Liberty University's Global Focus Week Encourages Students to Pursue Mission Work
Liberty University, a private, Christian university located in Lynchburg, Va., will be holding its bi-annual Global Focus Week, Feb. 11 – Feb. 15, focused on exposing students to different international cultures and getting them interested in mission work.
As Johnnie Moore, the university's vice president for communications, told CP, the theme of this year's weeklong event, "Make Your Degree Global," proves fitting for the liberal arts university and will include more than 115 representatives from 50 mission agencies visiting the campus, making it one of the largest Global Focus Weeks the university has seen.
"I believe that we are in the most opportune moment in Christian history to complete the Great Commission," Moore told CP, relating the importance of evangelism as found in Matthew 28:16-20 to the purpose of this week's campus event.
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"Mission at Liberty University isn't a program, it's the culture. It's who Liberty is," Moore added.
Moore went on to say that Liberty University students offer an especially promising role in mission work because as a liberal arts university, Liberty equips students with the tools to work in the global marketplace.
Events such as Global Focus Week "shift thinking away from traditional missions" and are more "designed to train people to view their vocation as the bridge to fill the Great Commission," Moore said.
"There is a skillset we want to instill in our community," Moore said of the students, adding that this week is especially beneficial because if "you're growing up in the world we're living in now, it is essential that you are globally and culturally literate."
"To be a Christian is to be global minded," Moore added.
With over 1,000 international students currently a part of Liberty's 100,000 student body, Moore told CP that one of the highlights of the week is the "Parade of Nations," which took place on Monday and involved a procession of international students wearing traditional dress and waving their countries' flags.
The procession for this year's parade was reportedly greeted with cheers from the crowd, echoing the student body's excitement for the week's festivities.
Bible verses are then read in a series of languages to kick-off the week's events, and Moore contends that the Parade of Nations serves as an "incredible visual of how international Liberty is."
4 photos(Photo: David Duncan/Liberty University)Liberty University held Global Focus Week during Convocation February 11th, 2013.Other notable events throughout the week include a convocation with Vernon Brewer, Liberty alumnus and founder of World Help, which enables sponsorship of children in need; a presentation of the "End It Movement" campaign that works toward ending slavery; and "Taste of the Nations," during which students may sample food prepared by fellow students of varying cultures.
The Global Focus Week is a bi-annual event at the university, with a smaller conference in the Fall, and a larger one in the Spring.
