Christian Leadership to Change the World
Seeking New Ways to Fight Injustice
CBN.com – From Hawaii to Africa to the Balkans and beyond, Lucas Moon has led reconciliation teams, traced human-trafficking routes and influenced policy at the United Nations. With determination of mind and an action plan in hand, Moon believes in employing the knowledge he gleaned from his education at Regent University and the University of Nations (Youth With A Mission: YWAM). “I don’t want to be a person who gets degrees and never has been out and ‘done the stuff.’ I’m always looking for ways to apply what I learn,” he affirms.
Moon is passionate about thwarting injustices perpetrated against humanity, which was what eventually brought him to Regent University’s Robertson School of Government (RSG). One evening in 2005, he experienced an epiphany: “I was rocked,” he recalls. Sitting at home in Kona, Moon watched a television documentary showing how the International Justice Mission (IJM) had rescued young girls from prostitution in Cambodia. That night, Moon knew his life would never be the same.
The horrors of human trafficking prodded him to immediately invite IJM leaders to come to the University of Nations where he was involved in leadership. With an ever-growing conviction, Moon was convinced that YWAM’s university should incorporate a school of government to equip Christians to combat injustice. Visiting Regent in 2007, he had one mission in mind. He believed RSG was a successful model of the program he hoped to develop in Hawaii. “I was simply going to pick up a syllabus and reading list,” he recalls. Instead, as he walked through Robertson Hall, Moon was immediately impressed with the real reason he was there. “This wasn’t for YWAM, it was for me!” Moon reflects. With total assurance in this shift of plans, he quickly applied to Regent’s graduate school.
“Regent allowed me to continue to serve YWAM while coming alongside others with the same interests,” Moon recalls. He took his first year of study online, allowing him to remain in Kona with his family and work at the University of Nations. “I instantly fell in love with the issues,” Moon recalls. Regent’s curriculum and YWAM’s cross-cultural field assignments fit together hand-in-glove. One of Moon’s first assignments in “Introduction to Human Rights” was to undertake a case study. At that time Moon was leading a YWAM team in the battle against human trafficking in the Balkans, Morocco, Russia and Ukraine. Moon subsequently wrote his case study about trafficking in Bosnia. Because of his university research status, he was allowed rare access to interview one of the ministers of government in Sarajevo. “The master’s program was in perfect alignment with my own passions, taking what I’d learned in my classes and directly applying it,” Moon reflects.
Desiring a relational education community, Moon transferred to the campus in Virginia Beach for the first semester of his second year. “I wanted to argue with my professors,” he laughs. Sharing how one of his professors spent hours talking with him at a local coffee shop, Moon relates, “To me, that’s where the deep learning takes place ... where those relational moments take you beyond the material.”
Ultimately, one of Moon’s government classes reshaped his future. “Basically, I took a course that ruined my life—in a good way,” he jokes. While taking a course on the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), Moon did some research internships in New York City at the U.N. Seeing firsthand how powerfully U.N. resolutions can influence world culture, he was moved. Moon realized that when various nations coalesce over issues, consequently shaping international policy, billions of lives are impacted. Once believing he was to teach others how to engage in social justice issues, Moon was now certain of another shift in his plans: He should work directly in the international political sphere.
With a proven gift for leadership and a vision of becoming a positive influence in the arena of world politics, Lucas Moon is preparing for the new challenges ahead and is awaiting his next assignment. “My future plans are a five- to ten-year plan with palms wide open,” Moon muses. “I’ve had an amazing life, and I feel like this is another amazing chapter.”
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