Leadership

Dr. Dann Spader (Moody Bible Institute, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) has dedicated his life to disciple-making, teaching others how to take someone from seeker to making disciples themselves. More than 1 million people in 100 plus countries have been trained to make disciples through organizations he has led. He is the founder of Sonlife Ministries and he has dedicated his life to disciple-making. Dann is the author of 4 Chair Discipling, Walk Like Jesus and Live Like Jesus. He has written more than a dozen leadership training manuals, contributed to several other books, written numerous articles, and produced over 30 training videos.

He and his wife, Char, have three daughters and live in Phoenix, Arizona.

He spent the early years in ministry working for Sonlife Ministries (Concentric Alliance Partner) in Chicago, IL. He worked for Sonlife providing leadership training in the life of Christ for youth workers and youth pastors across the USA and Canada.

He has served with Sonlife Latin America for over 25 years. His family moved to Costa Rica in December of 1994 to birth Sonlife Latin America. Sonlife Latin America works to train younger leadership in the life of Christ. They focus on helping the next generation to be and act like Jesus. They desire to see a generation of young people who possess both the character and priorities of Christ. Young people who display the character of Christ, as seen in the life of Jesus and attested to by the Apostle Paul in Philippines 2:5-8. They also desire to see young people possess the priorities of Christ as seen in the life of Jesus and attested to by the Apostle Paul in Acts 26:16-18. He now work across Latin America discipling, coaching and mentoring emerging leaders in the life of Christ. Jesus and the Apostle Paul are his models working “until Christ is formed” in others (Galatians 4:6). Make disciples who make disciples as Jesus and Paul did.

Michele, native to the United States, moved to Costa Rica after university to learn Spanish, and has now spent for half of her life making and training disciples throughout the region. She loves people and is passionate about the continual study of Jesus´ life on Earth - especially the evident participation of women in His 1st century movement.

In 2019, Michele and a team of Latin missionaries started a new organization named Singular (a Concentric Alliance Partner). Singular is a pioneering non-profit organization uniquely birthed in Latin America to mobilize disciple-makers. A diverse group of people united by a singular focus on Jesus and a call to walk alongside local churches and ministries who want to learn how intentional relationships can form movements that transform the world. As the Strategic Coordinator of Singular, she is a happy wife and a learning mom and leads the Singular Executive Team in strategic direction and communication, leaning always into communal discernment.

M'gliwè Simdinatome's life is a testimony to the transformative power of faith in God. Overcoming early challenges, he found hope in Christ, igniting his passion for evangelism and discipleship. He began his journey by mobilizing youth across denominations in Togo, using tools like the JESUS Film to spread the message of Christ. After founding a church in 2010 with a vision to create disciple-making communities across Togo and Francophone Africa, M'gliwè joined J-Life Africa in 2011. In the last 13 years he has been instrumental in pioneering J-Life Africa, and it’s focus on mobilizing disciple making movements into nine French speaking countries in West Africa. His dedication and impact in spreading the disciple-making movement throughout the region led to his recognition as the first indigenous regional director for J-Life Africa.
M'gliwè's leadership impact extends globally. He served as a Table Group Leader at the Lausanne Cape Town 2010 Congress and continued to contribute as a Lausanne Younger Leader in Francophone Africa. He has pursued biblical and leadership training to enhance his ministry, including a diploma in Biblical Studies, training at Dallas Theological Seminary's Global Proclamation Academy, and mentoring and attentive life under Dr. Leighton Ford.
Now serving on the international lead team of J-Life Africa, he is progressing toward becoming one of the International Co-Directors of the movement in March 2025. His journey has been marked by both profound loss and unwavering resilience. Following the passing of his beloved wife, Rhoder, M'gliwè finds strength and hope in his five children—Fidele (2009), Hilaire (2011), Percée (2014), Doxine (2017), and Marveline (2022)—and remains deeply committed to his faith, family, and the mission of discipleship that leads to disciple making across Africa.

Don is a life-long resident of Michigan, having grown up in Battle Creek and graduating from Springfield High School. Converted to Christ in the early 1970’s, Don served in a local church for 5 years as a lay-pastor while he took classes from Liberty Institute and Moody Bible Institute. In 1978 he entered full time ministry and served in the Maple Valley community as a youth pastor until he planted Grace Community Church of Nashville, MI in 1993.
Don served as the Training Coordinator for Sonlife Ministries for over 35 years and today travels extensively through-out North America and internationally training church leaders, acting as a consultant and coach, and conference speaker. For over 2 1/2 decades, Don has served as a coach / consultant of the South Asian Sonlife team with Andrew Tay of Singapore where they are leading a number of national training and coaching teams’ through-out the region
Don was married to Sherry for nearly 28 years before she passed away suddenly in March 2000 and they have two children and four grandchildren. Since then Don has remarried, and his wife’s name is Evie.
Don is an avid sports fan with a passion for all kinds of sports. He has coached a number of sports in his community, public and Christian schools during the past 40+ years – at all age levels. Don recently retired after coaching varsity high school football for 30 years so he could devote more time to multiplying leaders around the world.

Shankar was born in Mumbai and his family was from the Banjara background known as the gypsy community in India. Shankar grew up in the slums of Mumbai after his father passed away and his mother deserted him. Most of his neighborhood worked at the fish dock and were uneducated and illiterate. In the year 1994, one of the members from the Banjara community shared with Shankar about Jesus. He went to New Life Fellowship the following Sunday and committed his life to Jesus. He saw the need in his Banjara community to experience the love of God and he began serving God in whatever capacity he could.
Shankar has served for 22 years of ministry in Church planting. In 2004, he was appointed as a Pastor of the first exclusive Banjara Church of New Life Fellowship. He presently oversees 26 Banjara churches that have been planted all across India.

John North is the National Director of Ambassadors for Christ International–Australia and is the author of EvangelismSHIFT. He was born in India to Australian missionaries. He has been working with AFCI in Australia for the past 30 years, building a team focused on accelerating the spread of the gospel through local churches. He developed the LifeWorks evangelism tool which has seen thousands of Australians come to faith in Christ and is used by many churches around the world, wrote the GrowthWorks small group course to help Christians start growing again, is on the radio each morning in Sydney with the Time With God devotional spot, authors the Time With God daily devotional email read by more than 30,000 people each day, and trains church leaders in Jesus' process for building a disciplemaking movement of evangelism and multiplication. But beyond all these things John loves to preach and teach God's word in a penetrating way that changes people's lives.

My name is Simon Loeffel and I am serving with Founder's Passion in Switzerland. I worked as a mechanic, studied Theology at Chrischona International and started to train leaders in Youth-Scout ministry. Within CRU Switzerland I led the Internet Ministry and was Director of http://mystory.me . Then we created the MyFriends Lifestyle. This lifestyle is based on Jesus and how he encounters with people, to let them experience Gods love in their life. Before three years, we combined the MyFriends Lifestyle and SHIFT (Concentric content) to a full learning and training for local churches in Switzerland and aboard. We focus first on the leaders of local churches to help them to see Jesus as a role model in disciplemaking movement and help them to shift their few about Jesus and the call of their own church. Second we train the whole congregation with the MyFriends Lifestyle, who helps them to build up a lifestyle of practical disciplemaking. I’m married with Conny and we have two kids, a boy Dylan and a girl Delilah.

Kristy and her husband Ben felt God calling them into full-time ministry in Europe ever since their first youth group trip to the Czech Republic in the 1990s. They grew up in Wheaton, IL, and were part of a Sonlife youth ministry as teenagers. Their missionary organization, Josiah Venture, a Concentric strategic partner, encouraged them to launch a new team in Ukraine to train young leaders to make disciples of Jesus Christ. In January 2007, they moved to Lviv, Ukraine, where they have been living ever since. Kristy and Ben have two children, Marissa and Dylan, who live a fascinating third-culture-kid existence. As a tragic war rages in their nation, Kristy is more convinced than ever that this is the time to focus on Christ-centric disciple-making movements modeled after the life of Christ. Kristy's life was transformed during the Bold Moves trip to Israel with Concentric. She loves training youth leaders across Ukraine and Europe, leading youth groups, and giving lectures to teenagers in schools in Ukraine.

Jeremy Koeries was taught to love and follow Jesus by his parents. Jeremy married Tania in December 1999. They have 4 beautiful children - Phoebe (b. 2001), Karl (b. 2004), Sarah-Michelle (b. 2007), and Noah-Eyton (b. 2017).
His passion is holistic disciple-making for community transformation. He serves on the international lead team of J-Life Africa, helping disciple-making leaders in 41 African countries to train, coach, and mentor church leaders to mobilize disciple-making movements in their contexts.
He co-founded a micro-church network, serves on its lead team, and co-leads a micro-church with Tania. He is an ordained minister who has served in pastoral ministry, theological education, denominational leadership, and music ministry. He holds a BTh and MA in practical theology.
He lives in Cape Town, South Africa with his family. He loves music creation, spy & crime dramas, F1 motor racing, and Lego Technics.

In 1997, Michal, a young and inexperienced youth leader, was mentored by a Josiah Venture missionary who modeled Christ’s life and ministry. Soon he and his youth group began leading evangelistic English camps to reach their community. Later he participated in, and eventually led, the School of Leaders and the Intensive Internship Program in Poland. For seven years Michal served as Vice President of Fala (Josiah Venture’s partner organization in Poland). In 2010, Michal became the Director of h2o, Fala’s camp & training center in southern Poland, and in 2012 he became Fala’s President. In his local church he serves as a teaching elder and on the worship team. He and his wife Sylwia and three children, Zosia, Filip, and Dominika, live in Suszec, Poland.

Tim Freyer is a follower of Jesus. His journey has taken him from the vibrant and complex cultures of the Middle East to the dynamic landscapes of Australia. With a passion for seeing people encounter Jesus, he has dedicated his life to making disciples who make disciples across diverse settings. Currently, Tim serves as the National Strategy Director for Church Movements with Power to Change in Australia where he helps create spaces where people can explore and deepen their spiritual journey through a chronological study of the life of Jesus. He has also authored a book on helping our secular friends experience Jesus.

While in the Middle East, Tim met his wife Liz who was way out of his league – it only took him 7 years to get her to agree to marry him! Together, through their work with marriages and neighbourhood ministry, Tim and Liz have been frequent teachers and practitioners in movement building around Oceania. Tim spends his days consulting and running trainings with pastors and church planters throughout Australia on implementing lifestyles of evangelism and discipleship while dreaming of ways to help every Australian know someone who truly follows Jesus. During his down time, Tim always enjoys a nice chai latte with Liz while their 3 kids are distracted playing downball.

Andrew worked for many years in corporate and institutional banking with American and European banks as well as serving in the area of evangelism and missions for denominations. Today he leads our alliance partner, IDN- Intentional Disciplemaking Network, a ministry that provides training, coaching and mentoring to ministry leaders in over dozen Asian countries. Andrew lives in Singapore with his wife and nearby his grown up children. He and his wife travels extensively for IDN and Concentric to invest in emerging leaders.

A former banker and native to India, Benjamin, serves on our Lead Team. After leaving a banking career he felt called to ministry and started a church in his home city reaching hundreds of Muslims with the Gospel. God had other plans for “B” and soon connected him to a global mission organization called Big Life. He now travels extensively doing training and equipping of ministry leaders around the world. Growing up in a Muslim faith gave him a heart for sharing God’s love and grace with his muslim friends. He often trains and speaks in Asia, Africa, Europe and the United States.