Equip the Church.
Engage the Lost.
Embrace the Nations.

Hear stories about the persecuted church from a Muslim background believer.

Heather is an associate teaching professor at Penn State, speaker, and author. She designs advanced writing curriculum for the English department and loves helping students thrive professionally. She has written eight books, including the bestseller Seated with Christ: Living Freely in a Culture of Comparison, and an award-winning book on evangelism (cowritten with her husband, Ashley Holleman) called Sent: Living a Life That Invites Others to Jesus. Her latest book, The Six Conversations: Pathways to Connecting in an Age of Isolation and Incivility (Fall 2022) helps fight the loneliness epidemic by inviting readers to enjoy better conversations.

Heather also serves with Faculty Commons, the graduate student and professor ministry of Cru. She has two daughters and three cats, and she blogs daily at heatherholleman.com. Her podcast is “The Verb with Heather Holleman.” When she’s not writing or teaching, Heather is growing a plum orchard, looking for turtles in the woods, or gathering with friends for dinner and a movie.

Edward Paz planted The Movement Church in Oakland, California in 2013. After 8 years of proclaiming the gospel, making disciples, and serving the city, Edward transitioned the leadership of the church to a new Senior Pastor, and took a role at Hope Church in Las Vegas as their Lead Pastor of Prayer and Teaching Ministries.

Edward has been married to his wife Rebekah for 18 years. His passions include creating/cultivating a culture of corporate prayer within a church, training the next generation of preachers, and encouraging pastors to be spiritually and emotionally healthy.

Edward also enjoys writing. He published “Only God - A Supernatural Church Planting Story” in 2020 and has written extensively at edwardpaz.com.

Steve was raised in Indonesia, where his parents took the gospel to a jungle tribe, a story documented in his father’s missionary classic, Peace Child.

Steve and his wife Arlene returned to Southeast Asia in 1986 to plant churches among a major Muslim unreached people group. With their team of 40 coworkers, they developed an innovative approach to church planting called Lampstand. Steve helped start a center for evangelism, various media ministries, English language schools, and a major “business as mission” project. Later they moved to Australia where they helped launch Pioneers in Australia and New Zealand.

Since 1999 Steve Richardson has served as President of Pioneers-USA. Pioneers now has approximately 340 teams that are impacting over 500 unreached people groups. Steve's most recently published book, Is the Commission still Great?, focuses on dismantling the myths that obscure God's great plan. The Richardson's have four grown daughters and 11 grandchildren. 

James grew up in Westchester County, outside of New York City. James’s father worked for IBM before becoming a pastor and James’s mother worked as a Social Studies teacher. In college, James played football for James Madison University, while majoring in Speech Communications and minoring in Theatre.

James got his start in college ministry in 1999 at James Madison University, Howard University, and University of North Texas. He remains diligently focused on social justice issues and has developed programs on youth empowerment, AIDS, substance abuse, and domestic violence. In 2011, James graduated from Southeastern Seminary while simultaneously pastoring a church in Raleigh, North Carolina. James has since helped to plant churches in Maryland, Georgia, and New York. He started the Bridge Church in Brooklyn in 2014.

James has been married to his wife Natarsha since 2003. In his spare time, he loves watching sports and going to the gym. James and Natarsha live in Brooklyn with their three daughters: Faith, Leah, and Sophia.

Clay was approved unanimously by the congregation in August 2019 to serve as the senior pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church. A native of Greenville, SC and the son of a pastor, Clay's passion for ministry revolves around the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) and includes biblical concentration in three major areas: evangelism, relational discipleship and missions. Clay earned a Bachelor of Music from the University of South Carolina in 2001 and a Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2005. He is currently a PhD student at Southwestern with a concentration in preaching. He and his wife, Terrica, have three daughters.

Men’s Pastor at Johnson Ferry for the past 8 years after spending 12 years in corporate America as a consultant. Passionate about helping men become spiritual leaders & disciple-makers. Just a guy who loves to fish and learning how to be a lifelong fisher of men.

Executive Pastor for Disciple-Making and Programs at JF. I have served in full-time ministry for 13 years after growing up on the mission field as an MK. I love helping people find Jesus and grow in the ways of Jesus. I love the local church and equipping her to do the work of ministry. Love to read and learn, I am an unashamed nerd. I spend my free time in the garden and camping. Watching plants grow is almost as exciting and watching people grow.

Brian Fox, pastor of global sending at Johnson Ferry, has been on staff since 2009. Previously he served as a foreign policy aid in the U.S. Senate and missionary to international students in Seoul, Korea. Brian is married to Katherine for 25 years and has five kids, ages 21 to 10. Brian loves mountain biking, backpacking, and hanging with his family.

Grant Haynes is the founder and director of Global Frontier Missions. He spent 14 years serving among unreached people groups in Oaxaca, Mexico and has spent the last 12 years serving refugees in Clarkston, GA and training missionaries to serve around the world.

Ashley and his wife, Heather, love helping people connect with Jesus and their identity as “sent ones” of God. And they long to see another powerful and historical move of God among the church—a move of God such that a dramatic number of believers are awakened to and sent out for the cause of Christ and His gospel. To play a part in that move of God, Ashley serves with Global Service Associates to come alongside churches and ministries to catalyze their efforts to develop an evangelism culture for their context and to mobilize sent-ones.  With Heather, Ashley co-wrote the evangelism book, Sent: Living a Life that Invites Others to Jesus.

Larry began planting churches in the United States in 1991 and was subsequently part of 8 church plants. After serving with the North America Mission Board, SBC for a time in the area of church planter assessment, he and his family moved to Western Europe in late 2001 and served in both Spain and Germany with IMB. He has worked in the areas of church planting and mission strategy among europeans as well in leading efforts among engaging immigrants and refugees who now live in Europe. In 2008 he co-founded The Upstream Collective, which is a non-profit devoted to helping churches learn how to engage people with the gospel at home and in other cultures. Larry has co-authored two books; Tradecraft for the Church on Mission and First 30 Daze. He also wrote The MarketSpace which addresses how marketplace people can take the gospel with intentionality all over the world. 

Tera Melber has been a foster care and adoption advocate and educator for nearly two decades. As a church ministry leader and parent coach, she speaks at various conferences and churches on many topics, including trauma-informed parenting and foster care advocacy. Tera is a Trust Based Relational Intervention Practitioner, a Trauma Competent Caregiver Affiliate Trainer, and a Cultivate Connection Facilitator and serves as Mission Georgia’s foster care mobilizer and trauma educator.

Joan has been in ministry with Cru for 33 years, including seven in Budapest, Hungary with her husband and four children. A dream in college propelled her to pursue living intentionally with her neighbors regardless of where she lives and equip others to do the same. A widow now, Joan loves conversation and laughter with her young adult children, taking a walk with a friend, and her golden doodles, Wilson and Mack.

Samuel was born and raised in a Bhutanese refugee camp in Nepal. When he was fifteen, by God's grace, he came to the USA on November 19, 2009 with the help from Kentucky Refugee Ministries. Through the mentorship of Dr. Trent Deloach and other godly men, God clarified that he was called to live as a missionary among former refugees here in the United States. Currently, he serves as a discipleship pastor for CIBC and NAMB and the Clarkston Outreach Coordinator at the Atlanta Ministry Center through Send Relief. Samuel lives in Clarkston with his wife, Priscilla T. Rai, and two sons, Amos Yashub Rai and Paul Gregory Rai. As Christ's ambassador, he strives to reach others with the Gospel, walk closely with Clarkston ministry leaders, and train churches to love and reach nations with the Gospel of Jesus Christ here in North America.

Arlene was raised by devoted Christian parents who gave her a heart for the world. During college her father left his role as a successful executive with The Wall Street Journal to launch a new mission agency. The vision grew rapidly and became known as Pioneers, which today has over 3,000 members serving in over 110 countries. In 1986 Arlene and her husband Steve launched a church-planting team to a major Muslim group in Southeast Asia. Arlene began a ‘business as mission’ project which provided hundreds of unemployed people with jobs and marketable skills, teaching them to sew exquisite quilts and other crafts. God used her practical expressions of love to open amazing doors of opportunity, a story told in Arlene’s book Threads. Arlene speaks on marketplace ministries and serves the hospitality and donor needs of the organization. Steve and Arlene have four grown daughters and 11 grandchildren.

Linda and her husband Walter worked in ministry with Cru in East Asia for 19 years while raising their 5 children. Whether at home or across the ocean, Linda has always had a heart to reach her neighbors with the love of God. She believes that God’s word changes lives across all cultures. In her free time she loves to play tennis with Walter and also her 87 year old mother. 

Gus’s journey with the IMB began over 25 years ago, when he and his wife worked with an unreached Muslim people group in Africa. When she contracted a sudden illness and passed away, Gus and his children were left on their own. During the same time period, colleague Heidi was widowed as well, left with her own children. While their children were still small, Gus and Heidi met and married and moved their very large family to the Middle East, where they worked with an unreached people group for a few years before moving back to northern Africa to help lead the work there for several years. Now they help lead the IMB’s work across the region, providing direction and support to over 400 Christian workers who are spreading the gospel among the lost.

Chris White has a passion for seeing all people groups in all the nations reached with the Gospel! Chris received his Master of Divinity with a specialization in Christian Apologetics from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in 2017 and is currently a ministry associate on staff in Global Ministries at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia. Chris has traveled throughout the world teaching, training, and mobilizing others to take their part in the Great Commission. Chris lives in Roswell Georgia with his wife and three kids.