I love the fact that Jesus kept the message of the Christian lifestyle simple: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27) Simplified even further we could say: love God and love others. This connecting allows them to be positioned to reach their neighbors for Christ.
These efforts take various forms in our ministry, but two key forms are seen in the unique connecting platforms locally and globally that we have seen God provide for us. From these efforts we have been able to connect people together and position them to connect more deeply with God Himself. (The photo above is from our recent launch of the first ever Heart of the Leader in Kenya, Africa. Many who attended were those we have connected with in ministry over the past 2 decades.) globalLead mentors are continuing to meet virtually with the participants to continue to care for them and to prepare for Heart of the Leader part 2 in Uganda.
Connecting Leaders…global, national, and local
The longevity of globalLead (now in the 24th year of ministry) has enabled us to connect with influential global leaders and networks around the globe. For example, I, Chris Davis, have served on the global steering committee for the World Evangelical Alliance’s Youth Commission, called Converge. This group seeks to serve leaders literally around the globe. Converge connections enable us to seek out top level ministry leaders in any country we desire to serve in. The WEA serves over 600 million evangelicals from over 130 countries. One example of this is the country of India. India’s current population is 1.4 billion people. globalLead has been asked to partner with two groups in this country. One group just hosted a shortened version of our Heart of the Leader in order to serve 40 young leaders from around their country; this event was a result of our WEA connections and our Global Youth Coalition (mentioned later). In addition, we are having discussions with the Evangelical Fellowship of India whose membership includes over 54 protestant denominations and related congregations, representing over 65,000 churches and over 150 church related mission agencies.
(Photo above with Jomesh Tamang, NW Asia globalLead director, as well as Matt Lewis, Heart of the Leader Director, and other mentors).
National Connections
We also work to connect with national leaders through global networks. In Africa, we recently connected with some very important ministry leaders in both Kenya and Ethiopia. I, Chris, have been one of the founding members of a group called the Global Youth Coalition, which is currently made up of 5 globally impacting ministries. We gather twice a year face to face, and several times in video conference to strategically work together on plans around the globe. One of our exciting visions is titled “Saturation-Multiplication.” The concept is to gather and envision key youth ministry leadership trainers in any given country to embrace the idea to have quality trainers in every region of their country. In the past the number of organizations and trainings has been growing, but there has not been a unified strategy for a whole country. Therefore, those in easily accessible major cities get trained, but the majority of other leaders do not. I have assisted the GYC (Global Youth Coalition) in connecting leaders in Ethiopia and in Kenya, with other locations projected for the future.
(The group here above is a meeting in Ethiopia in January.)
Local Connections
As a global ministry, it could be easy to work only in large overarching networks. However, the reason we engage in the global and national networks is to be able to strategically serve the local churches and ministries. Our trainings are often times attended around the globe by local pastors and ministry leaders invited by others in their country. One local example of this was our recent training in Akron, Ohio, USA.
Jack Dyson (shown above) and I worked with 34 leaders and walked them through our newer training for all church ministry leaders. globalLead board member, Lynn Reinbolt from Arkansas, also attended. Part of the group was made up of teams of church planters. The church’s vision is to launch 10 new churches in 10 years. These church planting leadership teams learned the ministry steps of Jesus Himself and then set together to make actionable goals. Another portion of those in attendance were mission team members from this church. They wanted to learn and apply the materials in their lives and local ministry so that they could consider taking the globalLead trainings to their church’s mission partner locations in several countries in the future. Thank you for showing your love for God and others around the globe by connecting to globalLead through your support and prayers!
Chris Davis, Executive Director, globalLead