Why My Heart Bleeds for the Local Church

While I was in Bible college, I read Joshua Harris’s Stop Dating the Church: Fall in Love with the Family of God.

I will be honest: I was skeptical about the whole I Kissed Dating Goodbye movement. But when Harris turned his attention to our relationship with the church, he hit the nail on the head.

His challenge was simple: stop treating the church like something you casually date. The local church is not an event to sample, a service to consume, or an organization to abandon as soon as something better appears. It is the family of God—a people to whom we belong and a body we are called to love, serve, and help build.

There is a terribly sad irony in Joshua Harris later stepping away from the Christian faith. I do not say that with anger, superiority, or condemnation. I find it genuinely heartbreaking.

Let’s pray for Joshua Harris. Let’s pray that he finds his way home.

His story does not erase the gold in what he wrote or the way God used that message to shape me:

Stop dating the church. Fall in love with the family of God.

I also attended what I affectionately call a local-church-obsessed Bible college—and I would not have had it any other way.

Everything came back to the local church. Theology was not merely something to debate in a classroom. Ministry was not about building a name, gathering a following, or finding a platform. We were being trained to serve the body of Christ and equip God’s people.

That experience further instilled something God had already spoken to my father years earlier: The local church matters.

A Conviction That Began With My Father

When my dad first stepped into missionary evangelism, God gave him a clear instruction: operate within the local church.

He was not to hold independent meetings and use the church merely as a means of building his own mailing list. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with having a mailing list—GHMI has one. The issue was never the tool. The issue was how the church and its people were to be treated.

God was teaching my dad not to follow the pattern of other ministries, use and abuse local churches to build their own ministry.

He was to honour pastors, serve congregations, strengthen local believers, and help the church embrace its place in the Great Commission. Ministry relationships were not to be reduced to transactions in which a church provided a crowd and the visiting ministry collected names.

I am so grateful that my dad listened.

That act of obedience helped shape Global Harvest Ministries International from the beginning. It established a conviction that remains central to our identity today: we are not here to compete with the local church, draw people away from it, or build our ministry at its expense.

GHMI is profoundly pro-church.

We believe in missionary evangelism. We believe in preaching the Gospel clearly and boldly. We believe in crusades and outreaches that call people to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. We believe the Holy Spirit still empowers believers and confirms the proclamation of the Gospel with His presence and power.

Everything we do is ultimately about winning souls and advancing God’s Kingdom.

But evangelism was never meant to end with an isolated decision.

Wherever we minister, we make every effort to connect people with a local church. New believers need to be discipled and grounded in the Word of God. They need Christian community, spiritual leadership, accountability, and opportunities to serve. They need people who will celebrate with them, grieve with them, challenge them, forgive them, and help them grow.

They need the local church.

Who Am I If I Am Not Serving the Body?

As I have grown into my own calling, one question has continued to confront me:

Who am I as a minister if I am not serving the body of Christ?

Ministry cannot simply be about having something to say. It cannot be about gaining influence, receiving invitations, or being known. If my preaching does not strengthen the church, equip believers, and point people toward Jesus, then what am I building?

My heart bleeds for the local church because I believe in its impact.

I have seen what happens when ordinary believers become convinced that God can use them. I have seen what happens when the Gospel is preached, the Holy Spirit moves, pastors equip their people, and Christians begin to understand that ministry is not reserved for the person standing behind the pulpit.

The local church is where faith becomes embodied.

It is where the lonely find family, new believers learn to follow Jesus, children are formed in truth, and the grieving are comforted. It is where people discover their spiritual gifts and learn to pray, forgive, give, serve, lead, and carry the Gospel into their communities.

The local church is not merely a meeting we attend. It is an expression of God and His people working together—under His authority and empowered by His Spirit—to bring the reality of His Kingdom into every aspect of life.

Every Believer Is Called to Ministry

The local church is not meant to gather spectators. It is meant to equip ministers.

Ephesians 4 tells us that Christ gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.”

Notice who is called to do the work of ministry: the saints.

The fivefold ministry gifts are not given so that a few special people can perform ministry while the rest of the church watches. They are given to equip the whole body.

Every believer is a priest of the new covenant.

Peter writes that we are “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people,” called to proclaim the praises of the One who brought us out of darkness and into His marvellous light.

Because of Jesus, every believer has access to God. Every believer is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Every believer has been given grace and spiritual gifts with which to serve others.

That means ministry does not stop at the church doors.

Every believer has a sphere of influence—a family, a workplace, a neighbourhood, a school, a business, or a circle of friends. Within those relationships are people we can serve, love, pray for, and win to Christ.

The church equips us, and then we carry the presence and message of Jesus into the places God has already positioned us.

The Great Commission does not belong only to pastors, missionaries, or evangelists. It belongs to every believer.

Jesus Is Building a Covenant People

Jesus said, “I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).

The church is not a human public-relations strategy. It was not invented by religious leaders looking for an organization to manage. It is Christ’s idea, Christ’s possession, and Christ’s continuing work in the earth.

God is forming a worldwide covenant people from every tribe, language, people, and nation—a people who will worship Christ and reign with Him.

The Gospel saves individuals, but it does not leave us as isolated individuals. Through Jesus, we are adopted into a family and joined to a body. Christianity is deeply personal, but it was never intended to be private or solitary.

This challenges the consumer mindset that asks, “What am I getting from this church?”

A better question is, “How has God called me to love and serve this part of His body?”

The church is not perfect. It is filled with imperfect people being transformed by grace. Churches can disappoint us. Leaders can fail. Those realities must be handled honestly, biblically, and with appropriate accountability.

But the failures of people do not nullify the purposes of God.

It has become fashionable—even among Christians—to criticize the church from a distance. It is easy to list its weaknesses. It is harder to commit ourselves to a local congregation, pray for its leaders, love difficult people, serve without recognition, and help build something stronger.

I want to spend my life building, not criticizing.

More Than Transactional Relationships

Over the years, I have watched my father and GHMI build covenant relationships with pastors, churches, and ministry partners.

These relationships have never been perfect, but many of them have become something far deeper than a visiting minister filling a Sunday service or a church supporting a project.

They have become family.

A transaction asks, “What can you do for us, and what can we do for you?”

A covenant relationship says, “We are in this together.”

It means we are both doing our best to help one another. When one of us is down, the other does not disappear. We love, care, pray, encourage, and stand together. We celebrate one another’s victories and carry one another’s burdens.

Sometimes GHMI has brought a word, a missions opportunity, or practical ministry support to a church. At other times, those churches and pastors have prayed for us, encouraged our family, supported the work, and stood with us through difficult seasons.

That is not networking. That is relationship.

That is one of the beautiful things about the body of Christ. We are not independent ministries cautiously protecting our own territories. We are members of one body, serving one Lord and participating in one mission.

This is the kind of relationship I watched my father build, and it is the kind of relationship I want to continue building.

The Word and the Spirit

I believe the Bible is the authoritative Word of God. I also believe the Holy Spirit remains active and powerful within the church today.

We need both biblical depth and spiritual fire.

We need churches grounded firmly in Scripture and fully dependent upon the Holy Spirit. We need believers who know the Word, recognize the voice of God, operate in the gifts of the Spirit, share the Gospel courageously, pray with faith, and demonstrate the love and power of Christ in everyday life.

Jesus told His disciples, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me” (Acts 1:8).

The Spirit’s empowerment was never intended to create spiritual celebrities. It was given to empower the whole church for witness and ministry.

Jesus Christ alone saves, but His chosen plan for carrying the Gospel to the world is His Spirit-empowered church.

Why This Matters to GHMI

This conviction shapes how Global Harvest Ministries International operates.

In North America, we serve within the context of local churches. We share what God is doing through missions, preach messages that call congregations to action, and encourage believers to take their place in the Great Commission.

We are not trying to build our audience at the expense of a pastor’s congregation. We want to help churches become stronger, more evangelistic, more mission-minded, and more confident in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The same conviction shapes everything we do internationally.

Whether it is a crusade, an evangelistic outreach, a humanitarian program, a Bible college, a pastors’ conference, leadership training, or community development, the goal is never simply to hold an event and move on.

We want to win people to Jesus, but we also want to give them a pathway into Christian community.

Wherever possible, we work with local pastors and churches so that those who respond to the Gospel can become part of a congregation. We want new believers discipled, rooted in the Word, equipped for ministry, and taught to make their lives count for the Kingdom of God.

We do not want to create permanent dependence upon a visiting ministry. We want to equip local believers to reach their own communities and take Kingdom ground.

We want to reach people, make disciples, develop leaders, strengthen churches, and see communities transformed.

The Local Church Still Matters

Methods will change. Technology will change. Ministry models will come and go.

God’s plan has not changed.

The hope of the world is not a Christian celebrity, a ministry brand, a conference, or an online platform. Those things can serve the purposes of God, but they cannot replace the family He is building.

The future of Gospel mission is found in local churches filled with ordinary believers who understand that they are priests of the new covenant—believers who are rooted in truth, alive in the Spirit, committed to one another, and ready to carry Jesus into every area of society.

That is the church I want to serve.

That is the kind of believer GHMI wants to empower.

Those are the covenant relationships I want to build.

This is the legacy my parents began when my dad obeyed God’s instruction to operate within the local church. It is the conviction my Bible college strengthened in me, and it is the conviction I intend to carry into the next season of our ministry.

The Gospel matters. People matter. The local church matters.

My heart bleeds for the local church because I believe that when God’s people are grounded in His Word, empowered by His Spirit, equipped for ministry, and united around His mission, they become an unstoppable expression of His Kingdom in the earth.

Christ is building His church.

I intend to spend my life serving what He is building.