Board of Directors

John Bradshaw is a Hardin-Simmons alumnus, having graduated in 1988 with a BBA in Accounting. After working in the accounting world for several years, John felt the Lord lead him to move his family and attend Dallas Theological Seminary. He graduated from DTS in 1999 with a Master of Theology degree.

John’s years of ministry include working as a chaplain at Marketplace Ministries; helping plant Fellowship of Oso Creek Church in Corpus Christie, TX; and becoming an Executive Pastor at Experience Life in Lubbock, Texas in 2011, a role that gave him a front-row and leadership seat as the church transitioned from its attractional based model to a church with a multiplication strategy at its heart.

From his college days onward, God gave John many experiences with unreached peoples, especially those from SE Asia. After being exposed to a church-planting/multiplication strategy in India in 2012, John’s conviction to work among unreached peoples in the USA and abroad has only strengthened.

As overseer of E-life’s Prayer and Missions areas, John personally became more and more engaged in Thailand. His passion for the nation and the whole Mekong region continues today through his ongoing coaching/peer relationships with leaders and movement catalysts and through his research of discipleship gaps in Thailand.

 John and his wife Cindy have been married for 36 years. They have four grown and married children and 10 grandchildren.

Chris is the founding and lead pastor of eLife Church in Lubbock Texas.

Chris’s background is often described as “From Microsoft to Ministry.” He formerly worked in Information Technology as a Network Administrator and Software Developer. He is the founding and lead pastor (for 11 years) of a non denominational mega-church in the Lubbock, Texas area. In just eight years, the church grew from 12 people in a living room to over 10,000 members. For 5 of those years, Outreach Magazine named them among the 100 fastest-growing churches in the nation. He was listed several years in a row as the Youngest Megachurch Pastor in the nation (he is in his mid-thirties).

Several years ago, the Lord led Chris and the eLife Church leadership to shift to focusing on a Disciple Making Movement model both in Lubbock and in Southeast Asia. They are committed to sending 500 Movement Catalysts.

Chris has just published a book, From Megachurch to Multiplication: A Church’s Journey Toward Movement describing the journey of eLife Church. Chris and his team hope that the changes they’ve made at eLife will inspire other churches to pursue a multiplicative disciple making vision here in the United States and also among unreached people groups.

Kent Parks is President and CEO of Beyond.  Kent and his wife Erika worked among Muslims in Asia for 20 years. They regularly lead church planting movement trainings around the world. He also equips people to better understand mission strategy, and biblical theology of missions.

Previously, he served as a strategy coordinator focused on catalyzing Disciple-making Movements among unreached people groups (UPGs) in Southeast Asia. He continues to help facilitate various trans-national, trans-organizational networks focused on Unreached People Groups (UPGs), including serving as Co-Facilitator for Ethne, a global UPG network and as one of the leaders in the 2414 Initiative which is focused on launching “Book of Acts” movements in every unreached people and place.

Kent pastored in Texas for seven years before going to the mission field.  He has been a seminary professor and the academic dean of a seminary and has also taught internationally in graduate schools. He earned his B.A. in English and History from Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas as well as his M.Div. and Ph.D. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. Kent and Erika have two adult daughters and a son-in-law who love and serve Jesus and are active in making disciples too.

Brenda Sanders became a Christ follower as a first grader, great due to the influence and witness of her parents. She considers herself a disciple in the making who makes disciples, meaning that each day she strives to follow the Spirit and teach others to do the same.

Brenda is the Collegiate Missions Consultant for the Baptist General
Convention of Texas. This includes directing Go Now Missions, which
mobilizes over 400 Texas College Students a year to do mission work
around the world. She has serve in this role since 2000. Previous ministry experience includes Campus Minister at Samford University in Birmingham, AL; and serving on BSM Staff is Texas at Houston Baptist University, the University of Houston, Baylor University and Stephen F. Austin University. She is passionate about challenging, training, and sending Texas college students to be part of God’s work in Texas, the U.S. and abroad.

She is a graduate of Baylor University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. She grew up in West Texas where her parents, Raymond and Jan Sanders, served as River Ministry  Missionaries. Her first missions and ministries experiences were serving with her family along the Texas‐Mexico border. God used her experience as a summer missionary while in college to confirm a calling to ministry and missions. She always thought she would serve long term on an international mission filed. But God has called and gifted her as a mobilizer.

Her first exposure to unreached people groups came in 1995 when she led a group of Samford students to prayer walk in Indonesia. This experienced both opened her eyes and changed her

life. Since that time, she has continued to stay engaged in reaching the unreached through prayer, giving, going, and sending.

A graduate of Hardin Simmons University in Abilene, TX, and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, TX, Dr. Shuffield was pastor of local churches for 23 years before serving on the Texas Baptists (BGCT) convention staff for 14 years.

Retiring in June 2013 from the Texas Baptists convention, Dr. Shuffield continues to serve on a number of municipal and ministry Boards and works with local churches as Interim Pastor, evangelist and missions consultant. He also teaches Missions and Ministry courses as an adjunct professor for Dallas Baptist University and Hardin Simmons University.

He and his wife, Becky, live in Midlothian, Texas, and are active members at FBC Midlothian.