School of Divinity holds simulation event to equip students with the skills, hearts for church planting

Earlier this month, Liberty University’s Center for Church Advancement in the John W. Rawlings School of Divinity held a Church Planting and Revitalization Simulation to help students better understand how to carry out the Great Commission in communities across North America.

The event was held in the Montview Alumni Ballroom and was open to students, faculty, staff, and community members. Some participants focused on church planting basics and listened to lectures from School of Divinity faculty and, after each session, would act as a church planting team to strategize and survey a city in the U.S. or Canada with the goal of learning how best to plant a church in that area. Others focused on church replants and listened to talks from members of the North American Mission Board’s revitalization team.

Freshman biomedical sciences student Elizabeth Law will be traveling to Montreal, Québec, this summer with the NAMB’s GenSend program to help serve alongside other college students at a church plant. During Saturday’s simulation, she was able to glean practical advice for the trip, including learning how to survey a city and understand the culture and the social environment.

“That was kind of new for me because I’m not a ministry major,” she said. “I haven’t had many of these types of trainings that show you how you have to initially start the process. I found that to be very interesting.”

She hopes to one day use her medical education to serve Christ while potentially being part of a church plant.

“I could definitely see myself one day being a part of a long-term church plant while helping an area that needs medical service,” Law said. “I could work there while being a part of the church-building team. That would be super cool.”

The GenSend program places students in a summer internship in one of 35 cities where the NAMB is partnering to plant new churches. Close to 400 college students from around the country will join GenSend this summer, with many of them from Liberty.

Senior pastoral leadership student Caden Moore will spend this summer working at various church plants in North Carolina, and he said the simulation was a sound presentation of how church planting works.

“It did an excellent job of hitting the main points for somebody who’s interested in helping be a part of a church planting team,” he said. “I really liked how it was set up. We got to work together as a team, which was pretty cool.”

The Center for Church Advancement plans to host the event each spring.