Pastors' Ministry Leader Urges: 'Simply Lift Up Christ'
by Allie Martin and Jenni Parker
March 8, 2004
(AgapePress) - The president and co-founder of the Global Pastors Network (GPN) says Christians must take seriously Christ's admonition to speak the truth in love to a lost world.Dr. James Davis says he was driving through Springfield, Missouri, in February 2001, making his way through a snowstorm, when he sensed a tremendous urgency in his spirit to call Campus Crusade For Christ founder Dr. Bill Bright and share his vision of connecting every pastor in the world into a technological learning environment.
Davis found that God had placed a similar vision in Bright's heart, and so the two evangelically-minded men worked together to found GPN to train and equip pastors and church leaders worldwide to fulfill the Great Commission.
Today Davis is GPN's president, and he emphasizes to GPN pastors and others that true Christians must realize that they are representing Jesus Christ at all times. Davis often quotes the late Dr. Bright, whose wisdom he regularly employs in leading the ministry. "He used to say, 'Once you really know who Jesus Christ is, you can't help but love Him. People in the world who are against Christ, are against Christ because they really don't know Him,'" Davis says.
And GPN's leader says Bright believed that many times it is those Christians who misrepresent the Master that stand in the way of winning new believers to Christ. "If the followers would just portray who Jesus is, more people would get along with who Jesus is and believe in Him quickly," Davis says.
But another reason Christians fail to win souls, the ministry co-founder notes, is that they have not made evangelism a priority or have failed to make Christ the true focus of their evangelical efforts. "The main issue of all the issues," Davis says, "is what are we going to do with Jesus Christ. And He said that if He be lifted up, He would draw men unto Himself."
Although many ministers get caught up in man-made methodologies and programs, this promoter of pastoral training says one thing is needful. "Sometimes it seems like we're trying to draw men rather than lift [Jesus Christ]. If we would just simply learn how to lift Him up, He is the greatest magnetic force of all," Davis says.
Over the past two decades, Dr. Davis has traveled nearly four million miles throughout the world, proclaiming the gospel in more than 50 countries, seeking to energize and equip thousands of pastors and evangelists for effective evangelism.
