The University of the Nations is based on the Biblical Christian worldview. The perspective and the Biblical basis are the foundation stone to contemplate all in life and in learning.

For example, for an art course, someone could teach the same basic content in terms of curriculum and skills training as the traditional university, add a chapel program once or twice a week and call it “Christian education.” But, at a  UofN arts course, students begin to know God, the Creator, and Author of all beauty. Then, they would study the biblical foundations and beauty values within the context of God. This could be followed by a focus on art history from a Christian perspective; how Christianity influenced the arts; how ungodly influences warped artistic expression, etc. So, with this perspective and foundation, the teaching of practical skills would be integrated.

6. The University of the Nations focuses on seven spheres of influence in society through its seven faculties:

Family – College of Counseling and Health Care
Church – College of Christian Ministries
College of Education
College of Communication
College of the Arts and Sports
College of Humanities and International Studies
College of Science and Technology

7. The experience at the University of the Nations begins with a Discipleship Training School, which is the gateway to education through the University of the Nations or to serve in Youth With A Mission. The DTS starts with the fundamentals of the Christian character of life and follow the biblical command in 2 Peter 1: 5-8, “And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things are in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

What is the purpose of the University of the Nations?

The motivation is not financial gain, but to touch the lives of people who need God’s touch; not to improve our own lives, but to serve others in order to improve their lives.

The UofN is different because it exists for a reason also different! To equip people to do the work of God. To give them “passport skills” to serve in countries which it’s not possible to enter as traditional missionaries, or to serve in areas of society where they could not serve without the necessary tools to do it.

The Great Commission must always be the UofN’s heart.:

Mark 16:15 GO and PREACH to INDIVIDUALS
Matthew 28: 19-20 GO and DISCIPLE all NATIONS

This is the double challenge in God’s heart. He wants us to preach to every individual and make disciples of all nations (note: it is written of all nations, not in all nations). We must reach people with the Gospel so that they, in turn, can be salt and light, shaping every sphere of society. UofN is called to equip people to convert the individual and transform society so that “the kingdom of this world become the kingdom of our Lord” (Revelation 11:15). Therefore, the UofN is a tool to realize the long and awaited dream of God.
Some of us succeeded in the educational systems of the world; others didn’t. Many of us have been injured through no Biblical values of the world system.
When Juan Carrasco, a Latin YWAMer worked in North Africa, heard the description of the UofN as a new kind of animal “like a camel with no humps but with an added proboscis,” he said, “You know, I’ve been on a camel another day and it was very uncomfortable and weird. How good is it that God is giving us a camel with no humps!”
The University of the Nations is a new university! a multiplier for missions! where students are not squeezed into the mold of society but are modeled according to God’s destiny for them as individuals to reach the whole society.