About Us

Founder, Editor: www.MissionLeader.com

I’m Mark Morris, a world Christian – a person with a passion for God and his desire for all peoples to be gathered at his throne. Since 1970 I’ve known my life’s purpose has something to do with being a world Christian, committed to share Christ among those who have yet to hear the truth of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ.

From 1983 to 1997 my family and I lived in Africa and Asia. I have one granddaughter, three beautiful and intelligent daughters, two great sons-in-law, and my cherished wife, Cindy. Cindy is currently in a long-term battle with multiple-myeloma which has been God’s gift to draw us nearer to Him and to one another.

We served as traditional missionaries for 4 years doing Portuguese church planting in South Africa. For the subsequent 6 years I served as a Strategy Coordinator among unreached people groups in Centra Asia. Afghanistan became a passion during those years. During my final 4 years overseas I supervised Christian workers and church planting strategies throughout Central and Southern Asia. I ended those years with the International Mission Board as Regional leader of Central and Southern Asia.

In 1997 I returned to the US to co-found All Peoples, a church consulting group which assisted churches to impact the least reached. In addition I founded Hazara Herald Ministries as an outreach to the Persian speaking world.

From 2000-2007 I took my global experience and applied it to a mega church, Germantown Baptist Church, where we started 101 churches, sent several thousand volunteers on short term missions, mobilized around 50 for long-term mission service, and started over 150 local and global ministries. During that time I also had the privilege of co-founding Concerned Christians for Afghanistan, and International Friendship Summits.

Later I served on the Mission Staff of Rick Warren’s church, Saddleback Valley Community Church, where we developed PEACE – for the purpose of guiding every small group into local and global missions.

Currently I serve the International Mission Board, SBC as the Director of The Emerging Leaders Team. My role is to lead the IMB’s efforts to engage non-traditional churches in work among the least reached. One of our most recent innovations is www.thelastletter.org.

Throughout my time in local church ministry, I founded Mission Leader, Inc which began to assist Mission Leaders as they seek to mobilize and equip churches to develop World Christians. I invite you to take any resources and adapt them to your setting. Also, please pass on to us your ideas and tools so we can share them with other mission leaders.

I hold a Doctorate of Ministry degree from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, an M.Div. from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, and a BSE from The University of Arkansas. I am currently a PhD student in Missions and World Religions at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Craig Schmidle – Mission Operations Consultant

Founder, CES Management, LLC

I am Craig Schmidle and have join Mark in the blog section of this website. Mark and I have served together on staff at a large mega church with a heart for missions. My responsibilities there were administrative in nature but crossed over the lines into missions operations, as any good administrator should.

Over the years I have been blessed to be a part of and led teams to Haiti for flood relief, India for earthquake relief, China for vision work, Indonesia for Tsunami relief and Afghanistan for leadership training. I also headed the emergency response network for the church working closely with local, state and federal entities on planning and implementation.
Mark and I will have different styles in our blogs. My blogs will be more through the eyes of an administrator with more nuts and bolts stuff. With my eclectic background in banking, finance, accounting, operations, information technology and leadership from many years in the secular world and adding on administration, event management, mission response, emergency response, and consulting to churches, my blog will also be eclectic.
I hope that you will find these blogs insightful, visionary, humorous, helpful and edgy. You may not agree with some of them, but I am sure they will make you think.

Kate Taylor – Student, Journalist, World Christian

Mission Intern, Last Letter

I am Kate Taylor a double major at Union University in Jackson, TN. I am majoring in Journalism and intercultural studies.

I’ve served as assistant news editor last semester at my campus magazine. I write for Baptist Global Response and for Last Letter. Having spent my youth in Kenya and the Far East, my perspective may be different than many.

I look forward to sharing some interviews and posts on topics from my perspective as a student who is a global christian.