Great Lakes District | The Christian Missionary Alliance

More than 75,000 church leaders trust BuildingChurchLeaders.com to keep them equipped, effective, and energized.

You’ll find more than 250 free articles on the site, helping you and your team stay informed of topics that affect the church. Church leaders like you, who have found help or inspiration and want to share it, write these articles. The site also features some of the most influential and respected church leaders today, such as Bill Hybels and Jack Hayford, as well as the trusted editors of Leadership journal.

What else can I get for free?

There are many resources that nonmembers can use to investigate the training tools and formats on BuildingChurchLeaders.com before deciding to order or join. They include:

• One of each of the 14 types of training tools offered on BuildingChurchLeaders.com on their free page.
• Interactive assessments – Help your leaders determine how they are doing and in what areas they still need to grow with these online tools.
• Hundreds of articles – Written by church leaders, for church leaders. Also find book excerpts and handy lists.
• Multimedia articles – These interactive articles not only provide text, but audio clips, videos, and/or practical, downloadable forms.
• Video and audio clips – These media clips are taken from various sources, including the multimedia articles, and can be streamed straight from BuildingChurchLeaders.com. Some are also available for purchase.
• Devotions – Use these with your leaders during retreats or meetings, or just before or after services.
• Recommended Resources – Lists of books, magazines, websites, and more to enhance your training experiences.
• Blog – Read the musings of top leaders and Christian editors on topics as varied as church conflict, stewardship, and pop culture on their blog named, “Off the Agenda: Conversations for Building Church Leaders.”
• Ask the Experts – In this interactive area, you will read what a panel of influential Christian minds, including Stuart Briscoe, Wayne Cordiero, Leith Anderson and others, think about some of the issues facing church leaders today.

Explore all of this content, and more, by visiting www.buildingchurchleaders.com!

Love In Action International is a Christian discipleship ministry that exists to restore those trapped in sexual and relational sin through the power of Jesus Christ. Through individual biblical counseling, support groups, custom Intensive programs, and Distance Counseling (Restoration Path), they seek to empower men and women to embrace their identity in Christ, posture themselves to receive God’s healing in their deep areas of emotional wounding, learn to meet their relational needs met in healthy ways, and make good choices that harmonize with their deeply felt moral convictions.

Love in Action is passionately committed to helping people discover the truth about God and about who they really are in his son Jesus. In the safety and strength of God’s love men and women of all ages have found the courage to step out of destructive and life-dominating patterns of sexual and relational sin.

While Love in Action is based in Tennessee, they offer distance counseling programs (communicating via the internet) that are accessible to anyone. To see what programs they have to offer, click here!

_{All information taken from http://www.loveinaction.org/aboutus}

David C Cook is a nonprofit organization dedicated to publishing and distributing leadership and discipleship resources to help Christians all over the world grow in their faith and pass it on to the next generation. They call this “DiscipleShaping“. They were established in 1875 by David Caleb Cook in Chicago, IL. Since that time, they have published numerous bestselling books from The Picture Bible to Crazy Love by Francis Chan, developed over ten lines of Sunday school curriculum, and published many of today’s most popular praise and worship songs through our music division, Kingsway. As a ministry, they do more than just publish and distribute Christian resources. They partner with indigenous organizations to equip Pastors, Lay Leaders, and Sunday School Teachers with their materials in places like India, China, and Cuba. In some places (underdeveloped countries), they make them available at no charge. In others, (developing countries), they subsidize the cost to make them more affordable. You are probably familiar with a Hybrid Car. This car runs off two sources of fuel: gasoline and electricity. For David C Cook the surplus that is made from selling resources in places like North America, Western Europe, Australia, and more, is the gas. That surplus is used to cover all overhead, marketing, fundraising, and administrative costs. When the electrical component kicks in they use donations from passionate people like you—combined with the surplus they have—to deliver life-transforming materials throughout developing and underdeveloped countries where people do not have access to or money to buy materials. When you donate to David C Cook, 100% of your investment is going directly to deliver a discipleship resource to somebody in need. NONE of it goes to a salary, a building, marketing, or administration. To learn more about their international programs, go to DavidCCook.com/globalmission. Dave is a ministry of regular people, like you, with a passion to transform lives around the world. Visit them by going to www.davidccook.com!

 
_{All information taken from http://www.davidccook.com/}

WHO ARE THEY?

Creative Pastors was started for church leaders like you—creative risk-takers who are willing to do whatever it takes to reach our culture for Christ. They would love to travel this road with you by providing support, encouragement, and an environment where pastors can learn from each other about effective ministry.

There’s a lot going on for you at Creative Pastors, so they’ve made their site simple and easy to find what you’re looking for when you need it.

RESOURCES

Find thousands of resources for you and your church—no membership needed. Don’t miss:

• Message Transcripts & Outlines – Downloadable from sermon series pages
• Message Series CDs & DVDs
• Leadership Resources - Leadership Uncensored, Conference Resources, Bylaws, and How To’s
• Small Group Studies
• Short Films, Song Backgrounds & Series Graphics
• Books, Music & More

Find out more at www.creativepastors.com!

Shoes for Orphan Souls, a ministry of Buckner International, has distributed more than 20 million pairs of new shoes to vulnerable children in the United States and to orphans in 74 countries around the world.  While their program has made a difference in many lives, there are still millions of children they can reach – all through a pair of shoes.  They are seeking donations of new shoes, socks and shoelaces from individuals, corporations, churches and civic groups.

The Need

According to The State of the World’s Children as reported by Unicef, there are 148 million orphans around the world.  Orphanages do not receive enough funding to support the children in their care.  One of the greatest and most immediate needs is a pair of shoes.  Many of the children receive one pair of shoes to last the entire year, and some don’t have shoes at all.

Get Involved
There are several ways you can help:

• Donate a new pair of shoes and/or socks
• Organize a shoe drive in your work place, church or civic club
• Make a cash contribution, to help underwrite international shipping cost
• Help distribute shoes by traveling with other volunteers to Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, Kenya, Latvia, Peru, Romania, Russia, Vietnam or along the United States/Mexico Border.

To find out more about the ministry of Shoes for Orphan Souls… click here!

Every year, 200 million Christians suffer some form of persecution around the world. Persecution is rarely reported on in the media and therefore most of the Western Church has no idea of the suffering of this part of our body. International Christian Concern exists to relieve the suffering of the worldwide persecuted church and to act as a bridge between the Western church and their suffering brothers and sisters.

They are dedicated to this work because persecution comes not from believers being troublemakers but from believers following Jesus. Persecution is not an accident but the normal course of following Jesus. Christ promised his disciples that they would face persecution in the world. He also called the church to be a voice for the voiceless and a defender of the afflicted. International Christian Concern accomplishes this by working in three areas: Advocacy, Awareness, & Assistance.

To learn more about International Christian Concern, read their facts sheet or visit them online at www.Persecution.org.

The mission of Bluefish TV is to help people trade in the pursuit of the American Dream for a world that desperately needs Christ.

As a leader in your church, you have an enormous responsibility to teach scripture and inspire people to follow God with their lives. As your church service or Bible study ends and people are sent out onto the track of life, they are on mission. They have potential to impact the world around them for Christ.

But the road of life is tough. The world around them is telling them to be a consumer … that they are #1 … that they deserve more money, more house, more power. But that’s not what Christ asked us to pursue.

Like the mission statement above, your church can help people trade in these me-centered pursuits. Your church can be a place to remind people of the mission and then send them beyond the walls of your church.

Some are sent out to impact the board rooms and cubicles. Others are sent out to impact the neighborhoods and PTA meetings. Still others are sent out to impact the classrooms and locker rooms.

Bluefish TV loves the church. They are committed to serving the staff and volunteer leaders who so passionately teach adults and students.

One of the ways Bluefish TV accomplishes their mission is by providing videos to help Christian leaders teach. Many of these videos are available to download for free!

To see everything that Bluefish TV has to offer, click here!

MISSION:

The mission of The Source for Youth Ministry is to reach 21^st Century youth with the life-changing message of Jesus Christ, develop student and adult youth leaders with effective ministry skills, and provide cutting-edge youth ministry tools and resources.

WHAT THEY OFFER:

The Source for Youth Ministry is comprised of several core ministries: evangelism, skill development and youth ministry tools. Most of the youth ministry tools can be found on their website for FREE!!! They have tons of free articles, training videos, and fresh ideas on everything from games to holiday parties.

Click here to see what The Source can offer your ministry!

Kiva is a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Leveraging the internet and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions, Kiva lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help create opportunity around the world.

They envision a world where all people – even in the most remote areas of the globe – hold the power to create opportunity for themselves and others.

They believe providing safe, affordable access to capital to those in need helps people create better lives for themselves and their families.

How Does it Work?

How Kiva Works from Kiva on Vimeo.

To find out more about Kiva, what they’re about and how they work, visit: www.kiva.org today!

Catalyst was created to meet the felt need that existed within the church leader space for a leadership event that was focused on a new generation of church leaders. Everything within this space seemed built around a forty to sixty year old mindset and medium. This team was convinced that this needed to change.

Catalyst was able to meet that demand by creating a conference specifically focused on leaders under the age of 40. In October of 2000 in Atlanta, GA, partnering with North Point Community Church, Catalyst convened 1500 church leaders for this inaugural experience. With a unique approach to programming and learning, defined by a fun, dynamic attendee experience, leaders were personally challenged to become “change agents” within their organizations, churches and communities.

Since inception, over 100,000 leaders have made the annual trek to Atlanta to participate in the Catalyst Conference experience, and this October, once again over 12,000 young leaders will gather to experience Catalyst up close. In addition, over 3,000 leaders will gather for the Catalyst West Coast experience in Orange County, CA and 3,000 more will gather for the first ever Catalyst in Dallas.

Leadership has been the topic of focus for the Catalyst brand since inception and will continue to be so. Catalyst and the annual Conferences provide a wide cover for addressing a variety of topics specific to Next Generation Leaders, including organizational leadership, personal leadership, integrity, character, relationships, and teamwork, among others. Over the last eleven years, Catalyst has grown in influence and reach, now offering three annual events on the East and West coast and in Dallas, regional One Day events, multiple resources, a dedicated online magazine, online community, the Filter content program, a bi-weekly podcast, and many other tools for young leaders. Catalyst has only just begun to go deeper with the Catalyst Community in taking them beyond a conference experience and into a relationship that provides ongoing support for growth and continued learning.

To find out more about Catalyst and their ministry, visit www.catalyst.com.