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School of Divinity program partners with local churches to equip future pastors with pulpit training

Pastor Shane Bost was recently hired as senior pastor at Mecklenburg Baptist Church in Boydton, Va., a church he had frequently been assigned to for the program.

Through the Liberty University John W. Rawlings School of Divinity, a number of churches in Central Virginia have been matched with graduate students to serve their congregations.

The Liberty Pastoral Pulpit Supply Program was started by Dr. Randy Spencer, director of church revitalization at the School of Divinity. A former campus pastor at Liberty (2000-06), Spencer worked in full-time ministry until retiring in 2017 when he returned to Liberty and began the program.

The Pulpit Supply Program currently works with around 20 area churches and close to 30 graduate students. Churches in need of someone to deliver a sermon contact the School of Divinity and, as long as the church is located within the required 100-mile radius around Lynchburg, Spencer will visit the congregation and meet with church leadership to explain the program and get a better understanding of the church’s needs. He then works with the churches to set up a rotating schedule of student-pastors who visit the congregations and preach for Sunday services.

Whether they are filling in for the short term or for the longer term, such as when a church is searching for a new pastor, students get a chance to hone their preaching skills and gain real-world experience among different churches and denominations.

“I have received an abundance of positive reports from students and churches who benefit through this program,” Spencer said. “Liberty’s student-pastors are truly a blessing to these small rural churches and as a result, students have the opportunity to develop their preaching skills while churches are discovering Liberty’s mission to come alongside the local church.”

In some cases, the visits turn into a calling.

Benji Works, interim pastor at Ben Salem Presbyterian Church in Buena Vista, Va.

Shane Bost (’19) received his Bachelor of Science in Religion – Biblical and Theological Studies and, for the last couple of years, he has traveled to different churches assigned by Spencer each Sunday to preach. He was recently hired as senior pastor at Mecklenburg Baptist Church in Boydton, Va., a church he had frequently been assigned to for the program.

“It was truly a blessing to be a part of (the Pulpit Supply Program),” Bost said. “One of things I appreciated the most about it was how it helped build the relational side of things.”

He explained that applying to be a pastor in the U.S. often follows the business model of submitting a job application, resume, and cover letter before waiting to hear back for an interview.

“It feels very institutionalized rather than relational,” he said.

That was where the Pulpit Supply Program met the need.

“The Pulpit Supply Program is so unique in that it lets you have more of a relational connection to find out if the church is really the place the Lord is planting you and also for the church to discern whether this is the pastor that is being sent to them.”

Students like Bost have benefited from Spencer’s efforts to build genuine relationships with each church, something that Mecklenburg Baptist Church Chairman of the Deacons said he greatly appreciated.

“It wasn’t just a call to say, ‘Hey I’ve got someone lined up for you this week, they’ll be calling you’… It was just tremendous to have the friendship that Dr. Spencer showed during that time (before hiring Bost),” Joe Currin said.

Bost, who is currently finishing his Master of Divinity with a concentration in Professional Chaplaincy: Community, said that the hands-on training has complemented his classwork.

“It has been a great training ground to add extra theological training to the practical side of ministry,” he said. “The breadth of your training is very wide. They really take into account a lot of aspects of the ministry training you need in order to be effective at a church, regardless of the size.”

While intellectual understanding is useful, it must be partnered with preaching practice.

“It’s so strong to have these two working together,” Bost said. “You have all of this theological training and then the Pulpit Supply Program takes all of the training you have done and then puts it into use. Not just for the sake of giving you experience or to give a message but to connect you with churches that are in need.”

Bost believes this is a part of what makes the School of Divinity such a strong preparation ground for soon-to-be pastors.

“I haven’t heard of other seminaries who are doing what Liberty is doing through Dr. Spencer’s program,” he said.

“It is a tremendous blessing to be able to have these young folks come out and bring the true, inerrant Word of God through this program,” Currin added. “They are being taught the truths of God’s Word, and that’s what we need in our churches today.”

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