Liberty receives Courts Redford Award

Liberty University received the Courts Redford Award for Excellence in Student Missionary Deployment for sending out student interns over the summer of 2010.

This is the fourth year in a row Liberty has been honored with this distinction.

The award is annually presented in honor of Courts Redford who served the Southern Baptist Convention’s Home Mission Board for 21 years, recruiting students to evangelize around the nation.

It honors organizations that shine in student missions’ deployment.

Liberty sent out 29 interns states from Virginia to Hawaii this summer. Internships last from four to 10 weeks. Students participated in different ministries, focused primarily on evangelism and church planting.

Seven Liberty students ministered in Virginia by helping churches to sponsor community outreach events. The team hauled three block party trailers and two sports evangelism trailers. These trailers were set up in church parking to attract families to come to Bible schools and festivals where the students would share the gospel.

Another group of students, led by Daniel Earley, participated in what’s called the Parachute Project.

The project sends participants into unchurched areas across the United States for eight to 10 weeks in the summer, where they lay the foundation for church planning.

Liberty Professor and North American Mission Board (NAMB) field missionary to the university and Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary Dr. David Wheeler wants to send out 50 student interns. This would make Liberty largest sending agency.

“That’s our goal. We’re the largest evangelical university, we should be the biggest sender,” Wheeler said.

Wheeler hopes Liberty students will see North America as a primary mission field.

“I don’t want to be the Holy Spirit to the students, but I do want them to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit… to live every day as a missionary,” Wheeler said.

Wheeler said the ministry as being in harmony with Liberty’s mission and the late Jerry Falwell’s missions-focused worldview.

“Liberty’s mission is knowledge aflame. Our goal is to send out students across North America in order to spark a missionary movement of God in both evangelism and church planting,” Wheeler said.

Wheeler recruits missions’ workers for NAMB, with the help of two recruitment interns, by encouraging students in his evangelism classes to use life circumstances as a God-given ministry and building relationships with them.

The deadline to sign up for a summer 2011 missions’ internships with NAMB is coming up at the end of March. Students with questions or who wish to apply for internships should contact Kevin Jones at kcjones@liberty.edu.

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