School of Divinity interns gain ministry experience as they advance the Gospel at home and abroad
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October 29, 2024 : By Christian Shields - Office of Communications & Public Engagement
Before her five-week mission internship in Papua New Guinea last summer, recent Liberty University graduate Selah Brown (’24) knew she wanted to pursue a career in missions but had little idea how that goal would be accomplished. Now, after a chance meeting with a tribe in the Southern Pacific, she has a renewed heart for unreached people groups around the globe.
Brown’s internship, facilitated through Ethnos 360, first included training in Madang, where she studied the country’s culture, religious beliefs, language, and how to share the Gospel through a chronological approach. She was then sent out with missionaries who work with the indigenous Maliyali tribe, but en route, heavy fog forced their plane to detour and land near another tribe, the unreached Wantikipa. It was here that Brown saw their incredible need for the Gospel.
When the group arrived, they were greeted with the weeping and sorrow of a funeral. Despite none of the missionaries being able to speak the tribal language, one native spoke Tok Pisin, one of the official languages of PNG. He explained he had written to Ethnos 360 asking for a missionary but they had not yet received one.
“Wantikipa is an entire village of people who have never heard the Gospel but long for someone to come tell them, and it was truly in that moment I saw how the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few,” Brown said, noting that there aren’t enough missionaries to send to all the tribes. “Who will tell the people of Wantikipa or the other unreached people groups in the world God’s story so that they might have a chance to be saved?”
The team only spent three hours with the Wantikipa before continuing their journey to Maliyali, but that was plenty of time for Brown to feel empathy for the unreached and a call to full-time mission work.
“I believe this ‘sudden landing’ wasn’t sudden to God at all, as every person on my team who experienced this is truly changed forever,” she said. “While I pray that others go, I have come to the conclusion that I will go so other unreached people, like those in Wantikipa, might have a beautiful story like the Maliyali people — unreached people who became reached because someone committed to teach them the Gospel and now love and know Jesus with sealed eternities.”
Now back in the United States, Brown, who earned her B.S. in Christian Leadership & Church Ministries this past May, plans to move to Wilmington, N.C., in search of a home church that could one day send her back to the mission field.
Brown is just one of many students and alumni from the John W. Rawlings School of Divinity who participated in exciting and enriching internships last summer.
Sean McInturff, a senior studying Christian leadership & church ministry, spent the summer serving with Greater Europe Mission (GEM) in Drăgănești-Olt, Romania, for the second consecutive year. While there, he served alongside local missionaries in youth ministry and church advancement and helped to lay the foundation for a new church in a neighboring village.
McInturff said one thing that stood out to him from the trip was the intentional care and support he saw the missionaries extend to his group and the community at large, from opening their homes to house his team to prioritizing building relationships as a part of their ministry.
“It’s really cool to see how the Gospel moves at the speed of relationships,” he said. “If we view people as projects or put them in a box, taking a specific evangelistic tactic, we begin viewing them as not human beings. That is the exact opposite of what Christ calls us to do. He calls everyone as they are, in all their humanness. A lot of our ministry was relationship building.”
McInturff recalled a Romanian boy he met who had a history of getting into trouble and how he built a relationship with him and mentored him. The two still keep in touch through WhatsApp.
“Seeing so many examples of things like that (child) gets me really fired up because I get to, by the grace of God, build relationships with people like him and just show him that none of us are deserving of Christ’s love and grace,” he said. “Because salvation is a gift, we get to take that and live in freedom from sin. It’s about that messaging being implicit through the way that we live, and explicit when we get to share the Gospel and personal testimonies.”
Although God often uses Liberty students to spread the Gospel overseas, others are called to remain at home and serve Him domestically.
Youth ministries senior Kathryn Coughlin spent her summer serving in the student ministry program at Woodmen Valley Chapel in Colorado Springs, Colo. Her duties included leading Bible studies for middle school, high school, and college students. Specifically for the older students, these studies focused on facilitating conversation instead of a formal lesson.
“(Youth ministry) is raising up the next generation of strong Christians,” she said. “There is such a need for that in the world. I needed it when I was growing up. My youth group was everything to me. Just to give back in that way is really a gift and being able to dedicate my life to it and know that’s what the Lord has for me is awesome.”
Coughlin said the 10-week internship supplemented her training at Liberty, preparing her for a life of service in youth ministry.
“I enjoy every single aspect of youth ministry,” she said. “That’s not to say it’s not hard — it is. But it’s also fun and messy, and it has an incredible impact. I have the opportunity to have a front seat to what God is doing in the next generation, so when it gets hard, that’s when you have to lean on the Lord all the more.”
Fellow youth ministry senior Zachary Combs interned at Christ Community Church in Huntersville, N.C., where he mentored students, ran social media for the church, and helped plan events, which included organizing a worship night, where he also preached.
“Christ Community is very strong in wanting to give their interns what it means to walk in ministry. They did a great job of that in giving me responsibility in planning events and leading students.”
Combs, who is considering pursuing a master’s in biblical studies with the hopes of one day becoming a youth pastor, said the experience gave him the realization that he needed to “be available” to whatever God asked him to do. In one instance, this meant caring for a homeless man who showed up at the church looking for assistance. Instead of turning him away or focusing their attention elsewhere, Combs and his youth pastor worked to meet the man’s needs and find him housing.
“The long term is to work at a church full time and have the opportunity to minister to the next generation, help spark that revival and bring people on fire for the Lord, and raise the next generation of leaders and followers of the Lord who are passionate for the Gospel,” he said.