Welcome to the International Gospel Outreach
Global Fellowship
A Breif History.
In the summer of 1995, during one our staff meetings here at IGO, James Graham made a comment to IGO Founder, Bro. Bertist Rouse that he felt that IGO needed to establish some kind of fellowship where pastors, ministers and missionaries could meet, build relationships and have a place to experience a sense of belonging.
At the time, it seemed like a great idea, after all, there were already some of these people meeting informally just for dinner and fellowship on a periodic basis. So we sent out invitations to the few pastors and leaders that we knew and then on Labor Day weekend of 1995, we met for the first time.
We called the group “The WorkNet” with the idea that we would pull together those who were “working the nets of the harvest.” and we had over 30 people show up for that first, organizational meeting. We knew that we had hit a chord of need, and hoped to provide a way to meet it. For some reason, after that inital meeting, the concept was put on a back burner, and allowed to die. The desire to do something still existed, but we lacked the structure to really make it happen.
In the spring of 1998, a group of us were on a trip to Mexico, when Larry Burgess, one of the pastors who had been in the original meetings asked “Whatever happened to the fellowship that we started back in 1995?” That one question started a line of conversation that consumed the rest of our trip. By the end of our trip, all of us agreed that it was time to seriously do something about reviving the idea of a fellowship for those in ministry.
Those great men turned out to provide the synergy needed to give life to the idea. Eddy Brown, Larry Burgess, , Owen Eubanks, Herbert Beasly, Steve Farmer and James Graham came home with a passion and a plan to give new life to this old idea. What we used to call the “WorkNet,” would soon become much larger and become “The IGO Global Fellowship.”
The vision of the Global Fellowship is to provide a safe place for those in ministry to belong, create accountable relationships, and share ideas and resources. Everything we do has a missionary flavor to it. One of Bro. Bertist’s requests was that we keep it about missions, and keep it pure. To this day, we have been able to do both.
Since it is a fellowship and not a denomination, membership in the fellowship is completely voluntary. Rather than opening up membership to the public, the leaders of the fellowship opted to enroll new members through invitation only. To join the fellowship, another member must recommend you. This insures that we maintain a high level of relationships inside the organization.
In 1999, in order to bring order and more structure to the Global Fellowship, Bro. Bertist appointed Dr. Eddy Brown (Senior Pastor of the Family Worship Center in Granite City, Illinois) as the Bishop to oversee and become a spiritual father to the membership. He has done a great job, and continues to function in that role.
In order to encourage growth and continuing education among our members, the Global Fellowship works closely with the International College of Bible Theology and Midwest Seminary to provide degree programs at a reasonable cost for its members.
In June of each year, the Global Fellowship has a fellowship gathering designed to enhance relationships, bring encouragement and find ways to partner together for World Missions. The June conference is also the time that the fellowship holds ordination and licensing for members. Anyone is welcome to attend the Annual Global Fellowship Conference.
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