"It's not about numbers, but about passion," he added.
Dr Tunnicliffe urged Christian leaders to dream big and engage with the whole of society and culture.
He pointed to the Micah Challenge movement which is a partnership between Micah Network, an association of 300 Christian organisations worldwide, and WEA are holding governments accountable for the promises they made to halve global poverty by 2015.
"Sometimes governments have a way of signing something and not following
through," he said. "Sometimes when I meet parliamentarians or prime ministers I say, 'You signed this, now we want to hold you accountable.'"
Dr Tunnicliffe told world governments to "pay up" according to what they had promised.
"You say that you're going to put x-amount into debt reduction or aid? Pay up. You say you will change your government from being corrupt? You need to do that. These requests are at the heart of the gospel. What we're saying is: we need action."
He added that it is not just up to governments to respond to the poor but Christians also needed to deepen their commitment to the poor, speak up for the voiceless, and keep going in the face of adversity
"We do face challenges. We face opposition in many ways. But ... if God has raised you up, if God is with you, then God will give you the resources that you need," he said. "No one will be able to be against you."
Dr Tunnicliffe also exhorted the leaders to "serve with Christ-like humility".
"You can't serve someone unless you understand them," he said. "You can't understand others until you learn from them. You can't learn about someone until you're in a trusting relationship with them. To build trust, they need to know that you accept and value them as people."
Dr Tunnicliffe reminded Christians to be leaders of hope and lead by having "power with people, not power over people".
He concluded: "It is out of our biblical understanding we engage. That's the kind of leaders that I think will impact this world today."
