Country/Region
Where We Are Located
Florida, USA
Where We Serve
46 countries on 6 continents, especially in 10/40 window countries
Languages
Our primary training course (Management for Church Leaders) has been translated into the following languages:
English, Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilonggo, Bahasa Indonesian, Vietnamese, Hmong, Khmer, Thai, Karen, Kachin, Akha, Lesu, Lahu, Mien, Lao, Burmese, Bangla, Tamil, Kannada, Odia, Telugu, Hindi, Punjabi, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepalese, Urdu, Arabic, Tajik, Russian, Spanish, Albanian, Swahili, French, Haitian Creole
1. Who You Are – In a few sentences, tell us about yourself and/or your ministry and what you do to serve pastors.
David Nelson, president and founder of Crossing Cultures International (CCI). We (my wife and I) have been serving in full time ministry for 40 years and during these 40 years, we have brought non-formal training to emerging church leaders and pastors in a discipleship relationship. We served in the Philippines for 14 years, starting two churches, organizing these churches, and training the pastors who are still currently leading these churches. CCI’s mission is to glorify God by equipping Christ followers globally with comprehensive training for effective ministry. CCI serves in 46 countries with about 900 training classes among 11,000 students and 31,000 graduates.
2. Why Pastoral Leaders Matter – Why is training pastors a priority in your ministry or work?
Training pastors has been our ministry for 40 years. It is a priority because of God’s calling, the opportunity today (3 million undertrained pastors), and the vision for impacting the world by equipping current pastors and future pastors to lead God’s flock.
3. Developing Pastor Trainers – How are you helping raise up new trainers of pastors where you serve?
We develop new trainers by training seminary trained pastors in their locality to train untrained pastors and by training about 25% of our graduates to serve as trainers. We currently have 850 trainers, among which 95% are nationals in their countries (non-American). We look for current students who have embraced our vision and mission and develop them into trainers.
4. Better Together – Why does collaboration across pastor-training sectors matter to your work?
We understand that we cannot meet the need by ourselves and that it will take all sectors to meet the need. We also are always open to learning from others and what they have found to be effective. We do not serve in ministry alone. There is a community of pastor-training sectors that we serve alongside and desire to learn from their experiences.
5. Join the Work – How can others connect with you or get involved in what you’re doing?
Others can connect with us by collaborating in using the curriculum we use which is translated into 60+ languages. https://cciequip.org/