Spirit-filled Believer to Pilot Historic Moon Flight
The United States has not sent a manned spacecraft to the moon in over 50 years. Now, NASA has announced that it will do that sometime in late 2024, and a Sunday school teacher and a messenger of God will be among the four-person crew.
Victor Glover, a 46-year-old Navy captain and a member of the Church of Christ in Houston, will pilot Artemis 2 to the moon and will repeat the words of Jesus during the trip.
“I know that God can use us for His purposes,” Glover told Christianity Today. “when Jesus was teaching the disciples to pray, He used that very specific prayer that we all know: ‘Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. …’ I am a messenger of His kingdom; His will be done.”
The last crewed mission to the moon was Apollo 17 in December 1972, a 12-day mission that broke many records, including the longest space walk and the longest lunar landing.
The other members of the crew that were named recently are Reid Wiseman, Jeremy Hansen and Christina Koch, the first woman scheduled to go to the moon. Glover is also the first Black man to make the trip.
“I pray that God will bless this mission, but I also pray that we can continue to serve as a source of inspiration, cooperation and peace—not just between nations but in our own nation,” Glover said in this NASA video on YouTube.
As many may remember, the Apollo 11 lunar flight in 1969 saw astronaut Buzz Aldrin take part in the first Christian sacrament ever performed on the moon—a rite of Christian communion. History.com’s website says that “Aldrin’s lunar communion has since become shrouded in mystery and confusion, but the rite itself was relatively simple.The astronaut was also an elder at Webster Presbyterian Church, and before he headed into space in 1969, he got special permission to take bread and wine with him to space and give himself communion.”
In present day, Glover made his first foray into space in November 2020 when he manned the SpaceX Crew Dragon’s first operational flight to the International Space Station—250 miles above Earth. At that time, The Christian Chronicle reported, Glover actually took communion cups and a Bible with him into space.
“We have really good internet connectivity,” Glover told The Christian Chronicle.
Only this time, Glover and the other astronauts will be traveling 238,900 miles to the moon.
In 2020, Glover talked about his faith in a YouTube video:
“At League City Church (in Houston in 2017), I started teaching a (Sunday school) class. We didn’t really have a class at League City for parents, so we started a family ministry and a class, a Bible study that focused on the lessons in the Bible for parents.
“In that process in preparing for that, it was really one of the ways I experienced the most spiritual growth I have had in a really long time. The course really forced me to get into the Bible and our lessons for church. But then it forced me to really go outside that lesson plan and to find things that were relative to the parents taking the course. It also helped me to grow closer to my brothers and sisters that were there. It not only ended up being a great study, but a great fellowship.”
His experience at League City helped Glover understand the role of God in his life and God’s authority.
“It helped me to understand my submission to that,” Glover told The Christian Chronicle. “It helped me to understand the love and support and encouragement that can create in my life.
“I want to use the abilities that God has given me to do my job well and support my crewmates and mission and NASA. We all need to lean on God, but we also need to lean on each other and be encouraging to one another.” {eoa}
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Shawn A. Akers is the online editor at Charisma Media.
