Vision serves

Liberty ministry assists many East coast churches

Vision Ministries is part of the Center for Ministry Training (CMT) at Liberty University, but its impact reaches beyond campus, bringing encouragement to churches along the east coast.

According to Tara Hineline, one of Vision Ministries’ team leaders, the Vision team held auditions Thursday, Jan. 23 in Towns Alumni Center to fill open positions on its travel team. Hineline, along with Ryan Stoll, leads the Vision Ministries team in reaching youth with the gospel.

This faith-driven team operates through CMT and consists of 30 people. The team is split in two, and each half is comprised of a band, drama team, media specialists and speakers.
“Vision exists to serve the local church by coming alongside them with the purpose of discipleship,” Hineline said. “Our vision is to see God glorified through life change in students, whether that is in salvation or growth.”

The Vision travel team has reached out to several churches in Maryland, North and South Carolina and Pennsylvania through youth rallies and events. According to Hineline, Liberty professor David Wheeler, the director of CMT, helped the Vision team to connect with local Southern Baptist churches.

During their travels, the team will help with seven upcoming Disciple Now-style weekends in Maryland, Delaware, the Carolinas, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Richmond, Va., according to Hineline.

“The Discipleship Now weekend is a mini youth retreat,” Stoll said. “The youth will have a time of worship and hearing from a speaker on Friday, worship and activities on Saturday, and we go to church with the youth on Sunday.”

According to Hineline, Vision not only assists the local church, but also helps out with Ministry Impact on Liberty’s campus in Lynchburg. The team serves Impact, an occasional, alternative Convocation that takes place in Towns Alumni Center, through worship and greeting.

Hineline, who is in her fifth semester of working with Vision, remembers when the team was in constant prayer about the need for financial support to keep the ministry alive.

“The heart of our leadership was to keep the ministry alive, and we even discussed the possibility of local church sponsorship,” Hineline said. “The Lord was faithful in answering their prayers, she said, and Liberty’s Center for Ministry Training fully sponsored them the next year and continues today.

With the support of CMT, Hineline said vision is able to fill its schedule to maximum capacity, which is what it has done this semester.

“Just the other day Dr. Wheeler spoke to CMT, reminding us not to focus on ourselves, but to remember the team we have around us and ultimately knowing that it is God who does these good works,” Hineline said.

To find out more about Vision Ministries and its events, email visionministrieslu@gmail.com or visit its Facebook page. The team will use a blog, visionministrieslu.wordpress.com, to update information about its travels and events this semester.