God's Heartbeat Volume 55

 This edition of God's Heartbeat is dedicated to the Advanced Mission Leadership Institute (AMLI)'s 2022 Leadership Course. The primary focus is on security and Disaster Preparedness and other critical issues affecting the mission community. We arrived at the theme because of the increasing and alarming rate of insecurity, especially as it relates to the mission community.

The loss the mission community has suffered is unquantifiable. Some key mission leaders and converts have been kidnapped, and others killed. The body of Christ has prayed and still praying, but the situation is getting worse. The training is designed to be a follow-up to the concerted prayers. We have also taken time before now to prepare the missionaries for the worst that could happen in the course of advancing His kingdom in the dark places of the earth, which is death, Jesus' but some deaths are avoidable.

The laborers have remained few from the time of Jesus' earthly ministry; with the alarming rate of insecurity and slaughter of missionaries, they are getting fewer. This 2022 Leadership Course attempts at helping to cut down on the fatality rate via Security and Disaster Preparedness. The Editor-In-Chief did the cover piece on this subject in the edition. Details of the materials are covered by copyright rules and can only be made available to the trainees to be handled by certified leaders drawn from Global Relief. One of the Resource Persons was a former United Nations Head of Field Office in one of the States that was worst affected by terrorism.

Another area of focus at the 2022 Leadership Course is a revisit on discipleship as the core leadership strategy for executing the great commission to be handled by Bro. Aik Ugwuanyi. The presentation/lecture note is published here for the wider body of Christ and the missional community.

Also, Christian marriage is currently heavily under assault and the mission community is not left out. Dr. Samuel Seyi Afolabi, a faculty member of Mission Exposure and Training (MET) and senior pastor at the All Nations Evangelistic Ministries, Ibadan as well as Visiting Lecturer at the AMLI highlighted the characters that frustrate marriage at the 2022 Leadership Course, trainers, and his lecture note is published here.

Professor Samuel Odeh, a professor of Medicine at the University of Jos and one of our pioneer mission trainers at the Grace Foundation's School of Cross-Cultural Missions, also taught on Stress and Burnout Management. His lecture is published in the Health Issue Column. Professor J.C.A. Onuh addresses the subject of accountability and bookkeeping as a demonstration of integrity.

As you read through this edition, our prayer is that God will breathe on it to truly be a huge blessing and advance the Great Commission in some ways in Jesus' name.