North Greenville University has again proven itself to be a national leader in student missions activities in 2007.
This year the NGU Global Missions Center has sent out 11 mission groups, called L.I.G.H.T. teams (Loving, Interceding, Going, Helping, Telling). The 110 NGU students and faculty/staff who made up the teams have ministered across North America (New Orleans, San Francisco, West Virginia and Vancouver, British Columbia) and throughout the world (Honduras, Hungary, Mexico, Greece, Uganda, East Asia and Central Asia).
In addition to the L.I.G.H.T. teams that have served and will be serving this summer, more than 75 other students will be volunteering as summer missionaries and more than 65 will be working in summer camps. Numerous other students will be serving during the summer on church staffs.
More than 180 students served on 29 Impact Teams during the 2006-2007 school year. Thirteen weekend teams travel throughout the school year to minister to local churches through leading worship, Bible studies and lock-ins. Sixteen community teams serve in the Greenville area, working with the homeless, senior citizens, the Hispanic community and the hearing-impaired. A 10-student drama team called Act II works in area churches throughout the year. More than 40 students travel with three groups of the singing ensemble Joyful Sound to minister in churches across the Southeast.
Allen McWhite, NGU director for global missions, said he is constantly inspired by watching students serve in missions. “God continues to move in the hearts of our students at North Greenville University to give them a burning passion for a lost world,” said McWhite. “These students are not just learning about missions and ministry. They are getting on the front lines and doing the hard work of cross-cultural evangelism. It is incredibly amazing and humbling to watch this generation of students embrace sacrifice and abandon self in order to respond to Jesus’ call to take the gospel to the nations.”
NGU was among eight U.S. colleges and universities honored by the North American Mission Board in 2006 with the Courts Redford Award for Excellence in Student Missionary Deployment. North Greenville was also recognized by NAMB as the top school in South Carolina for student summer missionaries. For more than a decade, NGU was honored as the top college or university in the nation for summer missionaries until NAMB discontinued national rankings.
Before the spring semester ended, NGU held a commissioning service for those who will be serving as missionaries. North Greenville summer missionaries will be serving in every continent on the globe except Australia and Antarctica. Along with those serving for the summer, six students will graduate from NGU and then commit at least the next two years of their lives in missions.
“At North Greenville, lifelong learning is a priority, which must be centered on Jesus Christ,” said NGU president Jimmy Epting. “Part of lifelong learning is an emphasis on missions, which in turns becomes a lifestyle, where you can’t help but be involved.”