John Edmund Haggai

Never content to follow the crowd, Dr. Haggai initiated a unique and forward-thinking mission plan in obedience to the Great Commission. A visit to Asia in the early 1960s convinced Haggai that changes in global geopolitics, brought about by the end of colonialism, required a new strategy for world evangelism. In 1969, after years of research, prayer, and development, he presided over the first advanced leadership seminar, designed to empower and mobilize nationals to reach their own people for Christ. Haggai International has equipped and motivated more than 130,000 Christian clergy and lay leaders working in almost all the non-Western countries of the world. They multiply their effectiveness significantly by passing on their training to an average of 100 other leaders. An alumnus of Moody Bible Institute (where he was named “Alumnus of the Year”) and Furman University and the recipient of honorary doctorates on both sides of the Pacific, Dr. John Haggai lived unflinchingly by his own motto: Attempt something so great for God, it’s doomed to failure unless God be in it. He authored more than a dozen books, including How to Win Over Worry, The Influential Leader, My Son Johnny (who died in 1975 in his 25th year) and Success Secrets of the Bible. John Edmund Haggai was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the eldest son of a Syrian immigrant and a New Englander whose English ancestors settled in America during the 1600s. While at Moody, he met and married Christine Barker of Bristol, Virginia. Atlanta, Georgia, was their base of ministry since 1961. (Mrs. Haggai went to be with the Lord in August 2019, a week after their 74th wedding anniversary. John Haggai was reunited with her and their son, Johnny, in Heaven on November 18, 2020.)