Making disciples of those
We enhance cross-cultural effectiveness by educating, equipping, and empowering people like you to have a greater impact in your role and context.
What We Do
Here’s how we disciple leaders who make disciples and help their churches and organizations serve across cultures with greater effectiveness.
EDUCATING
Missions Consulting & Coaching
Missions Consulting & Coaching
We walk alongside churches and ministries to build healthy missions strategies, policies, and partnerships, and to care well for the people they send.
EXPLORE CONSULTINGEQUIPPING
Training Seminars & Resources
Training Seminars & Resources
Our training and manuals prepare leaders to disciple their teams before, during, and after the trip.
GET TRAININGEMPOWERING
Global Partnerships & Projects
Global Partnerships & Projects
We connect churches and organizations with trusted partners around the world, ensuring their goals align and every party is honored. We also invest in long-term cross-cultural workers and organizations so they can invest more deeply into their communities.
SEE PARTNERSHIPSOur Story: One Prayer, Many Nations
1986
In the summer of 1986, a 23-year-old Georgia Tech graduate named Larry Ragan spent three months serving in an interior village in Fiji. There he wrote in his journal:
“Lord, if you would use me to show others your love for the nations, I would be honored.”
1995
Leaders at the U.S. Center for World Mission (now Frontier Ventures) and the Fellowship of Short-Term Mission Leaders asked Larry to write a discipleship-based curriculum for short-term teams.
2000
After joining a local church staff, Larry began putting the curriculum into practice, training leaders across many churches. By 2010, more than 2,500 leaders from over 500 churches had been trained.
2010
In July 2010, CULTURELink launched as a nonprofit, and Larry began serving full-time. The ministry revised the curriculum, added consulting, hired full-time staff, and began leading specialized short-term trips. Invitations for leadership training, worker care, and project development soon came from across the U.S. and around the world.
Today
Since 2010, we’ve led more than 100 seminars and trained more than 3,800 leaders who have gone on to serve and lead others in 143 nations. They come from churches of every size and across many denominations, and from organizations of all types. What began with one prayer in Fiji continues as one mission: making disciples of those who make disciples of all nations.
Our Team
Larry Ragan
Founder & Director
Larry founded CULTURELink in 2010, after more than two decades of global ministry that began on a short-term trip to the South Pacific in 1986. He has traveled to over 50 countries and overseen more than 300 international teams. Larry served at two Atlanta-area churches as a missions pastor and a teaching pastor. He and his wife, Karen, lead spiritual life retreats and care for global workers in some of the world’s most difficult places.
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Larry’s teams have focused on prayer, business exchanges, outreach, building projects, AIDS and hunger relief, disaster assistance, teaching English, and more. Before CULTURELink, he and Karen served with Grace Ministries International in Budapest, Hungary, then as a teaching pastor at North Metro Church in Marietta, GA. During this time, Larry and a team of trainers equipped more than 2,500 project leaders from over 500 churches.
Larry holds a B.S. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Georgia Tech and an M.A. in Cross-Cultural Ministries and an M.A. in Christian Education from Dallas Theological Seminary. He is certified in marriage and family counseling, spiritual life coaching, cross-cultural counseling, and trauma care. He teaches for Perspectives on the World Christian Movement and speaks at conferences, churches, and ministries around the world.
Larry and Karen live in Marietta, Georgia, and have two grown children.
Ryan Hurlburt
Assistant Director
Ryan joined CULTURELink in 2011 and now leads most of our seminars and consulting. He has served churches and ministries across the evangelical spectrum through leadership training, organizational consulting, partnership development, and cross-cultural mobilization. He leads with a relaxed, intentional style and helps leaders serve with humility and confidence.
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Before CULTURELink, Ryan served as the Program Coordinator and director of teams for another missions organization. He has led teams throughout Latin America, Europe, and Africa, from five members to eighty. His teams have ranged from students and families to business and worker care teams, and his years in local church ministry shape how he serves churches today.
Originally from Tampa, Florida, Ryan holds degrees in Biblical Studies and Business & Organizational Leadership from Trinity College of Florida. He and his wife, Katharine, have lived in the Atlanta area since 2009 and have three boys.
Faithful Stewardship
Board oversight.
A five-member board of directors, three of them independent, reviews our finances and annual Form 990.
Outside accounting.
3 Tree Bookkeeping manages our books, and Mersereau, Lazenby & Rockas, LLC, CPAs, prepares our annual 990s.
Recognized best practices.
Our board follows financial practices recommended by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA).
Our Statement of Faith
What We Believe
The Bible
The Bible is the inspired Word of God and our authority for life. Men of God “were moved by the Holy Spirit” to write every word found in Scripture. Its original manuscripts were without error, and its teachings are the ultimate source of truth for faith and living.(2 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Pet. 1:20-21)
The Trinity
We believe in one true God eternally existing in three distinct persons (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), each of Whom is fully and equally God and possesses all of the character and attributes of God.(Deut. 6:4; Matt. 28:19; John 1:14, 10:30; 2 Cor. 13:14)
God the Father
The Father is the eternal, unchanging, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-wise, all-loving, completely just and perfectly holy sovereign Ruler and Sustainer of the universe. He is the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Father of all true believers.(Gen. 1:1; Eph. 4:6; John 1:12-13, 5:19-21, 17:1-5; Is. 40:21-28, 43:10-13, 46:8-11; Rom. 8:14-16)
God the Son
Jesus Christ is the perfect Son of God Who came to earth to reveal God to man, to fulfill prophecy, and to become the Savior of the lost world. Conceived by the Holy Spirit, He was born of the Virgin Mary, lived a sinless life, died on the cross for all of the sins of everyone who has ever lived, was buried, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father performing His ministry of intercession, and will come again to earth to rule and reign.(John 1:1,14,18, 3:16; Luke 1:30-35; Phil 2:5-8; Col. 2:3,9; Mark 10:45; Acts 2:22-24; John 1:29; Rom. 3:25-26; Heb. 10:5-14; 1 Pet. 2:24, 3:18; John 20:20; Phil. 3:20-21; Heb. 1:3; Rom. 8:34; 1 John 2:1; Acts 1:11; Heb. 9:28; 1 Thess. 4:13-18; 2 Thess 2:7; Matt. 24:44; Rev. 19:11-21; Rev. 21-22)
God the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit lives in every Christian from the moment of salvation. He works in believers to provide power for living, understanding of Scriptural truth, and guidance to live a life free from the power of sin. The Holy Spirit directs and controls believers who are yielded to Him, enabling them to bear spiritual fruit. He also gives spiritual gifts to believers for the purpose of building up the Body of Christ.(1 Cor. 13:8, 14:22; John 16:7-15; 1 Cor. 6:19, 12:13; Eph. 1:13-14, 4:30; Gal. 5:16-17, 22-23; Rom. 8:5-13; 1 Pet. 4:10-11; Rom. 12:3-8)
Mankind
Man was created in the image of God by direct act of God to glorify, worship, serve, and be in relationship with Him. Man rebelled against God, which resulted in all human beings being marred by an attitude of disobedience called “sin.” Sin separates all people from God and renders them totally incapable of saving themselves or coming back into right relationship with Him by their own merit or effort.(Gen. 1:26, 2:6,17, 3:17-24; Is. 59:1-2; Rom. 3:9-19,23, 5:6-8; Luke 18:26-27; Eph. 2:1-3)
Satan
Satan is a real spirit being who instigates all rebellion and evil in the world. A fallen angel, he has been given temporary rulership of the earth by our Sovereign God. He was utterly defeated at the cross, but will continue to tempt, accuse, attack and destroy believers until he is finally cast into the lake of fire. He can be resisted by the believer through faith and reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit.(Gen. 3:1-5; Is. 14:12-17; Ezek. 28:11-19; Job 1-2; 1 John 5:19; 2 Cor. 11:14; 1 Tim. 3:6; 1 Pet. 5:8-9; James 4:7; Rev. 12:9, 20:1-3, 7-10)
Salvation
The only way for anyone to be saved is by trusting in Christ alone as God’s means for our forgiveness. Personal merit and good works are the result of our salvation, not the means to it; only through the power of the Holy Spirit can we be saved and transformed. We must repent of—turn away from—our sin and turn toward God. Those who receive Jesus Christ by faith are forgiven and born again; they become children of God, new creations in Christ who are sealed by the Holy Spirit and kept by the power of God.(Eph. 1:7;13-14; John 1:12-13, 3:1-7, 14-16; 2 Cor. 5:17; Rom. 1:16, 10:9-10; Eph. 2:8-10; Rom. 8:14-17, 31-39; John 10:27-29, 14:6; Acts 26:20; 1 Pet. 1:3-5)
The Christian Life
Every Christian should live for Christ, not for himself. By the power of the Holy Spirit Who lives in us, we should allow Christ to live through us to glorify God. By ever-increasing obedience to the Word of God, each believer should mature and progressively become more like Jesus, living a holy life and impacting the world for His glory.(Gal. 2:20; 1 Pet. 1:15-16, 2:11; 2 Cor. 5:14-15; Rom. 6:11-13; Eph. 2:10, 4:11-12, 4:22-24; 1 Pet. 4:10-11; Acts 1:8; Matt. 28:18-20; Col. 1:10; John 15:8, 16)
The Church
The Church is the body of Christ; Jesus is its Head, and those who have truly received salvation by faith are the members of His body. The purpose of the Church is to make Christ known to lost men, to make disciples, and glorify God on earth. Since all members of the body of Christ are united by the same Spirit, they should live in love, harmony and unity, being intent on the same purpose. The body should not divide over differences of beliefs based on a sincere interpretation of the Bible which do not relate to substantive doctrinal matters and do not in practice cause disunity or hinder the ministry.(Acts 1:8;1 Cor. 12:12-27; Eph. 1:20-23, 4:1-6, 4:12-16; Matt. 28:18-20; John 17; Col. 1:24-29)