1 877-431-4276Manuel Guardado | From Belize to the World
Manuel Guardado helped us organize one of the largest outreaches in the history of the nation of Belize. Ten crusades in ten different cities simultaneously. On today’s podcast we talk about what God has continued to do in his life and in the nation of Belize since our big outreach.
Connect with Manuel on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Manuel360Guardado
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today I have my very special guest, pastor Manuel from Belise. And how do you say your last name? Gudo.
(00:14):
Well, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast. You and I have been friends for several years now. We first met in the nation of Belize. God put it on our heart to do an event where we wanted to reach the entire nation of Belize and we invited 10 different evangelists to come down to Belize and we did 10 festivals simultaneously and you were very instrumental in helping to organize that. You’re from Orange Walk, which is part of Belize that has a large population of Spanish speaking people. And so as I remember, you were helping us to coordinate all of the Spanish speaking churches across the nation of beliefs. And it was marvelous to see what God did. What do you remember about that? What was special about that event?
Manuel Guardado (01:07):
Hey Daniel, it’s a pleasure to be here with you. I am so glad for your ministry and thank you for allowing me to share with you. I never going to forget a moment between you and I in the B T L park in front of the Sea of Belize City. The plan was to do an event, a crusade in Belize City, the biggest and the old capital of the country of Belize. But then you was there and you say, the Lord is putting in my heart that we should go to the whole nation of Belize and I see you thinking processing, but then you tell me, take me to the whole nation. I want to go. I want to see. And I think that was the moment when I realized that the Lord have something amazing for the country of Belize to the point that we will be able to take it everywhere in the country. So yeah, I never going to
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:00):
Forget. Yeah, and we drove everywhere. We drove up north to the border of Mexico all the way down south to the border of Guatemala and the islands. We went everywhere and we took the boat to the islands. And the ministry that we got to do in Belize was just amazing. We had a great event in Belize City. And then between the attendance at all of the events and also the people who watched online from Belize, we had over 10% of the entire nation in our services that week. And so many people were saved and touched by God. It was really amazing what God did. Now, another thing that is really exciting to me is that God is continuing to work through you. Ever since we were there in Belize, the evangelist who came to do the festival in Orange Walk was my good friend Will Jones, who leads Awakening Ministries International. And I love Will and his wife Jen, they’re close friends and I remember he came down with us and God really put Orange walk on his heart and you helped organize that. God moved in such a great way and afterwards Will came to you and asked you to start working with him. And so since then you’ve done a bunch of things with Brother Will tell me some of what you’ve been doing with him.
Manuel Guardado (03:27):
Yes, will is a blessing for the body of Christ, the way he’s, he’s an ex-athlete in basketball. The Lord called him to be a minister of the gospel preaching the gospel. And thanks to you I was able to meet him in that whole week that we was traveling all over the country of police Will was in charge of Orange Rock, the whole city. We was able to do that event and then after that it was a connection between he and I and my family, his family. And we was able to organize four more festivals the next year to be exact with you for the first time in history in Orange Rock. Normally the big events happening in the city, but we’ll choose to go to the communities where normally nobody goes. So we was able to do four that year and then another, then the other year we was able to do two more. So we did six festivals in total and we have an amazing time, great response because everything was done through the empowering of the local church. So many people comes out from their walls and just go into the communities to preach the gospel and we was able to see the grace of God during the whole process in so many souls come to the Lord.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:46):
So with Brother Will, you recently went to the nation of Ecuador and what did you see God do in Ecuador? Talk to me about the strategy of what you did there and what God did.
Manuel Guardado (04:58):
Yeah, so when we finished the events in Belize, will Jones called me and tell me, Manuel, I would like to for you to consider and pray if you could be a Latin America director for festivals, thinking about all the experiences that we have together, that was a great moment for us to go out. So we start to find all over Latin America, places where the gospel is not so much preach and we find a location called Esmeralda Ecuador where it is the most poor area of the country. It’s like abandoned. Nobody want to go there. And we was able to reach that community and there was an amazing group of leaders that receive us on the first trip, we call it the Pray Trip. And we was able to meet many leaders including the Alliance of pastors that represent more than 320 pastors in that specifical city.
(05:56):
And we begin the conversations about the possibility of doing a massive evangelistic effort for a whole week in that city. So understanding the hunger of these people and understand the hungry of the church to see people being saved. I think that’s where everything start. We work for nine months in total to prepare this festival, to empower the local church, do a lot of trainings. We have a great team in place, 12 committees in total mobilization, transportation, ushers, counselors, and we work with other many four different organizations that provide tracks, evangelistic materials. So for a whole week we bring 37 Americans to the place, also three people from Belize that came with me. And we was able to impact more than 28,000 people in a week doing outreaches in school prisons, and also preaching from a stage to one of the most surrounded places like so many people all there in that area. It’s the center of Esmeralda, it is like the main park of Esmeralda. So we did the event there.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:14):
And a lot of people there are Afro-Caribbean,
Manuel Guardado (07:18):
Afro Equator,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:19):
Afro Equator, and they’re really in many ways an on reach people group.
Manuel Guardado (07:26):
Yes, that’s correct. Is one of the groups that have left behind in that area. The government, if you ask about what type of programs the government’s doing there, it’s not so much effort. Even part of the main streets are not paved compared to the other parts of the nation. So yeah, there was a lot of need in that specific ethnic group in that part of the country of Ecuador.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:49):
Wow. Now another ministry that you’ve been working with is my home church Victory Church from Tulsa, Oklahoma. And it’s really neat how they built a relationship with you. They came to me and they said that they had a heart to go to Belize and they said who would be really good to work with in Belize? And I mentioned a few of the different ministries that we had worked with there and you were one of them in Orange Walk. And so they came down, they met you and they started bringing teams of teenagers to work with you. And how many years has victory come down to work in Belize? Now
Manuel Guardado (08:30):
It’s close to four years. I’m talking about the pandemic time. So yeah, four years in total.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:37):
And I’ve just heard so many great testimonies from the young people at Victory that come down to Belize and you’ve even done a crusade with my pastor, pastor Paul Doherty and seen God do really amazing things. And it really cool because we went one time to Belize, God gave us an assignment for a season, but many different ministries have been continuing to come and God’s really given you tremendous favor as you’ve opened the door for so many people to minister all over Belize.
Manuel Guardado (09:16):
I think that when moments like 2016 when you came to the country of Belize, I believe that the event, the Festival of Hope that happened on 2017 was a big door open for the country of Belize. I am talking about that spiritual part of it. I see because it’s not only me. There is so many great people in the country of Belize that believe on the vision of the Festival of Hope and was a big part at the moment. I am seeing them very active on their cities. They love their cities, they’re trying to do something for their cities. I could tell them by name. They love so much the country of Belize. And I think the Lord used you, Daniel, to do that big part. And incredibly after seven years, the fruits still going, going, going, going until now about victory. Thank you for trusting in us and sending your home church to us in Belize. We love victory. We love the missions Pastor, pastor, the senior pastor,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:25):
Pastor Tachi Wilson.
Manuel Guardado (10:27):
Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:28):
Wonderful woman of God.
Manuel Guardado (10:29):
Yes. And also your pastor Paul. We have been able to work specifically with schools in Belize, CarePoint partnering with Children’s Cup in Belize and also doing great work in the communities focusing on evangelism to the new generations. So we love it
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:48):
Now. Right now we are actually together in the nation of El Salvador. And the reason that you’re here with us is because I’m going to be doing a big crusade in Santa Ana and it’s part of an initiative by the Global Evangelist Alliance. So this is a group of evangelists from all over the world that have come together and we have a vision to reach everyone on earth with an authentic encounter with Jesus Christ before the year 2033, which is the 2000 year anniversary of the original day of Pentecost and the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus up into heaven. And so over the next decade, the next 10 years, the Global Evangelist Alliance wants to reach every single person on earth with the gospel. And so one of our key leaders is the evangelist, Nathan Morris and Nathan has been coming down here to El Salvador for several years and seen God do amazing things, had really great crusades here.
(11:58):
And so we were in a meeting and we’re talking about, okay, we need to find a country that we can reach the entire nation for Jesus. And it can’t be too big a country. I mean we can’t do India. That’s 1.2 billion people. It’s too big. Even a country like Brazil would be so big, but where is God working? Where is there an opportunity? And Nathan Moore said, let’s go to El Salvador. God has opened up great doors in El Salvador and so the Global Evangelist Alliance has agreed to come here to El Salvador. We’re going to have seven different zones in this nation and the evangelists are going to go and do seven different crusades in these seven different zones. And so today we were here for a pastor’s conference getting ready for all of that, and it was really amazing. We had, I think there were over 500 pastors and these are top level leaders from across this nation that came together for the Pastor’s conference.
(13:04):
And they’re just so excited hearing that El Salvador is going to be the first nation that the Global Evangelist Alliance is going to join together in order to reach people here. And so when I was in this meeting, they asked which of the evangels want to be involved. I immediately raised my hand and said, I don’t know how much it costs yet, but I want to be a part. Just put me down on the list. I want to be a part. And then Pastor Tachi Wilson, the missions director at Victory, she was talking to me and said that Pastor Paul Dougherty wants to start doing more crusades. And so she said, where would be a good place for us to partner with you to come to a crusade? And since I was coming here to El Salvador, I said, well, why don’t you come to El Salvador, but don’t bring just Pastor Paul.
(13:58):
Let’s bring all of the young people from Victory Christian School to come down. So every year, victory Christian School sends hundreds of young teenagers out on mission trips and it’s actually really cool. My family was instrumental in helping to get that started because the very first mission trip that Victory Christian School sent out was probably when I was 12 or 13 years old. They brought the seventh and eighth grade from Victory Christian School down to Juarez, Mexico to work with my mom and dad. And so I was working with them and I was just a young teenager, but I went and helped do all the ministry and then Victor Christian School came down to work with my parents every year for like 13. So every year they would bring people. One year I remember we had over 96th graders just from the sixth grade that came down and we took them into the streets of Juarez, Mexico and these kids are running around door to door just inviting kids to come to the church and we would block off the street in front of the church.
(15:12):
The church was too small for everyone that came block off the street. And we would have a big crowd of people there. The kids from the school would do dramas, they administer, and then we’d give an altar call and a bunch of those kids would get saved. And we helped plant more than 40 churches that we were helping to grow and increase in Juarez over the years. My parents were there for about 20 years. Amazing. And so now it’s really neat because Victory has continued that over the years. I mean of all the churches in America that have a heart for missions, victory is one of the greatest churches because every year they send out hundreds of missionaries. They support missionaries all over the world. God has given victory such a great heart for reaching out to the world and they do it to nations around the world. But then they also love reaching out to people right there in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And so it’s such a beautiful church. I love being part of Victory.
Manuel Guardado (16:13):
Amazing.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:14):
So anyways, we are talking and they’re going to send 130 teenagers from eighth grade, which my son is in eighth grade this year. He’s going to come down on the trip all the way up to 11th grade. And so when we heard that victory was going to come and bring the group, you have helped to organize some of the group activities in Belize. And so Victor said, well, why don’t we invite Pastor Manuel to come to El Salvador to help out with organizing the team because doing the logistics for 130 people, you got to keep them fed, lodging, transportation, everything. It’s a lot of logistics. And so I’m so excited to be here with you working together again. It’s like God has a big plan
Manuel Guardado (17:02):
After seven years. Yeah,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:03):
I know God has a big
Manuel Guardado (17:04):
Plan. Wow. Yeah, yeah, about that. When Tati, the emissions director of Victory, shared with me that they’re coming to El Salvador and with that large number of kids, she was like, can you help us to connect with some people and also bring in a team together so we could build a team in El Salvador to be a great host for the whole team and they could serve the most amazing way in the country of El Salvador. And I was like, my gosh, it’s my country. I born here. Danielle
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:38):
Born here. Yes. And your sister and brother-in-law lived just very close by to where we are now. That’s
Manuel Guardado (17:43):
Correct. So I was like, yeah, I going to go and I will connect and serve in some kind of way. Of course there is so many responsibilities up there that I have to do specifically in Africa right now with E M I, but just facilitating some things for the love that we have for this country because I really believe that what the Lord going to do in this country going to be amazing. Nothing that what is happening politic in the political arena and also in the different systems that are happening in this country. I think everything is prepared for the church to take control of this country and just reach so many thousands of people for Christ. I am so in love with that. And I pray that the Lord use you, Daniel like, oh, the Lord is able to use you in so many years. And also the other evangelists for the great work that you guys are doing in this country
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:36):
Today. In our pastor’s conference, we are there with Mauricio Canales who is the associate evangelist with Nathan Morris’s ministry and also with Elias Anaconda. He’s the son of Carlos Anaconda, one of the great Latin American evangelists. Really one of the greatest evangelists who’s ever lived. And the pastors responded really well. What’d you think about how the pastors responded to the messages today?
Manuel Guardado (19:05):
I think when I think about all this, and I try to bring a word to my mind on this, I see the word hunger. I see hunger in the life of pastors. I see that there is the openness to see God act and do miracles and see the reality of the church in action. And I see that availability of the pastor. So I think if you guys have a seed in your hand, I think El Salvador is ready, is ready for that seed to be planted. And in the next months years, you guys are going to see a big tree with so many fruits. That’s my prayer, I believe in on that.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:47):
Amen. Let’s talk about what comes next for you. You are continuing to work with Will Jones in Awakening Ministries International. And they switching their focus away from Latin American countries where there’s lots of churches and really starting to focus more on the least reached parts of the world, places where the population of Christians did you say below 3%?
Manuel Guardado (20:19):
Below 3%,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:21):
Yeah. And so that is where an evangelist loves to go, the place where Christ is not known, and you are going to be involved in that. And so you’re going to actually be a missionary sent out from Belize to the least reached parts of the world. And one of the neat things that you’re doing is you’re actually raising support in order to support your family, support the ministry that God has called you to from within the nation of beliefs, which is amazing. Will Jones has really challenged you and increased your faith because sometimes it’s easy to say, well, if you live in America, it’s easy to raise money, but here you are, you’re living in Belize and there’s a lot of need in Belize, but you are actually raising support to support the ministry that God has called you to right from the nation of Belize. And you’ve been doing this for a while. And what percentage have you been able to raise? What commitment levels so far have
Manuel Guardado (21:30):
You at the moment is 69%.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:33):
So you’re at 69% that you’re supported. And so you have about 30, 31% more to go. And talk to me about that process. I know you’ve seen so many miracles as you’ve been sharing the vision with people. What are you doing in order to ask people to be involved in reaching people for Jesus?
Manuel Guardado (21:58):
Daniel? I will say that I have been able to know Jesus, know God little by little.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:06):
Can I say that? Do you feel like God has increased your faith through this
Manuel Guardado (22:09):
Process? I will say yes. I think that he’s my Lord and Savior, but I am experimenting his wisdom and grace and love through the different steps of our levels of faith and life. And I think our leader, will Jones in this case have do such a great job in the organization to help us to understand how amazing is our God that he could provide for our call for the vision that the Lord have give us. I am talking about the vocational of life. In my case, I’m doing pastoral ministry for 12 years and then going more out from the local church to be in the community, specifically doing festivals, organizing, pastors, conferences all over the country of Belize and also outside of the country of Belize. And then being challenged about why not be full time, why not believe that the Lord could raise your support from people that love you, that believe in you, and also monthly giving towards that. So we could go and be like, how you say missionaries being sent by our country was not easy. I was thinking that this is for someone else, not for me. We like comfortable, we like to work for someone to receive a check every month, and that’s okay, but this really challeng, but that
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:40):
Doesn’t take any faith to do that.
Manuel Guardado (23:42):
No,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:43):
That’s so easy.
Manuel Guardado (23:45):
Exactly. So I think to come to the point of understanding that the Lord will is for me to go in this direction with my wife and my three kids was one of the most hardest part of my life. Because we start to read books like the God Ask and many other books that speaks about God could be our provider, so we could do the ministry that the Lord is calling us to do. And in this case, I really believe on the vision of the Lord have give to e m I to awake the nations, to see the nations arise for Christ and go to that places. Daniel, where it’s really hard to go. There is countries in West Africa right now like Senegal, like Guinea, like Sierra Leone, that close to 97%, 95% is Muslim and just like 3% or less is Christian. So at the moment in this countries, it’s possible for us to preach without get to jail.
(24:47):
It’s possible to not do it. If you go to other countries to the top of Senegal, you will see that if you preach, you could go to jail. So why not take advantage of this moment in this part of the world where yes, there is a lot of Muslims, there is a lot of other religions, but we could preach the gospel. So we are called to do that. And I remember Danielle, when we invite my friends to come to the fundraising event for this, everybody was so excited to see that a Ian person, Ian Salvadorian is going to left his country for some times to organize festivals that we’re going to be able to preach the gospel for so many people is so excited because people could go, but also people could send someone like me to go to the nation. So we are so glad to see the 69% and we are believing to reach the a hundred percent. We have still some months, and that’s our goal in the name of the Lord.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:56):
I think your story will help inspire other people from Central America to become missionaries. Because in the past there was this idea that people would go from the west, from North America and they would go to other countries as missionaries. But now instead of the west going to the rest, I think what we’re going to see is the best from every country being sent by God to the rest of the body of Christ. I agree with you. And so you’re part of that. And if you can do it and God can do miracles through you, then God can do it miracles for other people here in Central America. And I really, I love the passion and the enthusiasm here in Central America. The churches know how to pray. They know how to cry out to God. And now I think it’s time for the church here to rise up and to start sending out missionaries, especially to the Muslim parts of the world. People from the United States of America sometimes can’t get into nations, but there’s an open door for someone from El Salvador or from Belize that they can go in to these nations.
Manuel Guardado (27:15):
And also I have been able to be in that country already at the moment. We are working on two festivals for this year and more to come next year. And we see a lot of hunger. Like hearing El Salvador, the pastors are ready to go. I am so amazed that the way you have to preach the gospel there is you got to do it different, but the church in some kind of way adjust the ways, but never change the message. And I love to see that, love to see how the church adapt to the realities of the cities of the nations. And many people are coming to Christ through that dynamic that the church is doing in Guinea. It’s a French country. I was trying to find someone that speak English. It’s not easy to find someone, but thanks God, we have an amazing partnership in that country that have receivers and we have a long-term work to do in that country.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:13):
That’s awesome. Well, you’re at 69% support and if someone’s listening and they feel prompted by God to help support you and to help send you as a missionary from beliefs to the nations, how can they find a way to support you? Can they do it at the Awakening Ministries website? Yes,
Manuel Guardado (28:34):
Yes. Yes. I would recommend to anyone that we like to support this vision is to go to www awakening mint tl.work, awakening mint tl.org. And yeah, when you go to the donation part, you could find out for who specifically you want to do at donation. Yeah,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:57):
That’s awesome. Well, brother Manuel, it is so wonderful to be here with you again in Central America and hopefully we can work together somewhere, maybe Africa, maybe Asia, but we’ll see. It’s just so appreciate your heart for God and your heart for reaching people for Jesus, and it’s an honor to serve the Lord with you,
Manuel Guardado (29:23):
Danielle, Jesus is coming.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:25):
Amen.
Manuel Guardado (29:26):
We have to continue preaching the gospel and encourage the local church to keep up. So it’s a pleasure to serve with you.
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Joseph Wilson | Persecution in India
Joseph Wilson pastors in the nation of India. Recently his church was burnt down by radical Hindus. Today we talk about the persecution the church is facing in the nation of India and about how he is reaching the lost despite the opposition.
Connect with Joseph Wilson on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joseph.wilson.92372
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Joseph Wilson pastors in the nation of India. Recently, his church was burnt down by radical Hindus. Today we talk about the persecution the church is facing in the nation of India and about how he is reaching the lost despite the opposition.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:31):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary, and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:55):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today I have a very special guest with me, pastor Joseph Wilson from the Nation of India. Thank you for joining me today.
Joseph Wilson (01:08):
Amen. Such a wonderful time that the Lord has given me and I’m so honored, excited to be over here and to be part of this podcast. And I tell you, my life was so much transformed with this man of God and I say one of the reason for me to be where I am today is this man of God has spoken a word over my life.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:32):
Amen. Well, how long do you think we’ve known each other? When was the first time that we met? I
Joseph Wilson (01:39):
Have met you in the year 2005.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:45):
Wow. So we’ve been friends for a very long time now. It’s
Joseph Wilson (01:48):
A long
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:48):
Time and at that time we were doing many gospel festivals in the nation of India. My wife and I have such a great love for India. My wife Jessica actually lived in the nation of India for almost two years, and then I’ve been going and talking to people about Jesus and it’s so amazing the nation of India, 1.2 billion people. It’s a huge nation full of people that need Jesus.
Joseph Wilson (02:22):
Absolutely. And now the recent census of our country says we are with 1.4 plus billion people.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:30):
And so India continues to grow.
Joseph Wilson (02:33):
It’s continuing to grow, and as it continues to grow, it is giving us a lot of challenges to reach the people where our nation is needed to.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:43):
Now, the first missionary who went to India was the Apostle Thomas.
Joseph Wilson (02:50):
Apostle Thomas. Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:51):
The same doubting Thomas who doubted that Jesus came back to life, but after he became convinced of the Jesus’s resurrection, history says that he went to India.
Joseph Wilson (03:04):
He went to the India. Yes, you are right. He came to India and to his amazement, there were so many rituals taking place and there were belief and there were system that was not of God. They were in search of God, but in many different ways. But when Apostle Thomas came, he knew the real God. So he made excitement and then he performed the miracles where the people encountered God first. Ever since then, the kingdom of God is getting established in India,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:38):
And there’s actually many different religions in the nation of India. You are multi religion, multi-ethnic groups. So you have Christianity, you have Islam, you have many, many Hindus, many, many Hindus. You have the Sikh religion, Jainism and many other religions,
Joseph Wilson (04:03):
Many other religion. What amazes us is India is such a huge country with such a big religion aspect. Everyone in India are devotees to God, but they have different religious to teach them. And there’s Hinduism, Muslims, Jainism, Sikhism, and I tell you there are very different groups as well in India with hundreds and thousands, to our amazement, 33 millions of and goddesses our nation. So
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:35):
Let’s talk specifically about Christianity because there has been a lot of persecution that has come against religious minorities and in India, Christianity is a minority. Do you know what percentage of India would follow Jesus?
Joseph Wilson (04:55):
The census says that it is closely to 3% out of 1.4 billion people follows Jesus. Now, when I say 3%, I don’t mean that everyone loves Jesus out of this 3%, there are Catholics, there are atheists, there are people who are far away from Jesus, but just a name. Take Christians.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:19):
So some of the 3% are only Christians in name only. But there has come a lot of persecution recently against the Christian churches in India. In fact, I was just sitting down a few days ago with one of my friends who is a pastor from Manipur and he was telling me that many of the churches in Manpo have been burned. Even the houses of some of the Christians have been burned and the Christians have had to flee from the cities up into the hills and they’re in hiding.
Joseph Wilson (05:57):
Yes, they are in hiding. This was happening up in the month of May. This is planned way beforehand for the persecution, being honest with you all. There were so many things that happened. The churches were burned, you were right. Many people left the houses and their houses was burned and to management. There were many women who were raped, paraded, naked, and I tell you, there was no words spoken by the government in behalf of them to ask them to be protected. But these riots have taken place and this is making chaos in our nation. Let me tell you, this is not the first time that has happened in the year 2008. There is a state called Ora where the same thing happened and let me be honest, with the same kind of a government which was running the state at that time. So there is on and off persecutions that are happening up. Evidently what I could say is it started with the little, but now it’s getting bigger. Bigger and the worst.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:06):
That’s very sad. And it’s not just the churches in Manipur that have been affected by this. You pastor and your church actually was burnt. Tell me what happened.
Joseph Wilson (07:20):
Yes, with the vision of God that I moved from my native town to a new city, which is called Miser, which has 1.3 million people and hardly 120 churches in the entire city. And out of that only 2% of them are Christians and out of 2%, when I say Christian, there are only 0.5 people who believe Jesus, not even 0.5. So God with the vision I have been to the city with the family. We planted a church. Our church is three and a half years old and we pray to God, take us to the people where you want me to serve. And we never knew the city. We don’t know anyone in the city. By faith, we moved as a family and we started a church through a plumber who comes to us. His aunt was with the cancer and that was a good opportunity. He said to me, this is what the conversation, who are you?
(08:18):
Then I said, Hey, I’m a pastor, pastor, what do you do? Then I said, I pray for the people. You left everything to pray for the people. Then I said, yeah, why? Then I said, I would love to see happiness in the life of people. I love to see blessings in the families. That’s why I came. He was amazed. We exchanged our numbers. He goes back after two days he calls me, you said you pray for the people. My aunt is with the cancer. She’s diabetic. She’s on the deathbed. Would you come and pray? I said, I would come. We went there. I tell you, we prayed. She’s still alive. The Lord healed and they took us to three new Hindu families and that’s how the church grew in our house. We began our church at house. As we were growing to 28 people, the neighboring people began to complain against us.
(09:14):
They complained to the police and the men in the families were against us and they wanted to put us in a prison. So the police intervention and the group of people intervention, we were forced to stop our church at home. We stopped our church, we began to zero. Then again, we started the church. That’s what our life is. We are called to reach the people. So we began the church at home again after eight months, and then immediately God helped us to rent a building. We went there. We started the church. As we started again, the Lord started to do signs, wonders, healings. Then the church began to grow. Now I tell you, 80 to 85% of the people who come to our church never heard about Jesus before. They were Hindus. Now as the church was growing, we started our church in February, 2020. Then 2021, July the second. People were so angry against us because they tried to stop us, threaten us, but we were not. We went on to do the church. Finally they did. They burned our church because we were not listening to their threats. They burnt our church. We lost the sound. I tell you, we lost everything. Everything but
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:41):
All your musical instruments, the sound system, yes,
Joseph Wilson (10:44):
Chairs,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:46):
Everything was burnt.
Joseph Wilson (10:47):
Everything was burned to the ashes, everything was burnt and the same night the police came. Now that city is new to me. I don’t know anyone. When the police came, I expected them to support me because I was the one who is in loss. But the police, they were more than 20 plus people and they said, who are you? Then I said, I’m Joseph. The response from them were, are you a Christian? Then I said, yes. What are you doing here? Then I said, I have a music class. Then they said, music, no, you are doing something. That’s why people have set fire on you. You have done wrong. That’s why people are upset on you. Now you come to the police, we are going to file a case against you and you need to fight it in the court
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:34):
Or And the police, after your church was burnt, they came and said that you are doing something wrong.
Joseph Wilson (11:41):
Absolutely. I was mistreated by the police. They interrogated me for more than three hours.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:49):
Wow. It’s really sad because according to the constitution of India, you are supposed to have freedom of religion.
Joseph Wilson (11:58):
Absolutely. The constitution of our nation gives us all the rights to speak. We have a freedom of religion, freedom of speech, but yet because of the power and the abuse, you of power and because of to gain some popularity, people are always throwing stones against Christians.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:21):
Wow. So what ended up happening with your church, you had everything burnt, so you had to close down for a little bit, and then what happened?
Joseph Wilson (12:32):
We needed to close down. The police were against us. The people were against us. We lost everything. And the saddest part was they wanted to take me to the prison. But that night I was literally feared, but I saw the invisible hand of God helping and protecting. Then the Lord helped me to come out of that night and the next day the wise thing I did was to leave the city and go to the city where I was born. So I stayed in that city for more than one and a half month away. Then we closed our church after the issue was closed down, I came back. I started to clean the church and began to restore the church. The issue was done, but God intervened in such a way. There was a person whom I came in contact and they spoke to the police officers telling that he’s our guy, so he’s doing good. So because of the political influence and the word that I received, the police were subjective to the command of the authorities, and that is how God led us to come out of that kind of a situation. But they burned the church. It took us five months to restore the church and we closed it. But by God’s grace in December the 2021, we opened the church again, but glory to beat God that we haven’t lost anybody.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:57):
Wow. And how many people are attending your church right now? Right
Joseph Wilson (14:01):
Now our church is three and a half years old. We are with 80 people in the church, and I tell you, 30 people, we baptized them and there are more than 80% of the people were Hindus who never knew Jesus before.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:18):
Wow. What a great miracle. And I have to commend you for continuing on in what God has called you to do even in the midst of persecution. I know it’s not easy, but one of the things in your testimony that you have shared with me was the impact of one message that I preached many years ago and you heard the message and ever since it has been one of the defining messages of your life. Tell me about that.
Joseph Wilson (14:50):
Absolutely. I cannot leave this program without speaking that word. In fact, before I could say that statement, let me tell about a brief testimony. I was going through terrible times in my life. I never had anybody to support me or to strengthen me or to be a friend. I was going through such a deep down life. I was broken, my soul was broken, my future was blinded, and I failed my education and I was the only son to my parents, huge expectations, and I was growing up. There was no future for me. And there was so many things I tell you, nothing was going my way. Neither nothing was happening. What I was planning to do, everything was chaotic. At that moment of time, I decided to die. I decided to commit suicide because I don’t have future. I don’t have vision, I don’t have anything in my life.
(15:56):
So what I did was when I thought to die myself, one word that changed my life was Jeremiah 29 11. One of my friends sent me a text at the time where I was wanting to commit suicide that says, the Lord has plans to prosper you, to give you a future and a hope. When I read that s I felt peace in my heart, and that’s the time I saw new things beginning to happen. Right after that transformation, I come to a crusade in 2007, November the 11th. I still remember November the 11th, and there were more than 500 people in the auditorium. You were speaking in a conference. I was sitting on the tro. You were speaking about obeyed Iam. You were speaking about his origin. It was so great. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:55):
So Obed Edam is an obscure Bible character, but his story will change your story and it’s one of the messages I love to preach. In fact, I wrote a book about it called The Secret of Obed Edem, and he was the guy that was living beside the road, which led to Jerusalem. And one day, king David decided to bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. And so they passed in front of the house of Obed Edam and a tragedy happened. A man fell over dead when he touched the ark. And so King David said, forget about taking the arc to Jerusalem, put it in that house right there. And he pointed to the house of Obed Edam. And so they carried the Ark of the Covenant where the presence of God dwell and they placed it in the living room of Obed Edo. And in first Chronicles 13, it says that the arc of God remained in his house for three months and it says that God blessed his household and everything that he, so when the presence of God came into his house, he was blessed.
(17:54):
And so when you invite the presence of God into your house, you’re going to be blessed. But his story does not end there. It’s mentioned seven more times in scripture and he becomes addicted to the presence of God. Edam follows the Ark to Jerusalem and he starts to serve in the house of God. He starts out as a gatekeeper in the temple, then he becomes a heart player in the temple worship group. Then he becomes a leader. His entire family is serving God. And then the last time he’s mentioned, he’s the keeper of the temple Treasury. So we see this great promotion in his life. His story didn’t end at the beginning. He continued on.
Joseph Wilson (18:38):
Yes. And that’s what when us speaking, that was fascinating. My heart got connected to the word, and I still remember as you were preaching intensely bringing the word, you saw me, and this is the turning point of my life. You saw me in the middle of everything you just said, Joseph, stand up. I was shocked. I stood up. And this is the word that you said. Your story has not finished yet.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:09):
Your story is not finished yet. Not
Joseph Wilson (19:11):
Finished yet. I was so thrilled the moment I was thinking my story is over, I don’t have any life. That’s the time you said your story is not finished yet. And you said, the way the Lord has blessed, obeyed I, your life will be blessed. Get ready for the promotions. And I tell you, I began my life from that situation. And from then on, I hold it onto that word to that says to me, my story has not finished yet. This is just the beginning. And I tell you today, I still look around myself and say, my story is not finished yet. And thus the way that the Lord blessed my life and for the past 16 years, I’m holding that word which I wanted to die, but that word gave me a life. That word gave me the vision. That word gave me a family. That word gave me future. That word gave me ministry. That word gave me friends. That word gave me such a confidence. Whatever I am doing today, it’s that word that put a foundation for my great faith in Jesus
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:23):
Christ. And so even when it was difficult to start a church, even when your neighbors were complaining, even when your church was burned and you lost everything, that prophetic word from the Lord, your story is not finished yet has continued to inspire you and motivate you, and you have to seek after the will of God for your life.
Joseph Wilson (20:50):
Absolutely. That word made such a terrible transformation, I tell you as obey was blessed step by step. And you said to me the same way, Joseph, your life God is going take you step by step. I remember sitting down and I became a worship leader. God started to upgrade me, update me to a translator. And I tell you, I was sitting in this man of God’s crusades and God made me to lead worship for his crusades and also to translate the word of God. So I am the example of how a prophetic word when we receive gets true. And I am very honored that I received it through this man of God. And I am the true example of that word. Your story has not finished yet.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:39):
Amen. Well, that is a tremendous prophetic word that I believe will continue to work in your life. Amen. Because Joseph, your story is not finished yet. God has more for you. And I believe that God has more for the nation of India. Let’s talk a little bit more about the persecution that has happened in India. The constitution of India guarantees religious freedom. In Article 25 of the Indian Constitution, it says, all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess practice and propagate religion. And so that is enshrined in your constitution, constitution. And so India is the largest democracy in the world. They have many elections and they’re supposed to guarantee freedom of religion, but that often has not happened. Often militant Hindus have harassed, they oppress, they attack Christians, and they even make laws restricting the freedom of Christians. They attack churches, they persecute people who would want to convert from one religion to the other. And they even have kicked missionaries out of the country and they have shut the door that anybody who would want to talk about Jesus, they refuse to give them a visa. So in effect, there is not freedom of religion. And so what do you think the church should do in the face of this persecution?
Joseph Wilson (23:29):
This is very much interesting in the face of persecution the churches are really going through. But one observation that I have made as it in the Book of Acts, when such kind of a persecution are going through it is dividing who the real people who are called to serve. There are people who are going back. There are people who are struggling, there are people who are giving up, but there are people who are marching forward to do what God has called to do. Now among all these persecution, definitely every tongue in India are praying for God for miracles to happen. Now, one thing that persecutions are happening up is, I’m sorry to say, because of the government, because they back up the people, the vanity groups, because of their political gain, they use the groups to attack the church and they want to win the elections or be in power in the name of religion. So that’s the biggest optical the church is facing. But among these things, it’s very hard to confine our growth only to one thing. It’s a challenge. We are accepting in reality about the challenge, but still we are commended to preach the gospel and to reach the people. So that’s the thing that we are doing in spite of all the things what’s happening up around.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:06):
And many of the states in India have passed what they call anticon conversion laws. What are those?
Joseph Wilson (25:15):
My state? My state was ruled by the government, which is running the country now. When they were in power, they were so much against the Christians and the churches. They finally brought an anticon conversion bill. Now I need to tell this, this anticon conversion bill is so, so cruel. If I go and share my faith to someone else, if they don’t like it, they can go to the police, file a complaint against me, and I would be put in prison non bailable warrant. I would be in prison for more than seven years.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:00):
Just for talking to someone about your faith in Jesus.
Joseph Wilson (26:04):
Absolutely. Now, not only that, if I preach gospel to someone, if they get saved and they come to church, their whole family has the power to go to the police and say, Hey, somebody spoke to my son or my daughter, and they manipulated them so they can go and write a complaint against a pastor or an evangelist and they would be considered and the pastor or the evangelist or the churches would be put in prison. That’s the severeness of the law. We prayed. We prayed. But I tell you, God is so powerful in this year, in the month of May, 2023, the governments got changed. And the first thing the present government of my state has done is they have revoked the law forever.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:53):
And so in your state, in which state do you live
Joseph Wilson (26:56):
In? I live in the state of Karnataka. So
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:57):
In Karnataka. Now the Anticon conversion law is not on the books? No,
Joseph Wilson (27:04):
It’s
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:04):
Not on the books. But in some of the other states continues to, some
Joseph Wilson (27:08):
Of states still continue. I tell you, wherever the government is ruling the states, every state which is ruled by this government has been subjected for the Anticon conversion bill. And I tell you, it’s going to be hard if you run a church in a house, it is considered as illegal because you are getting people to your house and converting them. If you run a church in a rented buildings or the hotels, it’s not going to be considered as a church because that is a social gathering place. Now the government is bringing the law.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:43):
And then if you own the church, sometimes the churches get burned down.
Joseph Wilson (27:46):
Absolutely. If you own a church, they say, why are you getting people now? They are taking even the census of the church, how many people you have. After a year, they come back again and check the census. If they find out there are more number of people, they’re questioning who are they? How do they come to you? And if they come to church, the believers, they are cutting the access of provisions which are from the government for the poor people. That’s the saddest part. What’s happening up?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:20):
Wow. Well, we need to pray for the Church of India. I think even in the midst of persecution, it just makes the church to grow more and more and more because people will turn away from a hopeless religion to turn towards the hope that is found in Jesus Christ.
Joseph Wilson (28:42):
Absolutely, brother Daniel. We need our nation. Our churches need prayers to back us up. We need more prayers than ever before because we are in more danger than ever before. I say this word because from the politicians, the seed against Christians is now spread all across the nation where everybody are so passionate against the church and to see the end of the church or to see the destruction of church.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:17):
Amen. Well, let’s finish by praying for the nation of India. You said that now the population is 1.4 billion people, a huge number of people, many who need to find Jesus Christ, the hope of Jesus, and to have the opportunity to be saved. So would you pray for the nation of India?
Joseph Wilson (29:41):
Absolutely. It’s my joy to pray for our country. We need prayer. We need Jesus. We need the kingdom of God to invade. And there is no greater power and strength than prayer. I would love to pray. Let’s pray. Dear Father, we thank you Lord for your unmerited favor and unconditional love towards us. Father, you are the same yesterday, today and forever. You love us the same. And Lord, we are here praying for our beautiful nation, India with 1.4 billion people. They need you, father. They need your kingdom. And we pray today how mercy on our nation, how your grace upon our nation, Jesus, let your kingdom rule and reign. We pray for all the people who needs to be saved because you shed your blood on the cross of calvary for the remissions of sins of every one. Oh God. And we pray that you would have mercy and grant salvation to our nation.
(30:56):
We pray whatever ways are being made hard to preach the gospel, that you will make a way for us to reach the communities, to reach the people. Lord, open the blind eyes to see you. Open the hearts to receive you. Father, let the word of God shine upon people and let people get saved. We pray for more people to serve you. We pray for the freedom of our religion of God. We pray for the freedom of our speech. We pray, father, that you would make roots to reach the people. And we pray for the politicians. We pray for the leaders. We pray for all the groups who are against your church. God, you transformed soul to Paul and that’s your power, and that’s what we pray. Transform the hard-hearted leaders and the politicians who are against your kingdom, who are against your gospel, and may your kingdom establish. Thank you for your saving grace and saving power. In Jesus’ name we pray, father. Amen.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (32:06):
Amen. Well, brother Joseph, I have a word from God for you. Your story is not finished yet. God has more for you.
Joseph Wilson (32:17):
Amen. I receive this word with joy and gladness, and I begin my journey again with a higher altitude of life telling to myself, my story has not finished yet.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (32:31):
And so we are standing with you in India. We are praying for you in India. And I know that God will give us a great harvest of souls across the great nation of India.
Joseph Wilson (32:44):
Amen. I receive that. We believe that. And also I witness the crusades that you ministered thousands of people. What a joy was it for us to see you sacrificing your place in America, coming over there and preaching the gospel and ministering so many villages which never had Jesus before, never had church before because of you were yes to the Lord. Today. I see as a witness, there are hundreds of churches, thousands of people in the kingdom of God. And that’s what enlightens me, challenges me. When a man of God sacrifice and come to my country to speak. What am I doing? What are we doing? So your life is always an encouragement to me. Influence to me. And I tell you, words fail to describe how much impact you have created in me. One of the reason for me to go to the lost places and the lost people is you looking at the crus. That’s what my life has been in transformed. And here I’m as an example, doing what God has called to do. And that’s why again, I say my story has not finished yet.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (34:01):
Amen. Thank you brother Joseph. Are
Evangelism Podcast Host (34:03):
You called by God to be an evangelist? Do you want to lead millions of people to Jesus? Do you desire to be trained in the practical side of building a ministry? Then check out the Daniel King School of Evangelism. Learn how to be an effective evangelist from Dr. Daniel King’s 20 plus years of experience. Daniel King has done crusades all over the world in over 70 nations and is seen over 2 million people give their lives to Jesus. But it wasn’t easy. There was no crusade school. So Daniel traveled the world learning from and observing top evangelists, noticing how they successfully won souls for Christ. Now he wants to share decades of knowledge and experience with you. Topics of the Daniel King School of Evangelism include what is an evangelist, how to be a master soul winner, how to give antar call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry, and much more. If you want to be an evangelist, but don’t know where to start, the Daniel King School of Evangelism is for you. Enroll today in the School of Evangelism by going to Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (35:05):
Thanks so much for listening today. I am excited about telling people about Jesus, and I want to invite you to be a part of helping us to rescue people from Hell and take them with us to heaven. There’s two things you can do to help. First of all, can you go find the Evangelism podcast on Apple iTunes and leave us a positive review by giving a review. You will help other people find these valuable resources about sharing our faith. And second, would you become a financial partner with King Ministries. Every single dollar that people give us enables us to lead at least one person to Jesus. And so that means for only $1, you can help start a party in heaven. And so today I want to invite you to become a monthly partner. You can start out for just a dollar, but if God puts it on your heart to do more, of course you can do more. But please go to king ministries.com and become a monthly partner with us today to help us to lead more people to Jesus. Thank you so much, and God bless you.
Evangelism Podcast Host (36:25):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
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DJ Moz | Kubamba Youth Movement in Kenya
DJ Moz leads the Kubamba Youth Movement in Kenya. These young people are using upbeat music and dance to reach school children with the Gospel. You will be amazed and inspired as you listen to his story of how DJ Moz went from DJ to evangelist!
Connect with Kubamba on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Kubamba.Tv/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today. I have a very special guest with me, DJ Moz, from a tremendous ministry in the nation of Kenya named Ku Baba. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining me today.
DJ Moz (00:17):
Thank you, Daniel. Thanks for having me over. So,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:20):
Tell me a little bit about your ministry and, and what you do. I I was just exposed to your ministry yesterday. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I went with some of your team members out to one of the schools here. Mm-Hmm. Near Embu. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, Kenya. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And you had a team of young people Yeah. That went into the school. They had some kick in music. It was that they had a DJ who was playing music Yeah. And they were all dancing. Yeah. And they captured the attention of the kids. Yeah. And then they ministered to them led them to Jesus. Yeah. And it was so beautiful to see what God was doing. And this is just one of, of many different teams that you
DJ Moz (01:00):
Have. Yeah. Yeah. First man, I love your energy. <Laugh>. Guys need to know, just waking up, you know, it’s excellent, man. You should join Kuku Bamba <laugh>. You have the right energy for it. So but thank you for having me on your podcast. So what Ku Bamba does, and first let me explain what Ku Bamba means, just in case for guys are wondering what’s, yeah. What’s Ku Baba? Ku Baba is a slang word from Swahili. So young people in Kenya you know, people have different lingos, you know in their, from their ba in their community. So we have a language that’s called Shang, and Shang is the language young people use. So it has like Swahili and English and Chinese and Indian. Like, it has a mixture of things. And so KU Baba is a word from that, and it means something catchy, something attractive, something cool.
(01:44):
And you know, God allowed us to start this 23, 23 years ago. And what you got to experience yesterday, it’s not something that we really had sat down and planned. And we are like, you know, this is what we you know, when we look back and see what God has allowed Ku Bamba to do, it’s not something we are sat down and strategized and say that this is exactly what we want to do 23 years down the right down, down the road. It’s just how God opens up your eyes and shows you what can happen. But a background is I’m a DJ by profession. I love music. And I used to work in the clubs. I got saved when I was still in the clubs. And I’m a product of music. Like music has had a, a significant influence in my life.
(02:27):
And so Ku Baba is pretty much built around music like urban gospel music. So we so when I became a believer I started looking for gospel music. That was the kind of music that I used to play in the club, something that would relate, I could relate with. And I was happy to come across, you know, albums from guys like Kirk Franklin and Mary Mary, and there was an amazing gospel hip hop crew called Cross Movement. I don’t even know if you remember them. They were like our Wutang clan at that time. And there was Toby Mac, you know, just come across the album by d dc talk that had, that’s called Jesus Freaks Now, that Jesus freak was like, man, I like this title. You know, that’s who I want to be. And so when Ku Baba started you know I believe in my heart that God, you know, God showed me that I needed to go back and reach out to my younger brothers and sisters who in the clubs and, you know, because I’d seen the impact the music had had on my life and their life.
(03:22):
And see how we can drop them in.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:24):
So, all right, now I want to take you live to the festival from last night so you can hear the music and feel the energy that Ku Baba brings when they minister.
DJ Moz (04:21):
And so I just, you know, when I became a believer, I told God, this is the gift that you’ve given me. I’ll give it back to you and use it for your glory. And so of course, you’re a new believer. The church doesn’t know what to do with you, the club where you’ve come from, they don’t know what to do with you. So you, they’re stuck somewhere in the middle, but was a beautiful journey. And I thank God that when he opened the first door for me to get on, let me say, let me let me say radio was a key significant part because media influences lives. So when that opportunity came up for me to get into radio May 15th, 2000, it was a turnaround point, not just for my life, but for the lives of many young people, because young people said, listening to the show and engaging and listening to what was you know, to loving the music, they’re like, oh, man, I can’t believe there’s such cool gospel music. So as they’re
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:13):
Doing that, so you didn’t really go into ministry having a specific plan of what you wanted to do. You just had the opportunity to do a radio program. Yeah. And you had a love for music mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And you started bringing the gospel music Yeah. Here to Kenya. Yeah. And young people started listening to it, and their lives were changed. I just come from
DJ Moz (05:32):
The clubs. So I have, and before that, I’ve never been to church for nine years, so I have no idea what ministry is. In fact, ministry was a term that I’d never heard. And I come from a Presbyterian background, which is very,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:44):
They don’t have your type of music in the Presbyterian
DJ Moz (05:47):
Church? No. My church my mom’s church where we used to go when I was growing up had no guitars and keyboards and things like that. Those were things of the world. <Laugh>, you can imagine I’m a DJ from that kind of having come from that kind of background. So but you know, the, what, when young people are engaging with this kind of music man, I can’t, from the first day when I did the altar call, you know, just inviting young people to come and experience what I had experienced through Christ, the listeners would call and giving their lives to Christ. And it, it was amazing. And so as this, as this continued, we’re like, okay, a couple of my friends now came and joined me a year later. And we said, okay man, what do we do to, to continue engaging with these young people who are listening to us on radio?
(06:34):
And one of them said, you know, he’s calling Gush. He said, you know, why don’t you go to the high schools? And so we went to high school and the impact, you know, those alliance girls, the impact was incredible. The young people dancing to the music. So, of course, I’m a dj, so, and dancing is a big thing in Africa. So the kids were dancing. The music helped us break the barriers, and we shared the gospel and the kids gave their lives to Christ in the droves. And it also helped that I had a cool dance crew that had met along the way that called All Lova who were amazing guys. And so together with the logo, we say, going around to the schools and then ano a music artist some of the few gospel music artists were say, rising up at that time.
(07:19):
They would come alongside us and join us to go for these tours. But it’s incredible. And I’m really glad that God opened up our eyes to allowing us to see the opportunity that lies in the high schools. The good thing about music, and I was, I was sharing with you yesterday, is music breaks barriers. I mean, it crosses borderlines. And, you know there’s one person who said the word, one good thing about music is when it hits you feel okay. And you know, music carries you through places and you know, it brings out emotions. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. But if you have godly music, the spirit of God moves. And, you know, he just you know, he, he changes. You start singing you from the inside out and the music carries you through those spaces when you’re going through a difficult time or when you’re having a good time.
(08:03):
And David, in the scriptures, you remember there’s a time when King Soul would be tormented and David would play the music and he would settle, king Soul would calm down. That’s the power of music. And so I’m so grateful that you know, God allowed us to use music. And we say the music is our tool of influence as Ku Bamba because we have seen the power of music. And now through this journey, as you got to experience yesterday in the high schools, I mean, the energy is electric. It’s just like being in a concert, just a smaller concert.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:36):
The energy was absolutely huge. Everyone was dancing, they were celebrating. Yeah. But then I noticed that when the gospel was shared, everyone quieted down. Yeah. And they listened very, very intently. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And the message that your young evangelist was there Yeah. Speaking mm-hmm. Went right into their hearts.
DJ Moz (08:54):
Yes. And the good thing is, and you thank God that, you know, once you’ve done that concert you’ve connected with them, you’ve bonded with them, you are now, they’re now that now feel like, man, I can listen to these guys. And we don’t take it for granted that they would actually sit down and listen to us because they don’t have to. You need to remember that among some of those kids who are sitting in that space, some of them are Muslims, so this, this should be offensive to them. But they do sit down and they listen to the gospel. And what we’ve gotten to experience is young people from different religious backgrounds coming and accepting Christ as their Lord and Savior. And so, and that’s the beauty about what sees that God has allowed us to do. And that we can be able to share the gospel with them in a manner that’s relevant in a timely way.
(09:44):
And they can be and hopefully they’re like, man, this Jesus, who these guys are talking about, I want to have a relationship with him and some of the young people who I dunno if it’s Erica, who was sharing yesterday at the school that you went to. Erica was a crazy kid. You know, in high school he gave his parents drama, <laugh>, he was kicked out. He was, I think he was expelled from five different high schools. Wow. Just from being truant or being rebellious. And so when he shares, when he goes in that pulpit or on that platform and shares with the young people he’s experienced, ’cause he was there where they are. And some of them are thinking about being rebellious. You know, they’re able to see their lives you know, through the guys who they’re seeing on stage ministering to them.
(10:29):
So I’m very grateful again, to see what God has allowed us to be able to do. And and maybe Daniel should let you know that the other thing is now seeing other other people from, you know, young people from other African countries reaching out to us and saying, man, we’ve been following you guys for a while. Wow. And we’ve started doing something similar to what you guys are doing in our country. Man we just wanted to know that what you’re doing is going beyond your borders, <laugh>. Like it was, it was interesting about maybe three years ago getting a getting a, a message from some young guys from Burundi who were doing exactly ministry, like how we started here, about 20, 20 something, 23 years ago. But I was so happy because that journey is so fulfilling. Like, they would go and set up their sound system in the, in the community, like in the marketplace, and they do a gig for the people in the market and share the gospel. You know? So it’s just encouraging them and telling them, man, where you, what you guys are doing right now is exactly where we started.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:32):
Wow. Yeah. Let’s talk about your team. How many team members do you have?
DJ Moz (11:36):
So I have about team of 69 that’s including myself and <inaudible> are the co-founders. We, 69 people,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:42):
And the team divides up into several different groups about how many would go into one school at a time.
DJ Moz (11:49):
So we have about 10 people per team who go out and so we have about, we have six vans. Okay. like you got to see the there’s some big vans, they’re called, you know, the Mercedes printers or the Volkswagen Crafter vans. So 10 people per team. But then when we get to a place like here in bu, where we are this time around is we also do get a couple of people from the community coming alongside us in advance to go to, to go to the schools. Because once we’ve been to a school, it’s the local churches that follow up with with the young people who give their lives to Christ. And what we try to do is we take the names of every single young person who gives their life to Christ. And we follow up with them now beyond that, like on social media and also sending them messages of encouragement. And, you know, we’ve come up with that like a discipleship plan for the young people. And it’s the same young guys who you see going around in the high schools from the teams. They’re the ones who who check on them during the holidays. They’ll come and do a gig for the young people in the communities here. So we try to make sure that we are always constantly engaged with the young people.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:57):
Yeah. I was very impressed yesterday mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, because you collected the Twitter and Instagram and TikTok Yeah. Handles for all of the students Yeah. That were in the school. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so that allows you to continue to have influence Yes. In their lives even after you’re gone. Yeah. You can disciple them mm-hmm. <Affirmative> 30 seconds at a time on TikTok.
DJ Moz (13:24):
Yes. And you know, the thing is, that’s the, that’s their world right now. That’s where they, they’re gravitating towards. That’s how they, those are the new communities that they’re making, that they’re building. And that’s a new space of influence for them. And so we try to be intentional being in the spaces where they are. And and I think I’m really glad that the church is also waking up and realizing that we cannot ignore those spaces. And so, man, we cannot afford not to be with them on those social media platforms.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:54):
Let’s talk about results. Last night you were sharing with me that about a year ago you set a goal of reaching 425,000. Yeah. Students. It
DJ Moz (14:06):
Was about two years ago.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:07):
Two years
DJ Moz (14:08):
Ago. Yeah. We wanted to reach out to 450,000 students by June of this year.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:12):
Okay. Yeah. And so you’ve just completed that time period, and you’ve looked at your numbers. What results have you seen in this two year period? Oh man,
DJ Moz (14:22):
<Laugh>, it’s unreal. It hit me, so hit me Good. Because you don’t even realize it. But we had just crossed the 1 million mark.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:35):
Wow. So you more than doubled more than initial goal. Yes. 450,000. Yes. You’ve already hit a million.
DJ Moz (14:42):
We’ve already hit a million. Wow. God is good. God is good. And it, it reminds me of, you know, when Jesus Christ says that the open your eyes, the fields are white, the harvest is plenty, but the laborers are few. That’s very, very real with what we are experiencing. And I know there’s some people who might be like, you know it’s responsible what you guys are doing, but be like, man, Jesus Christ said that the harvest is plenty, but the laborers are few. All we are doing is harvesting what we need are more laborers in. And what we also do need is for the church to rise up and to come and walk along and be able to disciple the young people and not just here, you know, it’s happening all over the world, like sitting with you and you’re telling me that you’re planning to go to El Salvador and you know, God is opening those doors. Think about the highway that’s gonna come.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:33):
Amen.
DJ Moz (15:34):
You know? And so some really, my mind is blown away. And I know we are just starting off in terms of so we, we, we, as we were dreaming about what to experience in the next two years, the 450,000 we’re believing in trusting God that by 2030 we will see. Because when we’re coming up with this plant, it was in 2019, then Covid hit <laugh>. So our plans were delayed by like two years. When we were dreaming, we wanted to reach out, wanted to see 10 million young people coming, giving their lives to Christ through our ministry. And from what we’ve seen we know that in order for us to get to those numbers, we need to reach out to at least 20 or 30 million young people through the school tour that you’re seeing. And so I know that we are just starting off, but it excites me because I’m like man, that number, God has shown us that it’s actually possible, it’s achievable. It’s not by power, it’s not by might, but by his spirit. But then the other thing is we can never sit and settle because Africa has a population of 1.3 billion people. Daniel, out of the 1.3 billion people, 70% are below the age of 30.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:46):
It’s a very young continent. It’s a very young, young. So if you want to reach this continent for Jesus, you have to have a strategy for reaching the young people.
DJ Moz (16:53):
Exactly. So if and even to break it down farther, 41% are below the age of 14.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:02):
Wow.
DJ Moz (17:03):
So if you’re not speaking to this young generation, then who are you speaking with? But I share those numbers just to, just to highlight that even though we are thinking of reaching out to 13 million young people, that’s like an a drop in the ocean. Yeah. Because there’s such a huge population of young people to reach out to. And so my prayer is that that God would raise more and more ev you know, evangelists and you know for more churches to be planted where we can be able to do life together with the young people who are giving their lives to Christ. And maybe even a bigger challenge is to challenge those who are listening to the podcast that don’t just listen to the podcast. I believe that God has called each and every one of us to be actively involved with sharing the gospel.
(17:46):
Otherwise how will they come? Amen. You know, how will they come? And so for those who are listening to the podcast, I just want to say you know, just do not look down on what you have or the spaces that God has placed you in, where God has placed you. He was intentional to place you there because there are people who need to see your lifestyle being lived out of about being a believer. You have an opportunity to share your faith with people when they come and ask you, what’s different about you? Why do you do things this way? Those are such good opportunities to be able to share the gospel or when you do life with them, when you celebrate birthdays with them, or you know, when they’re having weddings or when they’re going through a difficult time, your presence just being there speaks a lot. And they’ll be like, you are different from other people. What’s happening in your life?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:31):
Amen. Yeah. Well, it’s impossible to do what you’re doing without partnership. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I see that you are partnering with Love Kenya Festivals with Andrew Palau. Yeah. You’re also partnering with One Hope. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you’re distributing some of the literature from One Hope. Yeah. And Rob Hoskins leads such a great ministry. Yes, yes. And I saw even you’re partnering with the First Lady of the Nation of Kenya. Yes, we
DJ Moz (18:57):
Are <laugh>
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:58):
What a tremendous privilege. And so she’s opened up doors into the schools. Yes. Yes. And, and it’s impossible for, for you to do what you do without partnership. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so for people who are listening mm-hmm. <Affirmative> who maybe want to invest in helping to reach the young people in Africa mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, they, they want to become maybe a, a partner, a friend mm-hmm. <Affirmative> with your ministry. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, how can they find out more about you?
DJ Moz (19:24):
So they can log into our website that’s www.kubambateens.com.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:29):
Alright. You’ll have to spell Ku Bamba so people can find it.
DJ Moz (19:33):
It’s K U B A M B A. That’s Kuku Bamba and teens like teenagers teens.com.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:40):
Yeah. Mbba teens.com. Yes. And so I encourage you, if, if you want to help reach young people here in Kenya, and now you’re expanding, you want to go to other nations in Africa. Oh bro. I encourage you to, to find out more about DJ Moz. Yeah. And, and support this ministry because what a tremendous impact that you’re having. Thank you. I mean, this team over a million people now. It’s unreal Minister too. <Laugh>.
DJ Moz (20:05):
It’s unreal. And I’m really excited about, you know meeting and just hearing what’s happening and the beauty about working together with like global network of evangelists is meeting fellow evangelists, you know, being able to encourage each other and be able to rally each other around and just see how the great work that God is doing out there. I believe that God says, the Bible says that, you know, we’re seen abound, grace abound even more. And so the world is getting more darker, but then grace is even more readily available. And the thing is, God will never stop pursuing people to their last breath. He’s intentional. He’s intentional man. And the way that God turns people’s lives around is through individuals like you, like me and others who are out there reaching out. And so again, my great call to, you know, again, people who are listening to this podcast is, man, the harvest is plenty.
(21:05):
Whether it’s one that’s a celebration in heaven or whether it’s a million, that’s a celebration in heaven. We just need to be intentional and to engage with God in the task that he’s calling us to do. And we are not alone, bro. You know, God is with us. And if God before us, man, we’re more than conquerors who can be against us, we can be able to raise that culture that we call the culture of the unashamed of in where we’re not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because the Bible says every knee will bow. So it’s not a matter of if, but when.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:36):
Amen.
DJ Moz (21:36):
And every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Let’s give people the opportunity to do now, to do that now while they’re on this side of the sun. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:45):
Wonderful. Thank you. Well, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism podcast.
DJ Moz (21:49):
No, thank you so much, man. And keep, keep doing the work that you’re doing. Keep this podcast going on. And I’m really grateful for the platform and the opportunity to be part of this.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:58):
Yes, sir. I’m bless
DJ Moz (21:59):
You now. God bless You too, sir. Thank you, man.
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Lucian Mustata | Heartbeats Music Festival in Romania
Lucian Mustata leads the Heartbeats Music Festival in Romania. He has a heart to spark a revival that will spread across Europe. He was born an orphan but with God’s help he became a successful business owner. Now he has decided to use his success to fuel a movement to reach people for Jesus.
Learn more about the Heartbeats Music Festival: https://heartbeats.events/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today. I have a very special guest with me, Lucian Mustata. Yes. Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast.
Lucian Mustata (00:15):
Thank you for invite me and I want to send you regards and God bless you. And it’s nice to me also to be here. Thank you for invitation. It’s a very big honor to be with you, Daniel. I, I am like your, my friendship with you and a big honor for me.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:33):
I am so impressed with what you do. You started several years ago, Heartbeats Music Festival in the nation of Romania, and it has now grown, grown to be the largest Christian music festival in all of Eastern Europe. And so it is really impressive what God is doing through you. Tell me what gave you the idea that you wanted to start The Heartbeats Music Festival.
Lucian Mustata (01:06):
Heartbeats Festival starts six years ago. Because of my background of in it field, I was traveling a lot in Europe and serving in a church and how God work in my life. I have a lot of I all, what I have is from God and I ask God what I can do more for to serving the kingdom. And that come in my heart for this young generation who’s coming to, at East and I mean so often in Europe traveling, many young people who’s coming at East agnostic, I’m so shocked.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:49):
And agnostics,
Lucian Mustata (01:50):
Atheist. Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:51):
Yes. Secularism is very strong in your part of Europe.
Lucian Mustata (01:56):
And I was afraid we become minority and I’m making an image in exercise how will be Christian in 10 years where I will be. And they have a bad image about Christian. We are too traditional. We are too conservatory. We are too a block in something. Now that is not true. I want to show them we can be a real cult Christian, we can join Jesus. And I ask God what I can do for this generation, how I, we can speak, and then contemporary languages because generation A non-conservative, non, they, they don’t like traditional stuff. They don’t like, they don’t. Got it. Some of them don’t, haven’t trust anymore. In church, we don’t, I don’t speak specifically for ev Evangelic side Catholic Orthodox. It’s a, a generation who wants a real authentic relation with God. They want a real argue. They don’t like what’s his parents. They, they want to experiment is by serve the relation with God directly.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:08):
Yeah, I I agree. Absolutely. Our generation is looking for an authentic encounter with God. Yes. The traditions of the past don’t impress them anymore. No. But if they can really meet God for themselves, then they can have a good relationship with
Lucian Mustata (03:25):
Jesus. Yeah. And that is coming the idea because it’s a big demands in Europe, people spend bunch of money from festival, from entertainment in the secular side and in Romania, each festival die, four young people because of drugs.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:46):
Wow.
Lucian Mustata (03:48):
And I says, I, I should do something people had demand, they would love to do, to enjoy. And this is a real need. Why we not to have a festival that can, people can feel encouraged, we can together and gathering in Jesus and feeling they can see a big community, nice community, nice music workshops speaker, why not do that? All the domination congregation that’s coming in, my dear God provide me this vision in one of my dreams. And after that, he give me the name and God guide me by day by day open doors, I will show how God help me to that. And now we are in the third edition.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:35):
Wow. I’m so impressed with you. You were a successful business owner. You run an IT company, you do branding, you help develop websites, lots of great business opportunities in your life. And you’re very successful at that. You have 20 employees who, who work with you, but you saw the condition of the young people and you said something needs to be done to reach them for Jesus. And so you started the Heartbeats Festival and you festival is not a small festival. You’ve actually had some of the largest names in Christianity come as, as guests to, to speak and to sing at the festival. So I watched your video. You had John Maxwell, great leadership expert. You had Nick Hall. I also saw that you had Lecrae this year as one of the singers. Who are some of the other musicians that have come?
Lucian Mustata (05:32):
Jeremy Camp? We are messenger unspoken who should come for King and Country. We already was confirmed, but was postponed because of c
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:45):
So you had Evan Craft who I’ve worked with before.
Lucian Mustata (05:48):
Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s unbelievable how people respond. It’s not easy to, to ask people to come in the other side of the world, many people in all the countries as well. Is Romania on the map of the world? I’m afraid to come and it’s not easy. But with God, they’ll great relation and step by step, God will will help me to,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:12):
Let’s talk about some, about how heartbeats music festival has impacted lives in Romania. What testimonies have you seen come out of this event?
Lucian Mustata (06:25):
The first edition we saw over than 800,000, 800 people who decided to follow Jesus. Wow. We have in I think
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:37):
For Rome, for Europe. That that is an amazing number. Yes. Like here in Africa, we’re, we’re in Kenya, Africa right now, you know, we see 800 every day. But, but for Europe to see 800 young people make a commitment to follow Jesus, that is a miracle for the continent of Europe.
Lucian Mustata (06:55):
But also it’s a benefit for the awareness society. Yeah. I heard a benefit after six months or one years after the festival, one church told me, ah, we had 200 people more. Our church was grow because of the festival. And we had other church told me we had 10 people who back in church and there was not anymore coming in our church over than 10 years. And we, what is our how God work, I’m shock and I’m accomplish side of his love. And the secular side start to promote us, the, the one of the most influence of Romania, the Catholic church, the radio in the secular side. I don’t, I don’t understand what happened. I just happened. It is not my credits. It’s just God credit.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:46):
So even the secular radio stations were Yes. Were advertising Yeah. The
Lucian Mustata (07:50):
Event by free.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:52):
Wow. That now that’s a miracle, you know?
Lucian Mustata (07:54):
Yeah. They are four, 4 million people each day. Wow. And this is unbelievable. I think people need Jesus. And they, once our peace inner and anytime all what you try in this world, money, drugs, sex, never be happy. The only one who can really, and you can find your peace. And this is the creation. And I think people, it’s a, it’s starting to be become a revival Europe. And we are one of the most evangelic country in the Europe.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:29):
The, the country of Romania is one of the largest Yes. Evangelical Yes. Populations by percentage.
Lucian Mustata (08:34):
Yes. And I, I’ve, I have a vision and God told me will be a big revive to, for Europe, through Romania, we start a fire fate from, from Romania, from all the Europe.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:48):
So you wanted to start a fire in Romania and spread that revival across all of Europe.
Lucian Mustata (08:52):
Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:53):
That’s amen. Lord, make it be
Lucian Mustata (08:55):
So. Amen. Let’s
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:57):
Talk about your testimony, because when you were growing up, you didn’t have the most ideal circumstances. Tell me about what your life was like when you were a kid and, and you were a actually an orphan.
Lucian Mustata (09:12):
That is true. And I love to share my story because it’s a, it’s a real wonder for my life. And God makes so many he love me and he’ll help me to be where I am. I was growing originally from where I was in the beginning. The, the family leave me alone in the, from beginning when I was born in hospital, they abandoned me. And orphan from the government took me. And there was growing there until 18 18 years old was very tough life. I was not love. I was not, never say mother, father was a, in a, an environment, very violent. And the results, when you have take care of 50 people, you are object. There, you, you’re not a soul. And was, I was trying to work with myself to educate myself from people who I meet. Was
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:22):
You had no father, no mother, no one who loved you?
Lucian Mustata (10:25):
No. And nobody tell who what, what you do. How are you? And I’m trying to find my, my family. My father die and then result results of rape, repent. I’m results of the
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:39):
You, your birth was the result of your father raping your mother. Yes.
Lucian Mustata (10:44):
But is my real father is not in my identity card.
(10:50):
And I still have a, a problem with ab feeling with abandoned and trauma of this when people my friends, it’s not still stuck with me. For me, it’s more hard because it’s activated trigger of abandon from my heart for my life. Mm-Hmm. yes. And when I stay alone on Christmas without family, I have period without to have to eat. Because sometime people steal from me, them food or money. Mm-Hmm. I need to work from when I had eight 14 years old. I need to survive was very tough. But I was an I down and I wake up every time people call me like a fighter. And God, I’m trying to chasing why I live in this heart, this live this, this life, this life. Why God give me this life. I was fairly very, I feel very discouraged, very disappointed. And why I live, I, it made no sense to live this, this life to be alone, to see people who, in my school, I was very stigmatization how I, I dunno how it call in English.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:12):
Stigmatized,
Lucian Mustata (12:13):
Stigmatized people from school even I was very good in in school. They, because I was growing and that’s there, they don’t give me good Mark Transp. And also the, with a vulnerably group, who is that? People told me every time, you are stupid, you are stupid. And can sometimes can make in know heart. I’m real stupid. It was very, very hard. But when I, when I had 18 years old, because I stay alone on Christmas, and it’s very hard because I see everybody’s family. I decided to see in a concert every Christmas, a Christmas, a secular Christmas concert. But this, that period, I didn’t have money. And I saw on a, on a paper in a city, on a Christmas free one, and I was, there was in a church events. I didn’t know it was a church.
(13:21):
And after this Christmas events concert, I preachers speak 15 minutes what meaning of Christmas that make me to, to say, wow, I didn’t know this is means Christmas from my side, my word. It was just Christmas party gift, commercial. And that time make me to, put me to ask who you are, what you do here. And I’m starting my working with God to learning. I’m going this church every Sunday. And I, I, I was very hangry to read to, to see the lesson from Bible because it’s very authentic, even in our day. And the God changed my heart, my mind, and I find a real peace for my heart. And that way I understand my father is directly God and Jesus I find to be, I, I feel I’m love and God has a real plan with my life.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:26):
And he will never abandon you. Yes. How old were you when you heard that Christmas message that made you to start thinking about God?
Lucian Mustata (14:34):
18 years old.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:35):
Wow. Yes. And so you started your pathway towards God, and God began to bless you.
Lucian Mustata (14:43):
Yes. In that moment, I find how I need to live in this world. I find Christian is a lifestyle and I understand how can, can to be in the coordinator of God and God teach me how I can be blessed if I respect the rules and the Bible to live like that, Jesus to be on me, to live with Jesus and God because it’s directly Father, he provide me all that I need every time. I just have faith. And he helped me to finish college cybernetic to finish, to master degree sign political and project management. And I didn’t have money to pay for college and guide God helped me was 20,000 people for this test to enter in a college. I didn’t have money to pay to apply for this college. But because I was orphan, I was by law of allowed to have a free test. But the people from, there was nobody history to come in our college orphan to
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:57):
Receive. They never had an orphan take advantage. Yeah, yeah. Of the opportunity before
Lucian Mustata (16:00):
Our, by our rules in college, this not meant adaptable for that. They were shocked. They received kind of this request, but they make it to have this test and was just 20, was 20,000 people applying just for 600 places in this college. And 300 was scholarship and 300 after we, we need to pay 2003 years Euro. And I was crying when I saw I was 312. I was shocked. I don’t know how the lady from commission make it to have this test, but God help me to, to have a pleasure. But after two weeks, I should pay all the amount for the years.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:53):
And, and you didn’t have the money. No. You were an orphan. You were hoping to get the scholarship. You got into school out of 20,000, you’re one of the 600, but you just fell short of getting the scholarship for the 300. This is
Lucian Mustata (17:07):
So what happened? This was my chance for my future. I, I know it. If I will not, I will, I will show all the people who stole me. I’m a stupid, I can make it and God help me to do that. And I, I need to pay to every day to cook, for me to clean, for me to work every day. And study was so hard to, I didn’t, was too over my power. And I was growing and I was to church. I am praying and I ask, God, please help me. I I have trust in you. I do my, my part. Please God, do your part. And the last day I receive a call. I, I loaned someone, but not enough. I was so scary. I will lose my places, my chance for the future. And then the lady who received me from the commission to, when I applied for, to enter the, the test, she called me and, Hey, you are Lucian. Yes. do you want money from me? From the test applying? Says, no, no, no. Don’t worry about this. This guy was scared. She wants more money from the applying. She says, have a big problem. Then you’re thinking, oh, what happened? She says, Lucian, over the three, three nights, God wake me up three o’clock in the morning, I’m crying. And God told me to pay all the school.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:32):
Wow.
Lucian Mustata (18:33):
And I was over crying. And I don’t understand how God’s working this unbelievable. She meet me just two minutes in all my entire life.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:45):
And God spoke to her. Yes. To pay for your schooling. Yes. What a miracle.
Lucian Mustata (18:49):
Many kind of, this was in my heart, in my life. I can all what I have is because of God. And for that reason, I decided to all what I say with my company to invest in, in a ministry for the next generation from the kingdom. I can be selfish. I can buy parchments, rent people, and I can enjoy my life to be selfish. Like what? Dominican many business people. But no, I decided it’s not, it is not correct. All I have is because of God and I need to, because when God give more people, he’ll request to much overlap for people. And then I, I feel honored to serving the kingdom and God will provide. It was very hard to do this, a big sacrifice to do this festival, the budget. It’s insane. It’s very hard in, even in Europe, it’s more expensive in other country. And this is a tough country that we are in a Baptist of 60, the traditional church. Some people, some of church believe we are too earth.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:50):
And so the, the church in Romania very traditional. Yes. And they don’t necessarily know what to think about having lights and smoke and, and loud music.
Lucian Mustata (20:01):
Yeah. Our heart is to go to the secular side and God was stay on the, on to, to eat with the people out of the church. And our heart is to, to become our dream, dream of God, to save the lost people. And we need to be with them and to encourage them. It’s a fighting of generation now. We need not need to stay in our bubble to make a our world is perfect because in our round in church is perfect. That is not true. The the realities, the young generation, they don’t anymore believe in God. And we need to make something. If fer not do something will be very hard for us. And we have a real, we have a real Jesus. We need to make it something for that.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:51):
Amen. Well, it requires a lot of money and resources in order to pull off a music festival at this level of quality and professionalism and bringing in such amazing guests from all over the world. If someone wants to help you out with reaching Romania for Jesus and really having an impact on all of Eastern Europe, how can they get in touch with you? Can they go to your, your website? It’s heartbeats events.
Lucian Mustata (21:22):
Yes, that is true. They can write us there and they can pray for us. We are, we really need help to be uniting in the kingdom resources. We are looking for ministry partners and we are very open to that. This is not my, this is a project of God and we invite people to celebrate with us what God do in Europe. And if you want to be part of this ministry and celebrate with what, what God do in Europe, it’s amazing. We also, we are serving for free Ukrainian people because now they’re in a big news and this is only one God can offer them the peace in heart.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:03):
You have lots of Ukrainians coming across the border. Yeah. Two into Romania.
Lucian Mustata (22:07):
Wow. 2 million people coming in a we need, we want to serving them. We offer free tickets. We’re consulting, healing, and we want to be a really blessed, they need God now. And I we forget to tell you the vision of the HARs is not in in a crochet, just, it’s a big movement than that. The, we are one of the largest Christian festival, but we are part of the movement. We want to reach 1 million, at least in on the next 10 years. Rich people through the believer. We want all the years to promote through the platform, to keep and disciples, believers, how they going and commit to bring unbelievers and to make to expose to the Bible, to the gospel. And our goal and our vision is to reach 1 million, at least in next 10 years in East Europe.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:06):
Amen. Yeah. Well, I believe you can do it. You know, some people have said that Europe is a post-Christian country. It used to be Christian, but now it’s secular. But I like to say Europe is a pre-Christian continent and they are ready and ripe to come to Jesus. The harvest fields are ripe. And God says, just pray for laborers to be sent out into the harvest fields. And I am so thankful that you have stood up to be one of those laborers. And I’m so impressed with what you’re doing in Romania with a heartbeats festival and this movement to reach a million people over the next 10 years. What a tremendous blessing that is.
Lucian Mustata (23:47):
Thank you, brother. And I feel my friendship with you. I’m so glad I meet you in my life and I feel so encouraged about your ministry and yes. Through an orphan, God can do it. People with nobody can grow people. And the grow generation you sees, God, how’s moving? It’s it’s unbelievable.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:09):
I got one more question for you. Will you invite me to come to Romania? Of
Lucian Mustata (24:13):
Course. We’d love to be our, one of the preacher and to be encouraged to for the next generation. Brother, thank you very much.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:22):
Awesome. I’ve been praying for Europe, and so I believe that the time will come where we will see a great harvest together working in Europe. Thank you Lucian, for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
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Moses Muguro | Empowering the Local Church for Evangelism
Moses Muguro pastors in Nairobi, Kenya. He completed his Doctorate of Ministry at Multnoma University. The focus of his research was evangelism in the local church. He is implementing his research in his church with innovative ideas like using sports for evangelism. You will be inspired as you listen to the story of what he is doing to reach people for Jesus in Kenya.
Connect with Pastor Moses Muguro on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/moses.muguro
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today I am in Nairobi, Kenya with my good friend, pastor Moses Muguro . Thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Moses Muguro (00:15):
Thank you very much Dr. Daniel King for this coming to Kenya and this moment to be with you. This is a miracle
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:23):
<Laugh>. Now, yesterday we had a wonderful time. I flew in 7:30 AM I landed. Yes. And you came to the airport. You picked me up, took me straight over to your church. And I had the wonderful privilege and opportunity of, of ministering. And you have such a beautiful church. It’s you, you’re so
Moses Muguro (00:42):
Blessed. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Yeah. The Lord has blessed us in amazing ways. But one of the things with our church is we are a church that has a focus to reach out, not to stay within the four corners of the church. We have an obligation and we usually, I usually tell the church and we tell each other, we are not just building a church. It’s Jesus who said, I will build my church. Our work is to go out and bring sinners to Christ. So we are there to be equipped in the church. It is an equipping station at the congregation. This is just an equipping station. You get equipped, but you don’t stay inside. The work is out there. We minister to the people inside when they get saved, and then we release them into their destinations, into their fields. That is what we feel as a church. God has called us for
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:37):
Now. What is the name of your church?
Moses Muguro (01:39):
It is called Pentecostal Evangelistic Fellowship of Africa. All Nations Gospel by Church Perfa per stands, Pentecostal Evangelistic Fellowship of Africa.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:49):
Wow. It was such a, a privilege to be there yesterday. Now, you and I have been friends for a while now. Yes. We first met at Multnomah University Yes. In Portland, Oregon. Yes. You were there studying with Dr. Tim Rob net. Yes. And he has one of the only evangelism programs at the doctoral level in the entire United States. And so you are going through the, the doctorate of Ministry program there at Multnomah University, and the focus of your research was evangelism. And so I, I had the opportunity to take one class, and so we met, we became friends. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And you also have a brother George. He a twin
Moses Muguro (02:31):
Brother
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:32):
George, who is your twin. And so both of you love Jesus and are serving the Lord. Indeed. Indeed. Now, now tell me a little bit about the research that you did for your doctorate to ministry.
Moses Muguro (02:44):
Yeah. it was a miracle meeting with you at the Morton University, and just God connected us. And my, the, my research, the focus of my paper is raising evangelist in the local churches. And I specifically gave that to my church because I began raising local evangelist in local churches. The evangelist, especially in Africa, is not the, the, the evangelist is not recognized. He’s not identified. Is that is a By the way, we are planning evangelism meeting next week. So where is the evangelist? But in my, in my focus, I began raising local evangelist. And every fortnight, every two weeks, I began a class for evangelist. Every Sunday afternoon, bring the evangelist from my church and other churches and just begin to train them to work with them, to equip them. We get to hear their testimonies, what God is doing.
(03:46):
And in my, in my church, I have evangelist and some of them are in the pay, pay payroll because the, the, the evangelist is a very vital part of the body of Christ. Christ gave us the apostles, the prophet, the evangelist, the pastor, the teacher. So the evangelist is part of the part of the minister to equip the body and also to go out. And so that’s what we do. Every fortnight, the evangelists come, and I also invite other evangelists outside to come and share with them to equip them. And it is amazing what God is doing when we begin to align ourselves and hear the voice of the Holy Spirit on the place of evangelist and then time harvest.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:37):
And so how have you implemented this research in your church? What results have you seen?
Moses Muguro (04:46):
Thank you very much. I have seen for the last actually more than three years, I have seen the evangelist gaining, number one, gaining confidence and recognize and being recognized in the body of Christ. As ministers, they’re being recognized and they’re being identified, and they’re being helped even financially. I mean, people standing with them and saying, yes, this is very important. This is very key. And even the church recognizing we have to embrace the evangelist, the office of the evangelist, and also the local evangelist. We have to work with them. We have to allow them to minister both within and outside. So I’ve seen churches, not just even my church, I’ve seen churches realizing this is important. Pastor Moses is doing this. I’m a pastor and an evangelist. I’m an evangelist and a pastor. I don’t know which comes first. I, I, I realize I, I operate in both offices. And by the grace of God, I have been able to identify, equip, and even empower and begin to release to release evangelist into the harvest field.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:06):
I think this is so important because often in the church, the pastor is recognized mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, if you feel called to be in ministry. Yes. Then people say, oh, you must be called to be a pastor. Yes. But the, the gift of the evangelist is a little bit different than the gift of the, the pastor. And sometimes what you find is that evangelists who are called to be evangelists, they get pushed into being pastors. And, and then if they, they try to do evangelism, there doesn’t seem to be a place for them. And so I think it’s so important to elevate and lift up the, the understanding of the office of the evangelists. We need evangelists in the church.
Moses Muguro (06:47):
And, and, and what you’re saying is very true, especially for Africa. It is been bad. We, we had stretched to the extreme where the evangelist was like evangelism work, and the evangelist was left for the young people, the guys who have nothing to do. If you’re called to the ministry, go to the Bible school. You are sent to the church to be a pastor. And many of them struggled because when you are an evangelist and you’re fixed into an office that is not yours or into a ministry that is not yours, you’ll always struggle. You’ll always have scam something like, no, there is something. I’m missing the calling of God. The mantra of God in my life is I am an evangelist. And when I began to equip evangelists, like some of them, I’ll buy them even portable public address system and give them, they’ll be so excited the following day I’ll see them reaching out, and I’m like, you are an evangelist.
(07:47):
You have been fixed to be a Bible teacher. But look, you are now your voice. Look at your passion. Look at the heartbeat, everything about you. You actually realize this is who God called me into. This is from the creation of the world. God wanted me to be a proclaimer of the good news of Jesus Christ, and to proclaim it as an evangelist. So I have, it is one evangelist, is one of the people who are actually, we are waiting for the ministry of evangelism to be fulfilled. Then Jesus comes the gospel to be proclaimed everywhere. And Jesus comes. So he’s one of the key persons who is very vital in this time season.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:35):
Take a moment to talk to other African pastors if they want to lift up evangelism in their church. First of all, how do they identify people in the church who maybe have the gift of an evangelist? And then second, how do they start to give opportunities to evangelists, to, to preach the gospel. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And then how do they train them so that they can be equipped to really do the ministry that God has called them to do? How can we here in Africa start to lift up more evangelists?
Moses Muguro (09:08):
Yeah. Thank you very much. The first and the most important thing is when, when, when, when a believer has come to Christ and has been discipled given raised and given the word of God and now reached, and then this person begins, usually you find people who begin to volunteer. They’re giving themselves, they’re saying, I need to serve. I need to do somewhere. And then you realize this is, this is a, it’s like a baby, and I can see a talent. They’re, they’re, they’re pulling well on this side, they’re doing well on this side. And then you begin to, to tap that talent. And all of the things I do is identify them in the church. And then I create a forum. You, you, you, you, you have a passion. You, you want to, and I begin teaching the whole church the importance of evangelism.
(10:00):
And there are people who will volunteer, call them out. Please come. If this is your heartbeat, if, if you feel that God has laid a burden for sins, come, we want to walk with you. So I identify them, and then I begin to see little talent. This person is flowing in the outdoors. This person has a talent in this area. I begin to sharpen them to walk with them. You, you are in the marketplace, evangelist. I want you to go there. You are a full-time evangelist. I want you to be quit. I have sent some to Bible school not to be quit as pastors, to be quit and nourished and given the right staff. Then when they come out, I begin now to give them to, we create the class. When we created the class, the people we had sent to Bible school, they also need to come to the evangelism class.
(10:50):
Then I give them public address systems, drugs, materials. And then I give them opportunity. I give these people opportunity even to teach, to teach in the church the importance of evangelism. Another teachings, some of my evangelists have given them topics. Topics. This is an evangelist who was growing up, teachers about Stephen was an evangelist. Bring to us a character of Stephen. And then I give the evangelist to do that homework, and they give, bring it out that well, but I’m building also these evangelists to pick these characters and to build up with them. And then I give them also Sunday service to minister to the church, because the ministry of evangelism and the minister of the evangelist has a lot of blessings. It carries with it healing and encouragement, comfort, both within the church and outside the church. And I see God using them in different aspects.
(11:46):
They’re releasing different encouragement to the body. And then they go out. They have a lot of boldness. The pastor has commissioned us because if they’re not commissioned, they’ll not be, they’ll be operating within any umbrella. I mean, outside an umbrella, they can be attacked. So I commission them go to this direction but come back and report and tell me what happened. Go to the school, come back and report what happened. So the pastors in Africa, we must first of all identify. They’re already there. They’re already there. The giftings of the evangelism evangelist is already in the church. Identify, then you recruit, beginning listing. In my church, I had to enlist. I had to write down, write down your name in that particular class. Then from there, train them, equip them, send them to Bible school, have classes within the church. Then opportunity, open opportunities for them. Because if you don’t also open opportunities for them, they might not have the strength to knock doors, but when they go with a, like, they need a letterhead, an introduction letter to go to this school, that gives them a, a very big platform. They’re recognized. You’re coming from this direction. So it is very important we begin working those steps by steps and begin to create an awareness in the church that evangelists are part of the ministry of the church.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:17):
Now, you have actually implemented these ideas in your church, and one of your innovative ideas is to do evangelism by sports. Yes. And so you are starting a basketball tournament inviting many different basketball teams from your neighborhood to come to the church. And then you plan to sponsor them playing against one another, then feed them and, and give them something. And, and then evangelize, tell these basketball players about Jews. So yesterday we went and we anointed the basketball court as a tool for evangelism. Yes. And then you also plan to do the same thing with football. Tell, tell me some about those plans and what you hope to see God do.
Moses Muguro (14:04):
Yeah. you know, evangelist King, one of the things that God is doing with the, this generation of evangelist is we just have to ask God for ideas. Yeah. because God is not limited with ideas. Even in Africa, we don’t have those big resources, but God can give us fresh ideas because God is a God of freshness every morning, fresh manner. Yeah. And so we’ve been doing different approaches, which I can share of evangelism going out street evangelism pray, walking in our estate evangelism. And recently we said, why don’t we now begin to be to create a very good awareness, friendship to these young people in the community. And we we, we just begin to brainstorm and say, Hey, what are the approaches? And one of the approaches, sport evangelisms evangelism through sports, and we said with the young people, we are starting with the basketball.
(15:08):
And guess what? We changed our parking lot into a basketball co a pitch. So Saturday, I called the painter, paint this place and make it a basketball pitch. And I had told the, the, the young people on Sunday, we’ll be anointing the ground and releasing the game. And the, by the grace of God evangelist King is here on Sunday. So we anointed that basketball pitch, which is our parking lot. And I’m sure some of the members of the church are like, oh, pastor’s bringing sports into the church. But you see, the thing is, when I went there yesterday after the church by five, I was in the, in the, in the church. And the boys were playing, and they were about a hundred and something boys and girls who had come to watch the game. And my, my, my evangelism, young people were evangelists, were the, my evangelism team were witnessing to these boys.
(16:11):
And we had put Christian music. And these are boys I’ve never seen in church. These are boys who are not Christians. And remember, we have anointed the field and we have said, whoever steps in here, the power of God must touch them. I was excited because the only way for us to reach this generation, like the young people, is to befriend them, is to go to them and tell them, I’m a friend. I am a parent. I have a, I have a, I have a young boy you prayed for who graduated my son wisdom. And for me to become a friend to wisdom, I mean, to reach him, I have become, to become a friend. And I know with sports, every boy loves sports. So I could see all these boys, and they are happy. They’re like, dads have not come here to bo bundles with the, with a gospel message.
(17:03):
But they are creating a forum for us to have fun. As they’re having fun. I’m also taking care of their health. They’re not at home just watching cheap televisions that we get from China, wasting their time. They’re exercising. Number two. Number three, I’m keeping them engaged in the right environment. They’re not going out there where they can do all kinds of things. Drugs. They’re within the safe environment. Every parent would want to release their boys and girls. I could see the girls there. I could see children there. Parents were very comfortable. Number four, it is an opportunity for these boys because many of them are not working. We have a lot of joblessness. Yeah. So now we are beginning to see, we can form a sports club that can go very far. That was begun by a church. That is a vision for the young people. And the vision for the, for president and the leadership in Africa is to engage in our young people in productivity. So they become product. And now the main thing, number five, we are winning them to Christ. Wow. So this is the focus for the men. We have begun, we have begun soccer evangelism through through sports soccer.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:21):
Now here in Kenya, do you call it soccer or football?
Moses Muguro (18:23):
We call it football.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:24):
Okay. So, so football, half, most of the world calls it football. In America, we say soccer. But let’s think about the math. Yesterday in, in, in church, you said that you had 20 teams that signed up for the tournament. And each team has 20 players. Yes. And so, 20 times 20, 400, 400, you are going to have the opportunity to impact the lives of 400 young people. And plus, when all the boys come to play soccer, all the girls will come to watch them. Yes. The parents will come to watch them. And you will have the opportunity to have a major impact in your area.
Moses Muguro (19:04):
I have never worked this way before, but I believe it’s the vision of the Holy Spirit. ’cause We’ve been praying, we have a prayer center. We’ve put the map of Africa, the map of the world, and we’ve been saying, Lord, give us a nation ask of the Lord. And he give you the nation for an inheritance. Yeah. And even for a community. And the men, as we were talking, they said, why don’t you do soccer, football? And as, as, as I told you, they have invited 20 teams and they have invited the member of Parliament for our community. They have invited the, the member of County Assembly. They have invited different groups. They have hired public address system. We have hired the biggest field in our community, the biggest field that is owned by the Kenya Airport Authority. They have allowed us, because it is a big tournament, tournaments are coming.
(19:55):
They’re hearing that this is happening. We are sponsoring as a church. It is not cheap. But the gospel is not cheap. The gospel is not cheap. And I think many times when we make it cheap, that is when we get cheap results. So we are saying, as a church, we will do everything possible. Let these things come, let them pray, let them play. Let them go the professional way. We’ll have professional coaches, professional referees, and everybody, but we are winning these people to Christ before the games. We pray after the games, we pray for them. We share the gospel with them. They have accepted that. And because we are we, we, we, they have accepted us. We are not condemning them. We are telling them, come, come on, come with your friends. This is a nice time. Because we have a lot of, you see these men and these young boys and girls, many of them are not working.
(20:51):
This will be holidays, especially for the soccer. So they’ll all be there. And we have three days. We are doing it for three days, three consecutive days. We have a winner, a cup that will be donated. We are asking the member of parliament to come and present it. And we want him also to hear the gospel plus his enter, plus his team and the whole community. And this is what we, this is what I’ve come to realize eventually is also have to keep asking God for step past. What is the next level, Lord, if you are in this community, how will you reach them? And Christ will use all these avenues. He’ll use the boat to sit down. Yeah. He’ll use the net. He’ll use all those things. And we now have to begin using the boats, the nets, the donkeys of our days, all those opportunities that are there to bring people the recreation.
(21:50):
Christ would go to the seaside and minister to people, because that’s a good place. That’s a good spot for people. There was grass where Christ was teaching, and he was organizing all these people. Disciples let them sit in 50. And when we begin to see the aspect of Lord, give us direction, give us freshness. Give us all these platforms that are in this planet for us to communicate the gospel, then these sins, they’re ready to receive the gospel. They’re ready to hear. Actually, I think we’ve, I’ve come to realize the biggest problem has been the church. Because the church, we closed ourselves to the four corners. And we thought our, our main business is a four corners. We have the best choir in the church. We stay there. Seniors will not come there. There’ll be one or two or three. And that’s why in our sports evangelism, like yesterday, all these bad boys were outside comfortable.
(22:52):
They’re comfortable. They’re like, oh, we don’t see here guys. The pastor with the collar and everybody chasing us and telling us, can you be seated here? Well, and can you be quiet? They were all cheering. They were all loud. Wow. I was telling them, cheer your team this is a beach and be happy, have fun. But at the end of it, I know I am breaking an ice. Where they have seen the church is like, I’m not welcome. We are telling them we are actually not inside the church. We are outside where God is. And I believe this is the direction the, the, the Lord is showing us as a church. We just have to keep out going out. We are an equipping sta station as a church to be equipped. And then we can’t stay with all this energy. If we stay with all this energy. Oh, they’re like the fallers. If we stay here, we die. We’d rather go out. We’d rather at midnight wake up, go meet this army. And we realize God is at work. The angels are at work. The Holy Spirit is at, and he’s waiting for just the fallers. So in Africa, we are like those people, but we are realizing the light has come. The light has come. Well, I
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:07):
Love your heart for evangelism, your heart, for raising up evangelism in the local church. And I believe God will give you a great harvest of souls.
Moses Muguro (24:18):
Amen. Through
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:19):
This evangelism by sports. Amen. It is a big investment for your church. Yes. But I believe that it will produce great results in the years to come. And, and God will give you many people that will, will come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. These young people. God’s gonna raise them up to be Yes. Leaders here in Africa. Amen. And pastors and evangelists and, and great business leaders and politicians and Amen. And so God’s gonna do many things through this outreach.
Moses Muguro (24:49):
You know, one young man who came there, had, had, had gone back was once a Christian and went back and he came and he was drunk. He was a young man. I knew him. Yeah. And his name is David. And he told me, you know, pastor, I’m back. I’m back to me, for him to tell me I’m back, it was like the prodigal son coming back home. And you see, I could try many ways to reach him, but he saw his friends outside the church court playing and his arm back. Wow. So we have to, you know, all these people they’re waiting to be received. Mm-Hmm. The, the, the, the, we have just to open our hands, our hearts and our resources, and receive all these sons and daughters because they’re the God loves them. God caress for them.
(25:46):
God is thinking while we are inside the church, God is saying, but I have other ship who are out there, and I leave the 99, I go and I go for those ones. So you have to partner with God when he’s leaving the 99 to go for the one ship. And that’s what, as a church, we are saying, there’s this one ship. And when Christ is leaving the 99, I don’t want to be in the 99. I want to be with Christ when he’s going for this one to bring this one to the 99. So that’s what God has put into my heart as an evangelist. And even raising other evangelist. We now have to be uncomfortable. We have to be uncomfortable where we’ve been so comfortable. Things are like everything is okay in the church. No. I believe even the reason why there is a stirring up in many churches is because we don’t go out. If we go out, then we’ll bring freshness. But if we don’t go out, there’s no freshness in the church. So that’s what I told my church. If you don’t go out, we’ll be fighting the choir. Do not sing good songs today. But let’s, let’s take the choir outside and you realize those songs are good <laugh>.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:55):
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you being on the Evangelism podcast.
Moses Muguro (27:00):
Thank you. Thank you, Dr. King. I appreciate you coming to Africa. This is very prophetic. And you, you released a prophetic word in my church. We are going far. Amen. We are experiencing a new level in Jesus
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:15):
Name. Well, we are a pair of docs. Amen. Dr. Moses. Yes. Dr. Daniel together. Yes. Winning the world for
Moses Muguro (27:22):
Jesus. Winning the world for Jesus. Amen. And thank you for your testimonies. How when you grew up, you are Jesus. That was
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:30):
<Laugh>
Moses Muguro (27:31):
What?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:31):
Thank Yeah. In the drama. I always play the part of Jesus in the drama to lead people to Jesus.
Moses Muguro (27:36):
Amen. Amen. You’re an encouragement to the evangelist in Africa. Thank
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:42):
You. And
Moses Muguro (27:42):
Keep coming to Africa.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:43):
Oh, I love Africa. Amen. It is wonderful to be here in Kenya.
Moses Muguro (27:47):
Amen. Amen. God bless you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:49):
Amen. I’ll come back.
Moses Muguro (27:50):
Welcome. And you are welcome, Kenya. Make it one of your headquarters and we’ll be very happy because we have to reach Somalia. We have to reach a Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan right now. Yeah. It is in chaos. Central Africa Republic. We have to Libya. Libya is in Kios, and we have to go out Egypt Malawi, Mozambique, those African countries. I, I’ve been to a few and I shed tears because they need a gospel. Amen. They need a gospel.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:24):
Amen. Well, I believe that God will raise up young people in your church that you’ll even begin to send out as evangelists and missionaries. Oh, yes. Across this entire part of Africa.
Moses Muguro (28:34):
Oh, yes. Oh yes. That, that’s, that’s our heartbeat. We have the map of Africa in our prayer room and actually the whole map of the world and also the map of Africa and rich people groups. And we have all these nations and we keep praying for them. But now I’m saying the harvest is playing for the laborers are few. Lord, send the labors. And we are the labors. Yeah. So we also have to begin hearing the Lord saying, now go. Now go. I mean, God answers, but he also comes and says, you, you are the solution. You have the answer. So I’ve been telling them, Somalia, we have to go. If you don’t go, then they will. There will be instability in Somali. They’ll come to us. When they come to us. They’ll disturb us. When they disturb us. We have no option but to go pray for them. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, go speak to them. And we have seen a little bit of that in Kenya. And I tell my Kenyan, my Kenyan ministers, we should be careful because, because we are not going to them. God will bring them to us. Amen. And he’s doing
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:33):
It. Amen. Amen.
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Nick Hurst | Young Evangelist Launches Out
Nick Hurst is a young evangelist who is on the brink of doing big things for God. He was one of the Pulse 100 evangelists who were trained by Evangelist Nick Hall. Over 1.48 million people have already subscribed to Chelsea and Nick’s YouTube channel and today he gives some advice to evangelists who want to be used by God on social media.
Follow Nick Hurst on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialnickh/?hl=en
Check out Nick and Chelsea’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ChelseaandNick
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus Today. I have a very special guest with me, Nick Hurst. Thank you for joining me on the Evangelism Podcast,
Evangelist Nick Hurst (00:11):
Man. Honored to be with you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:13):
We are in Kenya, and we are involved in a gospel festival here with Love Kenya. It’s organized by the global evangelist or global network of evangelists, a ministry under Luis Palau Ministries. And you came here as one of the guest evangelists, and I’m also here participating in the event. And so it’s been so good to get to know
Evangelist Nick Hurst (00:42):
You. Yeah, man. Likewise, just hearing your story, you know, I’ve looked up to your ministry for a long time, but seeing you in the flesh and hearing details and just what God sent in your life and through your ministry, and the lessons learned along the way, I mean, it’s been really insightful for me as a young guy, you know, just kind of working my way into, you know, the, the festivals a bit more and just hearing different perspectives on it has been really, really valuable. So I appreciate you, appreciate your ministry and appreciate this podcast and how it helps, you know, other evangelists too.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:11):
Yeah, absolutely. Now you say you’re young. How old are
Evangelist Nick Hurst (01:14):
You right now? I’m 25.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:16):
- So you’re just launching out in the evangelistic calling that God has on your life. How did you know that you were called to be an evangelist?
Evangelist Nick Hurst (01:26):
Hmm. That’s such a good question. Yeah. You know, I was 14 years old when I gave my life to Jesus. I was at a summer camp in boiling Springs in North Carolina, and I gave my life to Jesus. But that same night, I sensed that God was calling me to the ministry. Now, in my context where I come from, I thought that I was going to take over the family farm with my brother, and that we were going to be co-owners. And that was really the future that I saw for myself. And then God just really got a hold of my heart, and Jesus really became the biggest part of my story, became the biggest part of my life. He became the central focus of everything and really changed my life in a moment. And I knew that God was calling me to ministry. Now, the tougher part of that story is I didn’t know what part of ministry.
(02:13):
I didn’t know if I was called to be a pastor. I didn’t know if I was called to be a teacher. I didn’t know if I was called to be in worship ministry. I didn’t know if I was called to be an evangelism. I, I, I really didn’t know. So I prayed for six months after I gave my life to Jesus, knowing that I was called to ministry, but seeking an answer from God as to where in ministry I was supposed to be, where he had gifted me and where he was calling me. And so I prayed for six months and in early 2013, so the following year, so summer of 12, I give my life to Jesus. And early the next year in 2013, I I attend an event in Jacksonville, Florida. I’m from the north north central region of the state of Florida.
(02:58):
And I go to event and I hear this evangelist, remarkable evangelist, great friend to you and I both named Nick Hall. And Nick is at this event, and he is preaching. And all of a sudden I just sense the room go quiet. And I thought it was really awkward because I thought, you know, the tech guy’s gonna run out on the stage, you know, give Nick a new mic so that he can keep preaching. But that’s not what happened. And in fact, the whole time that the room is silent, I see my friends who are sitting next to me, who came with me to the event writing and taking notes in this arena, looking down at their notes, looking up at Nick, looking down at their notes and, and writing a bit more. And that’s when I realized that I was the only one who couldn’t hear Nick.
(03:41):
And in that moment of stillness, it was like the Lord placed a a moment of stillness on me and for me, and I just sense God, say I want you to go and preach the gospel, whether that’s big settings, small settings, anywhere in between to the one or to the a hundred thousand doesn’t really matter. But the, the important thing that I took away from that night was, Nick, I want you to preach the gospel to the lost, to those who don’t know me. And so I began to tell pastors, friends, leaders in my life at that point that I sensed God wanting me to go and share the gospel with the lost. And they began to affirm the call as an evangelist. Now, I had never heard that word. I didn’t even know what the word meant. And I was like, an, an evangel, what is an evangelist?
(04:29):
And then that, that’s when I finally understood, like, you know, they take me to Ephesians and they show me that when, you know, God has given different ministries to different ones, and one is evangelism, meaning that we take the gospel to the ends of the earth to the lost. And that day I realized, and it was affirmed and very, very clear to me that to be an evangelist was what God was calling me to do. It’s looked a lot of different ways over the years. It’s looked digital, it’s looked in person, it’s looked festival, it’s looked conferences, churches and then one-to-one peer-to-peer even as well. But that’s what the early days of, of God calling me to be an evangelist looked like.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:06):
Now you just recently finished up a program mm-hmm. <Affirmative> with Nick Hall. You were part of the Pulse 100 where he gathered a hundred people who had a calling for evangelism. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. What was that like? And what’d you learn?
Evangelist Nick Hurst (05:18):
That was incredible. You know, that was really incredible to learn from someone who, you know, has really traveled the world and in such an extensive way, like Nick has. And I have so much respect for Nick. I’m fortunate to call him friend, as are you. And you know, Nick’s a Nick’s an incredible man. He’s an incredible leader. He’s a faithful husband and and father to his children, and a great father of Jesus. So I have a immense respect for Nick. Being a part of Nick or being a part of Pulse 100 Rather, was truly a privilege because I think that, you know, I took away so much learning how much my story matters in the context of person to person, evangelism and, and even presentation proclamation, evangelism. People want to relate to a story. They want to see that you’re a real person, that it hasn’t always been rosy and, you know, and wonderful for you in every regard.
(06:14):
And so that was one big takeaway that I learned at Pulse 100. The, the other really big thing when people ask about my experience and time in Pulse 100 that I just always refer to, is, I think it just reaffirmed the importance of relationship. And I think it reaffirmed the importance of being in collaboration with other people who are like-minded as you, and want to see the same gospel of Jesus Christ, go into the world, reach every soul, and by God’s grace, save every soul, which it absolutely has the power to do. And so you know, I was just re-inspired, reinvigorated I think equipped in many ways. And then just the relationships that come with something like that was just so, so incredible. I call many of the peers that I went through Pulse 100 with great friends today, and that’s a real joy and privilege to, to do ministry in partnership and in collaboration with other people.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:10):
Now, you’ve developed relationships with several different organizations and great evangelists. What have you learned from some different evangelists that you’ve been able to spend time with?
Evangelist Nick Hurst (07:23):
Yeah, great question. I consider it the, the absolute grace of God to have built relationships with, you know, the Greg Laurie team and guys like Clayton King and the Billy Graham team and Louis Lau team, and obviously Nick and, you know, men like yourself as well. And that’s not to name drop. I mean, that’s just the, the grace of God and just the kindness of him. And I, I, I honestly joke a lot of times with people, and I’ll say that God had to give me the advice from all of those people because he knows that without them, there’s no way that I would be able to ever do it. So very fortunate for their input in my life. You know, one of the big threads that comes up the most when I think about what are the big ticket items that I’ve just learned from all of these great men and leaders, and I think the biggest one is that the personal life and the integrity and the character by which you walk in when no one’s looking is the biggest thing that matters more than anything.
(08:22):
God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. If I’m not living a life in private that I project in public, then God is not going to favor that. So that I think is one of the biggest things. And a lot of times when people are listening to this podcast, even I think that they will think, yeah, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that. But like, what are the practicals, Nick? And there are many practicals, but I think if we skip past the personal life, and if we skip past building our character and building our integrity and building our on the right focus and in the right way, then everything else is, is meaningless. I can have all the contacts, I can have all the practicals, I can have the biggest ministry budget, but if that house is built on the wrong foundation, you can be assured it’s going to fall.
(09:11):
So that’s the biggest thing that I, I would just say on the front end of things. The other things that I, I think are really relevant as far as practicals are taking the time to develop as a communicator and become dynamic. Learn how to speak with one person, learn how to speak in front of many people, learn how to become a great storyteller. This is something I love about you, Daniel, is that I, I, you know, I was telling you this last night in private too, but I just think that you are one of the master storytellers of our day, and that’s something that I look to your ministry for inspiration in. And so becoming a dynamic communicator is a really, really important thing. Knowing what to share, when to share, having a great knowledge of the scriptures is very, very important. And not only a knowledge of the scriptures, but a heart understanding and allowing God to change you and mold you as you minister and as you pour out.
(10:01):
Many times as evangelists, we’re so enamored by how this is going to change the lives of other people that we rarely ever sit and reflect on how God is working and ministering in us through the work that we get to do for his kingdom and with him in partnership. So those are just a couple of the really big ones that come to mind quickly. The last one that I’ll share is how important it is to leverage the opportunities that are right in front of us for the sake of the gospel. Everyone in this modern day and age where we’re all connected has some ability, has some has some fortitude to actually go forth and share the gospel in some way, whether it’s peer to peer, personal, small group, digital however that looks most natural and comfortable for each and every person. But we need to be taking the opportunities that God is putting in front of us and maximizing those to the fullest extent. That’s something that Billy Graham did, who you and I both look up to a lot. He would take every opportunity that was at his disposal, whether it was radio, whether it was newspapers or magazines or tv, anything like that. He would leverage every opportunity to bring the gospel to the front of humanity. And I think that we would be probably wise to do the same.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:20):
This is your first time preaching in Africa, and last night you had the opportunity to preach at a festival mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. What was that like doing that in that context for the first time?
Evangelist Nick Hurst (11:32):
Yeah, that was such a full circle moment for me in many ways. As a young man sensing this call to evangelism, I’m sure this is similar for you too. God begins giving you these dreams. He begins giving you these visions of what a ministry could look like one day, and, and believing for that and praying for that, and leaning into that and toiling. And, you know, working in partnership with God over all these years and just slowly developing those relationships is just such a, a valuable thing. But to see it come to pass and to, to see God deliver on what he promised, you know, to me as a young man, I think of, you know, 14, 15, 16 years old, just having these visions and dreams of what God may want to do with my life and, and, and seeing that happen in its context was just a really full circle moment for me.
(12:27):
And, and I just sense the kindness of God and his face turned towards me in that moment last night. It was a, it was a very beautiful thing and a real honor and a real privilege to get to share the stage with men like you and and some other friends that we have here with us. And more than anything, it’s, you know, not about me. It’s not about the evangelists. It’s not about any of that. It’s not about you or I, or, or even the program that we’re doing. It’s about the message of Jesus Christ. And so to be able to share his message with a generation and with a city, I just consider it a joy. And and I’m very humbled that God would use someone like me to, to, to do that. I, I don’t deserve it. I don’t earn it. I’m not good enough in any kind of way or any kind of facet, but, but he is, and he’s faithful to his promise, to to, to save people. And so he’s calling people to himself. He’s calling cities to himself, nations to himself, and a world to himself. And I believe that we’re just on the front end of it
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:28):
Now. You are right now laying the foundation for the ministry that God has called you to, and you’re going through a strategic planning process. Just thinking through how you’re going to communicate with our generation mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and what God has called you to do. What do you see in the future for what God has called you to do?
Evangelist Nick Hurst (13:50):
Yes. I do personally, I do not think that larger evangelistic events have completely subsided or gone away. I know that there’s a sector of people who really don’t believe in the larger event anymore. And I just think that’s really unfortunate. ’cause I believe that we have a big God, and I believe that he created a big world, and I believe that he created a big message in the gospel. And I believe that big events are awesome. We even see it in the Book of Acts. I mean, considering the amount of people that would’ve attended in acts at, at this day of Pentecost scene that we really see set. And to see this large crowd just gather together, enamored by this message that’s being shared I see that picture still working and still being leveraged and still and, and God continuing to be faithful to it in the days ahead.
(14:39):
I believe that God honors big vision. I believe that God honors big dreams. I believe that he smiles when we believe that he can do big things. And so I don’t see that going anywhere. And I would be telling you a fib if I told you that I didn’t believe that the big event, that the larger Evangelistic crusade event doesn’t work anymore. I just don’t believe that to be true. I believe they still work. I believe that God still has a unique position in place for them. And so over the next few years, I can’t give you a real 10 year, 20 year strategy because it never looks like what you think it will. But over the next five years, what we want to begin to do as a ministry is really break into the university sector. And we want to partner with on-campus ministries in the universities that are maybe collaborating in some sense, but they’re not really coming together for a large evangelistic outreach mission to reach their school.
(15:36):
I personally would love to see state schools, private schools, and every school in between come together for the sake of the gospel, every on-campus ministry from every sector and denomination of the faith to really to, to, to come together for a night of worship or a series of nights of worship, see the gospel proclaimed, have a great evening, and then call the loss to be saved. And then see them funnel back into these on-campus ministries and the churches that they’re partnered with for follow up and further discipleship and, and obviously us doing our part to stay connected with them, bolster them, uplift them, encourage them in any kind of way that we can, and remain in friendship, remain in partnership, and remain in ministry together in the days ahead. So really into that university sector. In the coming days, I just don’t believe that there is hardly a greater place on earth where we see a young lost generation, so concentrated, so gathered in the same place, and the opportunity is ripe to see a harvest for Christ in universities today. I truly believe that
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:41):
Now you’ve been blessed to grow a significant YouTube following and you even coach people on how to be effective at using YouTube. So what advice would you give to listeners who want to use YouTube to tell people about Jesus?
Evangelist Nick Hurst (17:02):
Great question. First thing I think I would say is that it is hard and that it takes time. Many of the creators I talk to get very discouraged early on because they’re not growing. They’re subscribers all that fast. They’re not growing, they’re video views all that fast. But in reality, it’s just like anything else. If a young baseball player steps onto an M l B field, they’re going to be severely outshined. And the reality is that it takes time to develop and to get good at something. Your skill in communicating the gospel is like very few on earth. I mean, you are a true master at, at, at sharing the gospel in every context. And I highly doubt that you just came out of the gate as a young evangelist with such a skill, with such a variety, with being so dynamic. And certainly God has gifted you, but it takes time to hone that craft.
(18:01):
It takes time to develop and to move and begin a really gaining skill. And YouTube is no exception. It takes time to develop the muscle for YouTube. It takes time to develop the muscle for social media. But as we are faithful to that, as we identify who we want to talk to, and, and the YouTube sector, we call that our target audience. As we develop our channel focus, meaning, you know, are we gonna have a channel around tech cooking vlogging, or are we gonna have evangelistic missional content on our channel? That’s the, if that’s the channel focus, then our target audience obviously needs to be the lost. And so we need to be positioning ourself not from a preaching, not from a, here’s my message. Very rarely does a lost person go on YouTube and type in a message about how to know Jesus Christ.
(18:50):
Most times a lost person is going to look for how to have hope, how to have peace, how to deal with the anxiety that I feel. And Billy Graham was a real master at this. His crusades would be censored around how, how to have hope in the midst of crisis and things that were pertaining to a broad audience. But it was something that everyone was dealing with, and it was a question everyone was asking. And so I think the more that we can center and position ourselves like that, if we are evangelists and, and begin to grow an audience in that way, that people come to us looking for hope. And the hope message that we have is the gospel. It’s everything. It’s the, it’s the central message of how we have hope now and how, how we have hope for eternity. And I believe that growing is social media audience is not just a numbers game.
(19:43):
I believe it’s a community game. For the longest time, it was, how many followers do you have? How many subscribers do you have engaged? Where the real emphasis now is moving towards a community, fostering a group of people, and, and almost in a sense, creating a family, a family dynamic where everyone is exchanging ideas, everyone is in communication with one another. Everyone is rallying around the same idea in harmony, almost like a big volunteer team. In a sense, that’s kind of the new community dynamic of social media. And I personally, I would much rather have a very highly engaged community of 25, 30, 50,000 people than I would have a large subscriber audience of three, four, 5 million people. Because the reality is we’re gonna get so much more done with those 50,000 who are all in, bought in a hundred percent with you than we are the three, 4 million people who it looks very impressive from a numbers standpoint, but you boil it down and you only see about five, 6,000 people engaged. Engagement is the key ticket item today in social media. And so that’s what I would encourage creators to look for, and that’s how I would encourage them to grow their channels.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:58):
If someone wants to connect with you, find out more about what you’re all about, what is a good way for them to follow your ministry?
Evangelist Nick Hurst (21:06):
Yeah, that’s a, that’s a awesome question. I appreciate you even being willing to tee that up. So my personal best way to connect is honestly over Instagram. I’m official Nick h on all socials. And my wife and I, we have a YouTube channel. You can go and find it. Just type in Chelsea and Nick, it’ll pop right up.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:27):
Now, how many followers do you have on YouTube?
Evangelist Nick Hurst (21:30):
We have a million and a half subscribers on YouTube. That’s
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:33):
Amazing. On YouTube. And, and what does your channel focus on?
Evangelist Nick Hurst (21:37):
Honestly, our channel is not an evangelistic channel. Oddly enough, our channel really focuses on our life and kind of our family dynamic with one another. And the things that we’re learning and the things that God’s teaching us, it’s more of a place for us to take time and, and devote videos to that. More than anything, it just tracks along the way as we grow as a family, as God’s teaching us, as he’s changing us and molding us and some adventures here and there along the way. So that’s the real impetus of our channel, and it’s a real joy to share those things with the world. And I appreciate you even allowing me to be on the podcast today. Yeah. It’s a real honor, real privilege. So I appreciate you and your ministry a lot, Daniel.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:16):
Well, I believe in your ministry. It’s been a pleasure to get to know you this week, and I believe that God’s hand is on you. And in the years to come, God’s gonna give you a great harvest of souls. Mm. I think God’s raising up a new generation of young people who he’s going to, to use to reach millions around the world. And it’s really exciting what God is doing right now. Like, like it’s amazing that someone could start a YouTube channel, even at the age of 25, and, and have an audience that would number in the millions, like technologically that wasn’t possible 50 years ago, but it’s possible now. And so even for young people who are dedicated to serving God and they, they’re, they’re willing to give their all for Jesus, I think God’s looking for people like that and he’s promoting them very quickly. Amen. And so what past generations took 50 years to do, I think your generation is going to see happen in a 32nd TikTok.
Evangelist Nick Hurst (23:16):
Mm-Hmm. Wow.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:17):
So thank you so much for being on the Evangelism podcast. I appreciate
Evangelist Nick Hurst (23:20):
It. Yeah, it was a real privilege. Thank you, Daniel.
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Tom Miyashiro | From Faith 2 Faith
Tom Miyashiro is the founder of From Faith 2 Faith, which ministers on the mission field of New England on the East Coast of the United States. His ministry focuses on youth centered, community-based outreach, and partnership with the local church. Today, you will be inspired as you listen to the story of everything God has done through his ministry.
Learn More: https://www.f2fmi.org/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus Today. I have a very special guest with me, TTom Miyashiro.
Tom Miyashiro (00:11):
You got it
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:12):
From a great ministry on the East coast of the United States called Faith to Faith. That’s it. Thank you so much for joining me on the Evangelism Podcast. It’s a
Tom Miyashiro (00:21):
Lot of fun to be here in Africa.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:23):
Yeah, we are here together in Kenya, Africa, in the city of Murang’a. We have been here for several days already, and today is the, the third day of the festival. We had a little bit of rain yesterday and so we were a little disappointed with the size of the crowd. But today the sun is out, the sun is shining, and they’ve just started the festival. They just sent us a picture. It looks like there’s already a lot of people there and you’re giving, and as soon as we’re get done with this tonight, we’re gonna go over there and
Tom Miyashiro (00:57):
The gospel and you’re gonna, you’re gonna rip it up tonight, right? Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:59):
You’re the guy. Absolutely Awesome. Amen. Alright, so let’s let’s talk a little bit about Faith to Faith. Sure. Tell me about the ministry. Who are you, what do you guys do?
Tom Miyashiro (01:09):
Faith to Faith is 22 years old. I started it when I was 19 and we like to say we’re spreading the gospel through youth centered, community-based outreach and partnership with the church. So what does that mean? It means for a good chunk of the last 20 years, I didn’t travel that much. I worked in one community as a community evangelist, and I tried to work with the same group of pastors over and over and over again. So it’s only been recently that I’ve come further out from that space. So
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:46):
Which community have you focused on over these years?
Tom Miyashiro (01:50):
Well I’m from the New England States. Well, I’m from Connecticut, which is one of the six New England states. But in recent years there’s been some good data to suggest that New England is one of the least reached places in our country. And so as an evangelist it just makes sense to just dig my heels in and try and be part of the solution to the sliding decline in Christianity in the Northeast.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:18):
So you’re really on a mission field there. And what attitudes do you run into when you start talking about the gospel?
Tom Miyashiro (02:29):
Well, the Northeast is pretty liberal. I, I would say that Connecticut specifically is fiscally conservative and socially incredibly liberal. So so it is the people, you know, in some ways feel conservative and New Englanders tend to be closed. It’s not always been known as the friendliest of places. And we speak the language of sarcasm as our dialect.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:58):
No, <laugh> are you sure?
Tom Miyashiro (03:01):
So so it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, the average size church in New England is between 50 and 150 people. Now, there’s exceptions to the rules. Major cities like Boston and Greater New York, some, some parts of Connecticut are considered part of Greater New York, which we consider them the exception to the rule. But a lot of pastors in the Northeast are bi-vocational. They have to work two jobs, not unlike Old England. You know, there’s a lot of similarities in the way that you do ministry there. Very, it can be very challenging.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:36):
And so how have you as an evangelist come alongside some of the local pastors and local churches and help to strengthen then and then help them to reach out to their communities?
Tom Miyashiro (03:50):
Wellearly in faith to Faith, I was a missionary to England and I found that if there was any more, anywhere more difficult than living in New England, it would be that Old England. So I worked there and and did ministry there and did some education there and learned about how the UK has adjusted itself to not the Christian Church not really being valued or appreciated or relevant to culture. And actually one of the guys on this mission, Ben Jack, he’s part of that story and the organization he works for kind of saw the way the, the missions community was innovating to make Christianity relevant again to the next generation. And I thought, wow, if we could bring some of these ideas back to the United States, that would be really good for, for us. So I started importing as many of these ideas into the US as I could particularly to do with public schools ministry because in America we have the separation of church and state.
(05:02):
In England, the church and state is one, so they can do a whole lot of stuff in schools. Now granted you can’t proselytize in same as America, but you could actually tell the whole Christian story in school. It’s not a problem. So you could do quite a lot there. When we come back into the US context, you know, we left England to have religious freedom and yet I can’t talk about Jesus in school. It doesn’t make much sense. But we had to find ways to creatively engineer schools programming so we could still be there and still have relationships with students whilst finding a way to get the gospel to them. So it took, instead of doing things in one swift movement, we had to create steps, next steps, lots of next steps to like, create pathways for young people to engage us in school and out of school. This is the bulk of my career doing that. So
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:53):
Yeah, now sometimes it’s not easy to stay faithful to the calling of an evangelist. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And yesterday you and I were talking about a very tragic situation mm-hmm. <Affirmative> in the early years of your ministry. Sure. Tell me about your wife going to heaven and what that was like going through that and, and how you dealt with that. Yeah. And, and then what God has brought you through and into now.
Tom Miyashiro (06:22):
Yeah. So Amy was from England and we got married young 2001. And I started the ministry very shortly after us coming together. And and I followed her back to England. So that’s kind of the early years when we moved back to the United States, it wasn’t very long after that that she was diagnosed with a pretty rare form of brain cancer and speeding through, ’cause she was sick for four years, speeding through kind of the early trauma of all of that. When we landed back home in Connecticut, the local church heard about our story and, and I got to see the best side of the church for in one in this case, and churches in the county that I lived like within a radius of our house. As they heard about the story, everybody just started stepping up and helping us. And I felt very indebted and very very thankful for all those leaders. And I didn’t cheat on her. I didn’t run out and divorce her. Like I stayed with her till the end. It wasn’t,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:34):
And it was very difficult because
Tom Miyashiro (07:35):
It was very difficult.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:37):
She’s laying there in your house.
Tom Miyashiro (07:39):
Yep. four years of brain cancer, which means 11 brain surgeries, radiation, chemotherapy experimental treatments, sometimes simultaneously. So I was a full-time carer as well as trying to do evangelism in the community. And the community didn’t really know how to help us specifically. So in some ways faith to faith kind of bolstered itself up because people could see they could support me in that and that was helping her. And so that’s kind of when Faith to Faith got rooted and probably would’ve taken me a lifetime to build those relationships in a different, like, just in a natural kind of way. It aged my relationships with church leaders in a, a really productive way. And so especially you know, in that last year of her life we were full on shut-ins and she was paralyzed on one side of her body and I had to pretty much do everything for her.
(08:37):
But in return, after she’d passed away, I really dug my heels in to my community and tried to pay back the debt of love by using my evangelistic skillset to, and applied it within a local church context within a community of churches, you know, not just, and not just the community of churches, the community at large. And what happens when an evangelist has a very short leash? Well, I was a police chaplain, which means I had full mil police dress, a key card to the station access to ride with any officer in the city. I had keys to the public school and a master password to the power school database and could recall any records on any student in the vicinity in the city. I had access to the mayor’s office, I had access to community foundation dollars, I had access to all the local banks that partnered with me.
(09:37):
And really, it’s an issue of just being known and knowing people. And I stuck around long enough and served long enough for all that stuff to really matter. So within the community we saw that wow, if evangelist doesn’t itinerate heavily and really finds a way to partner with the local church it brings a spice to a region that is just not, like, churches don’t typically have that spice. And when the church really partners together, and it’s not just a one time seasonal thing, but a repeat, a repeat event, you know, it’s like this is the way we all do church. It’s a really nice relationship. And you know, in these last five or six years, we started getting calls from other communities asking me if I could do it there as well. And I was like, no, because there’s one of me and I can only be a member of one community, but I’m willing to come and like, see what kind of pieces you have in the community and see if there’s anything transferrable for your area that you can do. And if you commit to doing it, then I’ll walk with you a little bit. But inevitably you fall in love with people. So I have like little homes I stay in, in different regions and I come in and I call churches together and we walk through a process and we talk and we pray. And it’s not the same in every community, but there’s the same components.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:06):
Talk to me about that process. What are some of the components of helping build community in mm-hmm. <Affirmative> a particular community? Yeah. Between the churches and then to get the church to have a heart for evangelism.
Tom Miyashiro (11:22):
I like to talk about it is like the life cycle of evangelism. And, and it, and it is cyclical, just like breathing. And I think that a lot of times either evangelists or people who love evangelism or people who are put off by it catch the cycle and in, and it’s always in rhythm with itself, but where they are in their walk with the Lord may not be in sync with the rhythm of the community and they try and force it. So like, it’s almost like trying to take a double inhale or a double exhale. All, all you do is inhale, you’re gonna suffocate and all you do is exhale. You’re gonna suffocate. So either way it doesn’t work out for you if you only like one thing, but if you figure out the rhythm of the community and where they’re at in the life cycle of evangelism and you pay attention and then jump into where they are in their breathing pattern, you can move them towards mobilization for a season of harvest and then recovery and then repeat the process again and again and again, just like the seasons.
(12:27):
So usually there’s a a period of time where a community is pre mobilization, where like things are disconnected and maybe that’s a result of job changes, like pastors retiring or getting a new job and leaving the area. Or even in government and things like that. Like just being attention to like, it seems to happen more than once. It’s not just one guy doing it. It seems like there’s several key people all transitioning at the same time. That seems like a bad period of time to try and like push people into some kind of evangelistic effort. Like there’s a lot of transitions. You sort of have to reestablish baseline of relationships, call people together, be generous to them, and buy a lot of food and just create an environment where people can just be friends. Yeah. We miss that step sometimes in evangelism and just want to get to the good stuff.
(13:22):
And that can be a long season. Berkshire County, which is Western Mass, I’ve been stewarding a pastor’s network there for I think about seven years. And I have a unique role in that community because I actually am the facilitator, like the founder of the network as the evangelist, which I’m always ready to go, but they’re not ready to go and being patient and allowing them to raise their own temperature for evangelism, it’s a very slow and painful and disciplined process. Seven years and we still haven’t gone for it yet, what’s going on? But but sprinkling in activities that move them closer together, like National Day of Prayer, something on the calendar already that I can give them to give them a little boost. Like, see you can do something together. Okay then now let’s debrief that. Take a break, have some food, relax, no pressure, and then try again.
(14:18):
You know? So but it takes patience. And some communities are further along, like they already have a pastor’s network. They’ve been praying together for a while and you walk into a moving situation where like they’re gonna do something, anything. And you just happen to be the excuse that walked into the room that’s gonna make it relevant for go time. Those are fun places to walk into. Most evangelists roam the earth looking for communities in that phase. And and that’s a lot of fun ’cause you can just roll in with your textbook playbook and give them things to do and they will rock. And then you can take pictures and say, look what we did for the Lord. And then the final phase is sort of like this recovery phase, which sometimes evangelists to leave town too early and they don’t stick around to celebrate and help reset the program.
(15:11):
Thank everybody, thank people, and maybe even reward them and offer them rest. ’cause Like a lot of times even in the church world, even in church volunteerism, it’s like, well, Sundays are coming, so take Monday off, do something. ’cause We gotta do this all over again. And I think that’s why people burn out. They don’t have ample time to recover before you ask the next big ask. So I think being with the community through that celebration and recovery period makes them more willing to say yes as the cycle moves towards mobilization for the next season of harvest.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:53):
Yeah. Now recently you have started doing some things in Poland and now Ukraine. Yeah. Talk to me about that. ’cause That’s very different than, than Oh yeah, Eastern United States. You’re going into Eastern Europe now, you know
Tom Miyashiro (16:08):
We’ve been there actually for a long time, but the result of it is actually still community based. Our young people started growing up. Some of them came to work for the ministry, some of them graduated and went off to Bible college. Some of them started ministries of their own and some of them sort of graduated the faith to faith world and jumped into bigger ministries. And one young man who you’ve met on this trip as well, grew up in the ministry. I mean, he, I’ve known him as far back as maybe 15 years old. And when he got to age 18, he asked to meet me at a Starbucks and I assist one guy, no staff yet. And he comes in with a briefcase, puts it on the table, there’s nothing in it except one piece of paper. And he slides it across the table and says I think there’s many ways I can help you build your ministry <laugh>.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:06):
And I’m like,
Tom Miyashiro (17:07):
Oh, really? Young man, <laugh>. And he walks me through his strategic plan for how he thinks he can help me build faith to faith. I said, sounds great, let’s do it. And he was my first employee. Wow. but as God stirred his heart and his passion he’d done a church mission trip to Poland and he felt led to go and he asked for some time, then he asked for more time, then he asked for like a year. And I’m like, okay, this is ridiculous. I can’t have an employee gone for a year, but for some reason I’d let it go. And he went and and then it just like turned into this vibrant community-based thing over there. And it wasn’t me doing it, it was him and he built his own network and us working together. Like he figured out it’s not like he figured out his own way completely. Like he did it the faith to faith way, but he did it through his own personality and his own. And he’s not an evangelist. That’s what’s interesting about him. He’s more of a missions director, but he still like, rallied the community, did evangelism. And I was like, well that’s, well, I guess that’s what multiplication looks like. And he’s been doing that for 12 years now, so Wow. Amazing. Amazing to watch him develop. And now here, even on this trip, we have seven
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:24):
So what’s his name? It’s Kyle.
Tom Miyashiro (18:26):
Kyle Uba. Yeah. And he’s on this trip, but seven other young leaders on this trip accompany me here in Kenya. And the concept is that we do it all over again, again and we expose these young bucks to the world of evangelism, get them hungry, and then find a way to release them into the stratosphere.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:48):
That’s
Tom Miyashiro (18:48):
Awesome. So it’s a fun time and you get, you’ve gotten to be part of this. You got to speak into the life of David and Alan and Nick Hurst and, and others that have come on the street.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:58):
Yeah. You brought some real quality young guys that I really see God’s hand on them. I really love talking about evangelism coaching. And you’ve been doing that recently, especially with the ministry of Nick Hall. Yep. pulse, they had a Pulse 100, which was a hundred young people that they gathered together who have a heart for evangelism. That’s right. And Tim ett from Multnomah University who I took an evangelism class with, he was helping to to shape these young evangelists. And then you were one of the coaches for the Pulse 100. Yep. And, and so talk to me about that and what your heart is for coaching young evangelists and helping them to, to launch out into the ministry. Yeah.
Tom Miyashiro (19:47):
Closely related to what we’re doing here in Ken Kenya, but post 100 is two years old, and actually it’s a hundred kids a year. So we just finished our second year, our second cohort we’re calling it. And when they were starting it up, there was several, several evangelists that Nick pulled closer who worked with youth. We all pushed together to stock that first class and nobody really knew where we were going or how we were gonna do it. But we got that first group together and Dr. Tim was called in to write the curriculum for the masterclass that we would teach the kids. And Dr. Tim was all of our coach coaches Right. Within this Palau Global network world for so many years. Yeah. So when Jose Ziss got pulled in and I got pulled in Tim Enni, who used to be the Africa director Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:39):
Love
Tom Miyashiro (20:40):
Brother Tim Pullman, Reed Saunders gets pulled in. Wow. And, and you got
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:44):
Everyone but me, Brad
Tom Miyashiro (20:45):
Butcher,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:46):
But I was talking to Nick in Amsterdam Yeah. And we were talking about some possibilities.
Tom Miyashiro (20:51):
Yeah, definitely. We’d love to have you. So I mean, the, the thing is there isn’t isn’t that many of us in the world doing it full time Yeah. To, to lean on. So I think as we grow and as we get better at doing what we’re doing and as we get better as coaches, like the opportunities for evangelists to partner in and pour into the next generation is definitely there. But one of the cool things about Pulse 100 is you sort of, you have to go through this application process. You have to make a video preaching the gospel, and then you send it in. And if you make it in, you’re invited to this showcase. And when you show up, you’re given a time to show up. And Dr. Rob net and I, and about seven or eight other coaches are broken up into three rooms with no windows, very small room.
(21:39):
There’s young people come in one after another, like cattle, they have to preach to us and we grade their preaching. Wow. And it’s a very terrifying experience for them. And then we go through all the different young people and we pick the top three and they get to showcase for the whole program and preach to the whole room with the credit and the celebrity guest judging panel, just like American Idol. And Alan Stokes was the one that I picked and he preached to the, to the celebrity panel and to the whole room. Wow. Last year’s cohort. So that’s how closely connected all these things are. Nick Hurst was also in the Pulse 100, but, but anyways, what’s really exciting about it is I almost feel like Nick, you know, the world of evangelism is kind of resetting. Billy Graham’s passed away. Luis Pals passed away and others, and, and you know, so that commanding general who calls everyone together is sort of a little bit absent in the world of evangelism. So Nick pieced together some of those middle-aged guys who were coming up together. The younger guys who are now middle-aged guys got our coach back involved and he’s just taken this big sifter and we’re mining for gold. We don’t know what we’re gonna find. And on that finding incredible talent. And now we find it, we’re like, okay, now how do we disciple them and move them towards falling in love with evangelism like you and I have, and make that the goal of their life.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:05):
I mean, I think this program is so valuable what Pulse 100 is doing, because I think you can accelerate a ministry by at least a decade by getting them around other evangelists who be, because someone who has a calling, they could figure out how to do it all on their own. But, you know, they’d make so many mistakes, it’d be such a challenge. Yeah. But, but just being around other evangelists and someone who’s gone a little bit further, we can accelerate their ministries by at least 10 years, maybe 20 years, where they can launch out and do something big for God and they don’t have to wait and they don’t have to make the mistakes the last generation made. That’s
Tom Miyashiro (23:46):
Right. So this final piece of it, which brings it full circle right back here to Africa, is my new role in global network of evangelists, which is to be a catalyst for emerging evangelists, which is sort of a broad title, but it gives me the flexibility to come in and out of Palau, in and outta your ministry, in and out of Nick Hall’s ministry and like really identify and affirm and equip and train and, you know, as they kind of move into this world, that’s the mission of g and e actually. So, but once they’ve been identified to try and begin to assimilate them into our global network and give them opportunities that are far beyond their time, like preaching here at the festival and I in moringa and and exposing them to career evangelists. Guys like you pairing them up early so that we can accelerate. And
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:40):
Yeah, yesterday on the podcast I interviewed Nick Hurst. Yeah, that’s right. Who he was one of the pulps 100. He’s here in Africa. He had his first right opportunity to preach in Africa the other night’s. Right. That’s right. And did such a phenomenal job. Mm-Hmm. Did a great job. And he has such a heart for evangelism. God’s gonna use him in such a great way.
Tom Miyashiro (25:01):
It is. And it’s so cool to you know, I know that the plow team did so much to help me when I was starting. And so I feel like Desmond Henry, the director of g and e, has given me an opportunity to sort of give that experience back to the next guys. And it’s just a joy to be able to do that because I know how valuable all the guys who were ahead of me were when I was getting started. Yeah. You know,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:30):
Well, as one of the cabinet members for the global network of evangelists, I say thank you. Awesome. And I’m super excited to see what God will develop in the next few years. Amazing. I’m excited just to be a part of it. Yeah, definitely. So sometimes people who are listening, they wanna get involved with the ministry that we’re interviewing and so if someone has a heart for ministry in the northeast Yeah. Maybe they wanna support your ministry and maybe they wanna be a part of what you’re doing. Sure. What’s your website? Sure. How can they find out more about you?
Tom Miyashiro (26:04):
It’s https://www.f2fmi.org/
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:17):
Well Brother Tom, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism podcast. Awesome. I really appreciate it. Yeah,
Tom Miyashiro (26:23):
It’s awesome.