Featured Student/Grad Profiles
Moses Alagbe
DMin Student- President - Amsterdam Bible Academy
- European Coordinator - GATE (Gift From Africa To Europe)
- Pastor - Maranatha English Fellowship (small immigrant church)
- (Nigerian Immigrant - Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Moses Alagbe, an African missionary, works in Amsterdam among the African diaspora (13% of the population – 800,000). Moses and others believe God has given secular Europe the gift of African missionaries to revive the faith and Church. As President of the Amsterdam Bible Academy, he coordinates theological, mission and ministry training that equips Africans to minister in a Western culture. Amsterdam Bible Academy is the only school in Europe that provides such training to Africans by Africans familiar with both African and European cultures. 40 students are currently enrolled and approximately 55 have graduated since 1996. For his dissertation Moses rewrote the school curriculum to make courses practically relevant in meeting the challenges of the Amsterdam context.
“ BGU has turned my ministry upside down. I will be forever be grateful for all I have been exposed to at BGU. I am now slow to speak but quick to listen. I have developed the habit of leading by asking questions. As a leader I do realize that I will be more effective through relationships. Relationships open the door for effective ministry. It really works! ”
Dr. Kathy Dudley
DMin Graduate - 2005- Founder and Former Executive Director - Dallas Leadership Foundation
- President – Imani Bridges
- BGU Africa Area Director & Professor of African Studies
Kathy Dudley, a nationally recognized urban missionary, has founded three ground-breaking urban ministries: Voice of Hope and Dallas Leadership Foundation in Dallas, TX, and the latest, Imani Bridges, in Pasadena, CA. President George Bush honored Voice of Hope as one of the Thousand Points of Light. As a result, Kathy addressed the 1992 Republican National Convention. In 1997 Kathy served as a national delegate to President Clinton’s Summit on Volunteerism in Philadelphia. Kathy founded Imani Bridges for teaching, training, mentoring and building partnerships with and among leaders in Africa. One Imani Bridges initiative involves 20+ Nigerian bishops representing 5000+ churches of numerous denominations, working toward a collaboration to address their country’s needs. In 1999, she was a contributing author to Book 5 of the highly acclaimed teaching series, Renewing the Spirit, Healing the Soul, by Howard E. Butt, Jr.
“ I have new creative vision and opportunities because of what I learned and the connections made through BGU. As a BGU professor, I am empowered to teach and train at the seminary level and influence students in the U. S. and Africa with the values and principles that have guided my involvement in urban ministry for many years. ”
Dr. Andras Lovas
DMin Graduate - 2006- Senior Pastor, Gasdagret Reformed Church (Budapest, Hungary)
Andras Lovas pastors a church in a large public housing project or housing estate in Budapest. Communist regimes originally built these housing estates without churches. The environment presents great challenges, but the need for a church presence that transforms lives is greater. Andras has intentionally defined his role as a resource for a network of 25 public housing project pastors in Hungary and Transsylvania, serving 20 communities where approximately 500,000 people live.
“ Completion of this doctoral program credentials me to teach seminary courses where I will have the opportunity to identify young leaders gifted and called to be involved in creative church planting in housing estates and other urban areas in Hungary. ”
Jonathan Nambu
DMin Graduate - 2007- Founder & Executive Director, Samaritana Transformation Ministries (Manila, Philippines)
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo recognized the significance of Jonathan Nambu’s work when she said, “Our administration recognizes your important role as an active contributor to the spiritual and moral transformation of our society.” Since Jonathan Nambu founded Samaritana in 1992 with his wife Thelma, its staff and volunteers have reached out to the growing number of women (100,000+) caught in prostitution in Manila, the world’s 6th largest city (10,500,000 population). Samaritana also fills an important gap in the Philippines, serving as a bridge for communication and understanding between secular feminists and the Church, Catholics and Evangelicals, and activists and contemplatives.
“ The BGU program's unique shape and style have reinforced a global outlook, intentionality, and creativity on my part. I believe God's hopes and plans for Samaritana in the next 5 years include a greater emphasis on training for similar ministries around cities in the Philippines and Asia, perhaps even the broader world. ”
Dr. Kurt Risley
DMin Graduate - 2006- Associate Minister, Crossroads Church (Portland, Oregon)
Kurt Risley’s ministry experience has been focused on church planting in the Midwest. But currently he is a “transitioning minister” in the process of becoming the Senior Minister of Crossroads Church in Portland, OR. Portland is the third largest city in the Pacific Northwest with 1.9 million people in the metropolitan area. The church has a 95-year history, and the current Senior Minister has been there for 35 years. It is in a prime location in NE Portland, situated in a “transitioning” community, which is in the city plan to become the second urban district in Portland. Kurt says he is a preacher’s kid from the Midwest who has been on a journey for a faith that is real for the entire week and not just on Sunday. He found that at BGU.
"BGU came at a crucial time in my life and spiritual development. God was working on my heart to reveal there were key components missing in my faith, teaching and everyday life. I was dissatisfied with how I was 'doing church and Christianity' and was ready for God to reveal His way to me. I had no idea that it would come in the form of BGU. The process was at times painfully convicting, entertaining, adventurous and controversial…but in all things visionary and full of hope. BGU helped me find God in a new and refreshing way – a God that is vibrant and crosses so many boundaries I had erected. For me BGU embodies empowering and educating anyone who wants to be 'Jesus with skin on' to those who need Him. "
“ One of the concepts that I remembered latching on to was the idea that our faith is not to be just an American faith, but a God faith, and He is God of all creation, in all countries. BGU is so much more than a school or para-church ministry. For me it embodies empowering and educating anyone who wants to be “Jesus with skin on” to those who need Him. ”
Dr. Arloa Sutter
DMin Graduate - 2006- Founder & Executive Director, Breakthrough Ministries (Chicago, IL)
Arloa Sutter established Breakthrough Ministries out of a church storefront in 1992. She wanted to understand what the homeless people in Chicago’s Edgewater and Uptown neighborhoods really needed in addition to money and food. Breakthrough now operates programs on the city's north and west sides. These include Bridges of Hope (an outreach to women in prostitution), the Joshua Center (emergency overnight shelter & other support for women in crises) and North Side Day Center (support for homeless men) In addition, through the youth center programs nearly 300 youth have opportunities that nurture and encourage personal development and academic enrichment. Arloa developed Breakthrough’s latest program, BUILD (Breakthrough Urban Institute of Leadership Development) in conjunction with her D.Min. studies. She expects BUILD to be a model for people working cross culturally throughout the world.
“ At Breakthrough we are practicing what was central to my learning at BGU - listening to the people of the community in which we serve, seeking to learn from them how to live among them and joining them in their struggle. One of the sub points under our 'collaboration' values is actually a quote that Ray Bakke has often used in our BGU classes, 'We believe that people of good faith can work with people of good will for the good of the community.' ”
Dr. Randy White
DMin Graduate - 2005- InterVarsity National Coordinator for Urban Projects
Randy’s training programs impact some 26 cities and 54 projects. They train more than 1,200 students per year to work in high-crime, high-poverty neighborhoods. Randy is also the director of the 2006 Urbana Mission Conference which will be attended by 25,000+ college students. Randy wrote Journey to the Center of the City: Making a Difference in an Urban Neighborhood (1996, IVP) and Encountering God in the City: Onramps to Personal and Community Transformation, scheduled for release in August, 2006.
“ My education at BGU, my experiences with Ray Bakke in various cities, and the research that has emerged is directly influencing the way we do urban project training in InterVarsity across the country. Because of my BGU education InterVarsity is better equipped to produce the next generation of transformational leaders. ”