Chaplain Howard M. Lee began the organization in late 2005, but its roots go back to the late 1980s as Chaplain Lee struggled to understand how to teach the morals and values of the Gospel to students, teachers and parents in public education, using the Bible as a textbook. In June 1996, a vision was revealed to Chaplain Lee that chaplaincy was the legal and constitutional way to welcome prayer and the Bible back into public schools. Recognizing that individuals in the U.S. military branches, the U.S. Congress, correctional facilities and hospitals are ministered to by chaplains, Chaplain Lee set out to establish the first recognized educational chaplaincy agency by becoming the first ecclesiastically endorsed chaplain recognized by an endorsing agent at the Pentagon level.

Chaplain Lee organized the Educational Chaplaincy Agency and Public and Private School Chaplaincy for America in 1997. The latter is the first organization in the United States designed to train and certify chaplaincy personnel for educational facilities. Two years later, after a meeting with international church leaders, Chaplain Lee saw another vision, one for a global network of ministries. Building Followers of Christ and Leaders of Men, GCN provides the resources necessary to meet the spiritual and physical needs of people worldwide. The ministers in this network are from many denominational backgrounds, including non-denominational, independent, charismatic and renewal ministries. GCN exists to provide apostolic covering and economic support to ministers and ministries worldwide. Our goal as a network of ministries is to provide relevant services that go beyond Sunday morning worship and mid-week Bible study. To reach, teach and minister to peoples’ needs in this millennium, ministries must offer more than comfort to the hearts and souls of people. We must also minister to their economic needs. To achieve this, we have developed an infrastructure for the Church community that the secular community is attempting to supply but is lacking the spiritual and Biblical understanding necessary to do so.