The Global Advance Ambassadors Network is a team of like-hearted pastors, ministry leaders and business leaders who are partnering with Global Advance to equip church leaders and business leaders through Global Advance Frontline Shepherds Conferences. (Photo courtesy of Global Advance)
USA (MNN) ― Recent Barna research shows that most Christians equate spiritual maturity with following rules. It also reveals that American pastors struggle to develop an adequate vision for spiritual growth.
When pastors who partner with Global Advance gathered for a conference recently, many of them were discouraged by this kind of issue, said founder David Shibley.
"Many pastors came really discouraged in some of the trends in their own churches, and they just needed a fresh word of hope and encouragement," Shibley explained. "They are confronting an increasingly biblically-illiterate society, even within our own churches. Somehow we've not gotten across the basics of the Gospel and the basics of Scripture."
Global Advance has been holding this conference every year for 10 years. The pastors who attend are pastors who coordinate pastoral training conferences for Global Advance.
"This year there will be 107 [conferences] in the neediest nations of the world," Shibley said. "25 percent of those are led by U.S. pastors themselves, without any involvement of Global Advance staff. These are men and women who understand our ethos and have accepted our DNA, of seeing the Gospel really advanced through the equipping of pastoral leaders around the world."
The conference is an opportunity not only for fellowship and for Global Advance to cast a vision for the next years of ministry, but for pastors to encourage each other in fulfilling the Great Commission.
"It's also a time to focus...on reaching our own communities, wherever that local church happens to be, and seeing that every person within a large radius of that church is confronted with the Gospel, and has the claims of Christ shared with them in a loving manner," Shibley explained. "These pastors can give an interchange of ideas of what is working for them locally, but also in their international mission outreaches."
Shibley said this kind of conference is important in a culture where many needs pull pastors in many different directions. Global Advance invited the Billy Graham Association to the conference to enhance the focus on outreach and evangelism.
"The church in America, I believe, is enormously distracted today--" Shibley explained, "sometimes by very good things. But they're distracted from what the Lord left us here to do--to make disciples of all nations and to proclaim the Gospel to every person. "
The conference reminds pastors that there is hope for the future of the American church. It also promotes community among those who strive to focus their energies on the Great Commission.
"We want to provide a forum for them to come together, to exchange ideas, to encourage one another, and to just foster a real camaraderie," Shibley said.
Christians should pray for their pastors, and for all the pastors in the country.
"Pray that the Word of the Lord would spread rapidly and that it would be honored," Shibley said. "Every true shepherd wants, of course, all of his church to be mature in Christ, and to become full, fruitful disciples of Christ... We need to pray that pastors will remain encouraged in the Lord...and that they will stay focused and make the main thing, The Main Thing. Preach the Gospel to every person, make disciples of every nation."
