Opportunities not to be Missed

 by Galen Burkholder, International Director of Global Disciples

Life is filled with opportunities.

Some we miss and live with the regret. Others, in time, we’re glad we passed by. But, sometimes we seize an opportunity—and are we ever glad we did! We made a profit, built great friendships, met our spouse, or something wonderful resulted.

The missed opportunities that I find hardest to put behind me are the ones with eternal consequences. Like the day the Holy Spirit prompted me to share Christ with a non-Christian neighbor. I made some excuse—only to see him taken away in an ambulance that same evening with a fatal heart attack.

Through Global Disciples we are faced with a steady stream of opportunities. Most come in the form of invitations from clusters of churches in Africa, Asia or Latin America. Some are more like the vision the Apostle Paul saw with a plea to come over to Macedonia and help.

Our criterion to determine which opportunities we pursue and which ones we pass up is clear: Will this opportunity make it possible for a cluster of churches to multiply disciples and plant reproducing fellowships of believers in a least reached area—in locally sustainable ways?

If the answer is “yes,” it’s time for prayer and conversation with the inviting party. If the Lord gives us a green light and we discern the leaders inviting us have integrity, pure motives and a common vision—we pursue the opportunity.

Sometimes it would be easy to make excuses. We’re already busy. This is a very difficult area. It could cost  someone their life. Our finances are already being stretched thin.

Then we remember that every day about 47,000 people die—without ever having an opportunity to receive the Good News of Jesus. Will saying “no” to our opportunities deny them the greatest opportunity ever?

The Joys and Challenges of Growth

by Galen Burkholder, International Director of Global Disciples

I love this time of year. New life is bursting forth everywhere. Springtime in Pennsylvania brings a brilliant array of colors as the flowers blossom, trees shoot out new growth, and the grass turns green.

We know that all this new growth will create more work, but we still celebrate and

enjoy springtime.

Springtime draws us to worship our Creator. And so has the prolonged springtime

which Global Disciples is experiencing. New growth seems to be shooting out everywhere. We celebrate and enjoy it, even though it brings more work.

The work of this season for Global Disciples includes pruning some of the leafy growth to bear even more, healthier fruit. Our recently sharpened mission statement has provided the focus and courage to prune harder in some areas.

At the same time, we are taking bold new steps to better resource the hundreds of clusters of churches around the world we are privileged to serve. It’s not about our convenience, but loving and serving others more fully in the way of Jesus.

Our new Multiplying Churches Strategy provides a seamless pattern of serving churches focused on multiplying Christ-like disciples who are equipped with a business and prepared to plant/lead locally sustainable, reproducing fellowships of believers in least-reached parts of the world.

As we grow, we’re realizing more and more that it’s not about our convenience, safety or comfort, but about laying down our lives for our friends—and for those who consider us their enemies.

Springtime is great. But the true test of healthy growth—individually and organizationally—is whether we are just as passionate for Jesus and focused on serving others in the stifling heat of the summer, in the intensity of the harvest, and in the dead of winter.

I enjoy springtime, but my heart is for the harvest. Today as Global Disciples we’re experiencing both.

Greatly Distressed and Hopeful

 by Galen Burkholder, International Director of Global Disciples

The air was thick with the scent of death, smoke and burning flesh. I stood on the stone platform at the edge of the shallow river littered with brightly colored decaying pieces of clothes and charred human limbs. On the other side, four big stacks of burning logs were topped with human bodies in various stages of cremation.

In front of a fifth pile of logs two adult sons, about my age, cut their father’s robes from his lifeless body and threw them into the river. As the smoke from his body would ascend to the gods they believed he would be born again into the next of his eighty-four reincarnations.

Surrounded by Hindu temples and idols I was reminded of the Apostle Paul who arrived in Athens, looked around and was “greatly distressed by all the idols.”(Acts 17:16)  That’s what I was feeling – greatly distressed, mixed with anger at the enemy’s deception, a profound sadness and deep compassion. 

I remembered my distress by the river during a time of jubilant worship at our Annual Equipping Week in New Delhi. We were meeting with discipleship-mission directors that Global Disciples serves from all across India, Nepal and Myanmar.

The banner across the front of the room proclaimed our theme for the week, “For the Healing of the Nations.” The atmosphere in the room was light and sweet as we celebrated the life, joy, freedom and hope we have in Christ!

The walls reverberated with the words bellowing from the depth of our beings, “Blessed assurance Jesus is mine. Oh what a foretaste of glory divine...”

I looked around at the dozens of passionate, simple leaders who are daily pouring out their lives for Jesus – and seeing amazing results – in some of the hardest places. I watched them worship through the tears that flooded my eyes. “Jesus, hope of the nations…”

... But Deliver Us From Evil

by Galen Burkholder, international director of Global Disciples

As disciples of Jesus Christ we are engaged in a spiritual conflict with evil. The enemy of our souls pursues us to destroy us (1 Peter 5:8).   

In many parts of the world, we see spiritual battles raging in ways unfamiliar to most in the western church. Stories of demons, evil spirits and martyrdom may only be familiar to some of us in historical and biblical accounts.

You may even question some stories we report. But let me assure you that on the ground, face to face with demonic forces, doubts vanish and prayer becomes the lifeline.

Evil forces we encounter in the west are often more subtle. Our call to holy living is attacked with self-centered living, entertainment-stimulated lust and unforgiveness. But, if we justify these “small sins” as harmless and only human, they rob us of spiritual vitality and transforming power.

We will never bring healing to the nations and be true agents of God’s hope and reconciliation without personal holiness. For it is the Holy Spirit who longs to work in and through us – feeding the hungry, fighting human trafficking of all kinds and reaching 2 billion people who are still unreached!  

Jesus taught us to pray, “…deliver us from evil.” This is not a prayer simply to prepare us for action. Prayer, as Jesus taught us, is in itself action – a weapon for spiritual warfare able to subdue the most powerful forces in the world.

“Prayer is not undertaken instead of other actions,” Jim Wallis declares, “but as a foundation for all the rest of the actions we take.”