Missions
Missions programming at Belmont is about changing lives.
We change our students' lives - by calling them into a new way of seeing God's work in the world and by inviting them to consider their own role in God's work.
We change our neighbors' lives - both locally and around the globe - by fulfilling Belmont's mission, engaging and transforming the world through:
- Disciplined Intelligence: Belmont mission trips introduce our students to the structural and systemic injustices that must be understood if we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.
- Courage: These experiences call students out of their own comfort zones, and compel them to develop new comfort zones.
- Compassion: These experiences introduce our students to people who know suffering, inviting them to share in the suffering.
- Faith: Ultimately, these experiences call our students to reflect on who God really is, what God is really doing, and what that means for their own lives and calling.
Missions experiences at Belmont seek out international and local partners - from basketball courts in Malta, relief camps in Haiti and nursing clinics in Thailand, to the 9th Ward of New Orleans, the mean streets of Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan, and the mountains of West Virginia. Most University Ministries trips are open to all students. Belmont also actively encourages faculty from different departments and divisions to capitalize on the skills of their students to plan missions trips - Nursing, Health Sciences, Occupational/Physical Therapy, Business and Religion faculty have all led these kinds of trips.
Belmont holds provisional member status for the US Standards of Excellence for Short-Term Missions.
There are two ways to support missions programming at Belmont:
- The Gabhart Missions Fund - Established by the late Dr. Gabhart in memory of the late Mrs. Gabhart, this fund is used to make missions accessible to as many students as possible, often underwriting the costs of trips so that students can afford to go on them. For examples of some of the trips this fund has sponsored, click here.
- The University Ministries Missions Fund: This fund helps to underwrite the administrative and program costs of all UM-sponsored trips in an effort to make the trips more affordable and accessible to students. More information about UM's missions programming can be found here.