A Merry Christmas Wish

Before a little Christmas break on the GLS blog, we wanted to wish you and yours a blessed Christmas season and a very Happy New Year. We have been grateful to be a part of your lives this fall.

We thought we would leave you with this short video clip from twitterer and blogger @loswhit. A beautiful worship moment depicting cultures spontaneously coming together to worship one God. This clip captures the true spirit of Christmas, God With Us. Our wish for you is that you will experience God With Us directly in some way this Christmas.

We hope this blesses you today.

Filipino Church Planters Equipped at The GLS

From an email coming from Clovis Hill Community Church in Fresno, California:

We have a relationship with two pastors in the Philippines and we are helping to plant some churches there. Out of the missions budget we sent the pastors to the Global Summit. Though expensive for them, it costs only $17 per person registration and $25 for hotel nights. Quite affordable for us to send them. It is our desire that those in under resourced areas would have the same training we are blessed to have at Clovis Hills. No less for them — we are partners in Kingdom work.

See his response:

My beloved in the Lord, God is really good all the time. We are so thankful and blessed by what have been wonderfully and tremendously unexpected once in a life time kind of experience to be apart in these Global Leadership Summit. We learned a lot of things related to my leadership as a church planter and of course how to manage a local church. I and my wife, Pastor Albert and his wife Joy, wants to thank you for your generosity, and desire for us to be trained and equipped so that we could be able to do the work of God more easy and more effective. We learned so much from the speakers, Bill Hybels, he taught leading in a new reality; Wayne Cordero, teaches dead leader running, Harvey Carey, teaches against all odds, Dr. Wess stafford, of Compassion International he teached leveraging your past and many others. This conference contributed so much knowledge in our work in the ministry especially serving the Lord in doing church planting. We believe this is not just the beginning and the last conference of Global Leadership Summit, as far as we know they are holding every year in the Philippines. Glory be to God and yes of course, we are thankful about it. God bless you all.

Thanks,
Ptr. Ding and Family

The GLS Equips and Envisions Its Volunteers

In addition to the church leaders the GLS serves through the conferences, there is an unseen force at work behind the scenes of the GLS. A force without which we could never do what we do. This force is the volunteer core who executes the events in each country. Every event has a group of dedicated volunteers, some who work year-round, to produce the GLS. A remarkable symbiosis results. This is one of those stories.

When Anton Radoslavov was asked to serve as the technical director for the first GLS in Bulgaria in 2007, he was a little surprised by the detailed instructions he received from the WCA. After all, he worked as a producer and technician for a national Christian TV and radio station. He knew what he was doing. But as he soon discovered, the level of excellence expected in his country, especially for Christian events, was nowhere near what it could be. Working together with WCA representatives Marty O'Connor and Ulf Osterlund, Anton and his team were inspired to offer up their best in service to God and the Church.

This has created a seismic shift in Anton’s approach to ministry. No longer does he view himself as just a technician, but rather an instrument used by God to help communicate the vision, inspiration, and skill development that so many pastors and leaders in Bulgaria desperately need. God can use him to help redeem and restore his country. Realizing this has changed everything for him, he was looking for additional opportunities to fuel his passion and serve the Kingdom. In May 2009, Anton volunteered on the technical team for WCA’s Student Ministries Conference in Nuremberg, Germany. Together, with more than 50 volunteers from around the world, Anton and this team served more than 4,000 student leaders looking to get better at reaching the next generation for Christ in Germany. According to Anton, “It was an awesome experience that gave me a taste of heaven, a place where you are serving exactly as you were created to be.” Returning to Bulgaria, he felt a very real, but quiet confirmation from the Holy Spirit that he was living life to its fullest.

The GLS in Congo

In a country marred by unrest, civil war and unspeakable atrocity, the first ever Global Leadership Summit in Kinshasa, Congo was a great success by all accounts. On November 13-14, 2009, The GLS served 1100 Congolese church leaders, inspiring and equipping them to do God's work in a country scarred by decades of a brutal civil war.

The Democratic Republic of Congo lies in Central Africa. Having been marked deeply in the early to mid twentieth century by colonialism, the DRC gained independence from Belgium in 1960. Shortly thereafter, military leaders violently seized power of the new nation, renaming it Zaire and beginning a period of social unrest and civil war which lasted four plus decades. Humanitarian atrocities which resulted have largely been regarded as one of the biggest crises in modern Africa. A second round of civil war began in 1998 and has claimed 5.4 million people through fighting, disease and starvation. AIDS has left its mark as well. Due to the disproportionate amount of people dying from this disease, the average life expectancy in the DRC is a mere 54 years. The disastrous effects of these forces have left their scar on the Congolese people, the country, and its infrastructure. But, through all of this strife, the Church in this war-torn country is on the move.

70-80% of Congolese people identify themselves as either Roman Catholic or Christian. Most churches are small, about 300 people or so serving a small section of the community where they are located. The pastors are bi-vocational as churches generally cannot afford to pay a salary. Church leaders in Congo are desperate for leadership development. When exploring the possibility of a Congo site last Spring, Gary Schwammlein heard first hand from the Congolese church leaders that they are in desperate need of leadership development. As a result, the first GLS in the DRC was held this fall, the full results of which we will only see in Heaven.

Aliece Hendricks, Executive Director of International Conferences at WCA International attended the Congo GLS. Below are some of her pictures and impressions during her trip. Despite some early challenges due partly to the poor infrastructure of the country, The GLS in Congo was a huge success.

"We were not able to source the equipment [projector especially] we needed for the GLS in the Congo so we brought it from S Africa, the team made a screen the size that we needed and were ingenious in helping us figure out how to hang it.. they have limited technical resources but use what they have to the full extent as challenging as it can be."

Congolese workers lifting the screen.

The day before the event, there were only 200 registered for the event. On the day of the event, 900 extra people arrived, excited and ready to be inspired. As you can imagine, this caused quite a problem for our event management volunteers as they scrambled to provide all the notebooks, food and supplies needed for a surprise 900 guests. After much hard work, every guest was served, and everyone was so grateful for our volunteers who worked so hard to make it all work. In Hendricks' words "really a fishes and loaves event".

The Congolese people were so convinced of the power of an event like this, they had a full intercessory prayer team which undergirded the event with prayer. A full three weeks before the event, they were praying for the success of the event and its impact on the Kingdom's in Congo. The Congolese are faithful prayer warriors, and they believe part of the reason God blessed the event as he did was as a result of their committed efforts.

The GLS in Congo had its effect on Hendricks as well. "The Congolese people are so open and generous, even though they have so little, they touched me to reassess how I steward the resources that I have to help those with less. Many of the Congolese will walk up to an hour jsut to attend church on Sunday, I was reminded not to take lightly the opportunity I have to meet regularly with other believers for the teaching of the word."

Despite their daily circumstances, the Congolese trust in God as their sustainer. They live with a conviction that God redeems and restores every situation. So much so that their joyful worship events often end in dancing. The GLS was no exception.

Hendricks heard over and over how this event will change Congo. The people of Congo need your prayers as they fight to overcome unimaginable circumstances and lay a foundation for their future. Events like this is the reason we at The GLS does what we do. The Congolese are desperate for what the GLS offers and we are so grateful to partner with God in serving them.

Singapore in Pictures

Even though the Global Leadership Summit is over for this year, we want to continue telling the beautiful stories God is weaving in our different partner countries. The below is taken from a report from a WCA representative at a site in Singapore on November 27-28.

Participants warmly and excitedly greeted by our front desk volunteers who handed them their copy of the Summit notebook and nametag. 368 participants all in.

Summit opener - blowing of shofar followed by time of worship.

Dancers in action during the worship time.

Awesome sight – the joyous countenance of the worship team and dancers and the beautiful stage setup and lightings. Sound mix engaged the participants.

Rev Soh played Host Pastor. He was excellent - full of energy and a clear communicator.

Rev Chern facilitate with so much ‘heart’ and his ability to connect with the participants was outstanding.

Process Time – Group Discussion

Process Time – Group Discussion

GLO Bible Presentation by Daniel Hsueh from GLO during lunch time.

Worship time after lunch.

Participants fully immersed in worship.

Participants responding during prayer.

Production crew at the Front-of-House.

Group discussions continued even over tea-break.

Interpretive solo dance item after session by Wayne Cordeiro (last session for the day)

After solo dance item, one third of the participants responded to the altar call and came to the front. Many were in tears and did business with God on their knees at the altar. What an amazing day it was!

The GLS Works to Overcome Corruption, Poverty in Nigeria

To celebrate the GLS season which has just come to a close, we thought we would profile the Nigerian church, which saw an incredibly successful GLS run this past fall.

The GLS in Nigeria is raising up leaders prepared to impact change in their divided churches, impoverished communities and corrupted governments. Nigeria is a country twice the size of California with a rich history full of tragedy and strife. The CIA world fact book lists Nigeria as the 9th biggest populatiopn in the world. Nigeria suffers from a number of ongoing problems common in African nations: high mortality of its citizens due to AIDS, creating a life expectancy of only about 47 years. In fact, Nigeria ranks 3rd in world of people living with AIDS. Oil-rich Nigeria, long hobbled by political instability, corruption, inadequate infrastructure, and poor economic management, has made several attempts at improving its state with some improvement. But, as you can imagine, the church in Nigeria has quite a lot it works against.


Francis Olubambi, The GLS's leader in Nigeria as well as the director for several other Christian ministry branches there, has a vision for Nigeria and what it could become with God at the helm. In a recent conversation with him, he laid out some of the issues the church faces in Nigeria and how The GLS is working to help church and business leaders there overcome the corruption and poverty so entrenched in Nigerian systems.

The situation of the church there is complex.

We have a lot of churches in Nigeria, the churches are growing and the conversion rate is high, [however] Christian ethics is very low it seems as if so many Christian has the charisma and no character. One of the major causes of this shallowness is lack of leadership development. Churches in the Northern part of Nigeria are persecuted by Islamic fundamentalist.

In response to the need here, one way The GLS has addressed the problem of the corruption and poverty seen in Nigeria is to unite denominations and educate business leaders as well on the principles found in the Bible.

GLS conference has been helping to impact leaders across the board: from corporate world and the church world. Another advantage of GLS is that it affords us to bring different churches together for mutual relationship.

The church in Nigeria has seen a tremendous amount of division caused by dissenting beliefs from various denominations. Some groups have grown progressively more liberal while others committed to more traditional outlooks have fought widely with those with a more liberal outlook. The GLS is working to unite these denominations around their first love: Christ. Olubambi's biggest prayer for The GLS in Nigeria? Cooperation in churches.

The team in Nigeria overcame tremendous obstacles during their GLS events. In underresourced areas, there is often huge trouble finding a projector to use at the events. Because The GLS works to produce an extremely high-quality event for every attendee, the best projectors are sought out to create an extremely high quality picture. Occasionally, there isn't a single projector in the entire country up to the standards we work hard to meet. Three of seven Nigerian GLS sites were without projectors only a couple weeks before the event and needed to rent one, sometimes at a very costly rate. The teams also had numberous details to see to. Our awesome volunteer teams didn't miss even one. The attendees who have lived and worked in such difficult conditions all their lives had their sights lifted to envision all that the church can be.

Seven GLS sites were held in Nigeria this past fall. Click here to see the results.