Global City Mission Initiative Podcasts

Join Joey and Chris as we talk to GCMI board member Aaron Born about what it looks like to plant house churches from within the context of an urban mega-church. Check out the book BLESS that Aaron recommends during the podcast here.

In this week's very special Christmas episode, Joey and GCMI Executive Director, Dr. Jared Looney discuss the incarnation and how that affects ministry, mission and the church.

Joey and Chris talk about the 2022 International Conference On Mission (ICOM) and Why Cities Matter.

Join us as Chris and Joey unpack the previous episode on Cross-cultural Missional Inroads and continue the conversation about how to reach out missionaly in your community.

Join us as we look back to season one for another perspective on ethnography and reaching out cross-culturally in your city. This question of where and how to begin is one of the most asked questions we get.

Chris is joined by GCMI Executive Director Jared Looney to talk about Contextualization in ministry, how it shapes what we do at GCMI and how it can apply to other ministry contexts both in North America and around the World.

Chris and Joey continue the conversation about mobilization as we reflect on Joey's first year on the team and our first year of having an official mobilization team member.

Chris and Joey discuss what it takes to mobilize college students in 2022 for both full-time missions work and for ministry in general. This is a conversation about where we are at... feel free to join the discussion. You can email Joey or Chris to jump into the conversation. joeydurmire@globalcitymission.org or chrismarsden@globalcitymission.org C…

Join us this week as Joey and Chris talk about the word mission, what it means, what GCMI means when we use it, and why we do mission the way we do.

We're back from a summer of conferences, camps, and time with the family. In this episode, Joey and Chris catch us up on all the busyness and talk a bit about campus ministry, diversity in missions, mobilizing Gen Z and a new season of ministry and the podcast.

This week we talk to Gabe and Sarah Brazle about living in a global city and the challenges and joys they've had as a young married couple, parent to 3 children, and cross-cultural missionaries in the city.

Join us this week as Joey and Chris talk with Gabe Brazle about his experiences with GCMI in cross cultural ministry and his move to Philadelphia in 2019. This is part 1 or 2 with Gabe. Next time we are joined by his wife Sarah to talk about married life and parenting while learning how to be missionaries in New York and Philly. We are switching to…

Join Chris and Joey as they talk to John Lancaster, Senior Minister at Huntsville Christian Church, about his experiences with GCMI and seeing his city through the eyes of Jesus.

In this week's episode, we are introduced to Dave Smith. Dave is a member of our team in Phoenix. He has served associate pastor of Global Missions, Church planter, professor and now missionary. Dave shares a little of his story, gives us an update on what is happening in Phoenix, and offers his thoughts on how the local church and missionaries can…

Join us this week as Chris and Joey talk about getting equipped for mission and ministry.

Join us as we talking about missions training with a throwback to season 1, talking about making spiritual statements.

In this week's episode we are joined by GCMI partner and Director of Global Frontier Missions, Grant Haynes. Grant shares with us their mission training program, how ministries like GCMI partners with with them as well as offers advice for both missionaries and pastors to better work together. Learn more about Global Frontier Mission by going to gl…

In this episode, Chris and Joey discuss what it means to engage in Catalytic Ministry work, what the word Catalyst means, and why that matters. Visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LckhUpLadcc to see the YouTube video referenced in the episode.

In today's episode, Chris talks with GCMI Executive Director, Jared Looney, about Diaspora Missions. What does it mean, why does it matter, and what gets us excited about it?

In today's episode, Joey and Chris discuss the city of Orlando, Chris's history there, joining the GCMI team, and how to begin the process of opening your eyes to the diversity around you.

Chris is joined by GCMI Executive Director, Jared Looney, to talk about urbanization, global trends, and the impact on both GCMI and ministry around the world.

In this weeks episode Joey and Chris talk about Mobilization and why it matters, not only to GCMI, but to churches and ministries in your community.

In this Episode, Chris and Joey discuss Joey's new role with GCMI and how God opened his eyes to see his city as the mission field.

Welcome back to the Global City Mission Podcast. We talk about a new season of the podcast, a new season of ministry, and what we've been up to at Global City Mission over the last couple of years.

A new season of episodes are coming, March 9th!! New episodes will be out every Wednesday!!

Cross-cultural youth minister, Manny Dominguez, joins us again on the podcast to discuss what he wishes he had known starting out in ministry. Specifically he discusses the difficulty of metrics in ministry and the need to find and establish mentors.

Manny Dominguez joins us on this episode to talk about working cross-culturally as a Latino minister at a historically white congregation. He discusses his and his wife's experience of moving from their Dominican community of origin in NYC to Fort Worth, Texas and the important lessons about transition and church life that have accompanied their ti…

Minister from Missions Resource Network, Andy Johnson, joins us again on the podcast to discuss lessons learned from 13 years working in Burkina Faso and through his families' transition back to the US. Specifically, he talks about learning how to manage expectations and transition both going to the field to make disciples and when returning home.…

Longtime missionary to Burkina Faso, Andy Johnson, joins on this episode to discuss their team's work in participating in a church planting movement. Specifically, he addresses the lessons learned from developing leaders across cultural boundaries for a network of hundreds of churches planted through their efforts in West Africa.…

Kyle Mills from Forefront Experience and Cory Ozbun of KC Underground speak in this episode about the most important principles and areas of emphasis when forming people for making disciples in long-term ministry. Specifically they speak about getting beyond training tactics and about healthy ways to set metrics when developing disciple-makers.…

We are joined in today's episode (via phone recording) by Joe Reed of Exponent Group and Cory Ozbun of KC Underground to address the question "What is a Person of Peace?" And, more specifically, to discuss what this looks like in a North American context.

Today on the podcast we're joined by Courtney Schuler and Tyler Brittain, two of our summer interns in NYC. They discuss their experience of working for 8 weeks as cross-cultural evangelists in Queens and the learning they bring home from that ministry.

In this episode of the Global City Mission Podcast, therapist and friend of GCMI Missy Gray (LPC & LPA) joins us to discuss the topic of mental health in the mission field. She talks about both the emotional well being of missionary workers as well as how to know when we're out of our depth in a ministry relationship and when to make a judgment cal…

Theologian and spiritual director, Randy Harris, joins us again on the Global City Mission Podcast in this episode to discuss what he wishes he knew if he were to start over again in ministry. Specifically, he discusses how we might go about knowing which relationships to prioritize and how to evaluate one's own "success" as a minister or missionar…

Spiritual director and theologian Randy Harris joins us in this episode of the Global City Mission Podcast to discuss spiritual direction and formation for missionaries and ministers. He discusses major needs and obstacles in our prayer lives as well as how to begin establishing a contemplative practice for those who have no previous experience or …

Ben Langford - long-term African Missionary and now a professor of Missions at Oklahoma Christian - joins us again on the Global City Mission Podcast to discuss the priorities and challenges of teaching students who are preparing to enter the field as missionaries. Specifically, we discuss the importance of joining theology with methodology: which …

In this episode of the Global City Mission Podcast, teacher of missions and former African missionary Ben Langford joins us to discuss things he wishes he had known when he was starting out. Specifically, he discusses wishing he had better understood the difference between "the plan" for ministry and the unexpected moments open to embodying the gos…

Following up on our last episode, today we are addressing the line between good contextualization - in which we adapt ourselves and our message cross-culturally in a way that clarifies what we mean to say about the gospel - with syncretism: a practice in which we blur the lines between what Jesus calls us to and a cultural element at odds with that…

When we are seeking to share the gospel, we never escape the issue of culture. Whether it is our own tradition and experience, or that of our neighbor, communication and relationship always occur through the medium of culture: so how we make decisions about our methods of proclaiming the gospel inherently involves discernment about contextualizatio…

The missionary life is full of transition and change, and that can be emotionally taxing on workers and their families. In today's episode, we discuss a tool we call the RAFT, which can help missionaries reflect on and prepare for the change of moving contexts and more readily adapt to their next location- whether that be coming to/leaving the fiel…

When we are developing others for ministry, especially in pursuing a disciple-making movement (DMM) strategy as we do at GCMI, it is critical that we form in both ourselves and others a reflectiveness and capacity for empathy. In today's episode, we discuss the tool, SASHET, that our team uses to help form this type of emotional intelligence among …

Long-term missionary, ministry-team coach, and former president of World Team, Steve Miller, talks about things he wishes he had known if he were starting over in missions today. Specifically, he discusses the need to take a long-term perspective about field placement and personal development as well as the importance of developing one's own philos…

Long-term missionary and former World Team President, Steve Miller, joins us on the podcast today to discuss mentoring and coaching missionaries for the contemporary field. He shares about the ways that mentoring workers has changed with the newer generations of workers, and about helping missionaries learn to see the different placements and trans…

President of Missions Resource Network, Dan Bouchelle, discusses the things he wishes he had known starting out partnering with missions as a domestic church leader. Specifically, he talks about the need to develop leaders to take over the work of supported missionaries, and the need to be guided less by big picture structures and strategies than r…

Dan Bouchelle from Mission Resource Network joins us in this episode to discuss how the changing landscape of missions - due to forces like urbanization, globalization, and increased communication through technology - are changing what it means for individual churches to participate in missions and how individual missionaries fit into the larger mi…

Reflecting on her long career in missions and in counseling missionaries both before and after they serve in the field, Dottie Schulz shares some of the things that she wishes she had known were she in the position of starting over again. Specifically, Dottie addresses the difficulty of missionary reentry and the struggle to feel relevant in connec…

Long-term missionary and counselor in missionary care Dottie Schulz speaks in this episode about the most common issues among cross-cultural workers and teams as they seek to stay healthy in ministry. Specifically, she addresses the importance of forming friendships outside of the official "team relationships" for missionaries, of learning to be as…

In today's episode, GCMI Catalyst Gabe Brazle shares from his own career in missions about things he wishes he had known starting out in ministry. Specifically, Gabe discusses the importance of realizing just how spiritually curious most people are, as well as the need to overcome the fear that we must be "experts" in order to begin sharing our fai…

NYC Catalyst Gabe Brazle discusses the ways in which working among Muslim people groups in Global Cities has expanded his view of both what evangelism is and grown his appreciation for how diverse a person's experience of Islam may be.

Often in ministry, we judge our own success based on the ideal outcomes of our missional strategies as they look on paper. But what are the likely results of pursuing disciple-making work in urban ministry? It has been the experience of our team that, from a strategic perspective, most relationships break down or "fail" at some point. In today's ep…