This summer, church groups from all over the country gathered at NOBTS for a jam-packed week of missional living and community service known as MissionLab. MissionLab partners with local churches and non-profit organizations to provide mission teams the opportunity to practice living on-mission in a big-city environment.

Participants are trained in evangelism while being immersed in the unique and diverse culture of New Orleans. Groups stay on the seminary campus and are provided corporate worship and a biblical message. Hundreds of participants, including many teenagers, stayed on the seminary's campus for MissionLab this summer. 

During a typical calendar year, MissionLab hosts between 2,500 to 3,000 participants from a variety of different states.  

MissionLab Director Jonathan Victorian described the program as “an action-packed experience that transforms not just the city that is being served, but also transforms the people doing the work as well.” 

Victorian, who officially became director of MissionLab in Feb. 2025, said the goal of MissionLab is to help visiting groups serve New Orleans in a Gospel-centered way.  

“It’s one thing to just do something for the sake of helping people, but it’s another thing for it to be Gospel-centric,” he said. “People are consistently coming in from outside the city, not just to serve and help people in our city, but to advance the Kingdom of God. 

“Missionlab is essentially being the hands and feet of Jesus. We prayed to God for laborers to come to the harvest, and God has blessed us with a vehicle like MissionLab to be able to bring those laborers to the harvest here in New Orleans. 

“This is one of the main things I saw as a highlight of MissionLab when I became director, and so I just started looking at how we could take that to another level.” 

MissionLab participants spoke to the impact doing such Gospel-centric work had on their groups. 

Ryan Howard, youth and associate pastor for Oak Grove Baptist Church in Landrum, S.C., has taken a group from his church to MissionLab for the last four years.  

“MissionLab was amazing, and we knew before we left in 2024 that we were definitely going back in 2025,” Howard said.

“Every person from our team will tell you that we go to be a blessing, but we always come back blessed as well.” 

Howard was initially unsure about New Orleans, but the great need for the Gospel quickly changed his mind.  

“I was not a huge fan of New Orleans the first time I came to MissionLab in 2022, but I saw the need and I felt the Holy Spirit there and I loved what MissionLab was doing,” he said.  

“It took me about 12 hours to figure out this is where we need to be. There’s so much opportunity to serve and be the hands and feet of Jesus, you don’t have to search for something to do. You’ll never run out of opportunity. It just gets better every year I go, and I can’t wait to go back.” 

Howard also praised the help and hospitality of the seminary while at MissionLab.  

“The people at NOBTS are welcoming and loving,” Howard said. “They are a great organization to work with. I can’t say enough about MissionLab and the city of New Orleans.” 

Curtis James, great commission pastor at Tate Springs Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, echoed the same sentiment about the care of NOBTS and MissionLab staff.  

“When you go on mission trips, arranging housing and food and all those kinds of things can be a real challenge,” James said.   

“With MissionLab, all of that’s taken care of, and you really get to focus on doing the ministry instead of focusing on all of the planning and logistics that have to take place. As a leader, that’s extremely beneficial for me.”   

James said the unique missional context of New Orleans provided his group the opportunity to meet needs.  

“We know that we’re bringing our group to a community that is in great need of the Gospel inside of our own country,” James said. 

“We get to go into the community and interact with people who are lost and people who are confused and try to share the Gospel and the love of Christ with them. 

“The leaders of MissionLab and NOBTS are our eyes and ears for the community. They let us know where we need to go and how we need to help.” 

James added that MissionLab teaches participants how they can be missional wherever they are. 

“For us, this is the best place to bring someone who has never been on mission,” he said.  

“We really enjoy taking first time missionaries on these trips and just watching their eyes get opened as they leave their context and serve in a different context. 

“As the week goes on, they come to the realization that they can come back home and do this. We’ve just had a really great time watching people grow in their understanding and their passion for ministry by stepping into a different context into an area of need and ministering. They realize the need may look different where our church is, but the need is still there, and they can help fill that need. That is probably the biggest benefit of MissionLab we’ve seen.” 

Victorian said this is exactly one of MissionLab’s goals.  

“We want our participants to take whatever they learn at MissionLab and be on-mission in their hometown or wherever it is that God has called them,” Victorian said.  

Even beyond the summer experience, MissionLab is designed to point to the overall mission of NOBTS. 

“We don’t want MissonLab to be this separate entity from NOBTS and Leavell College, Victorian said. “Whatever our administration is saying at the top, we want get on board and reiterate those things.”   

Victorian described the “full circle” opportunity of MissionLab, in which a youth student comes to MissionLab with their church, later decides to attend and graduate from NOBTS, takes a job with a church or non-profit and then brings a group of young people back to experience MissionLab themselves. 

Matt James, vice president for enrollment, said he desires MissionLab to serve as a small picture of what it would like look to prepare for full-time ministry as an NOBTS student.  

“Missionlab is somewhat like a week-long, intensive version of what a college experience could be like at Leavell College,” James said.  

“Participants are on campus to study God's Word, worship through song and fellowship with other believers. During the day, they are going out into the city to share the love of Christ through word and deed. Our degree-seeking students at NOBTS and Leavell College are challenged to be doing the exact same things. 

“We hope that MissionLab participants will catch a glimpse of what it could look like to serve Jesus for the rest of their lives and how NOBTS and Leavell College could prepare them for that endeavor.” 

More information about MissionLab can be found on their website.