What's New at LU - A LOT of Things
This year has been one of change for the student body at Liberty University. Elmer Towns, co-founder of the school, retired. Johnnie Moore, Former Vice President for Executive Projects and Media Relations and Campus Pastor of Liberty University, has moved to Hollywood to work with producer Mark Burnett, and today Justin Kintzel, Worship Pastor and Campus Band Hero has stepped down from his position at the school.
Amidst the change of key figures of the University stepping down and moving forward in their careers as they feel God is directing them, we have been blessed with a new Campus Pastor and Senior Vice President for Spiritual Development, David Nasser.
With all this change, many people within the school have voiced their opinion about the situations taking place at Liberty.
Here are just a few comments that I have personally seen on various forms of social media about these changes.
Written while David Nasser was on his 20th anniversary vacation with his wife:
"Sure, he said the same thing for every convo introduction. But at least Johnnie Moore showed up for work. #Comeback"
Written in the comments of the previous post:
"I couldn't say that I respect him as my leader..."
Written after David Nasser spoke asking students to wait till they are dismissed before leaving Convocation:
"If Nasser wants me to stay and listen to him, he should say something worth listening too. #BringJohnnieBack"
Written about Justin Kintzel after he posted his goodbye letter to Liberty:
"He didn't really quit. Nasser pushed him out the door. Sad to see."
Now I can totally understand people being upset that Johnnie Moore has left Liberty University to pursue other things. Every once and awhile I miss His "two things” rant in Convo, but I do not wish that he had stayed nor do I wish his successor any less success then what Johnnie had. God is in control and God has a plan for our school.
The same thing is to be said about Justin Kintzel and his successor. I want him or her to be welcomed into the Liberty community with open arms and flooded with encouragement - not the way that we have publicly shunned and put down David Nasser.
We are Liberty University: the Largest Evangelical University in the world. We are supposed to be Champions for Christ - We have the opportunity to build each other up or put each other down and at this point in time we are putting our leaders down because we don’t like change.
This reminds me of my church a few years ago. We were making a transition from having two different services with the same message but two different styles of music. One strictly hymns, choir, and the organ - maybe the piano. The second, more contemporary with drums and electric guitar. God then blessed us with a new Pastor who felt that we should be one body, not two separate churches sharing a building. We merged the two worship styles and at one point we had only one service then due to the growth of the church we had to move back to two services but with the same mixed worship style in both. We did have many people complaining about the changes taking place and how it was not “good” and that "we have always had it one way so we should keep it that way."
However my pastor reminded us that when we take our eyes off the big picture of where we are going as a church we miss what God is doing in the little things.
When we focus on the small things we forget that Gods glory is the ultimate priority of the church and in our case Liberty University.
We, as a school, should be continually lifting up our leaders in prayer and encouragement. We should not openly attack the leaders God has placed over us. We can disagree with them, but when we do we need to be respectful of how we go about doing it (John Wesley Reid has an excellent blog post on that subject on his blog which is worth the read)
One thing that rings true over all the change that has taken place over this past year is a biblical truth we sing in Convo a lot.
"After all You are constant, After all You are only good, After all You are sovereign & not for a moment will You forsake me."
After all this change, God is still in control. After all this change, God is still being glorified. After all this time, God is still working in the lives of Liberty students.
After all this change, God will not forsake Liberty. God has not forsaken Liberty University. He never has - and if we focus our hearts and minds on Him - He never will.
