1 877-431-4276Stephan & Anne Christiansen | How to Start a Jesus Revolution
Stephan & Anne Christiansen pastor Jesus Church and lead a Bible school in Oslo, Norway. They love to equip young people in local churches to reach their cities with the gospel. This summer they led a team of young people to over fifty nations across Europe. Today we hear about how they are trying to start a Jesus Revolution.
Learn more about The Jesus Revolution: https://jesusrevolution.com/
Buy a copy of Anne Christiansen’s book, Love Story: https://jk.no/produkt/love-story-english-2/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:01):
Stephan & Anne Christiansen pastor Jesus Church and lead a Bible school in Oslo, Norway. They love to equip young people in local churches to reach their cities with the gospel. This summer, they led a team of young people to over 50 nations across Europe. Today we hear about how they are trying to start a Jesus revolution.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:38):
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 (01:02):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King and I’m excited to tell people about Jesus. Today I have two very special guests with me, Stephan and Anna Christansen from Norway. Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Stephan Christiansen (01:19):
Thank you so much. It’s great to be here. And Stefan, by the way, is how I would say my name in Europe.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:24):
Okay, well, right now you’re in America, Stefan.
Stephan Christiansen (01:29):
Yeah, exactly.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:30):
Well, thank you so much for being with us today. Now you have been taking young people on mission trips across the continent of Europe, and this summer you did something very exciting. You took a group of young people to every nation in Europe. Tell me what did God do?
Anne Christiansen (01:51):
Wow, that was amazing. What we saw in Europe. It actually was all of spring and summer going into summer. And we visited 48 nations. We still have two nations that we’re going to do this fall because that’s the Pharaoh Islands and Iceland. But other than that, we went to every single nation together with a team of 60 young people. What a privilege. I mean, Stefan, you were there almost in every, I did
Stephan Christiansen (02:23):
The whole tour. I think you did the whole tour. I felt I had to be a part of the whole thing. And through the years, we’ve been working a lot in Europe. We’ve been in about 1100 cities since 1997 and doing evangelistic outreaches all over the place. We’ve sent out about 10,000 young people on short-term missions in Europe through the years as well. But then this dream came to us after the pandemic. How can we see a whole continent impacted at once? How can we see a harvest of souls across a whole continent and a whole generation of young people on fire for Jesus? So the 60 of us went in nine vans, equipment, light band preachers, everything. And it was probably by far, I think the greatest endeavor. If you think about logistics and all the practical matters. And 48 nations is a lot. So we typically did one major event in some of the smaller nations. In some of the bigger nations. We might have done two or three cities or for five in the uk, one of the largest large nations. And it was so encouraging. It was like really sparking the flame of youth revival on the whole continent. And we were so blessed to see what the Lord was doing.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:50):
And so tell me, what is the spiritual atmosphere like in Europe right now? A lot of people are saying that Europe is a post-Christian area, but I like to say that Europe is pre-Christian. It is ready to come to Jesus very quickly.
Anne Christiansen (04:10):
Oh, you are so right. It is ready. So it’s exactly that. Europe does not understand religion in connection with Jesus. Jesus is religion is not interesting for the Europeans. So it’s a great time to show that Jesus is not religion. It’s completely different, it’s relationship. So that’s the message that Europe really needs Everywhere. Some nations, we see that there are so many believers and they go to traditional churches, but they do not have a personal relationship with God. And they do not even know that God wants that. So I mean, Europe is such a wonderful mission field. So when we go, we go in the streets, we are in the schools, we are on the screens of course, but we really see that people are like, wow, I can have this personal relationship with God. You mean that Jesus came for that? Because religion, we think in many parts of the world that we have to climb up to God and become good enough for him to accept us. And something like that has been the understanding in Europe, I think for decades, ages for generations. So the message that we come with that Jesus is alive and well, and Jesus is ready, Jesus came down to become like us. That is a message that goes all across Europe and that is received everywhere. And we see the Holy Spirit lift up Jesus, drawing people to the cross and people having a new start, a new understanding really who Jesus is and what it means for them.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:00):
And so the name of your ministry is Jesus revolution. And a revolution is a radical change in society. What does a Jesus revolution look like?
Stephan Christiansen (06:12):
Well, if anything has ever been a revolution, it’s what happens when you are born again. When your sins are forgiven, you become a new creation in Christ Jesus. You are filled with the Holy Spirit. You go from darkness to light. You go from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God, you become a part of his church. I mean, if anything was revolution, that’s revolution. So the interesting thing was that when we were seeking God for the name of this ministry back in 1997, we were too young to ever have heard about the Jesus Revolution in California back in the days. And we were just seeking God.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:46):
Yeah. Now it’s a popular movie, which I actually watched recently, and it made me cry because people were being baptized. I mean, it’s amazing how revolutionary the gospel is.
Stephan Christiansen (06:56):
Yes, it is. And here’s the thing, I mean, the gospel works everywhere. And so even though gospel Europe has got quite a rough spiritual climate compared with other parts of the world, but the gospel always works. So that’s why we need to preach it. We need to make it accessible to the young generation. And the special thing with Europe I support is that most young people have never really heard it really. So when they hear it preached in a way they can understand with power, with conviction, and through the presence of the Holy Spirit, so many young people are opening up their hearts. So we believe that it’s time to evangelize Europe. Of course, many, many nations of Europe, there’s 2.3% evangelical believers throughout Europe, 11, 12 nations, even less than 0.1% evangelical believers. So it is a continent that needs a move of the Holy Spirit. Many nations have never really seen, not just the revival, many nations have never even seen a reformation of any kind. So we need to sort of bring on a gospel army all across Europe and the world really. And we believe that together with believers like yourself, an evangelist all across the world, it’s time to really bring in the harvest of souls all across the world. And Europe is no exception.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:16):
Amen. Now you are from the nation of Norway. Yes. And the most famous evangelist from Norway is Aril Edvardsen. Did I say that? Right? Exactly. And he was a great evangelist from a very small village in Norway, but had a powerful ministry that impacted nations all over the world. And recently I was there and I was looking in their magazine. I saw a picture of a very young Anna and Stefan, that’s where they’re ministering. And so you grew up in some sense under his ministry. What are some of the lessons that you learned from him?
Anne Christiansen (08:56):
Oh, that’s many.
Stephan Christiansen (08:58):
That’s a lot.
Anne Christiansen (08:59):
Come on, Stephen. I mean, you traveled with him for how many
Stephan Christiansen (09:02):
Years? 10 years approximately?
Anne Christiansen (09:03):
Yeah. And we’ve been so close to him. We’re so thankful. We’ve learned so many things. First of all, you never start a meeting with a lie. You always have to be on time in everything you do.
Stephan Christiansen (09:19):
I think what I think first and foremost, there’s so many things that you can extract from his life. But the number one thing is probably how coming from a small place, a small nation or a small village is not a hindrance for a big vision. The Lord called Aril Edvardsen to be a world evangelist. He comes from a town or a village of 3000 people in that village. He built a center that could see at 4,000 people. He had 24 7 television satellite preaching the gospel in Arabic to the Arabic speaking world. He had crusades all across the world. He supported, I think about 20,000 or maybe more indigenous evangelists and church planters that he paid for. And he had five, 6 million students on his correspondence course. So those who got saved, he wanted them to do a 16 week course. So he had offices around the world, and this was the old days.
(10:18):
So you would typically have a lesson, write assignments sent into the office, get a reply back in the five, 6 million students fulfilling that. And so he wasn’t just content with response. He wanted to make sure they were disciples and all these people who were also saved, they had radio programs in 180 nations around the world. And all of this happening from a microscopic village, seven hours drive from the capital of Norway, really shows if God is calling you, if God has given you a vision, your nation, your geography, the size of your area is no hindrance. God can do exceedingly, abundantly above anything that we ask a think according to his power that is at work in us. And his life is just a great example about that really.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:09):
Now you have a church in Oslo and also a Bible school, and you bring young people on these mission trips to Europe and to other parts of the world. And so when I was hearing about your mission trip this year, my son Caleb is in eighth grade. He’s 13 years old. I was thinking, oh, that would be so wonderful to send him on an adventure like this. So if someone is listening and they want to get connected with you, maybe they want to come to the Bible school, maybe they want to send their young people on one of these great mission trips with you. What is your website? How can they find out more information about the Jesus Revolution? Well, they
Stephan Christiansen (11:48):
Can just go to jesus revolution.com and they can join in the summer. We are going to Prague in 2024, and young people are usually coming from 25, 30 nations. And also increasingly young people from over here, from the US are joining in. And this is in the end of July in 2024. And then if they want to do a year for God, they can do it through our training center in Oslo. They can do it from Rome. They could do it from Sofia and Bulgaria. They could do it from Belgium. They can do it from, sorry,
Anne Christiansen (12:20):
Did you say Rome?
Stephan Christiansen (12:21):
Rome, Italy. Yeah. Or from the Ukraine. And so there’s different opportunities also in plugging in. If people would like to set aside a year and evangelize in Europe,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:34):
What a tremendous opportunity. Alright, last word. What do you feel that Jesus is saying to the church during this time?
Anne Christiansen (12:43):
Oh, when people follow me, that’s the most important thing that we can ever do. And that’s the most challenging word as well. Follow me. Jesus said, and I will make you fishers of men. I think we’re coming back to discipleship. Really, it is like the word that in Antioch, it was the first time that the disciples were called Christians. And why? Because they reminded people about Christ. And now we call ourselves Christians and it’s time for us to come back to being disciples. And Jesus actually promised us that if I focus on the following, he’s going to do the making in me of becoming a fisher of men. This means stepping out of my comfort zone and really starting to come into the love of God for people, for others that will make me being so interested in others, being willing to listen, being willing to take part of people’s lives in our neighborhoods, schools, universities, streets, wherever in the workplace. So I think that’s a word for the church all over the world. It’s about everyone, isn’t it? And it’s about reaching everyone. And it can only be done when everyone gets involved in reaching everyone.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:11):
You sound like a true evangelist.
Stephan Christiansen (14:14):
And thinking about the need for the gospel to be preached all across the world and how God needs ordinary Christians and believers of all kinds and evangelists and churches to just reengage with the great commission. Anna, you were saved because an American evangelist, Tia Osborne came to preach the gospel in our city Oslo. And you were a 22 year old girl. And that’s the beginning of a revolution.
Anne Christiansen (14:40):
There were posters all over my city Oslo talking about this campaign, these meetings with TL Osborne. I had never heard of him. And I got so provoked actually because I was invited by people everywhere come to this crusade campaign. I went there to find more reasons why I would never ever become a hallelujah. And one guy actually said, you don’t dare to come, do you? Yeah, that’s the thing that he was so smart. He said, oh, you’re not coming. Oh, so you don’t dare to go. And I was like, come on. No one is going to ever have that on me, that I didn’t dare to go. So I went there and I never planned to stay. I was just going to be able to say, check that I went there. No one can say I didn’t dare. But I stood there and I listened to the gospel message preached by Teal Osborne, and it was so special when he was calling people forward to receive Jesus.
(15:41):
I was running forward receiving Jesus as Lord of my life. And he was pointing at me and he was saying, you are a Jesus woman now. I was like, what? I’m a Jesus woman. Now what am I going to do? What does a Jesus woman do? How does she live? What is she doing? I went and bought myself a huge big Bible. I thought a Jesus woman must have a big Bible. At least I was sitting in my home, I was smoking cigarettes. I was blowing the smoke away to see the scripture. And I felt, and then I felt one day the Lord spoke to me and said, Anna, can you picture me with a cigarette in my mouth? I was like, no, no, Lord, of course not. You’re Jesus. You’re the Messiah. Of course, you’re the son of God. You don’t smoke cigarettes. I understand that.
(16:34):
He said, but Anna, I do now because I live in you now. I was like, what am I going to do? And he said, turn it over to me and I’ll help you. And since that day, I never smoked a cigarette. And I also, I met the Osborne many, many years later because Stefan was asked to interpret for him. And he said to me, Anna, write a book. Call it love story and I’ll write the foreword in it. And he did. I wrote the book. I was in prayer writing that book, and he wrote the foreword in it. And it’s in English, in English now for the first time in it’s been in Norwegian, but now it’s in English. And my story is there a story of God’s love revolution in somebody’s life.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:30):
Amen. Well, we’ll put a link to the book in the description on the podcast. So if you’re interested hearing more about Anna and Stefan Christensen, you can learn more about them. And thank you guys so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast. Thank
Anne Christiansen (17:44):
You, thank you, thank you.
Evangelism Podcast Host (17:46):
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Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:50):
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 (20:10):
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Zac Linton | The Power of a Ministry Sabbatical
Why are ministry sabbaticals important? Today we talk to Zac Linton. He has been a successful evangelist for many years, but this year he decided to slow down and take a sabbatical. Today we learn why times of rest are important for ministers.
Learn more about the ministry of Zac Linton: https://www.overflow.global/
Key Verses on Taking a Ministry Sabbatical:
Exodus 20:8-10 (Fourth Commandment – Sabbath): ”Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it, you shall do no work…”
Genesis 2:2-3 (God’s Rest After Creation): ”And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.”
Mark 6:31 (Jesus’ Invitation to Rest): ”And he said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.”
Matthew 11:28-30 (Jesus’ Call to Rest): ”Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Psalm 23:1-3 (The Lord as Our Shepherd): ”The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.”
Isaiah 40:31 (Renewed Strength): ”But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”
Psalm 46:10 (Be Still and Know): ”Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth.”
Leviticus 25:4-5 (Sabbatical Year): ”But in the seventh year, there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard.”
Jeremiah 31:25 (Refresh the Weary Soul): ”For I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish.”
Psalm 34:8 (Taste and See): “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!”
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:11):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King and I’m excited to tell people about Jesus Today. I have a very special guest with me. Zac Linton, thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Zac Linton (00:27):
Yeah, great to be here. Thank you Daniel.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:29):
All right, Zach, you lead overflow ministries and you have a great heart for evangelism. Tell me a little bit about how you got started in evangelism.
Zac Linton (00:43):
Well, there’s a much very long story, but the brief version is I gave my life to the Lord at age 21 after growing up Christian, but backsliding from the Lord for quite a number of years. I was involved in a car accident, which was a very serious situation at the time, and God used that to wake me up spiritually. And so from age 21 until now, and I’m 42 now, so it’s been actually exactly 21 years since then I’ve been walking with the Lord. I was a part of a vineyard church for a number of years in northern California, which is where I’ve spent most of my life in my ministry. And then I spent a couple of years up at Bethel Church in Redding getting some ministry training and equipping. And then I was a part of a church in San Francisco from 2008 into 2013.
(01:29):
So I would be a part of the team that would lead outreaches across the city of San Francisco. I’ve done a lot of street ministry and so on and so forth. But even from a young age, I’ve always had a heart for Jesus. And even when I was much younger, I remember telling some of my friends about the Lord. So I guess you could say it’s always been a part of my d n a and I believe who the Lord’s called me to be. And then in 2013, about a decade ago, I felt the Lord called me to begin my own ministry, which is called Overflow Ministries. And I’ve been doing this now for a decade, an independent evangelistic ministry, traveling and speaking around the world, winning people to Christ. And so that’s how it basically all happened.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:10):
So tell me about the name of your ministry Overflow ministries. Talk to me about the overflow.
Zac Linton (02:18):
Well, John 10 says that the thief comes to steal, to kill and to destroy. But Jesus says, I have come that you would have life and life abundant. That word abundant can also be translated as overflow or as more than enough. One of my favorite scriptures, two of my favorite scriptures that are still life scriptures for me to this day are Psalm 23, 5 and John 15, five, Psalm 23, 5 says, thou anoints my head with oil, my cup runneth over and John 15, five, Jesus says, I am the vine. You are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him will bear much fruit for apart from me. You can do nothing. And so I really felt from an early age that the Lord, those are very foundational scriptures for me, not only for the ministry, but really for my own personal walk with Jesus Christ.
(03:10):
I believe that religion, check this revelation. Religion tells people to try to bear fruit in order to abide, but relationship with Jesus. And the gospel says, first you abide that you’ll bear much fruit. And so what I learned was a lot of people are stuck in trying to do all these things for God. And that’s really what Paul addresses in some of his epistles of you who began in the spirit are you now being perfected by the law or by the flesh? And I feel like some people, depending on your background, maybe you really want to be a good Christian or you really want to follow the Lord or you really have a value for holiness. And all those things are wonderful and those things are from the Lord. But what the revelation that really set me free in my own personal walk is that God wants us to have an overflow of the Holy Spirit that begins with our faith in Christ and what he has done for us on the cross, which none of us deserved and none of us could ever earn, but it’s a life empowered by the Holy Spirit that truly is a glorious and a joyful and a victorious one.
(04:06):
And so I just named my ministry that so I could constantly remind myself to never get into striving, to never try and do it in my own strength, my own thinking, my own human ability to always rely on the overflow of the Holy Spirit. And I really try to impart that whether I’m preaching in churches or mentoring or whatever, that’s really a core value that I want people to understand from my ministry as well.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:28):
Now, you’ve done a lot of ministry in California. You started out preaching on the University of California, Berkeley campus, and there is a real mission field there, a lot of people that really need Jesus. What are some of the questions that people are asking these days and how do you answer them?
Zac Linton (04:53):
Wow, that’s a whole podcast in and of itself. Yeah, it’s funny. So let me tell a little bit of this story and I’ll answer your question as well. So I mean, I began the ministry by going to uc, Berkeley. That’s kind of the target that I felt the Lord called me to in the very inception of the ministry. So I would go out into the center of campus, I’d bring my Bible with me, and I would just begin preaching the word of God, open air. And it definitely stirred up some feathers, a lot of demons manifested. I mean, I was cursed at, I was yelled at. I had people hiss at me a few times and I definitely had some people listening. So it was sort of a little bit of everything that you found. And it’s funny because I think no matter how much we prepare, and there’s nothing wrong with apologetics, we absolutely I think should study certain questions and certain people are called more specifically to those kinds of ministries.
(05:44):
But what I really found worked for me was just saying, you know what, Lord, I don’t have all the answers to all the questions. I know you’ve given all of us to mind, but Jesus said to his apostles that when you’re brought before kings and governors, don’t worry about what you’re going to say because it will be given to you in that hour what to speak because it will not be you speaking, but it will be the spirit of your father. And so my prayer literally, I mean this sounds simple and sorry to give you guys an answer that isn’t a formula, but it’s just reliance on the Holy Spirit and literally saying, Lord, would you give me the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that when these people come to ask me these questions that I have some sort of an answer that’s of you?
(06:21):
Now, a few of the questions that I did encounter regularly or objections you might say. The other thing to encourage anyone who’s just getting started in evangelism or college ministry or whatever is that Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes that there’s nothing new under the sun. And I think what you’ll find is after I’ve been doing street ministry and preaching in churches in various places around the world for a long time, and after a little while it becomes like this well-worn path where you’re like, okay, I’ve heard that objection before. Okay, I’ve heard that excuse before. Okay, I’ve heard that problem before. So one of them is, well, what do I need God for? I’ll just find my own path. I’ll find my own truth. I believe in Buddhism, I was raised Muslim, I was raised Catholic. I don’t believe in the Bible because of X, Y and Z.
(07:07):
And so it’s sort of this, I feel like at the core of a lot of objections nowadays, Daniel, is this what I would call war on just truth in and of itself that this idea that there is no one truth, that there are many different truths, and really truth is subjective, it’s no longer absolute. And when you look at the laws of the universe, it says in Romans one that since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities have been made known. So that man is without excuse and no serious common sense person would argue with gravity or with all these things in the universe that are so consistent, that are so absolute that we know we can rely on these things. And yet when it comes to God or it comes to the path of salvation, it’s just amazing to me how people are so self-deceived into thinking that I can just, I use this example all the time.
(07:53):
I say, okay, if I’m in northern California and I want to get to la, are you telling me I can just point my car in any direction I want to go in and I could just drive as hard as I want and I’m eventually going to get to la? And they would say, well, that’s ridiculous. I’ll say, well then it’s literally that’s no more ridiculous than you telling me that you can just find your own path to God or you can just do whatever you want and that’s going to be good enough to get you into heaven. So that’s a big objection. The other thing I noticed too, a lot, Daniel, is that when people are offended or upset at you for preaching the word of God, there’s usually a root issue. I’m sure you’ve seen this as well. You have a lot of experiences in the ministry.
(08:28):
And usually what I try to discern when I’m speaking with somebody is what’s really going on with this person? Sometimes they’ll be giving me this philosophical argument of if God is so true, then why is there suffering in the world? Why did this happen or why would he allow? Those are very common types of objections, but often what I find is that’s not even the real objection. The real objection is I’m angry at God because my sister has cancer or my sister has down syndrome. I’m angry at God because my parents are divorced or I’m angry at God because my boyfriend left me or hurt me, or my girlfriend left me. And so it’s like people project onto God, all the pain they’ve been through in life for whatever reason, God gets blamed for that, and then that becomes a wound inside of them, and then that sort of becomes a barrier to God.
(09:12):
And so a lot of times when I’m speaking with people, I think there’s a place for intellectually answering their questions, but we need to go deeper. And that goes back to what I said earlier about wisdom and listening to the Holy Spirit. You have to say, okay, holy Spirit, what does this man or woman really need? Number one, are they even open to your gospel or am I just having an argument with somebody? Because one of my rules is the moment I feel like I’m just getting into some argument with somebody who really isn’t open at all to the gospel, they just want to argue and debate with me, I’ll usually exit that conversation pretty quickly and I’ll tell you why. First of all, it’s generally not fruitful at all. And number two, the more time I spend with Joe argumentative over here, the less time I have to keep reaching out to other people on the campus. And so all I can say is, I mean, there’s so many other questions and objections probably that I could talk about, but I’d say the biggest ones are, I’ll find my own truth, or I think I’m a good person, so therefore I don’t really need God. I think I’m good enough to go to heaven. And again, these are not new objections.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:14):
Now you’re doing something very unique this year. You are taking a ministry sabbatical. Talk to me about why you’re doing that and why you think it’s important for ministers to take sabbaticals from time to time and to have a time for spiritual renewal.
Zac Linton (10:37):
Yeah. Well, first of all, I’m from the western world in America, and for all of America’s great qualities, I would say that there’s definitely kind of a workaholism that’s pretty inbred into our culture. And so really, God kind of brought this sabbatical upon me. I’ve read through the scriptures a number of times, so I know that God rested on the seventh day, but I hadn’t really dug deeply into what I would call a deeper, more extended sabbatical. And frankly, I’d never heard anybody teach on the subject ever. I mean, I never heard a sermon on a Sunday about you need to take a year off to seek the Lord and to rest. And so the way it came about for me was at the end of last year, which was going on my ninth year in ministry with Overflow Ministries, I was at my parents’ church in northern California just visiting around the Christmas holiday season.
(11:29):
And I ran into an old friend of our family and we were talking, and she just asked me a simple question during our conversation. She said, Zach, I really focus on helping minister to ministers because oftentimes ministers themselves are very neglected, they’re burned out and they’re always giving, but most people are blind to the fact that those folks need ministry as well. She said all that to me. And then she asked me this question, she said, when was the last time you took a sabbatical? And as soon as she said that, it was like I knew it was the Holy Spirit talking to me like a ton of bricks just kind of hit me right in my chest. And I paused and I said, I haven’t. And it was like the Lord used that conversation and the woman was so nice, she wasn’t scolding me or, oh man, you’re going to burn out you.
(12:12):
This is wrong. You need to hurry up and repent and do. I mean, she didn’t say any of that. She just asked me one simple question and the Lord used that. And so after that I just realized like, wow, Lord, the more I thought about it, I realized if the biblical rhythm is once every seven years, and where that comes from is if you study the Old Testament, the Lord actually tells Israel to rest, to allow the land to rest for an entire year. And what’s amazing is when you study that, Israel freaks out because they say, well, wait a minute, God, are you kidding me? If we rest for a whole year, if we don’t plant crops and plow and do all this work and do all this stuff that we usually do, we’re going to starve to death. And the Lord says, no, you’re not.
(12:51):
I’m going to provide for you. I’m going to bless you. I’m going to bless you double. And we also see that in the wilderness when the children of Israel are going through the wilderness for 40 years, that the Lord began to send the manna every day, and on the sixth day he sent them a double portion so they could rest on the seventh day. And so we see this principle, this is part of who God is and who his character is. And so as I began preparing for this, I started praying and saying, Lord, I don’t even know how to do this. What do I even do? Am I just supposed to hang out and watch Netflix for a year? And I was like, of course. That’s not what I’m supposed to do. And as I prayed into it, and again, I hesitate to give a formula. I want to give principles. I do believe the Lord can uniquely tailor it for each and every person, but I think that the principle is God is a God of rest. And that when we go through ministry, I don’t know about anyone watching this podcast, but somebody needs to hear this. I’ve been through betrayals, I’ve been through heartbreaks, I’ve been through hard times, I’ve been through persecutions. I’ve seen God do amazing things like salvations and miracles and healings, but I’ve also been through a lot. And I feel like in other
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:52):
Words, you’re doing real ministry. I mean, that’s the story. If you’re in ministry long enough, you are going to experience some of those things. It it’s never easy. And if yout, and it takes an emotional toil on people.
Zac Linton (14:07):
Yeah. Amen. And so I think I remember also right around the time I was having this conversation with this lady, a friend of mine who’s a pastor out of Chicago. He said, Zach, I just heard some recent big church-wide study that was done in America that 40% of pastors are thinking of quitting the ministry. And when I heard that statistic, I said, wow, Lord, something is really wrong with that. And I’m not saying that there’s just one simple answer to that, but I would argue that one of the big, big reasons for that is I really believe in our American culture. We have neglected the command and the gift I will add of Sabbath that the Lord has given us. And so as I was praying about it getting ready, this is what I felt like the Lord said to me, he, Zach, pull back from public ministry for the most part.
(14:54):
Okay, obviously we’re doing this podcast, but for the most part I canceled. I had an international trip invitation to Pakistan this year that I had to call the gentleman and say, you know what? I’m so grateful for this opportunity, but I think we’re going to have to put it off till another year or a couple years from now. And I said, I’m not really looking to preach or teach in any churches. I’m not going to be doing any street evangelism, at least not leading a bunch of teams in street. And so it was like just pulling back from the public ministry in order to focus on the private ministry. And so the Lord gave me six goals for this year, and I’m going to share them briefly. My first goal, and I believe this is for anyone who takes a sabbatical, is that Jesus Christ has to be your first love and he has to be my first love.
(15:38):
In Revelation we see that, that there’s churches that are doing so amazing and they’re winning the loss and they’re resisting false teachers and they’re doing all this hardcore stuff and even resisting persecution. And Jesus literally says, but this one thing I have against you, you’ve forgotten your first love. And I want to tell you something that is so grievous that when you read that passage further, he says, if you do not repent, I will come and remove your lampstand. That’s how serious our relationship and our intimacy with Jesus should be to all of us. And so I think one of the dangers is we get so focused on ministry that ministry can actually become an idol, and we can be so focused on ministry and Oh, I got to do this event and I got to raise money and I got to mentor my team and disciple this and get a building and do this and dah, dah, dah.
(16:20):
And again, nothing wrong with those things in their proper places. So that’s the first thing is that Jesus would always be our first love. Secondly, and thirdly, the Lord told me to read through the whole Bible this year, which isn’t really even that big of a goal. But the third one that he said was, Zach, I want you to memorize scripture a lot more intentionally this year than you have previously. And just sharing this to whoever may see this around the world in America and the Western world, at least up until now, we’re so blessed with the fact that we have very easy access to the word of God and to Bibles. But I’m sure that Daniel has seen this in some of his ministry. I mean, you go into some nations and you don’t get easy access to the scriptures. A matter of fact, some people, if they’re caught with the Bible, they can be put in prison or arrested for it.
(17:03):
And it was like the Holy Spirit was convicted me like, Zach, you take the Bible for granted because you think you’re always going to have it. What if you didn’t have it like a year from now? What if you didn’t have it five years from now? How much of it would you actually have within you memorized? And so I’ve really felt convicted this year to really press in more to memorizing the word of God. So those are my three first three goals. The last three is just kind of going through inner healing. I call it healing and wisdom, just processing the stuff that we all go through in ministry and life and not just feeling better about it, but really looking at it through the lens of Jesus Christ, looking at it through the lens of God’s redemption and the cross. And even being able to say, like Joseph said, though, maybe that person or that situation was meant for evil against me.
(17:45):
The Lord can turn all those things into good. And that’s a process, and I just want to encourage somebody watching this. I have spent time in nature, I’ve spent time praying and worshiping, and the Lord will just kind of peel back a layer. Sometimes when I’m in those places, I’ve spent time talking to pastors and friends like Daniel or many others that I’ve had the privilege to know around the United States. And God just, he’s so amazing. He weaves it all together where he brings healing in those places that we need it. But I feel like you have to make room for it. And that’s the purpose of Sabbath is you’re taking a step back in order to listen more to the Lord, in order to allow the Lord to do those deep works, those deep surgeries within us that we need. And then my fifth and sixth goal is number five.
(18:24):
God would establish me. I feel like I’m in a transitional phase right now where I’m really seeking the Lord about where he wants me to be located for the next 10 years of ministry. I’m feeling like my hour in California is coming to an end, so I’m just praying into that. I’m asking for the Lord also to just connect me with the right team and the right people that I need to run with for this next decade of life. And then my last goal is to finish writing my book. So that’s what my sabbatical has looked like. And I’ve had the privilege to travel across the us. I’ve stayed in homes, I’ve stayed in Airbnbs, I’ve even been homeless a couple days this year. But to God be the glory, and for me, I feel like it’s just been this incredible adventure with the Lord where he has shown me his faithfulness again and again, this is the other crazy thing.
(19:07):
When I was getting ready for my journey, I was getting ready and I was packing everything and I grabbed one of my credit cards. I thought, what if some crazy emergency happens? What if my car blows up? Or what if some unexpected thing happens? I need this credit card as a backup just to take care of everything. And as soon as I put my finger on that card, I felt a check in my spirit. And the Holy Spirit said to me, Zach, are you going to trust in debt or are you going to trust in me?
(19:36):
And that just wrecked me. And so I said, okay, Lord. So I put the credit card back in the desk and I just said, I’m not going to bring it. I’m not going to have a plan B. Now that seems really foolish and reckless if you don’t have faith and if the Lord has not spoken to you, but when the Lord has told you to do something, he will supply everything that you and I need in order to accomplish that. The day before I left on my sabbatical at the beginning of the year, I got together with a gentleman who’s a friend of our family for coffee. He wanted to meet with me. We had a great time of prayer fellowship. And right before we were ending, he said, I have something for you. Don’t go anywhere. He goes to his car, he comes back and he hands me an envelope with over $5,000 cash in it.
(20:16):
And he said, this is manna for your journey. And I just sat in my car, Daniel, and I just wept for probably 15 minutes after that because I just thought, Lord, why would I doubt you? I feel like the Lord wants to challenge all of us, and I’m just sharing this testimony to stir all of our faith up. God is so much bigger. God has a better way than our way. God has a better way if we’ll actually trust him. And I feel like one of the words of the Lord to the American church is that we’ve trusted too much in marketing schemes and fundraising schemes and man’s plans and programs instead of really listening and depending on the Holy Spirit and doing what he has told us to do. And so anyway, I could continue on for another half an hour, but this sabbatical has changed my life, Daniel, seriously, I feel like a young child again in my spirit, I can feel the Lord peeling back layers of my heart healing me.
(21:06):
I feel more in love with Jesus now than I have been in so many years. And so I want to encourage you, if you feel burned out, I would argue you need to take a sabbatical. If you have the faith, take a whole year off and watch God do miracles for you, but at least get away for a couple of months and say, Lord, help me to be re-centered. Help me to remember why I’m doing what I’m doing. Fall back in love with Jesus. Spend time with your family. If you’re married and you have kids, get out into nature. Just slow down because like I said, when we’re so busy, we don’t have room in our spirits to just listen to God. I think a lot of people are busy doing stuff, and I liken it to a car stuck in the mud. You can be busy but not moving anywhere.
(21:46):
A car in the mud is running and spinning its wheels and it’s trying really hard. And maybe that’s you right now watching this podcast. Maybe you feel that way. I want to encourage you get unstuck by just getting on the mountain with the Lord like Moses to get away with God. Like Samuel in the prophets. And this is the last thing I’ll say about it, Daniel, when Jesus was at this beautiful moment of his ministry just preached the sermon on the Mount, thousands of people are listening to him multiplying the loaves and the fish, and everybody’s looking for Jesus. And then he says to his disciple, let’s go away for a little while. Let’s just go on the mountain side and be all by ourselves in America. We’d be like, wait a minute. You mean you’re not going to do another conference? You’re not going to go do another outreach. You’re not going to go preach another big. It’s like, no, we’re going to do that in its proper time and place, but we need that time to rest. So anyway, I pray that ministers to you, whoever you are watching.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:37):
So if you meet a minister who is on the verge of burning out and just been overwhelmed by the stress and strain of ministry, what advice would you give them as they consider going on a sabbatical?
Zac Linton (22:54):
Yeah, I would say number one is probably do a one to a three day water fast and just really ask the Lord to speak to you concerning what he wants your sabbatical to look like. I can’t overemphasize how important that is. I have a lot to say on this subject, Daniel. I really believe. So one of the key scriptures for me this year, and I would argue for all of us as we press more into the heart of God, I call it running at the pace of grace, and Jesus said that my yoke is easy and my burden is light. That’s Matthew chapter 11. Now, one of the theme verses for this year is Isaiah 40 31, and it says this, but those that wait upon the Lord will what? Will renew their strength, they will mount up with wings like eagles that will run and not be weary and they will walk and not faint.
(23:42):
I literally believe, I’m not saying we don’t go through persecutions. I’m not saying we don’t go through difficulties and hardships. All of us do, but I don’t believe the will of God for you or me is to be in a place of extended discouragement or weariness. I absolutely do not believe that’s from the Lord. That’s why we have the comforter. That’s why we have the advocate. That’s why we have the fire of the God in our spirits. And I believe that people get into that place of discouragement and weariness and wanting to give up for two reasons. One, they’ve allowed willful sin into their life somehow, whatever that might be. Okay? And there’s a very simple solution to that. You need to repent, amen. If you’re doing drugs, if you’re doing anything behind the scenes that the Lord has said that’s wrong, you need to repent and let me encourage you to find a brother or two in Christ that you can be accountable to.
(24:28):
I think a lot of people in ministry feel alone. They feel two things. One, they feel alone. Two, they feel like if I actually get open and confess, it’s going to ruin my ministry, it’s going to ruin my marriage. And not to say there aren’t any consequences to sin depending on what it is that’s been going on behind closed doors, but I want to say, I think it’s a lot better to just come out and just be upfront with it and say, you know what, Lord, whatever it is, whatever issue’s been going on, just confess it. Get it in the open, and God, I believe God will have a path of restoration. I’m not saying it’s always going to be easy, but the alternative is you’re going to die anyways. If you stay in that sin, God’s eventually going to bring judgment on you and your ministry and trust me, it’s going to be way, way, way worse in the end.
(25:09):
And so that’s number one. But the other one is that I think people become weary and discouraged because they’ve disconnected from the source. And that’s why it goes right back to the whole idea of this overflow ministries, John 15, five, Psalm 23, we can’t bear fruit by ourselves. And I feel like a lot of people are branches that have disconnected from intimacy with the vine, and they’re striving and struggling to try to keep their ministry going and their marriage going and win the loss and do this. And it’s like, guys, that’s insanity. Please, Lee, stop. Don’t do that anymore. Just get alone with Jesus. Allow him to restore your soul and restore your heart. And I really believe Sabbath is God’s methodology. It’s kind of like a honeymoon. It’s like an anniversary. You’re married to your wife and you want to renew that intimacy. Guess what?
(25:52):
You’re not going to do it if you’re both just crazy busy all the time just missing each other like ships in the night. You have to be intentional. Amen. You have to pause. You have to say, wait a minute, where did we disconnect? When did that happen? Oh, a year ago. Oh my gosh. We need to look at this. And because my conviction, I already shared when we wait on the Lord, when we seek his face, when Jesus truly is the thing that I’m after more than even my ministry. And I feel too, like somebody watching this might need to hear that our ministry is not our identity. Okay? I’m not Zach the evangelist or Zach the prophet. I’m Zach, the child of the living God because of his great mercy, because of the blood of the lamb. Amen. And you’re a son or you’re a daughter of the most high God you see.
(26:33):
And when we understand that that’s our identity, we’re no longer performing for acceptance. We’re not performing in order to feel good about ourselves in order to prove anything to anybody. We’re simply overflowing with the love of Christ, with the gospel, with the good news and with the truth that a dying world desperately needs to hear. And I’ll be the first to confess that no matter how much you think, you’re never going to somehow stray back into some sort of weird performance mindset. I feel like it’s just part of, sadly, the fleshly human nature. And so it’s good to have these rhythms of saying, you know what? Let me pause. Let me have an intentional time of checking in with the Lord and allowing him to renew my soul, to answer that question and recap fast and pray and ask the Lord what your sabbatical should look like, and then address one of the two issues and really try to identify, is there sin in my life I need to deal with and or have I disconnected from the vine? Have I let ministry or the stresses of life or other things literally become God to me instead of making sure that Jesus is God?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:32):
As you come out of this sabbatical, I believe your ministry is going to be stronger and more powerful than ever before. More nations, more preaching, more people reach than you ever have before because there will be a new strength that is coming. If someone is interested in learning more about your ministry, what is your website? How can they get in touch with you?
Zac Linton (28:02):
You can just go to overflow.global is the website address. I also have a YouTube channel, and you can reach that by going to zach linson.com, or you can look me up on YouTube by just typing my name in. But you just put zach linson.com, your browser, it’ll forward you to my YouTube, and that’s spelled Z A C L I N T O n.com, and then overflow Do global. There’s not a.com on it. It’s global. So those are my two websites. I mean, I am honored to connect with other people. If you feel called by the Lord, you have a question. If you want to somehow participate in Global Missions or join our pro team or do whatever, then I’m happy to be a resource to you. But please check out Daniel’s ministry as well. He’s doing an incredible work, and you guys, Jesus is coming back soon, and so I just feel like, you know what?
(28:53):
If I could say this last word to all of us, man, we’re all on the same team, and I really do believe that as we get closer and closer to the coming of Christ, and I do believe we’re starting to see a lot more and more and more of what we would call birth pains in the earth and in the nations leading up to that, I feel like let’s be more unified if we can agree on Jesus Christ crucified and raised, the Bible’s, the word of God, and that everybody needs his salvation, otherwise you going to heaven or Hell. I feel like if we can unite around those essentials, we can lovingly maybe have discussions about the other peripheral doctrinal disagreements perhaps we may have, but let’s do it in love and let’s do our best to pray for believe in speak well of encourage and labor together in the harvest of God.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:38):
Now, you told me earlier that one of the things that you’re praying for is a spouse to join you in ministry, and so if there is a cute girl who’s listening, what’s the best phone number for her to reach you at?
Zac Linton (29:53):
You know what? I don’t know if I want to give out my phone number on
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:55):
This podcast,
Zac Linton (29:57):
But you can. I mean, if you want to send me an email and just say, hi, I’m more than happy to meet you. Yeah, I mean, just send me an email. My email is Zach Zac c@divineoverflow.org, or you can send me a message to my website and say, I saw the podcast. I’d love to talk to you sometime. So I’m open to some of those conversations if you’re so bold as you want to send me that message.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:20):
I was totally joking, but I actually met my wife on the mission field, on the border of Rwanda in Congo, and so when you’re doing what God has called you to do and running after him, if you find someone who’s running in the same direction, that could be the right person for you. So amen. I know there’s a lot of godly women out there that are just praying that God’s in them, a godly spouse too.
Zac Linton (30:46):
Yeah, and I’ll be honest with you on that note, anybody who’s single men or women, it’s like a vast wasteland out there, to be honest with you. I mean, I tried the online dating thing a couple of times, really, really didn’t like it at all. And so maybe there’s people like me that you just feel like, man, I would like to meet somebody amazing who I feel like is a good compliment to who I am without compromising your values and your beliefs. And I think that’s one of the reasons why I think I’ve, I’m still single at this point. It’s not the only one, which is a whole separate podcast in and of itself, but I want to encourage you that, yeah, I mean, just stay true to the faith. And like Daniel said, I believe that if you pray and you wait on the Lord, whether you meet ’em at church, you meet ’em through a podcast, you meet ’em on some conference, you meet ’em, go door to door evangelism with a group or something, that God has those people out there and yeah, I wish it was a little bit easier though just to connect people.
(31:37):
I wish there was a Holy Spirit sort of matchmaking service that wasn’t creepy or weird or awkward where they could help people get matched up. I’m sure there’s a lot of other people out. We
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (31:47):
Should start a website though. Holy Spirit hookup. In fact, if you get any emails out of this podcast, I’m going to change the name to the Evangelism and Christian Dating Podcast. That’d be great.
Zac Linton (32:01):
Yeah, there we go. That’ll be awesome.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (32:03):
Hey, Zach, thank you so much for joining me on the Evangelism Podcast. So good to hear about your ministry. I know God has big things in store for you, and thank you for sharing some of these really important thoughts about the power of taking a sabbatical.
Zac Linton (32:18):
Yeah, amen. God bless you. Can we close with the word of prayer?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (32:22):
Please go for it.
Zac Linton (32:23):
Yeah. Father, I just thank you for those who are watching. If somehow you’re watching this and you’re either on the fence or a churchgoer, but you haven’t given your life to Christ, just say yes to him right now. Say, Jesus, I want to make you my Lord and Savior. I believe you died for me and Rose again. I repent and put my life into your hands, and God will guide you. Find a church, get a Bible. If you need resources, please reach out to Daniel’s ministry, or if you’d like to reach out to mine, we’d love to help you. And Father, for everyone else, God, we just release encouragement specifically to anybody in ministry, Lord, any leaders, any associate pastors, worship leaders, pastors, evangelists, missionaries, whoever, business leaders, God who just feel discouraged, who feel like they’ve been fighting an uphill battle with little support.
(33:07):
God, I just pray in the name of Jesus for a breaking to take place for a wave of encouragement. God, I pray you will show them where and if they may have gotten stuck somewhere, Lord, release this revelation that you are the God of rest. Lord, your word says that you give rest to your beloved Lord. Your word says that as we wait upon you, we will renew our strength. So we just speak a renewing of strength. We rebuke discouragement, we rebuke fear. We rebuke every lie. The devil that would try to take you out because you are needed in the end time. Army of God, you are important and you’re not important because of your performance. You’re important because you’re a son, because you’re a daughter of the most high God. So Father, we give you the honor and the praise, Lord, we say, let your work continue throughout America, throughout the nation. Scott, thank you for Daniel and his ministry as well. Lord, I pray for an overflow. God, I pray for the funding, the resources, the team, and the expansion, Lord, in the years ahead of souls, and we give you the honor and the praise, Lord, in Jesus name. Amen.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (34:03):
Amen. Thank you, Zac. Appreciate it.
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Giles Stevens | Church Multiplication in Brazil
Giles Stevens is the evangelism pastor for a huge network of churches in Brazil. His goal as an evangelist is to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry. You will be amazed as you listen to his story about how the church grew from 70 people to tens of thousands.
Learn more about Giles Stevens: https://gilesstevens.com/
Learn more about the church GIles Stevens is part of: https://www.igrejavideira.com.br/
Buy the book about “The Eleventh Question”
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, Giles Stevens from Great Britain now in the great nation of Brazil. Thank you for joining me today,
Giles Stevens (00:15):
Daniel, a joy to be with you. Thanks for having me.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:18):
Alright, you are passionate about evangelism. Tell me a little bit about your testimony and how God has brought you to where you are now.
Giles Stevens (00:27):
Well, I’m the first believer in my family. I like to say I got saved by mistake. I was looking in all the wrong places for life and for adventure. I’d rather thrown out the idea of Christianity as a young teenager because of my rather negative sort of traditional church experiences. And so I went to look for life and adventure outside of the church and that took me down all sorts of wild and paths and so forth. But thank God in his rich mercy, he sent along a couple of nice friends of friends who preached Christ to me and it kind of tricked me up, woke me up, brought me out of my lost state and showed me what life was all about, where told me the truth. And it just radically changed my life. And I think the fact that I’d come from a family where we didn’t know Christ personally and didn’t have that relationship and the fact that I suddenly realized there was an eternal realm and the decisions we make here during our lives affect where we spend our eternity.
(01:29):
I kept thinking to myself, well, how come nobody’s ever told me this before I could have died and if I’d have died, where would I be today? And so in a sense, I became a natural evangelist. I just thought there would be thousands, millions of people out there just like me who had no idea about these eternal consequences and destinations who’ve never heard. And so I just began. Once I was saved and knew the Lord, I just thought, boy, I’ve got to tell everybody else. So I preached at everything that moved. That’s how it started.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:56):
So you definitely have the call to be an evangelist on your life. And now you’re living in the nation of Brazil. How did you end up going to Brazil?
Giles Stevens (02:06):
Well, I married the girl.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:09):
Where’d you meet?
Giles Stevens (02:10):
Well, my wife, who is Brazilian as I’m indicating, she had won a scholarship to go and study in a Bible school in London, a place called the International Bible Institute of London, run by the quite well-known church, Kensington Temple. And so she was there and I was a full-time evangelist traveling around London at the time and other places with a big gospel tent and putting it up in downtown parks and using music and test me and other things to bring people in. And then preaching, there was no tomorrow to the crowds. And her church brought in the whole tent and all the equipment. I noted her in the kind of gang of young people. But being a classic Englishman, we have this slight reserve on us. So you shouldn’t really in decent society introduce yourself. So I saw this girl wanted the local pastor to introduce me and he didn’t. And so in the end, at the end of this mission, I went away having seen her thought, well she looks lovely and she’s full of the spirit and there’s something different about her. But I didn’t get introduced. But interestingly, a year later I was in a Reinhard Bonky fire conference in Birmingham and I saw her again. And thankfully by then I had more kingdom culture than British culture and I thought, I’m not going to miss my chance. Second time round,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:34):
God is the God of a second chance he brought her back.
Giles Stevens (03:37):
So I made a beeline for her.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:39):
Oh well that is a good place to meet your wife at a Reinhardt Bonky fire conference. I know you know that here is someone who loves Jesus.
Giles Stevens (03:47):
Well that’s right. People who go to those fire conferences, they have to have a certain are type of believer. They love the fire, they love evangelism. And so I like to say it’s a good place to find a partner better than the pub.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:01):
Alright, so you met her, you got married, how many years have you been married now? 23. Wow, congratulations. And she’s from Brazil, so you ended up going to Brazil with her?
Giles Stevens (04:14):
Yeah, we married in England. And so it was only really after our marriage that we went down to Brazil to meet the extended family. And we have completely different upbringings. And this is one of the challenges, but also one of the exciting things about our relationship is I was brought up, my father was a general in the British Army. I went to private schools, studied at Oxford, been traveling around the world ever since. My youth,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:43):
A classic British gentleman. Well,
Giles Stevens (04:47):
I trying to be, be gentle. Anyhow, Sylvia, in contrast, she was brought up out on a ranch in the back end of nowhere. I think you Americans, if you can picture in your mind the little house on the prairie, then you’ve pretty much got how Sylvia was raised. She’s the oldest of four girls. Her father and mother had this ranch literally miles and miles away from the big city. And they were brought up without electricity, without a car, without telephones. They would go to town once a week in a horse and cart to go to church and buy a few supplies. And she tells these incredible stories about how sometimes in rainy season to get to town you’d have to cross rivers and if if it had risen through the rain, they would have to sort of camp by the river until it had gone down so that they could cross over in their cart.
(05:39):
And so it was completely different upbringing. But as I’ve often said to young single people who are looking and praying about their married marriage partner, I’ve said, look, it’s not the past that counts. It’s the destination, your future that counts. Scripture says how can two walk unless they are agreed. And so when you’ve got a similar vision, a similar heart, a similar passion, then I believe that partnership can be a success. And thankfully, like we were talking about Sylvia being in a fire conference for evangelists, I knew that’s somebody with a similar vision. So it’s been a great, great marriage.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:16):
And what city are you living in? Brazil?
Giles Stevens (06:20):
Well, it’s a place that nobody knows and nobody can pronounce even if they know it well, certainly us foreigners. It’s called Goya. And it’s actually a large city, 1.5 million. So it’s big, but it’s kind of, it’s cowboy country. So people think when they think of Brazil, they either think Amazon or they think of Rio de Janeiro and the beaches kind of carnival football on the beaches. So we are more than a thousand kilometers inland, if you know where brazilia is, a couple of hours drive from there, right in the heart of Brazil below the Amazon and to the east of the Panol, which is the equivalent of our Everglades or your Everglades. And it’s a lovely region, beautiful countryside, jolly hot, but great place to be. Goana itself has no tourist attractions apart from an old zoo where there’s zebra that’s lost its stripes, there’s a lion who’s forgotten how to roar. And an old bear who strolls around. That’s our only tourist attraction. But Ang is not known for a tourist center. It’s known for something much more superior. And that is the move of God that’s happening there. It’s an extraordinary, it’s a city of revival.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:29):
Wow. Tell me about the revival.
Giles Stevens (07:32):
Well, I mean my experience mean in general. I can tell you about Brazil. I mean, it’s just extraordinary really what’s happened over the last 20, 30 years. I mean, Pentecostal, the Pentecostal missionaries came in and we’re here at an evangelist conference. So these sorts of conversations we’ve been having. But Swedish Pentecostals came in 112 years ago to the Amazon and started that sort of whole Holy Ghost move. But it didn’t really take off numerically until the last 20, 30 years. And so we’ve seen multitudes coming to the Lord in a general sense. I mean literally millions and millions, remembering that Brazil is a country of 230 million people. So that’s a big, big country. But I’ll give you more of the context with the network of churches with whom I’m based and principally work for, even though being an evangelist, I’m a kingdom man. So we started that church, which has now grown into a large network. About 24 years ago, I joined up with one of Sylvia’s youth pastors, my wife’s youth pastors, who had started this new church with a group of people, 70 people in a garage or on a veranda. And now that church is over 30,000 people.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:51):
And what’s the name of the church in port in
Giles Stevens (08:53):
Portuguese? It’s called Reja Viera, which translates directly as the Vine Church. The Vine Church. So we’ve now got over a thousand churches. And
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:01):
So there’s many branches all over Brazil.
Giles Stevens (09:03):
Yeah, I mean originally we just, the growth is so organic, the thing just kept growing and growing. And then before we knew it,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:15):
Well, if you name your church the vine, you figure it kind of spreads. We used to have a vine on our house and it would cover the entire thing. And so I think that’s a good name for a growing church. Yeah,
Giles Stevens (09:25):
I agree. I agree. I agree. It’s very biblical John 15. Of course. Yeah. But we did mean we were intentional as well. I mean some of the growth came just because people would get saved, become a member. And we have quite a strong church culture. So the people who sort of like what we teach and the way we do church, we’re a cell church. We have a lot of encounter weekends, and it’s a very busy active church full of young people. And so people who have been in that environment, if they get moved to another city for, I dunno, work or something else, they tend to, because of the culture they carry, they love having church at home as well as in a big building. So they’ll automatically start a group at home, a cell group. And so we just found these new groups growing up in other cities as well. And then we thought, well, we better send a trained pastor or a leader down there to help them. And suddenly we found that we had a network and then we did become a bit more intentional saying, well, let’s get a church into every one of the capitals of each state that 26 states. And then we thought, well, let’s get a church into every city with over 200,000 and so on and so on. And now we’ve become actually a growing international movement as well.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:31):
Wow, that’s amazing. And so tell me your position and what you do.
Giles Stevens (10:37):
Well, I kind of wear two hats really. I’m on the one hand an evangelist, and that’s really my principal.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:46):
The reason I’m asking this question is because a lot of evangelists who listen to the podcast are wondering how do they fit into the local church? Not every church makes a place for the evangelist, but I think an evangelist really needs to be part of a church and plugged in doing evangelism as part of a local church using their gifts. So how has that worked in your life? Well, I
Giles Stevens (11:11):
Think I really agree with you, and it’s not only good for the evangelist, it’s good for the church. It’s a two-way thing and it’s good for the family of the evangelists. You can’t just be out there on your own all the time. You should be in a community of believers. And in a sense, I mean I’ve always operated like this. My call as an evangelist is principally to my local church or to the group of local churches with whom I’m based. But obviously evangelists are kingdom people as we referred to earlier because we’re preaching the gospel to get people saved and to join a church. So we work with other churches as well. But for me, I think every evangelist needs to champion the local church. Christ is coming back for the church, it’s the church that will be raptured, the church is his bride.
(11:57):
And so the idea of having, even if you have a parachurch organization, you’re not building up that organization. You’re actually using your parachurch organization, your charity, your not-for-profit to build the local church. And I think pastors, they’ve had an uneasy relationship with evangelists over the years. They perhaps felt threatened by them or they feel that they might be pulling their flock away. But I think if evangelists express that and show that pastor I’m here to do a campaign so that your church grows so that new families come in, then obviously pastors are going to open up their hearts and their doors to them as well. So yeah, it’s always been a passion of mine. And I think also that coming back to the way we do church is that as Ephesians four says, the primary purpose of a five-fold ministry gift is to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry. So yes, I do campaigns, big campaigns, but actually I spend just as much time, if not more time training all the believers to be evangelists as well, all the believers to share their faith.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:05):
Yeah, that’s so much an important part of what the evangelist is called to do. So you said you wear two hats. One is the evangelist and are you saying the other one is the equipper or you have another hat? Yeah,
Giles Stevens (13:18):
Well yes, we might have a few hats here. We start breaking this down. But what I wanted to say was I do run an evangelistic association. It’s called the Great Mission, and that is to serve the body of Christ and the local churches at large. So I am an evangelist doing that within the Vine Church itself, I’m part of a presbytery or an apostolic team. I kind of serve as the director of evangelism. And so I train all the members of those churches. I prioritize that multiplying my own gifting and giving them tools and strategies so that they can be fruitful as well.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:58):
And so what does that training look like? Often in church, people want to do something for God and they have a heart to share their faith with others, but they don’t really know what to say or what to do. So in the Brazilian context of where you are, how do you equip believers to share their faith?
Giles Stevens (14:19):
Well, it’s great question. I really like that it’s right at the heart of what I feel like I’m called to do. I think firstly, local churches need to have a structure which allows them members to be sharing their faith and encourages them. It’s one of the reasons I really believe in cell groups where it’s not just now the pastor who’s doing the preaching because in cell groups, all the members of the church and that cell group can get involved in preaching and starting their own groups and so forth. So you are sharing what you’ve received, you are teaching what you’ve learned. And I think that produces healthy growth in the individual believer as well. If the believer is just receiving, then in a sense he grows lazy. If he’s just giving, then he’ll dry out. But you’ve got to be having both sides receiving and giving learning and teaching.
(15:08):
So we need to have church structures where that can happen. But as you rightly say, often people have a heart to win. Others, they just dunno how to start the conversation. They dunno what to say, they dunno how to do it. And so I think one of the things that the Lord has anointed me or gifted me to do is to create tools and strategies that help ’em to do that. And Daniel, you know how it is the evangelist as a character, one of the characteristics, the traits of an evangelist normally is that he’s quite extroverted. He preaches with ease. He burns all the time to share the gospel. And that’s great, but not all believers are like that. Like I say, a genuine believer, somebody who’s born again has a new nature, they’re going to have a heart to see others saved. Of course we are, but they perhaps just dunno how to take that step.
(16:02):
And so one of the things I’ve done is produce tools or materials that help people to share. Back in 2008 now I launched, or 2007 I launched a strategy called the 11th Question, a little booklet I’d spent some time with Reinhard, actually this is an interesting story. And he’d been down to us, he’d come and visited and preached in our conference and he was talking about in those days, I think his vision was to win 50 million people for Christ. Now we were really, really growing. We were really growing. I mean our churches were exploding, but when he started talking about the millions, it kind of makes you feel like you’re doing nothing in comparison. And I remember just lying on my bed after he’d been there and I’m just wrestling it out with the Lord. I’m thinking, Lord, I’m excited about winning 5,000 and he’s winning 50 million.
(16:53):
I said, I’ve got the same Bible as him, the same spirit as him. There’s something wrong here. And I felt like the Lord said to me, Giles, it’s one thing to have a vision, it’s another thing to have a strategy. I think we all tend to have a vision of winning our generation for Christ or something like that. But you’ve got to go beyond the vision and actually have a strategy in place that then fulfills the vision. And it was clear that Reinhard had his strategy of big crusades and all this kind of stuff. So I prayed that through and I felt like the Lord said to me to do two things, write a book for believers to equip them to share their faith, but also write a little booklet for unbelievers so that they can hear about Christ in a dynamic way. And I mean, if you think about it as well, you go to a Christian book shop, there’s pretty much nothing written for the unbeliever.
(17:44):
It’s all for the believer. And that’s got to be wrong because we are the salt and the light of this earth. So anyhow, I wrote this booklet called The 11th Question, A Spiritual Self-Evaluation Test. There are 11 questions, you have to answer those questions. The 11th is the most important, and the way you answer the 11th will determine your future. And what I did, it’s a little booklet with these 11th questions in, and we equip believers to share those 11 questions with friends. Now what happened was, this is back in 2007, I equipped 10,000 believers to do this test with seven people over the course of one month. So we evangelized 70,000 people in one month and we baptized at the end of it, 3000 on a day. So that was the beginning of this.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:29):
That’s like the day of Pentecost, 3000 people getting saved in one day.
Giles Stevens (18:33):
Well, we’ve gone beyond that. I then launched more recently another little booklet called Seven Good Things that maybe you Don’t know, same kind of idea. Because remember what I’m doing is I’m helping believers witness to their friends, to their neighbors, to their colleagues. So it’s not me doing the big preach. I mean, I do do the crusades and things, but this is getting the body to do it.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:55):
So let’s talk about the 11th question. What are some of those questions that people are trained to ask?
Giles Stevens (19:00):
You have to buy the
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:00):
Book to find out now is it on Amazon? Yeah, it’s on Amazon. We’ll put a link on the podcast so people can find the book The 11th question. But tell me some of the questions. No, I won’t.
Giles Stevens (19:12):
I
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:13):
Really won’t. The thing is,
Giles Stevens (19:15):
Like I say,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:15):
Because otherwise it
Giles Stevens (19:16):
Takes the kind of thunder out of it.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:18):
I mean, I’ve got a book, but I only got three questions in my book. You’re much more complex money. I just get them there much quicker. I’ll tell you some
Giles Stevens (19:25):
About my last one called The Seven Good Things. And that’s been really effective, which we launched just before the pandemic. And interestingly, when the quarantine came for us evangelists, most of us turned like tigers in a cage. We didn’t know what to do with ourselves. We love being out there doing crusades. You can’t have big gatherings. And I just was praying about, I just thought, Lord, what do we do? I just refuse to let not just kind of regulations shut me down, but also that kind of spirit of fear that was in the air, that everybody
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:56):
Was afraid
Giles Stevens (19:57):
That they were going to die and so forth. And I felt that classic story of David and Goliath. Saul ran from the Giant, but David ran at The Giant and I just thought, I’ve got to run at this thing. I’ve got to do something sort of bold and courageous at a time like this. And so I created a network on WhatsApp and for a hundred days I challenged this big network, thousands of young people to share their faith with one person every day for a hundred days. And I gave them different things to do. But one of the things was this booklet called Seven Good Things that Maybe You don’t know. And they would share these messages. And so some of those things, I’ll tell you those no matter who you are, you are much loved another one. No matter what you’ve done, there’s forgiveness available. I’m a real good news preach. I believe that Jesus Christ came as a friend of sinners to tell them the good news that their sins had been forgiven through his blood and by the
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:56):
Cross. And so over the course of those a hundred days, what were some of the miracles that you saw? Well,
Giles Stevens (21:01):
I mean the biggest miracle as we evangelists will say, is the miracle of salvation. And so actually at the end, it was in October, beginning of October during the pandemic, we baptized 10,000 people in a day.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:12):
Wow, that’s amazing.
Giles Stevens (21:14):
And that was in swimming pools and lakes and rivers and seas. Anywhere there was water because we couldn’t gather them together. We had this online meeting through YouTube and so forth, and all the different churches and places, the cities that were holding these events were baptizing. So we ran at the Giant.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:32):
Wow, what a miracle. Let’s talk about the spiritual atmosphere in Brazil. What do you see God doing in the nation of Brazil?
Giles Stevens (21:41):
Yeah, I mean we really have to talk about that because again, the tendency when we think about church growth and winning souls is to immediately go to strategy. But I think it was moody or one of these guys said, it’s not so much how you present the gospel, just make sure you present it hot. It’s got to be anointed, it’s got to be full of fire and life. And really, if you’re full of fire and life, it doesn’t really matter what sort of strategy you use. I mean, I teach young people these days. I say, look, be filled with the Holy Spirit and then do whatever you like because if you’re filled with the Holy Spirit, life is going to flow through you. So we work, how can I say? We’re very conscious, I suppose, as church leaders of creating spiritual atmosphere, culture, a revival culture.
(22:30):
And so I almost want to talk in tongues. So difficult to put into words this, but you’ve got to have that atmosphere where people are just going after God, where the presence of God is liberated and manifesting the whole time, and a fire will naturally go out unless it’s fed. And so we see that as well. It’s very easy for a move of God to stop very easy unless you make a personal decision. I think this is one of the roles of a church leader. You make a decision that your meetings, your church, whatever you do is you don’t accept anything but a manifestation of the presence of God. Whether it’s in a prayer meeting, a Sunday church, a crusade, an encounter weekend. We are going to pray to have that presence. We’re going to preach. Until we get that presence, it just becomes our life source. We need the living water. Because of that, there’s life manifesting. And of course growth comes because of life. Most people go after growth. I always say, no, no, go after the spiritual atmosphere and growth will be the result.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:37):
Wow. I know you’re a very proud father. Your son is at Oral Roberts University right now. My friend Rubens Konya took him over to Ethiopia for a crusade. And so God doesn’t just call individuals, he calls families. Talk to me about balancing family life and ministry life.
Giles Stevens (24:00):
Well, yeah, I mean that’s really interesting. Again, I’m really enjoying your questions, Daniel. We are a missionary family. I’ve got four children. Titus is the oldest, so 21, 19, 18, and 15 little girl at 15. And so let me say it like this. Sometimes you hear Christians say, God, first, family second, ministry third or those kinds of things. But I’ve never seen it like that. For me, it’s all one thing. So it’s not just about Daddy Giles being the minister and everybody else following me. No, we’re a ministry family, we’re a family of priests. We are all in this together. And so also for us, church isn’t a building, church is a body of Christ. And so we’re just as much in church at home as a family as we are if we’re in a pulpit somewhere. And I think that atmosphere and that way of life has just meant that what the gift and the call of God on my life has just been naturally spontaneously shared with the children.
(25:03):
And so they are all involved in the ministry with me. I mean, I was listening to a message that Titus preached the other day, and I had to post it on a pastor’s group. I just had to, on a WhatsApp group that I’m part of, I said, just listen to this coming from a 20 year old boy. Because what he preaches in this message, I think is wiser and more anointed than most ministers I’m hearing who’ve been in the ministry for years. And I don’t say that as a proud father. I’m just trying to say that when you’re brought up in revival and it’s just in you from the get-go, then it just sort of gushes out, doesn’t it? And so it’s just been a joy. Obviously, they’ve all got slightly different and giftings and so forth, but all of them are just full of the Holy Ghost. That’s great.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:52):
That’s awesome. What advice would you give to a young evangelist who really wants to be used by God?
Giles Stevens (26:00):
Well, yeah, really good question. Again, boy, you’ve done this before, haven’t you?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:06):
You’re my 290th interview on evangelism. Fine. Yeah. Have I got anything new to say? No, it’s good. I mean, it’s so neat seeing how God uses different people, different personalities. There’s so many different methods of evangelism, but God is so wonderful. He uses all of us. Yeah, yeah. I mean
Giles Stevens (26:25):
Advice to a young evangelist is if it burns in your heart, preach it. I started out pretty shortly after I got saved. I remember reading the scripture that Saul, who became the Apostle Paul, he preached Christ immediately. The scripture says in the synagogues immediately after his conversion. So he didn’t hang around to start sharing about Christ. And I think when you’re faithful with the little, God will give you much. And so you can see how Paul’s revelation just grows and grows and grows. He was constantly giving out what he’d received. So I think there’s a principle there. If you’ve been anointed, to be honest, if you’ve got saved, start talking about it, start testifying. At least that’s what we’re empowered to do by the Holy Spirit. But I think really, if you’ve got a call to the full-time ministry and you dream of the multitude, so to speak, I think probably the best thing you can do is something rather like Elijah did with Elijah, serve a man of God, a more experienced evangelist.
(27:25):
Because there’s a certain amount you’re going to learn in the classroom, and obviously you’re going to learn through your own relationship with the Lord principally and the study of the scripture. But so much is transferred in that discipleship process when you’re actually under the authority and you’re serving a man of God who’s already doing it. There’s just lessons there that you wouldn’t get anywhere else. And I again like to teach on that particular story in the Old Testament that scripture gives detail and it says that Elisha, he poured water on the hands of Elijah. And I read that and I thought, that’s really strange that it would say that, but it’s clear that the detail is in the scripture, I think, to show us that if he was doing the menial tasks of just even helping Elijah Elijah wash his hands before dinner, that really meant that he was disposed to serve his master in any possible way that he could be helpful.
(28:21):
Remembering that, of course, Elisha was a rich young farmer, and so he was the rich young ruler, let’s say, who gave up everything unlike the rich young ruler who Christ called and went away. So he served this rather strange prophet. He saw the anointing of God upon him. So if you’re a young guy, then you kind of need to let go of sometimes of your natural world and your natural relationships and get around somebody who’s really anointed, but serve them in practical and menial ways. And you see, this is the glory of this revelation is that as Elijah poured water on the hands of Elijah, what he didn’t realize perhaps at the time was that Elijah was pouring spiritual water upon the head of
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:08):
Elijah. I love that story. And then one of the most tragic stories in the Bible is the next one of Gaze who was called by God, I think, to be the next prophet of Israel, but failed his test, and he was serving Elisha, but then for a little bit of money in a few sets of clothes, he gave up his anointing in his bad trade dollars because he didn’t know that being a servant is just a stepping to the destiny that God has for you.
Giles Stevens (29:43):
Yeah. Sold himself out. Oh, dear.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:46):
Tragic. I’m going to put a link to your book on the podcast, but do you have a website, a way that people can connect with you?
Giles Stevens (29:59):
Yeah. The ministry that I run, the evangelistic ministry I run is called The Great Mission. Put a.org on the end of that, and you’ll find us or Giles Stevens, old English name, G i l e s, Giles Stevens with a v.com. You can find me there and you’ll find materials. Like I said, my heart is very much to equip and empower others. I’ve often said, what’s best? One guy speaking to a thousand or a thousand preachers speaking to their multitude. So I’m very much about helping not just teach, but giving other young evangelists and teachers and preachers and pastors sermons to preach and strategies to use so that you can be fruitful in your own life.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:42):
My passion. Well, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast. I appreciate
Giles Stevens (30:46):
It. Daniel, it’s a joy. Thank you for receiving Titus when he’s been to help you as well and your crusades, and I
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:52):
Hope we can, he’s a blessing. Hope
Giles Stevens (30:53):
We can do more together.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:54):
Thank
Giles Stevens (30:54):
You. Bless you.
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Hans Martin | Evidence of Faith
Hans Martin has been leading people to Jesus in Burkina Faso and Mali. He is on the board of the Association of Campaign Evangelists. This network of evangelists has ministered in over 80 village campaigns in Burkina Faso. During the time this ministry has taken place the percentage of Christians has in Burkina Faso has grown from approximately 2% to 11%. Today Hans Martin helps to lead Evidence of Faith (Troens Bevis), the evangelistic ministry started by the famous Norwegian evangelist Aril Edvardsen.
Learn more about Evidence of Faith: https://evidenceoffaith.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, Hans Martin, thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Hans Martin Skagestad (00:10):
Thank you for having me.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:12):
Now you’ll have to tell me how do you pronounce your last name?
Hans Martin Skagestad (00:14):
Yeah, ska Gestad. In English it would be like SCAD or something like that. So I don’t usually when I’m out, I never use my last name. I usually just use my two first name Hans Martin.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:29):
And so we are sitting on the historic grounds of a great Norwegian evangelist. Tell me about him and what he did in this place.
Hans Martin Skagestad (00:40):
Yeah, this is the base that was built and founded by Evangelist Aril Edvardsen. It started in 1960 where God called him to have a worldwide mission organization. So that’s where we are. It’s a small place in Norway called Quinol. It only lives maybe around two, two and a half thousand people here, but it’s being become a big center of Christians all over. Scandinavia has come to this place to be inspired to go to Bible schools and sent out to preach the gospel all over the world and also this organization. And through the work during these 60 years that the organizations have reached out to millions of people all over the world.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:30):
It’s seeped in history here. It is so wonderful to be in a place where revival has gone out all over the world. And we’re actually here for a conference with the Association of Campaign Evangelist Ace, and you’re one of the board members for the organization. And we’ve actually met in many different countries. Last year we were in Turkey together and we are here with campaign evangelists who have a heart for preaching the gospel. And you have spent a lot of time going to different nations around the world and preaching the gospel. Tell me about some of the countries that you focused on and what God’s done there.
Hans Martin Skagestad (02:13):
So I have been traveling to many different countries having campaigns. I think I’ve been to preaching in maybe around 60 countries the last 13, 14 years. But there are some countries that I have had my main focus on when it comes to campaigns and crusades. And that’s two of them are Burkina Faso and Molly, that I have spent most of my time the last years having campaigns there. Yeah, so Burkina Faso is the main focus together with Molly.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:46):
And so over the years, how many campaigns has Ace done in Burino Faso?
Hans Martin Skagestad (02:55):
Yeah, it’s around 75 to 80 I think. Somewhere between that we have had in Burkina Faso the last, I think it’s 20 years and I have had 35 myself since 2012. So we’ve really had a great impact. And what you can see with Burkina Faso, it’s quite interesting, is that for 20 years ago there was around 2.5 Evangelical Christians in Burkina Faso, and now it’s around 11, 11 and a half percent evangelical Christians in Burkina Faso. It’s not only the work with the campaigns that we have done with Ace and my organization and others, but it is several things that happened. But it’s actually a great revival in Burkina Faso especially to see when Burkina Faso has been a troubled country with a lot of terrorism, unstable politicians situation. And also to see how Burkina Faso is the second country with most terror attacks in 2022. It’s only Afghanistan that had more terror attacks than Burkina Faso.
(04:05):
But still in that environment the gospel is growing and there is a great revival happening. So for me that’s really inspiring to see that we can sometimes look at the environment and we think, oh, it’s tough, especially in Europe. And I would guess it’s the same in America. We look at the environment and the politician situation and we think, oh, it’s difficult, but God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow and power of God is shaking nations. And that is what we see in Burkina Fa. And we have seen thousands of people giving hundreds of thousands of people giving their life to Christ. And it’s really, really inspiring and to see in these difficult situations how God is working. And we also work very closely with what we call local missionaries. We support local missionaries because we plant churches. We have planted hundreds of churches in Burkina Faso the last 20 years. And it’s amazing what’s happening there. And most people have never heard of Burkina Faso, but it’s actually a country with 23 million people. And it’s amazing to see what God is doing in these nations.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:16):
I really love the strategy that you have had for Burino Faso because over the years doing over 70, 80 campaigns in one country, you’re able to systematically go from village to village to village. And so some of the campaigns aren’t huge, but you go to a small village and for that village, it’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened in that place. And so talk to me some about the strategy and the process of what you’re hoping to accomplish. Yeah,
Hans Martin Skagestad (05:51):
The goal or the thinking we had was that we want to go to new places. We want to go to places where there have never been a gospel campaign where maybe even where they’ve never been preached the gospel before. And we did that when we started 20 years ago. What we see now, it’s quite interesting, is that we have been now to between 70 and 80, 80 cities around and villages around in Burkina Faso and some of what was a village 20 years ago is now become a big city because the growth of the population. So when we were there 20 years ago, maybe there was 20,000 people. Now it’s 150,000 people in the village. So we actually now also we’re thinking of maybe some of the village that we have to go back to because they have grown so much and they’re a new generation. But also our thinking is that we want to go to together with our local that we work with, we say that we want to go to every city and village in Burkina Falls. So that’s our goal. About
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:00):
How many would that be? Oh,
Hans Martin Skagestad (07:01):
That’s thousands. So also
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:04):
You’re really only just getting started.
Hans Martin Skagestad (07:06):
But the thing is that we don’t see that we have to go to all these thousands of, I think it’s 2000 villages and cities that have never been preached in Burkina Faso. So we are not thinking that we have to go to all that, but we also train that what we use also the local missionaries, the local evangelists, we want them to go out to these villages and preach and have their own mini campaigns in the small villages. So when I say between 70 and 80 campaigns that we have had, that’s the people in Ace. But if we take the local missionaries that will be hundreds more that has had campaigns. So we want to be really strategic in what we do because we believe that it’s important for the nation. And we work also very closely with the local denominations and we never plant our own churches where we plant through the local denominations.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:06):
So I pulled out my calculator here and you said there’s 24 million people in Burino Faso. And so 24 million times 24 million, hold on. Times 0.025% would’ve been around 600,000 believers. And then over the last 20 years, it’s gone from about two and a half percent to
Hans Martin Skagestad (08:35):
Around 11 and a half to
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:36):
About 11 and a half. So I’m going to put these numbers in. We got 24 million times point 11 five. So now over 2,700,060 believers, 60,000 believers. And so over the course of 20 years, see almost 3 million people that now serve Jesus. I mean, it’s an amazing revival. I mean hardly anyone’s ever heard of what God is doing there. But when you think about it, over 2 million people giving their lives to Jesus, that is a great revival.
Hans Martin Skagestad (09:14):
You could put in a context if that happened in America, that almost 10% increase, that would be how money lives in America. America, like
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:23):
300 million, that
Hans Martin Skagestad (09:24):
Would be 30 million that got saved in 20 years. And same thing in Europe, it would be a revival that the newspapers would speak about and write about every day. But also what I think is good because it have been a quite tough Muslim country with a lot of terror attacks, a lot of things. I think also it’s good that in some way that it’s not opened the news and talked about what happened there because you have to, there can be tough times also for the locals we work with in some areas it’s quite tough, especially in the northern part and the eastern part has been very difficult the last years. But even to see now that there are happening so much, it’s really inspiring.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:14):
And then you’ve also been going, Tom, you have a great heart for Molly. I’ve been to Bamako, I think the capital there and I got to participate in a campaign there a few years ago. But many Muslims in Mali, yeah,
Hans Martin Skagestad (10:33):
It is totally different from Burkina Faso. In Mali, there are 0.66%, so less than 1% Christian Evangelical Christians. It’s a very, most of them are Muslims have some animists and so on. But most are Muslims. And what is quite strange when Mali is that Mali had had a lot of missionaries, a lot of mission work for a lot of years, but there is not happening a lot in Mali has been quite closed, quite, not so much happening, but what we have seen when we work with the locals to support locals, the fruits of it, it has been quite good. And also the campaigns, I usually, because also some of the challenges that a lot of mission work is happening in Bamako. You have a lot of Christians in Bamako, but not a lot of, most of the Christians are in Bamako. But when you go out of Bamako, there are not many Christians.
(11:38):
So I have had my main focus on the towns and the villages outside Bamako in the east and the west in the middle and in the north has been quite difficult because there have been very strict Islamic ruling system there. And also the UN soldiers have been there fighting with the is and Buko Haram and all these different Islamist groups. But to see also now we see in towns and in villages around Mali, there are happening. People are getting saved. We see thousands of people given their lives to Jesus, we planting churches. And so it’s really, really amazing to see.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:18):
I pray that in 20 years we will see another great success
Hans Martin Skagestad (12:22):
In Mali. Yeah, that’s my prayer because what you can see with the Malian people in the Burino Falls, so as they call themselves Burkina base, that’s what they call themselves. But what you see, they’re almost the same people. They’re very similar. They’re very, very alike. It’s like a Scandinavian, we say the Swedes and the Norwegians are quite the same people. We speak the same language and it’s the same, but you don’t see the same revival and the same impact that the Christianity has in Burkina as in Mali. But my prayer is that it will be a breakthrough in Mali. And I believe so. I believe that Mali will be the next nation that has a breakthrough in West Africa because it’s the border to the North Africa and it’s just the Sahara is on top of Mali, and then you go to North Africa, and I believe that revival will come in Mali. And that’s my prayer.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:21):
And so approximately how many campaigns have you done in Mali?
Hans Martin Skagestad (13:26):
In Mali, I have done, let me see, I just have to maybe 20, 25 campaigns in Mali. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:37):
Wow. Now let’s talk about this ministry here. Tell me the name in Norwegian and then tell me what it means in English.
Hans Martin Skagestad (13:45):
The name is, and if you would just translate it straight on it’s evidence of faith.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:52):
And actually there is great evidence of faith right here. The founder Ariel Everett.
Hans Martin Skagestad (14:02):
Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:03):
He comes from this small village, less than 2000 people. And in the auditorium here, there’s room for over 2,500 people to pack it there. And so you build a bigger auditorium than for, but ever since the early 1960s, people have been coming here for revival every single summer. And so the focus of this ministry kind of talk to me about historically what’s been the focus of the ministry.
Hans Martin Skagestad (14:36):
The focus has started with and then always been our main focus is of course on reach. That’s the beginning. Reaching the unreached. Yeah, reaching the unreached. And then the next have always been through the local missionaries. Local evangelists. We’ve always been like a mission organization that focus on the local missionaries. And in the beginning that was a big discussion. A lot of Christian leaders didn’t like that because if you are a missionary, you have to be white, you have to be in teach in the right way, you have to be in this or that. But Arnold always thought that the best way is to send out the local missionaries. We have a saying that the local missionaries, they know the language, they know the culture and they like the food. And for us who have been traveled to many countries is not always, we know the language.
(15:29):
It’s not always, we understand the culture. And I can say it for myself, it’s not always, I like the food. So that’s what we’ve been thinking that to send out and give support to the local workers, it’s really important because we believe that of course we believe in western missionaries we believe to send people, but we believe also in helping the local ones. So that has been the main thing. And we have done a lot of things during the 60 years. We have had TV channel, we have one we call a correspondence course, a new Life that’s introduction to the Christian faith that was written in 1972 by our Ledson. And from 72 to now, there are 7 million people that has given their life to Christ through that correspondence course. So it has been one of the tools that we have used and the local missionaries have used. We use it often in our campaigns. So we give it to the people that comes. So they have an introduction now. In the beginning of course it was in paper, now we have an app and we use also digital things to use that correspondence course. And then of course campaigns also is a part of our ministry. We have done, I don’t know, hundreds of campaigns during the of ministry and also been important door opener into nations, into towns and into villages. So that’s also a part of what we have done,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:11):
What a tremendous legacy. And just recently you were named to help lead the organization, which is you’re standing on the shoulders of spiritual giants, which is amazing, but you’re 36 years old. So what is that like to suddenly be given this mandate, this vision and you’re a steward of it, but then also looking to the future?
Hans Martin Skagestad (17:44):
It has been some ways also challenging because after Orel, there was his son Runa who took over the organization when he died. And he has been leading it for 15 years. He’s a totally different person than his father. And I think that’s a strong, strong thing. We say Norwegian, that he has not taken his shoes, his father’s shoes, but he’s walked in his own shoes, not trying to be his father, but to be himself. And this summer in our summer conference, I was prayed for and I was named the next leader, me and Runa will. And I’m very happy for that because we are going to lead it together for some years. And then I will take over after him. We don’t know how many years that will be. It can be two years, it can be five, but we’ll see. But for me it’s been really good because I think it’s good to have a good transitions.
(18:48):
And for me I think that’s really great. But of course I’m very humble in going into this leadership and to take over, as you said, I’m 36 years old, but for me it has been really important to, it’s about the calling. It’s not about necessarily the gift, all the gifting and all these things, but it’s the calling. And I have known this for many years that I’m going to be the successor or takeover after him. But we have talked about it maybe in five years. But for me, it have been a long process for me because this is a big organization. It has been have great impact in the whole country.
(19:37):
But I have felt like God has called me to do this and I think I’m really looking forward for the future. But as the question you ask, what I see in the future, to be honest, I see, I think it’s the same thing in America as it is in Europe. You see a generation growing up now that don’t know much about mission, at least they don’t know about reaching the unreached. And for me, I feel that’s probably my most important calling, is to really reach the next generation with mission, to get them to understand the importa of Jesus commandment, of going out to the nations and reaching those who have never heard about Jesus. Because I think we need generations growing up now, really going after the souls, after the unreached. So that’s probably what I see is the most important thing for me is to really reach the next generation.
(20:43):
Because like our organizations who have been 60 years, the last 10 years we really worked on, because we have our supporters. A lot of have been from the beginning when it started for six years. So we have had a lot of old supporters, but the last 10 years we have really changed and really reached younger supporters and that are connecting with our mission work. So that’s also one thing that I’m working on and spending a lot of time to, we have what we call partner churches. We partner with churches in Scandinavia, Scandinavia group. We also have some few in America actually that we work together with. And that’s also important because we really believe in the local church. We believe in the local church in Europe, in America, but we also believe in the local church in Africa, Asia where we work. So we really want to connect with the local church. That’s really important for us.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:42):
And so when someone chooses to support you, they’re helping to support missionaries in different countries, not Western missionaries, but national missionaries. And so what does that look like? How long would you support someone for how much does it cost to support someone in a nation in Africa? Yeah,
Hans Martin Skagestad (22:09):
So we usually say that we support a local missionary for five years. Then we want them to be self supported, that they have built a church or built the ministry so they can self-support themself. So we support them. But in some areas where it’s more difficult because there are different areas, some are tougher and in some areas they can have, in two years they can have a church for 200 people. In some areas they can be there for five years, but still the church is maybe 30 because it’s a tougher area. So some we also support longer, depends on the situation, but we always work with local leaders. We have a local leader in every country that we work together with, and he’s in charge of that country. And then we support through his ministry or her. We also have some women that are leaders in different countries.
(23:12):
So that’s how we work. We support locals. And it depends on the country how much it costs because we say that we don’t give them a Norwegian salary or American salary, but what we give is that so they can support themselves and their family with food and what they need. So we often go on the average salary in the country depends. In some countries it can be a hundred dollars in some it can be $70. Some countries $200 depends on the country and the costs of living in the country. So that’s very different. In China, it’s a totally different number than in Burkina Faso for
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:53):
Example. And you’re really focusing on the most on reach parts of the world.
Hans Martin Skagestad (23:59):
We work mainly in what we call the 10 40 window with the most unreached countries are the most unreached people groups are. So we work in those countries. So we have always done that. I think actually evidence of faith have worked in almost every country in the world now as maybe some few we haven’t been, but during our 60 years of history, we have been in almost every country. But now we work in 25 countries, I think it is that we work in now.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:32):
And approximately how many national missionaries would you support?
Hans Martin Skagestad (24:37):
We have 1,400 national missionaries around the world that we support.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:43):
That’s amazing. And I’m sure they’re seeing amazing fruit.
Hans Martin Skagestad (24:47):
Yeah, that’s the thing. If you take the last three years through both our local missionaries during and through our campaigns and the different work we do, the last three years, we have planted 6,000 churches the last three
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:06):
Years. So if someone is listening and they say, oh, I want to help support a national missionary, how can they get in touch with you? What’s your website?
Hans Martin Skagestad (25:18):
You can go to evidence of faith.org. That’s where you can find, contact us. If you are a Scandinavian, you can go to tones. But for those who are not speaking our Scandinavian language, it’s evidence of faith.org and you can read more about our work and you can contact us there.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:42):
Well, such an amazing ministry, such an amazing history here. And I believe that the best is yet to come. I think that the greatest harvest of souls in history is going to happen in just the next few years. And so we’ve seen great things happen in the past, but yet in the future I think we will see many more millions of people come into the kingdom of heaven.
Hans Martin Skagestad (26:08):
And I totally agree. And you can just see in the population growth of the world for us who are 60 years, if go 60 years back, the population has doubled almost. So the population growth in the world are great. So what we need is more workers. That’s why also I think local national workers are really important because we need more workers. We need also American workers, European workers. We need more workers out in the mission field. And what I think is very different, because sometimes I feel like I’m living in two worlds. You have the western world and you have what we do in Africa, Asia, north Africa, and all this. Often we don’t maybe see so much fruit in the Western world, we don’t see so many revivals, we don’t see a lot of people coming to Christ. But it’s a totally different thing in the 10 40 window and in Africa, Asia, because there are longing for the gospel. And it’s just a question, how many workers can we send? What it’s about? It’s to send more workers and to send out more workers because the harvest is great.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:23):
Yeah. Even Jesus said the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. We just need more laborers.
Hans Martin Skagestad (27:28):
We do that. We need that.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:30):
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism podcast. I appreciate
Hans Martin Skagestad (27:34):
It. Thank you so much to have me, Daniel.
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Harald Mydland | The Life & Legacy of Aril Edvardsen
During his lifetime, Aril Edvardsen was the most famous Scandinavian evangelist in the world. Today I interview Harald Mydland, who wrote a book about the history of this great evangelist. On today’s episode of the Evangelism Podcast, you will discover the exciting faith and visionary thinking of one of God’s heroes.
Read the Book: https://www.akademika.no/humaniora/teologi-og-religion/fra-sarons-dal-til-jordens-ender/9788230202708?popup=close
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, Harold Midland. Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Harald Mydland (00:12):
Thank you so much.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:13):
Now we are sitting in a very historic place in the nation of Norway. It’s a very small village. And help me with, what is the name of the village
Harald Mydland (00:24):
Kvinesdal
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:25):
Okay. And we are in the headquarters of a ministry of one of the greatest European evangelists who has ever lived. And so tell me about how this place got started and what God has done.
Harald Mydland (00:42):
His name was Aril Edvardsen and he was born in this place. He grew up as an ordinary kid, a young boy. And in the age of 17, 17 years old, he received Jesus. And he was saved in a very powerful way because he was supposed to go to see a movie at cinema. But a guy convinced him to come to a meeting in a local church. He came with him and was listening to the message. I think he was called by God listened to the message. And when they gave the altar call, he came forward. He gave his life to Jesus. And when he explained afterwards what happened, he said that he felt that God’s power hit him in such a powerful way that he understood if I let this happen to me, I will never be the same. It’ll be so. It was so powerful. It was so, he knew very well, I have to make a decision. Will I go for this or will I stop it to happen? So he surrender himself to Jesus. And he was born again in a very powerful way. And the same evening his wife were at the local hospital.
(02:05):
She had just given birth to the first child and she was laying in the room, ar came into the room and said, Curry, I have given my life to Jesus and you have to give your life to Jesus as well. And she was totally shocked. But he prayed for her and led her to Jesus the same evening. And
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:27):
Then so the first person he led to Jesus was his own wife, his
Harald Mydland (02:29):
Wife, his wife. And then very soon he started to preach in the local area. And God’s power were really over him. He was anointed in a powerful way. He was very bold. So he started to do campaigns in the local area, but the tent campaign, he had the tent oral, put it up many places and went around. And then in 1960, he was 21, 22 years old, came to my place, my church, my home place, just one hour from here by car. And he was, they called him to be an evangelist to staying in our church for four months. And then in March 26th of March, 1960, in the afternoon before he was supposed to have a meeting in the evening, he was staying in a room and God’s Holy Spirit came into that room. It was so powerful. He just laid down on the floor and go start to speak to him. I said, I call you to be a world evangelist, to go to the nations and you are going to do it by supporting and working together with local native people around the world. Very powerful. So the same evening, he decided to start support his first national evangelist in Brazil. And after that,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:04):
So how did he know about the evangelist of Brazil?
Harald Mydland (04:06):
He found a paper, a Christian magazine. So he continued to preach. He also went also to Europe in a pioneer journey to see the mission field in Europe. He came back in 1961, but in 1962, something very special happened in a dream. One night he was dreaming and he saw himself in a dream walking up on a mountaintop close to this area. On the other side of the, well, there is a mountain top. He saw himself walking up on that mountaintop and he stood there watching and he saw this area. He saw this well in his stream. God showed him that. Well, it was like a journal at that time, many Ian bushes and nobody had thought about using it to anything. So God spoke to him and said, from this place, you’re going to put up a mission center and it’ll be a mission center to influence the whole world. It’ll be a place for the people in Scandinavia to come together in unity and to show Jesus Christ as a savior, but it’ll be a mission center to all the world from this place.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:20):
And so we’re talking about the place we’re sitting now. The place
Harald Mydland (05:23):
We’re sitting now in
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:24):
English, it’s called the Valley of Sharon. How do you say it in Norwegian. And it’s evidence of great faith because here in this place, there are more seats than there are people in the village. And so to make a place like this in a small village and to trust that God can fill the place, it shows that Ariel was an evangelist who had great faith.
Harald Mydland (05:50):
He had, it was not immense vision, it was not a vision. It was God’s vision given to him. And he really took it and made it his own. So the next day he went off to the mountain and saw the place and he saw the place. And then he went to, the two brothers owned the place. So he went to them and said, I want to buy your land. And he paid $3,000 at that time, a huge amount of money. I had no money. He had no money. He said when he said, I will pay it, give it, I will buy it and the money will come. So he started to give a magazine and write about it in a magazine. And people started to give. And he also came as volunteers because they made a first hall in the beginning. And they used it for many years, a small hall in the beginning. And the first summer convention took place in 1963. Not in this place because even was not prepared, they were not fulfilled. But 1963, there was some convention for the first time in the town, just over here. But from 1964, every year, one week, every year there has been an annual conference and get many people from many nations. But step by step earlier as written in my book, this is the story about, yeah, you have
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:14):
Really become the historian of the
Harald Mydland (07:17):
Movement. Yeah. This is the story about from year you can follow the work and the waves in a way, year by year, everything what happened, the main lines and also summary for each year, what happened. Now
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:30):
Your book is only in Norwegian.
Harald Mydland (07:32):
Yes. I’m sorry.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:34):
You must put it in English so that the English speaking world can hear the story because I think still this story has the power to inspire
Harald Mydland (07:43):
People. Yeah, it’s so inspiring by it because he has supported thousands after thousands of native workers. He has done crusades, he has done seminars and conferences. They started with radio, radio, Luxembourg. If some people know about radio Luxembourg, it was very famous radio. Many years ago, he started to broadcast on radio Luxembourg Evangelical message. Yes. And then step by step, he had his own radio work. And then after a while, television, when television came, he saw in the beginning there was only state television, only one channel. Not only all those channels we have today, but in the beginning only one channel. But God talked to him in Nairobi, in a hotel in Nairobi, 1970s, God spoke to him or eighties, God spoke to him and said, very soon mon, you say monopole, it’ll fall and he’ll be able to cover the world with the gospel using television. So he started to broadcast and he prepared and made a studio in this place below in the basement. And they were able to, Visian was to cover the world with the gospel from this place within two seconds, broadcast from here in two seconds all over the world. So he started, and from this place, they have been able to influence or impact almost all the world, more than 200 nations, radio, television campaigns, native workers, supporting them.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:26):
And so at the height of the ministry, how many native workers would they have supported?
Harald Mydland (09:36):
They have tens of thousands altogether. I think today they have, I’m not sure because I’m not follow it so close today, but they have thousands in many nations. They have very, and so
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:48):
Over the course of the ministry, tens of thousands. And what does that look like? Is it finding people that have just graduated from Bible school and helping them to go plant a church?
Harald Mydland (10:02):
The first thing is they need a calling. They need a passion. They need the calling from God to go out to raise the people in their own country. And then by that time got that vision. It was not common in Norway to support native workers. A missionary was a white man crossing the borders and coming to Africa or some places not using the natives. So he received a lot of opposition and doth because people didn’t believe in him or that kind of ministry. But it has proven itself so many times, very effective. And they have reached thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions, and planted so many churches all over the world, very effective.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:50):
Wow. Talk to me about what he was like when he was preaching. What was the main message that he preached?
Harald Mydland (10:59):
I will call him. He was the Norwegian or the European Billy Grham. Very simple gospel message, simple to understand, but at the same time, very deep. But he was able to preach it very simple in a way like Jesus. He used the parables and all, used a very, very simple language. But he was not formal educated, but he was able to talk with any professor in so many, many topics because he read books. He was really clever. And so he had a simple gospel Methodist, very powerful. And he was very clever to preach it. And also at the seminars, this is a second part of his ministry, the seminars. I follow him, many masons. I listened to him and he gave his sermons and teaching at the seminars. And he was not only given a seminar seminar in a way, he gave you his passion. When you sit, you sat down and listened to him. You received the teaching. And then also his passion, his power, his anointing. At the same time, it was very special. It’s not always, you can listen to a person and you receive not only his words, but his life, his passions is everything. Very interesting. So he has been able to influence so many people all over the world, many, many times again and again with seminars, Africa, India, Pakistan.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:41):
So what were some of the countries where they had a great effort in
Harald Mydland (12:46):
Africa? Of course, many, many places. I was with him to Rwanda. We were in Malawi, many places. He supported people in Kenya for many, many years. Kenya is one of the main in Africa, but also in India, in Pakistan or China. Nowhere is the are in China. They have been in Vietnam. They are all over the Asia, Myanmar or Burma, Bangladesh, many, many places in Asia or in Africa, all over the world.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:21):
What were some of the things that he would say to people that would really connect with them? Do you remember a particular story or some of the things that he would say that would really inspire people?
Harald Mydland (13:39):
I think the main thing is the simplicity of the gospel. Because he was so centered on the cross of Jesus. He had many messages about the four persons close to his cross, Mary and Mary and all the four ladies. And they representing the four corners of the world. So he was so close and he was so concentrated on the cross of Jesus. So he’s preaching about Jesus. That was his main, that’s the power of the gospel of course. And he was very centered at the cross of Jesus, preaching Jesus up and down and describing everything. This is on the cross before the cross, all the pain. He went through all the suffering, everything. And he described everything and he was really painting it for you so you could follow it. You follow his steps and follow everything. So the cross of Jesus and the center of the gospel, that was all
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:40):
I heard. He had a very unique way of working with Muslims and building relationships with them. Talk to me about
Harald Mydland (14:49):
That. RG said that we have a common world, a common earth to share so we can cooperate with any person to make the world a better place for everybody. So he never spoke against any religion. He respected all the religions. He even wrote a book called Priests to the Kingdom where he described how you can approach Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims. So you have to know the culture, have to, he said many times you have to swim in the culture. You have to communicate with them in a nice way. So he had a passion, he had a capacity. He was so able to communicate with so many people. And I was with him several times. He arranged those peace conferences. Here we were in Pakistan, we had the Taliban people sitting in the conference. The extreme Muslims came to the conference because it was a peace conference. He was talking about peace and working together in unity, respecting each other, et cetera. And they sat down all these Taliban people and many extreme people came. And he did the same in many places in Africa as well call it peace work. And I was with him in 1998 when we went to Arafat to Gaza
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:22):
Erfa? Yes. Head of the Palestinian Authority.
Harald Mydland (16:25):
Yes. We went to his headquarter. We had some meetings in Israel and also in the Palestinian areas, GAA Bethlehem. We had a meeting in Bethlehem in the city center. And the mayor gave his love to Jesus where he was preaching. And then we went to Gaza. And while we were just walking on this beach, there’s a beach in Gaza, somebody called him from the office of aat, Joshua Rafat and invited us. We were 105 Scandinavian people in buses and a invited all of us to his office, the famous office. We came there and ar and Arafat, they sat together and Ariel spoke and said some words. And when we left that office, he went through the door and he took the hands of everybody and shake our hands. I know some of them felt a little bit, it was a little bit tough afterwards. We have shaken the hands of Arafat. But when I saw Arafat, I saw that little, he was in a way trembling and he didn’t look like he was 100% well. So I felt compassion with him in a way. This is the man who has terrified so many people. If we can say it, I dunno, we can say it on television, but when I saw him, I felt the compassion felt sorry for him.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:14):
And you come with peace.
Harald Mydland (18:17):
We came with
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:17):
Peace in the Prince of Peace.
Harald Mydland (18:19):
Yes, in the Prince of Peace. And we greet the people with peace.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:23):
And so evangelist er, he said he never wanted to retire. He wanted to go out with his boots on. Yes. And it turned out that that’s
Harald Mydland (18:32):
What happened. And what happened that happened, he went to Africa and he had a campaign outside Africa and it was the last campaign. And he was so tired, very tired. And he and his wife were supposed to have some days free off after the campaign, had to go to Mombasa. But he was so tired. And during the campaign several times he asked his son, Runa, who is in charge now, to come and take the article and take the finish of the meetings because he was so tired. But nobody was thinking that he was at come to the end of his life. But after the campaign on sbar, they went to Ka, went to Mombasa to spend some few days together before they came home. But during that day, the first day they said they made a summary, where are we now? What happened with our family?
(19:39):
And they were talking about all their grandchildren and the grand grandchildren and everybody. And they did a kind of a summary what have of their lives. But that night, that night after that, he suddenly became sick and Ka understood something is happening. So he died in Mombasa after that last campaign at Sanbar. Sorun was in Africa. Rooney son was in Africa. Kari called Ro and Rooney came to their place and he has talked about that many times. And also at summer conference this year, he came back to the same things that happened when he came to the place. When he saw his father laying in a terrible place. He saw his father there and die had died. And his mother stood at his side and car said to, can you feel what’s happens happening in the air? And Carl said, the calling is here.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:57):
The calling is
Harald Mydland (20:58):
Here. So you have to take over. The calling is still here. The calling to go to them. Well with a mission.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:06):
And so the ministry has continued to have a big impact around the world. And so Ariel has gone to heaven now. But talk to me about what the ministry continues to do today.
Harald Mydland (21:20):
Well, we can see it here today because the founder, Richard Gunney from Belfast, he founded Ace Association of Campaign Evangelist Lists in 2002.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:33):
Yeah, I read Richard Dunning’s autobiography. And he from Ireland came here and learned Norwegian went to Bible school here. And that was really the start of his ministry was being influenced
Harald Mydland (21:48):
By the ministry here. It was the start. And he came as a student at the Bible school, opened the Bible school in 1968. And through all the years there’s so many evangelists and pastors and leaders has attended the Bible school. So Richard Gunning came to the Bible school in the 1980s. And there was a man from Africa, from Kenya because by that time they sent two people from Kenya. They came here for free to the Bible school. And Peter Carrano was one of them. And Peter rha became good friends. Rich was able to talk Norwegian and understand Norwegian. So he was the interpreter for Peter when he came in of the teaching at the Bible school. And after they finished the Bible school, they felt the calling both of them to go back to Kenya and to establish that reached the unreached ministry. And they started that ministry over 25 years ago up to today.
(22:49):
They have now by their work they have been doing all these years, they have founded 1400 churches in Kenya. But it started here at the Bible School. And then something very interesting happened because I started to work here in 1998. In year 2000, I went to Kenya. I met Peter, I met many other persons. And then I said to Arle, when I came home, can we invite Peter and Richie to the next convention and all? I said, yes, you can invite them. And they came here in 2001 and they shared a meeting. After the meeting they asked Arle, can you lay, put your hands on us and bless us. And he did. And after they went to the room and then God spoke to them, to Richard and said, now you’re going to expand your ministry. And that was the foundation that was in a way that how Ace became a reality.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:50):
Yeah. So we’re actually here for an ACE conference. Ace is the Association of Campaign evangelists. And many, it was in this place. Many Scandinavian evangelists are part of it. Yes. And yeah. Wow.
Harald Mydland (24:03):
It was founded. It was founded in the heart of Richard. But it happened here. After a meeting in this hall, he went to the room, spoke to him. He start to call some few of us. I was there the first time, the first year in 2002 in Belfast and some other guys also. And from that, it’s 21 years now. So now I think this is the biggest conference. After 21 year, 50 people for many nations and so many have come and they’re not here today. They come to be influenced and inspired. And
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:37):
So when you look at the history going all the way back to when Arro was 17 years old and gave his life to Jesus for the evangelist today, a young evangelist who wants to go and reach the world, what are some lessons that a young evangelist could learn from his life in ministry?
Harald Mydland (25:00):
There’s many thing, of course, but the main thing is that God can use anybody. It doesn’t depend on us. It depends on the calling. If God has called you, he will give you the ability and he will give you the power. He will give you the message. So we need to be open to receive his calling and say yes to his calling and follow Jesus. Jesus said, follow me. I will make you physic of man. Live close to Jesus. Read your Bible and open your heart to receive from him and follow in his footsteps. He can use anybody to change the world. Why not? Bunker did many big, big crusades in Africa. And he’s a very famous example for us nowadays. And of course Daniel NDA and many other many also people here. Also you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:51):
I, well, I’m so inspired by his life and ministry and it’s really wonderful to come here and to see the vision. I mean, this is a place where revival has spread around the world. And I think maybe he is one of the greatest evangelists. Even the airline of Norway. I saw a picture, they painted his face on the tail tail of one of their huge planes. And I think he might be the only evangelist to be honored in that way
Harald Mydland (26:29):
In history. In fact, we have two, that’s a second, but early is there. So it tells about, and when,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:38):
I mean what a thing to say that the evangelist was so good that the national airline honors him in such a way. Yes.
Harald Mydland (26:45):
When we had the funeral of our, in this place, the national tv broadcasted life, everything
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:56):
Across the whole country. Yes. Wow.
Harald Mydland (26:58):
They were here. So many guests.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:01):
If God can use a man from a small village in Norway, he can use anyone. He can
Harald Mydland (27:06):
Use anyone. Absolutely.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:08):
Wow.
Harald Mydland (27:08):
Yeah. His life is a testimony. Yes. Very simple person, but well, it’s, it’s like Mary more than Mary. Why did God choose Mary? Nobody knows what he did to us. Nobody knows, but he make us. I will make you physicians of man. So a willing heart. He will make
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:32):
A, what was he like in person when you interacted with him?
Harald Mydland (27:35):
He was so informal. When you come home to him, he will be relaxed like that. He was very informal. Very informal. And he was himself. I think when he talked with presidents in head, head of states, many places he at rest him like we are sitting here, not as the big man, but he talked to him like a human being. He was normal. I dunno how to explain it in English, but I think he moved their hearts. He reached their heart because he was so a human being and totally relaxed and very nice person, personality. He respected everybody and he behaved in a very nice way. He could talk to anybody. And they liked him. They liked him. So he became a friend to many, many people high up in the society, head of states. Wow. He was a friend. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:47):
Well, thank you so much for sharing his story. I think we can all be inspired that God can do something great even from somebody who starts out in even just a small village. Yes, exactly. Thank you for being on the Evangelism podcast. Okay.
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Scott McNamara | Jesus At the Door
Scott McNamara developed a powerful training tool for witnessing named, “Jesus At the Door.” On today’s episode of The Evangelism Podcast, he shares how to use “Jesus at the Door” to lead people to Jesus. You will also learn about his innovative strategy for bridging the gap between when someone accepts the Gospel until they start attending church. Scott calls it the ABC’s of the Gospel: First they Accept the Gospel, then you provide a Bridge, finally they start attending Church.
Learn More About Jesus at the Door: https://jesusatthedoor.com/
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, Scott McNamara. Thank you so much for joining me on the Evangelism Podcast.
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (00:10):
Thank you, Daniel. Great to be here.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:12):
So your ministry is called Jesus at the Door, and you specialize in taking Jesus to the door of every person’s heart. Tell me a little bit about yourself and how your ministry got started.
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (00:26):
Yeah, so Jesus at the door, this is kind of what it looks like. It’s framed around the picture of Jesus knocking on one side with the handle on the inside of the door. And then on the back we have nine imagery laden PowerPoints that articulate succinctly the message of the gospel. So really on one side is the image and the other side is the message. It’s a real simple way of presenting the gospel. I got into this, I guess accidentally. I was a musician, came to the Lord, wanted to continue to be a musician, and the Holy Spirit said, no, I have other plans for you. I want you to be an evangelist. And I wrestled with the Lord akin to Jacob, wrestling with the angel of the Lord, and he came away blessed with a hip replacement. I kind of feel that way. I came away blessed with Jesus at the door and also a hip replacement.
(01:08):
I realized that to be hip is to be holy, humility, integrity, and purity. The Lord began to speak to me about the hipness of my heart to say, only with a pure heart will you really see the things that I want you to see working through you. So yeah, I guess the Lord began to do surgery in me in terms of having a heart that ss to be humble, having purity inside of my heart. So that was the building blocks for becoming an evangelist and then becoming an evangelist. I guess it was just accidental. I just talked to everybody that moved about Jesus and somebody told me there’s a title for that. It’s called an Evangelist, and my pastor employed me to be an evangelist in 2014. He told me to stand on the street corner every day, all day. And I did that for three years.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:50):
And where was
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (01:51):
That? That’s in Northern Ireland.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:52):
Northern Ireland. Well, and so you stood there, you’re talking to people as they’re walking by and from all of your conversations you came up with some really great lines and ways of presenting the gospel to people. Talk to me how that process went.
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (02:09):
Kind of. I mean, I can’t really take credit for it if I’m honest. I was sharing with people as best as I could, but the Holy Spirit would drop phrases into my heart and the phrases he dropped were the phrases that compiled Jesus at the door. So I don’t think I can take credit for it. I was more of a conduit than a creator, but I just received what the Lord gave me and I would write them down in my phone as the person walked away. And that’s what, over a number of months, we ended up with this and then it kind of grew legs and run around the world. Really
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:40):
Pretend that I’m someone that you’re talking to on the street corner and you’re using this tool in order to tell me about, just kind of walk me through how you would do it and how you would train someone to use this tool.
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (02:52):
Yeah, I will do so. Obviously, evangelism is partnership and partnership is power. If we bring the partnership, he the power. So everything we do in Jesus at the door is in partnership with the Holy Spirit. I don’t believe you can do evangelism without partnership, but it is very significant for us to understand that this is not just some kind of scripture reading. This is an invitation into partnership. That’s kind of how I view it, because the Lord gave it. So with me going through this, I’m already locking in with the spirit, and that’s the most beautiful thing about it. So I would approach you, I’d say, excuse me, if you’re on the street, excuse me, sir, can ask you a quick question. Now if you say to me, no, I’m good, then I don’t believe he’s drawing you, John 6 44. Nobody can come unless the father draws them. I’m saying, Lord, you are my evangelism partner. Who are you drawing? So even down to that detail, I
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:41):
Let the Lord show. So you’re not pestering people, you’re giving an invitation, and then if they respond, then you’re ready to start to talk to
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (03:47):
Them. Yeah, yeah. Because important that we don’t possess, we partner but don’t possess. So I’m going to just partner and say, Lord, where are you going? So if you agree to allow me to talk to you, I would say, have you seen this picture before? Do you pray is what I would ask you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:01):
I pray sometimes. I don’t know if I’ve seen this
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (04:04):
Picture. You don’t recognize it. No. So this is Jesus knocking at the door of your heart. The handles on the inside only you can let him in. Now lots of people pray, praying can be like talking through the door. He’s there somewhere, but you don’t know him personally. And then I’m going to pause because for the born again believer, if I challenge you on the street as you and me as me, you would probably bring some rebuttal there. You’d say, well, I do know Jesus personally, so I’m going to let that simmer. But for the individual who doesn’t know Jesus, that’s going to sit and they’re going to think, man, I don’t know him. So there’s a couple of moments where they’re born. Again, believer can out themselves as it were, and say, I do know Christ. And that would be one of them. So then I would say, visualize wearing a backpack. If we filled it with all of your sin, would it be heavy?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:47):
Yeah, it
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (04:49):
Would. There’d be something in there. And that represents your debt with God. It stops you having a relationship with him. So if you owed the bank a million dollars and I gave you a check for that amount and you gave it to the bank, what would happen to your debt?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:04):
They paid off.
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (05:04):
It’d be paid off. It’d be clear. Huh? That would be a good day for you. That’s what Jesus did when he died on the cross. He wrote your check, signed in his blood with your name on it. What is your name, sir? Daniel. Daniel. So he wrote you that Check Daniel in his blood, then he rose again, and today he’s standing at the door of your heart wanting you to cash it. If Jesus were here right now, would you let him in?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:26):
Yeah. If he showed up.
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (05:28):
If you knew it was him. Yeah. So if we took a walk outside, can you see the wind? Can you visibly see the wind?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:34):
No. You can’t see the
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (05:35):
Wind. You can’t see it, but you can feel it, right? So like the wind, I believe Jesus is here right now. Could I pray for you to feel his presence?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:42):
Sure.
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (05:42):
Yeah. Can I put my hand on your shoulder? Sure. Which obviously we don’t need the Holy Spirit, don’t need your hand. But I’m a tactile guy. So Lord, I pray for Daniel right now by the power of your Holy Spirit. Would you touch his heart? Let him feel your presence. Let him know you’re here. Let him know you are real. Change the atmosphere as he sits here and reveal how personal of a God you are, how personal of a father you are. You love him like a son and Him reveal you loved him in this moment, in Jesus’ name. Then I would ask you, what did you feel when I prayed for you? What did you feel?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:10):
Well, peace.
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (06:12):
Peace. Come on. Amen. And Jesus was the prince of peace as we read in the Book of Eyes Eye. So what we’re doing is in essence we’re saying, if Jesus were here, would you let him in? And they’re saying, yeah, and then we have to prove that Jesus is here, but we can’t prove that, but the Holy Spirit can. So we give all control so that he can take full control and let the Holy Spirit do what he does best, which is shine. So after that moment, do you believe he’s here? What did you feel? Yeah. Okay, great. The last thing, now you’re on a road of life going this direction without Jesus, you need to turn from your sin, change direction and follow him. My question, I want to ask you and think before you answer, do you want to follow Him?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:53):
Yes
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (06:54):
You do. Praise God. So the Bible says invite him with your mouth, mean it in your heart. So just echo this prayer with me. Just say, Jesus, Jesus, forgive me for my sins.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:02):
Forgive me for my sins. I
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (07:03):
Open the door of my heart.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:04):
I open the door of my
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (07:05):
Heart. I make you Lord of my
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:06):
Life. I make you the Lord of my life.
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (07:07):
Fill me with your spirit. Fill
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:09):
Me with your spirit. Amen.
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (07:10):
Amen. Amen. So our prayer, we call it repent, believe, received just a simple way that we break down that prayer. Now after this is why I believe Jesus at the door is one of the most exciting evangelistic techniques on the planet. Because the Holy Spirit has not only given me a gospel presentation that is so easy and works with anybody, but he’s given me the part that happens next, the part that you do next. So Rahar, who’s a great inspiration in all of our lives, evangelist Bonnke said, he talked about the ABCs of evangelism as in the simple gospel, simple nuts and bolts of the gospel. I took that, sat with it, and the Holy Spirit fleshed it out for me. The A is the acceptance, and C is church, but B is the bridge. And there’s a lot of people who are saying amen on the acceptance, but they’re not coming to church and they’re not coming anywhere after because we have a great chasm, because we have no bridge, that we have nothing to walk them across.
(08:04):
So the Holy Spirit began to give me a bridge, a training materials. We have another card that is like this, that I train my team in how we access this bridge. Quick example, after you say amen, a lot of people will say, here’s a church card, let me send you a text or whatever. But in that moment, right, there is a very special moment like akin to the golden hour moment, the magic hour when the sun’s coming down that last hour, it’s a holy moment. It’s a moment where the sun is warmest to the horizon. It’s closest to the horizon. Your new believer, the sun, Jesus is warmer and closer than he’s ever been probably in their life. And we move past that moment quickly instead of hitting the pause. So what I’m going to do, I’m going to pause there. I’m going to say, sir, now you said you want to follow Jesus.
(08:48):
The last thing you said is you want to follow Jesus. You can’t follow somebody if you don’t move and you don’t follow with your words, you follow your feet. So you need to put faith to your feet and walk it out. If you can’t walk it out, don’t talk it out because talk is cheap. Actions speak louder than words. And I’ll just use some phrases like this, which ultimately what I’m doing is flipping the script and saying that instead of this mentality of come to my church, come hang out with me, can be my friend, it’s about you. Now, you said you want to do this. You said that this is the life you said you want to follow. Let me help you do what you said you want to do. And that really, really helps creating a bridge for these individuals to walk across. And we do this through Jesus at the Door app where we have access to send the person. Just real quick, I’ll show you. So here we have,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:30):
Okay, so this is Jesus at the Door app, which is free. So how would you find it? You would go to the Apple app store,
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (09:36):
Go to the app store, type in Google, Jesus at the door, type in Jesus, Jesus at the door. And literally you just download that, it’s free and you can click onto, we have an equipping card and a follow-up card on the follow-up card we have. When this thing gets geofenced in a community, if we have a partner church there, right here with Nations, we can click on that button of the partner church, and we have a custom made follow-up card at a drop of a button we can send to a brand new believer that connects them to that local church. Now, what’s really important about this is the equity that I have with you is pretty much non-existent. You didn’t accept the Lord because I’m a nice guy. You accepted the Lord because through this picture, the Holy Spirit enlightened your soul to accept him.
(10:13):
So the equity lies here, not here. And what we’re trying to do is use equity. We don’t have be my friend, come hang out with me. We don’t have that, but this has it. So as soon as you say Amen, I say, I want to send you a picture of this image so you can remember the day you accepted Jesus. And then I send you, I get your name and number in front of you, and I send this image to you, but like a carrot with a stick hanging on the end of that stick is the carrot. And that’s what we want them to really have. And that’s all the information for the local church. And then we begin our follow-up process that way.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:43):
Wow. So this app is really valuable and people can go download it for free,
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (10:47):
Download it for free,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:48):
And then they can have access to the script, to the picture. They can use it on their phone. And I think this is brilliant. Everyone has their phone everywhere they go. And so maybe you’re in a line at a coffee shop and you feel prompted to share the gospel somewhere. You can pull it out and say, Hey, have you seen this picture before? Definitely. And the picture creates curiosity. So people start looking at it and then you can start the conversation. Amen.
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (11:10):
And a picture paints a thousand words here. And we have, if you go to a equipping card and the globe in the top right corner, we have multiple languages in many countries what individuals can use. We now have users in 129 nations utilizing this app with accounts. If you go to new Believer’s info, you’ll store the name and the number and the date of your last salvation, it will log it right here and it’ll log all of them in date form. And then if you go to Jad stories, it drops a pin of an apple in the location with accepted Christ. And we have pretty much most continents around the world, apples that have been dropped by individuals.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:45):
And so you’re the evangelism director here at Nation’s Church in Orlando, Florida, pastored by Daniel Kalinda from Christ for All Nations. And so talk to me about what you’re doing here in the church to activate people for evangelism.
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (12:01):
So what we do is we run trainings where all the everyday individuals, I mean our tagline is equipping everyday believers to win everyday people. That’s what Jesus the door is about. We’re not just equipping evangelists, we’re equipping Starbucks workers, single moms, doctors, bankers, dentists so that they can go back into their sphere of influence. This is not a hard presentation to begin with. It’s not offensive. It’s a picture that’s very anointed. This image was illustrated by a Manny woman and Oscar last year. This year the Oscars, Charlie MCee won an Oscar for the best animated story. He illustrated this image, very famous artist, people. We’ve seen people cry and say things like, I saw that in a dream and get saved just from looking at the picture. So what we do here is we train everyday believers in our church and then we send them back into their sphere of influence to be fruitful. And we have a new believer group. So when people get saved, we don’t just obviously leave them there, we invite them into our new believers groups. And in those new believer groups, we filter those people through into the Sunday service where we have a reserve section on a Sunday morning at Nations Church for all these new converts to come in and feel like part of the family.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:07):
And then you also go and travel to other churches, help train them in evangelism. And you have teams that have been trained in Jesus at the door and they go and teach other people how to get involved. So what does that look like if you go into a church and do a training?
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (13:23):
Yeah, so I would go in on a, we call it evangelism made easy weekend. I’ll go on a Saturday and we do an all day training on a Saturday that involves classroom training, involves role play. So the individuals get a chance to go through it to try it. And then we take ’em onto the streets for a couple of hours, do a breakout session. We come back, we have glory stories, share what the Lord did and people’s lives. And then I preach on the Sunday morning at the church as well. So that’s kind of like the evangelism made easy weekend.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:49):
And if someone wants to connect with your ministry, find out more about you, maybe download the card or support your ministry, maybe invite you to come to their church. What’s your website?
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (14:00):
So jesus@thedoor.com is the website. And then you can get us on Instagram, Jesus at the door, Facebook, we have a YouTube channel with many training videos just to Jesus at the door. Again, many resources available there.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:13):
And what would you say to someone who they feel like they know they should witness, but they’ve never really gone out there and actually talked to someone. How would you encourage them to take a step of faith and to actually start up a conversation?
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (14:28):
Well, first of all, I would look below the hood or look at the root level. Why should we share you? Maybe you hear evangelist saying, go and share. Go and share. But the person hasn’t really captured the heart of why should I share? Well, Jesus, when he gave the great commission, he didn’t give it to evangelists for starters, he gave it to disciples. So every disciple has been mandated, commissioned, and to share the gospel and to make disciples not just share the gospel, but to make disciples. So this is something that we all have to do and one day we’re going to look our Lord in the eye and we’re going to have to give account for the talents and how we stewarded that which he gave us. So Jesus at the door is the way that I’ve seen in my life the easiest way that is the most anointed, that you can share the gospel in a matter of minutes.
(15:13):
I’ve seen children who’ve read this thing and people have started crying and got saved. When my boy, my son was seven, he read this to a family of four. The mom was covered in tattoos. He got two steps down. The man started crying and my seven year old son led them all to the Lord. I baptized free of that family on the same day. I baptized my son in a parking lot from a seven year old boy shaking and nervous and whispering this card, but it was the power of the Holy Spirit that he released and that’s
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:41):
What happened. And so if God can use a seven year old, he can use anyone. Amen. What if someone that you’re talking to with the card is more antagonistic than I was? I was pretty acceptance saying yes. But some people want to get into argument or they want to start discussing more philosophically some of the different questions. How do you bring them back to the gospel?
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (16:01):
So first of all, it’s key to note that Jesus does what we call a reaping tool. Now, when I first entered onto those streets of Northern Ireland, I didn’t know what I was doing. I wouldn’t have called myself an evangelist. But the Holy Spirit spoke to me within the first two weeks. He said, imagine all these people are like apples on a tree. So I did that. I saw all these people walking around. He said, when you share, I’ll shake. And I had a revelation of what evangelism was. Up until that point, I thought it was about how good or bad or able I was, but the law was showing me. It was about how available I was willing to make myself. You see, some apples will fall, some will move a little and some won’t move at all. My job is not to make those apples fall or not. All I have to do is be willing to catch them when they fall. We’re all priceless apples that one day we were apples on a tree until somebody caught us. And the Lord is shaking people’s lives. And all he asked us to do, like the apostle Paul told Timothy, preach the gospel in season and out of season. So all we need to do is be willing to share faithfully. And I believe the Lord will do miracles in that way.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:01):
Amen. Well, I think it’s absolutely brilliant what God has given you, and it’s such an important tool for sharing the gospel. I think it’s a great way to start out for someone to just have the bullets. If you have something in your hand that you can read, even if you forget, you can look down and read it and go through the pictures with people. I think it’s a very powerful tool for people. And so if you’re listening and you want to be used by God, especially in personal witnessing going out, I encourage you to go find Jesus at the door, download it to your phone, get the app, go to the website, get the cards, and use them to lead people to Jesus. Amen. Thank you so much for being on the Evangelism podcast.
Scott McNamara | Jesus at the Door (17:45):
Thank you, sir. Thank you for having me.
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The Legacy of T.L. & Daisy Osborn | LaDonna Osborn
T.L. & Daisy Osborn were great evangelists who had a profound impact on my life. Today I talk about the Osborn legacy of faith and ministry with their daughter Dr. LaDonna Osborn. From the moment she was born, she was involved in their worldwide evangelism efforts. On this episode of The Evangelism Podcast, she shares some of the secrets to their amazing success.
Learn more about Osborn Ministries International: https://osborn.org/
Order T.L. Osborn’s Books:
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, Dr. LaDonna Osborn. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (00:12):
It’s a wonderful privilege to be with you, Daniel. You know I’m one of your fans.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:17):
Well, Dr. Osborn, you were born into the premier family of evangelism. You’re the daughter of Dr. T.L. Osborn and Daisy Washburn Osborn. And you have been involved in evangelism from your very earliest memories. That’s right. Tell me about what God has done through your life.
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (00:41):
Dr. King. I love to say that you’ve achieved so much. Your influence is tremendous. I’m just honored to know you. Anyone who knows the story of my mother, father, the Osborn Ministry, they would remember that there was a real turning point in their lives that transitioned them into what they’re known for today as the pioneers of mass miracle evangelism all over the world. Now, it happened that the year I was born is when that transformation took place. So because of my mother’s decision, we traveled as a family. So my brother was a couple of years older than me and myself is nine months old mother, father. We began traveling the world. So I grew up on the platforms of world evangelism, moving from nation to nation, living among the people of the cultures of the world, going to the river to wash our clothes, boiling our water, going to the market. This was my life and almost every day we were on a crusade platform in the evening, four or five in the evening, in front of a multitude of people, my father or mother preaching about Jesus and seeing miracles of healing. So imagine from, can I say babyhood? This was my norm. What a wonderful heritage. So I didn’t live in the United States until I was 14.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:06):
How old were you when you first preached on a platform and prayed for people to be healed?
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (02:13):
It was in Ghana, Accra. When I was 10 years old, it was 1957 and during this great crusade, my father and the pastors there organized what they called a kid’s crusade and they put up a huge tent. Now, we didn’t use tents overseas, but they had this big tent and I’m told that about 10,000 children packed in that tent. And so my brother and I were both told to preach. Now he was a little bit older. This was in 1957, so I’m 10 years old, he’s 12. And it scared me to death. Only God knows how timid I was. What I do today. It’s only by the grace of God. So I went to my father and I told him I was so scared, but of course he didn’t excuse me at all. I said, what will I preach? And his answer was so profound, I love it. He said, find an example in the Bible of Jesus with a person, a sick person. And when you preach, just tell the story. And when you’ve told the story, tell them Jesus will do the same for them. They’ll accept Jesus and then pray for the sick. That was so simple. Do you know I can say yet today this would be how I minister among
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:47):
The, and that’s good advice for any evangelist. Find what Jesus did, tell the story and then pray for people.
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (03:53):
That’s right. And so I know that it looked like all these children were accepting Christ and the miracles of healing. Now I didn’t do anything but say, Jesus will do this for you and anyone’s sick. I did what I saw my father do. Lay your hand where you want Jesus to lay his hand. And they did. And then of course, the platform full of these children giving testimony. I just stood there listening to their testimonies because it had nothing to do with me. This is the work of Jesus among people.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:22):
Well, your father had such a tremendous impact on my ministry. I remember when I was very young, my parents were missionaries in Mexico and I found some copies of his books, the book on soul winning the book on healing the Sick. And they’re very simple, but just read through those and planted such great faith in my heart. And then there were so many pictures in the books of all the different countries that your family went to, minister and the big crowds of people. And God used those pictures as a seed in my heart to ask God to open those same doors in our ministry. Isn’t that wonderful? And so now we’ve taken some of the same messages, some of the same ideas, the concepts and seeing that it works all over the world.
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (05:15):
It works. Jesus hasn’t changed. And if we’ll talk about him, he’ll do the same things I’ve learned long ago. If you talk about Jesus, he shows up.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:27):
Now, Osborn Ministries has had an impact in many more lives than just my life. In fact, this year you’re doing a series of videos documenting a hundred years of impact around the world, and you’re telling stories of what has made Osborn ministry so effective over the years. Let’s talk about some of those things. I think one of the first things that people know about is the Mass Miracle Crusades and praying for the sick. How did those start?
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (06:03):
Well, the Mass Miracle Crusades began after Jesus appeared to my father. That was the turning point that really changed him from being an ordinary evangelist or pastored, really transformed him into a Jesus man. That was the only label that he would wear. And so when we began, or they began in 1948, these mass evangelism events, it started, started very simply because there’s lots of people and if you’ll get all the pastors to work together, and one of the things they inaugurated was to go to an open field, not a stadium, not an enclosed auditorium, but go to an open field like a soccer field where everyone is level. No one is elevated, no v i p section, no aisles, no chairs. It’s an open field. And then advertise, bring the sick. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So that was always the theme of their crusades.
(07:15):
And the sick would come. It just shocked the pastors that my father or mother would be so bold as to tell the people if Jesus is the same today, he will do miracles today. And if he doesn’t, we’re liars and you can run us out of town. Oh my goodness. That made pastors nervous because many of these in those days, as you would understand, they didn’t really have miracle ministries. Most would believe that Jesus could and might, but they could never be confident that he would or why he would. So this was how the miracle mass miracle Evangelism began. The miracles became the hallmark of this ministry from that early beginning. So miracles, you talk about Osborn, anything, its miracles are part of it.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:10):
Another very successful program that you had was supporting national missionaries, and today you pulled out some of your books and your history to show me we’re looking at pictures of missionaries in these nations. They were national missionaries supported by Osborn Ministries. And over the years you’ve supported over 30,000. That’s right. Exactly. And they have gone on to found great churches, some of them huge denominations. Talk to me about why that program was so effective.
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (08:48):
Well, part of it was because it was timely. It was at a time that denominations who were sending missionaries to various nations, they were building Bible schools and they were graduating these wonderful students, men and women, and yet there was no way for them to support their families after graduation. So the timeliness of the vision, the Lord gave my parents to come into this environment, into this gap and provide temporary financial assistance to a Bible school graduate recommended by their leaders so that these evangelists would go into unreached villages, unreached areas, and give full time to gospel ministry. That was an insane idea because it was at a time that number one, what we would call nationals, they were not respected the dynamic of foreign missionaries. The system at the time was not really to appreciate the national. It was more to depreciate them that they were inferior and it was the effect of the colonial epic.
(10:07):
We’ve talked about that, that under colonialism, it was just the mentality that these people are inferior, they’re not educated, they need our help. We have to come in and help govern them because they don’t know how to do it. So of course, different European powers who colonized, they had different models. Britain was very benevolent. Other European nations like Belgium or France, not so very exploitive. So that was the mentality of the day in which the National Missionary Assistance program began. So to come in and say, you are important, we’re going to call you a missionary. You’re not a foreigner, but you are a missionary. You’re going someplace with the gospel. And then with just a little assistance, they would be able to establish a completely self-supporting work. Usually within one year, sometime 18 months, two years will be a long time. And so it’s through that program, Dr. King, that we can calculate more than 150,000 churches have become completely self-supporting all over the world. Now, all of these, they don’t have our name. This was assistance funneled through the denominations who had missionaries in these nations. So every church that was established, it would carry that denominational name. These were all Pentecostal denominations. So wonderful things were happening. Isn’t that beautiful?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:45):
It’s amazing. Now, another major area that Osborn Ministries has had impact is through literature distribution. I remember I was in Congo, Africa and I was preaching at a little church. It was a small building, but it was packed full of people and it was dirt floor. Chickens were running around. But I looked over at the pastor and he had his Bible that on top of his Bible, he had a book covered in duct tape. And I said, what is that that you’re reading? And he showed me, it was an Osborn book. He said, 20 years ago, Tal Osborn came to my country. They distribute this book and my father got a copy. He became the pastor. And for 20 years he preached from this book, he says, now I’m the pastor because my father passed away and now I’m preaching from this book. That story has been duplicated time and time again around the world. You have printed literally tons of material and distributed them around the world
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (12:46):
For many years. The statistic we were able to calculate, we were not only printing in about 132 languages, but we were distributing to the tune of one ton per working day. Wow, isn’t that amazing? So this scattering of gospel seed was just one of the things we did. And do you know Dr. King in that book? I’m talking by this time, the sixties, the seventies when these massive distributions were happening. It was said, I don’t know who decided this, but it was a missionary statistic that every tract was read by an average of five people. Isn’t that amazing? So that was in that same e book that gospel tracks were being produced. I remember once we were in a country, it was an African country, I don’t know which one. And we were visiting in villages and we were just going down the paths and we were visiting people in their huts and we were just being there inviting people to come to an event.
(13:54):
And I went in one of these huts and I saw on the wall of a very disintegrating mud wall inside the Hutt, there was tacked a gospel track, one of our tracks, and it looked like it had been handled by a thousand people because the edges all had finger oil. The edges were all frayed, the edges had been torn off a little bit, but that track was up there. The only thing on that wall. And I remember thinking, my God, thank you that in this village there’s that track that’s probably been read by everyone, read by everyone. Isn’t that see what we are talking about, these ideas that God gives people to proclaim his gospel among people who are often forgotten, who otherwise will never hear of Christ. These ideas, every idea reminds me how big our God is and how much he cares and how creative he is and how he will drop ideas in the heart of anyone who just caress about people, wants to do the work of Christ and fulfill this great commission. So these ideas, these are just ideas that came at the right time. Did you know Dr. King? I think I can say this and you’ll understand. Through the decades of this ministry,
(15:32):
New programs for evangelism have been developed and launched throughout, such as you’re talking about the tracks, the audio recordings, the equipment to play, we call lingua tape units, the Docu miracle films, the projectors, all of these were programs that we could share, empower, equip others. Do you know every program began because we had more money than we knew what to do with. Is that amazing? In this day and age, I’ve
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:08):
Never had that
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (16:08):
Problem, never had that problem. No one does. These days times have changed. A lot of it had to do with mission opportunities for people. But when money would accumulate, my mother and father, I can remember because I was part of these prayer meetings, go to their knees and say, Lord, we have this money. What should we do with it? And out of those prayers, a new idea would be birthed. I love that as a record that God will give ideas when you ask. Well, I believe ideas are the opportunity to involve people. So then they participate and that’s the money. We don’t keep it. We pass it on. Invest it in the work of evangelism. So there’s never a money shortage as long as we have God on our side and we represent him properly.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:59):
Another secret of the success of Osborn Ministries was really the philosophy behind the ministry that you did. I remember that when Dr. Osborn came to speak at Victory Bible College, when I was 18 years old, I was a student, he would stand up and start reading off the names of all the different places in the former Soviet Union, all the different, and when your mother went to heaven, he took, as I understand it, some of the money from his. He
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (17:37):
Took all of her insurance money, insurance money, and I talked about it. She had $50,000. That’s not much. But all of that was invested in resources in Russian, a country we had never been in, a language we had never published in.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:54):
And so you went and you did events across the 11 time zones. Yes, exactly. Of Russia. Exactly. And in every time zone proclaiming that Jesus is alive, that even during a time when communism was the philosophy of the land in telling everyone that God is dead, that your father would take the books and show the pictures, says, while people were saying God is dead all over the world, God was proving that he’s alive by doing miracles in the lives of people.
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (18:32):
Exactly. And we were able to translate and print. I’m sure we spent more than the 50,000, but we distributed, we gave every attendee 10 books, a library in Russian of gospel materials. And just because you’re an evangelist, I share this with you. I had just as you have ministered among people in so many nations, so many different cultures, in so many religious environments like the Muslim people, the Buddhists, the Hindus and people of deep religions, that six weeks that I was ministering across the former Soviet Union, I had a brand new experience. Because when you look in the eyes of people who’ve never had a concept that there’s anything out there, not a pegan idea, not they’re worshiping an alligator or a tree or Muhammad or Allah or any of the Buddhist deities, all of these people of faith have a concept of a cosmos and a spiritual something, a deity.
(19:45):
Now that deity may not have a compassionate heart, may not be involved in their lives, but they have this concept. It was a brand new experience, may look in the eyes of people that had been told they were nothing, no concept of anything out there. When they die, die like a dog. Can you imagine this? What impressed me so deeply, and it still does when I’m minister into communist in communist areas, the communal value is all that exists. And yet we come with a message saying, you can make a personal decision for Jesus Christ. That’s a brand new thought. Whoever told them they could make a decision. No. It’s the communal that you can have a better life. We know how to relate to the Hindus who can’t believe that because they might come reincarnated back as a lower being animal cockroach. We know how to deal with that. But when you think you can’t even make a decision, your personal value is nothing. And then he comes and God loves you and he comes to welcome you into his family. He cares about you and what a revolutionary concept. So it was in that environment that I began to develop. It wasn’t where it was first birth, but where I really developed the message of God’s big picture that you know very well where I present the message of scripture in these four scenes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:25):
Yeah, you have God’s creation, Satan’s deception, Christ substitution and our redemption.
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (21:33):
Hallelujah. Restoration, our restoration. Think about that, that we don’t just leave people crying at the foot of the cross. After you’ve made that decision for Christ, your life’s restored, restored to what God intended in the beginning. What a beautiful message that relates to every person in every circumstance of life. But we tell it in a way that they can grasp it and believe on this, Lord Jesus. Oh, have you ministered in Russia or the China?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:05):
I was in the city of St. Petersburg many years ago with Pastor Billy Joe Doherty. He was doing events there right
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (22:14):
After. Yes, I remember that. Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:15):
Communism fell and it was in the stadium, the Olympic stadium and filled with people and they would run forward for the altar call. It was so beautiful at that time.
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (22:26):
So beautiful. When we’re talking about the National Missionary program and you ask about its success, I mentioned it was the right time. This is what we look for in evangelism. My mother used to say that revolution in any country is the time for evangelism. So we don’t wait until everything’s safe. When things are uprooted and there’s change, that’s where we come in and bring the truth of Christ. But you see in the Soviet Union, as soon as that wall or a curtain, was it a wall or a curtain? I never can remember the bamboo curtain, I guess, and the Soviet wall. Okay, we’ll agree on that. There was so much opportunity. Now with the opportunity, it was a lot of strange teaching. Everything floods in when there’s space. But it’s okay because then the gospel supersedes everything. The gospel works, every message doesn’t work. The gospel works.
(23:26):
And so at the right time, we flood. Let me tell you, we flooded those 11 times zones. Actually that’s just Russia. But all of this area, the Poland and Ukraine and Yugoslavia and all of the Bal, the Slavic, the Kazakhstan, all the stones, I should say, all the Uzbekistan, all of these, they were all speaking Russia at that time. They don’t speak Russian. Now, only Russia, the rest have reclaimed their own national languages. So look at the timing. When we were able to come in and saturate that land with gospel truth, I see God at work in these things. So it’s not just a method, it’s not just a country. It’s God’s timing. In the midst of political and religious and social dynamics and evangelists who are motivated by the spirit of God, they sense the timing. And that’s why we support evangelists and we affirm evangelists. We are in relationship with evangelists because we’re walking to a different drummer. It’s not just about building an empire for ourselves or no, no. This is about the timing for expanding the kingdom of God. That’s what you do all over the world.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:49):
What were some of the greatest lessons you learned from being around your mother and father?
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (24:56):
Oh my. So many. One of the main things that I would say I learned a lifestyle of consistency. See, we traveled, we were moving all the time being countries many months. But then we would move on. And so our family had a schedule, the consistency of schedule. We went to bed at the same time every day. We woke up at the same time. We would make our beds, get dressed and eat breakfast, clean up the kitchen, whatever there was to clean up, did it to altogether. And then we had family devotions after family devotions every day. My father would do his thing, which was studying and preparing for ministry, be later that day. And my mother taught my brother and me school, now it’s called homeschooling. Then it was correspondence. We had a military program, a wonderful program. And so we would study from nine to noon and then we went to work.
(26:02):
So my mother was brilliant at keeping us busy. So as soon as we could do anything, we were involved. We had assignments. We could pick out letters on a typewriter. We went to the post office, collect our mail. Remember we had an office to run magazines to produce, and we were out of the country a lot of the time, pick up our mail, answer correspondence, and then go to the crusade field and at four or five in the evening every day, that was a schedule. So that consistency, putting God first, there was never an opportunity to be moody or to not feel like doing something. It was just a different time. So that consistency I learned through our lifestyle. And I think that that pattern of consistency kept us feeling safe as children because we were always with different people. Names will never remember eating new kind of food and new languages, new cultures, but we felt safe.
(27:07):
And I’m sure that it was because of that framework of our family life. A lot of families now are ministering together with their children. And I hope they all understand that you can create safety for your children. And then of course, I learned always to prioritize the word of God, the scripture. Our pattern was as soon as my brother and I could read, we would go around and each read five verses starting in Genesis, going through the Bible and starting over again. And after every five verses, it was usually my parents who had commentary. They were teaching us consistently just and discussing principles in the scripture. For example, the principle of how God doesn’t like grumbling and complaining. Every time we would get to that part of the children of Israel’s story, the myriad times they grumbled and complained. My father would lecture a little bit, and so it was drilled in me. I don’t think I’ve ever complained in my whole life because God doesn’t like that. So these are things you learn. My mother,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:16):
That’s a good lesson when you’re traveling a lot and sometimes things don’t go quite right. Exactly. That’s a good lesson to know. You
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (28:22):
Just don’t complain. There’s no room for that. My mother primarily taught me to look for principles in the scripture, not rules. She taught me that everything that’s in the scripture is relevant. You look for the principle. What’s the message God’s trying to give us? And to this day, I cherish that kind of teaching, looking for Jesus in the scripture, modeling our lives after his character, his words, his demeanor. Because if you read the gospels over and over as we did, you pick up his character and his emotions, his style, his attitude. And these were things that teach us how to live. I learned that from my parents. Of course, obviously I learned that the gospel is the power of God. I read it in scripture, but I saw it demonstrated every day. I saw that miracles are as relevant today as ever, that there’s nothing God cannot do.
(29:33):
I was an adult way, an adult, and I had the thought because here I tell people, I have forgotten more miracles than most people have ever seen. And yet one day the thought crossed my mind. You’ve never seen a miracle. And it shocked me. And I began to put myself back on those crusade platforms, this parade of miracles. And I saw that’s right. What I saw was the miracle. I saw the person who couldn’t walk before and now they’re walking. I saw the person whose clothing still smelled like cancer, that now they’re completely healed. I saw the eyes that were already opened. I didn’t see when they were blind. And I had a smile thinking about that, just that the faith that was planted in me as a child, God can do everything. And yet all I saw was the end result of his grace and his miracles.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:31):
One of the great philosophies behind the Osborn Ministries was the value of every individual that you are important, that God’s hand is on you. God wants to use you. You are God’s best. That without, if God had someone better, he would use them, but the one he has. And so God is going to use you. That’s absolutely. Tell me the story about what the pastors in Russia said when Dr. Osborn came to
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (31:03):
Is so beautiful. When other people say things in a unique way. This is one of those statements. Of course, we had been, you heard the story. We had been across those many cities and the ministry was tremendous. We gave the books. We ministered daily, daily, daily, multiple times every day. After we left the leader, one of the primary Russian leaders was discussing with these Russian pastors, and they wrote to us and said, you’ve got to hear what the pastors have said about you. And the quote was this, after communism fell, many ministries came to Russia.
(31:51):
And when they left, we knew they were great. The Osborn’s came and when they left, we knew we were great. Doesn’t that just say it? Doesn’t that sound like something God would say? Almost chastising. We, let’s just talk about ourselves. We’re Americans, we know the system, we who boast of our achievements and may put ourselves on a pedestal and feel that we’re really special and people then know we’re special. Wow. God then comes on the scene and he says, no, it’s not about you. It’s about what I do in the lives of ordinary people to cause them to qualify, to represent me in their world. Yes. That is one of the fundamental philosophies of this ministry. This ministry is. And we didn’t make that up. If you read the Bible, that’s everything about God. He was the greatest missionary. He came. What did he do?
(33:00):
He didn’t cut in greatness. He came wrapped in our flesh, walking in our dust, relating to us on our level, talking our language. So he comes low to lift us up. There’s a verse in Isaiah that I just love. It’s talking. It’s a prophetic verse about the coming Messiah. And it talks about how he lifts the beggar out of the dunghill, lifts them and sets them among royalty. I have lived in those dung hills. I have walked among the beggars of the world. I have seen all of my 76 years, I have seen Jesus when he’s presented as he really is, lift the beggars up and make them special. That’s not because of us. That’s because of him. Do you remember the story of Papa Mu soke? Tell me the story. Papa Mu soke was a beggar in Uganda. This was the event. My parents, I was there as the photographer actually in the early eighties.
(34:10):
And it was after the rule of Iin. He was a real butcher and he had destroyed the nation. Incredible. It burned the libraries, killed every professional doctors, all they were afraid. We came, in fact, my mother and I came in advance. We stayed there seven weeks just working with the pastors. The streets were so full of potholes. One of the little cars we used was a Volkswagen wagon bug. There were streets. We couldn’t drive it because it would just fall right in the hole. There were curfews, wild dogs everywhere, eating the bodies that were on the street. Just a most depraved situation. And we had a historic event. It was in Luogo Stadium, we call it Luogo one because they went back later for Luogo two. And so this was a walled facility specifically to help the people feel safe. They came. I wish you could have seen what we saw.
(35:14):
The pastors didn’t have shoes, any suits that they had, they’d be so proud of. But they were just thread bare. Everyone was skinny. They’d had no food. There was so much pain. Every family had seen atrocities right before their eyes within their own family. So this was the condition of Uganda when we came. Okay, so this amazing, amazing event. In fact, we produced a series after that of messages and we titled it, you Are There. Because we wanted people to come and experience this. Hear the ministry. I heard my parents preach in ways I’d never heard them preach before. And so one service after we were leaving, we were packed in this little Volkswagen and we were with this massive crowd of people trying to get out the one gate that was available, the opening in the wall. And as we’re coming near the wall, can you just picture this?
(36:15):
You’ve been in these masses. Picture it. And my father looked down and he saw this man, Papa Maki. And he was a beggar and he was paralyzed. He was laying there and his legs were out in front of him. And my father said, stop the car. And he got out of the car. I followed him. I knew something was getting ready to happen. I had my camera with me. He came to who we now know as mu, we call him Papa Mu soke. My father looked at this beggar man. He had been paralyzed. So his family kicked him out of the house. He couldn’t do anything to support his family. And he lived among the dogs because he could sleep with them and stay warm. It’s a very pitiful situation. And so I remember my father’s words. He looked at this, man, can you picture the dust, the debris, the dazed expression, the tangled hair, the dirty body and the smell.
(37:25):
Can you see it? My father looked at him and he says, Papa, what are you doing on the ground? And of course, Papa Mercedes looked at him and said, who are you? What are you? And he says, look at me. I’m a man. You’re a man. I’m not in the ground. Why are you in the ground? And of course, Zuki is just looking at him, not comprehending. And my papa took his hand and he says, Papa and the name of Jesus Christ, get up and walk because I’ve got this all documented. It’s in our books. Papa Osakis story. That man got up. He was healed. He began to walk. Now, here’s the rest of the story. My mother and I went back. Daisy Washburn Osborn, that’s a name to remember. She and I went back one year later to do follow up on some of his amazing testimonies from Lou Ggo one.
(38:27):
And we looked him up. That man was all groomed. He had on a business suit. He had opened a business in the market. He had his own kiosk. He was so happy. Look at this. That’s why we say restoration. The gospel doesn’t just forgive sin and heal bodies. It restores people’s dignity. This man, he wasn’t a beggar in God’s eyes. God lifted him up out of the dust and set him high. That’s what the gospel does. And of course, this is one of thousands of stories, but I love that story because it’s perfectly expressed is what you’re talking about in the dignity of humankind made in the image of God. And our ministry has always prioritized the value of people. We treat them often in these nations. Dr. King, you’ve been there. They don’t treat themselves well. The leaders are not always kind to their people. Pastors are not always nice to their people. Some cultures, they don’t mind hitting them or pounding them with a stick. It’s just kind of culture and how beautiful to come and treat people gently treat them with care and respect.
(39:50):
It’s, it is a priority. I remember I was in one of the cities in the Democratic Republic of Congo. One of the wonderful miracles was a woman who came to testify skin and bone. Her testimony was that she was a prostitute and she had attracted aids, contracted aids. And the clinic had just finally told her to go home and die. There’s nothing more we can do. Well, her pimp brought her to the crusade thinking, oh, she can make a little more money as long as she’s alive. And she accepted Jesus. What happened to her was so frightening. Her pimp ran away. We learned that later. So she came to testify. Her story was so precious, the way God had shown himself to her and forgave her and loved her. Now, I’m giving you an example. I told the pastors who were there with me, I said, someone has to take this woman, take her, give her a safe place, help her get clean new clothes. And the first thing I saw was a man pastor come and kind of grab her.
(41:05):
That went all over me, and I just stopped right there in front of everyone. I says, stop it. This is a woman, your daughter, your sister in the family of God. And I called one of the women pastors to come, and I helped put her arms around this new convert. Gently say, she’s been abused enough. Can you take this woman and love her and show her the love of God and help her have a new beginning? Now you see, that’s one person among hundreds who were coming to testify, but that conveys the heart of our ministry, that always, it’s not our heart. It’s Christ’s ministry. He cares about people, and he’s gentle with them, and he reveals a God of love and compassion, not a God who rules and controls, not our God.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (41:58):
Amen. Osborn Ministries has such a amazing legacy of ministry, but now God’s raising up a new generation of evangelists. Oh yes. What advice would you give to those who feel a heart for evangelism and want to be used by God to bring people to Jesus?
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (42:18):
Oh, that’s wonderful. God’s people, his soul winners, those that take on a personal responsibility to share what they know about Jesus, that’s what we call evangelists, those that I think all of us should be. But there are some that are very just uniquely passionate. I think from my experience and from what I see in the scripture and from the legacy of our family, the first thing I would tell this new generation of passionate evangelists, don’t try to copy everybody else. Listen for new ideas. Because wherever God sends you, that’s a unique set of circumstances. That God has a specific model for how to draw attention to himself, and he does it. He does it through notable miracles and things. So that’s the first thing I would tell them. I would tell them, practice develop Christ’s love for people. You can’t be an effective evangelist if you’re just trying to chalk off the numbers and keep track of how many people you’ve led to Christ.
(43:28):
No, no. You’ve got to love people like God, love them. We can’t do it on our own. They’re not always lovable, but we let Christ love them. That’s so important. And I think that’s one of the secrets of my father and mother’s ministry. They’ve always loved people. They’ve loved people. As a matter of fact, my father was invited by the late Dr. Oral Roberts. Dr. Roberts was having one of his Holy Spirit classes in the beginning of the university. And this one semester he had invited a lot of his ministry friends. I won’t name them, but all of his ministry friends, he had invited them just to come and have one session with the students. Among that number, my father was invited. I know this because now the pastor of our church, Dr. Shana Anthony, an or U grad, she was in that class that day and it was opened up for questions. And these young students, they were asking, and the big question was, what’s the secret of ministry? You can imagine you’ve been a young student. What’s the secret of effective ministry? And my father told the story of Papa Mu soke.
(44:50):
And by the time he was finished, I don’t know how many of those students heard his answer because he didn’t say, the secret of effective ministry is he told the story and there was not a dry eye in that place. He conveyed this dynamic divine principle of God’s intervention into human debris, how he loves people. And so I don’t think my father and mother ever read that in a book or had anyone tell them that they learned it by being among hurting people and carrying the same passion that these new evangelists carry of wanting them to know Jesus. Well, the way they need to be introduced to Jesus is through a savior who loves them, the Muslims. They don’t know anything about a God who loves most religions of the world, pagans with the witch doctor who puts curses on. They don’t know anything about a God of love.
(45:56):
Love is the message that penetrates these hearts. So I would always say, focus on Jesus. I would always say, focus on Jesus, because there are so many messages that proliferate now, if you just focus on Jesus, everything will be all right. I would remind them. Always expect miracles. You cannot do evangelism without miracles. That’s the proof that what we’ve said is true. That’s what Jesus did. He went around preaching and healing. And so these are fundamentals that I would always encourage young evangelists, love people, focus on Jesus, expect miracles. What was the first one? I missed it. I forgot my first one. Lift people up. Lift people up. Oh my goodness. Yes. Yes. You shared several. Yes, that’s a good one. But these are fundamentals, and these are things that don’t change with time. See, I’m representing a ministry that’s now in four years, we’ll enter our eighth decade.
(47:09):
That’s a long time. The whole world has changed. Nations have changed. Names of nations have changed. Politics has changed. Everything has changed. Technology has changed. But if we hold on, I would tell young evangelists prioritize the things that don’t change. Then everything else can change. If you’re in a village is one thing. If you’re in a city, it’s another thing. If you’re on the radio, it’s another thing. If you’re on your iPad, if you’re on WhatsApp, that’s another thing. If you’re face-to-face in a village, in a lepper colony, if you’re touching sick people, that’s another thing. But if you will focus on the things that do not change, your ministries will endure. The scripture talks about everyone’s work will be tested by fire. The apostle Paul warned us, it depends on what we build with whether our ministries will stand the test of fire. I think part of that testing is the testing of time.
(48:14):
If we want ministries to endure, look at my father and mother. They’ve been with the Lord now a while, but their ministry continues. Why? Because it’s built on the things that don’t change. It’s a secret to the longevity of ministry. And back to what you said, let me just add here. What we’re doing this year, these video pieces, we’re taking advantage of 2023. My father was born in 1923, so this would be 100 years. And so we’re celebrating his life ministry influence, not his life, only because that’s past. His ministry continues, his influence accelerates. And so this is a wonderful way to stop and reflect in my purpose in these videos is to identify milestones. When were major decisions made, when were crises faced, how do they deal with them and out of it to pluck principles that apply today. Otherwise, we’re just talking about history. That’s fine. But if we can learn from it in ways that’s relevant in this century, that’s what we’re looking for.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (49:40):
And I think in this century, God is accelerating what he’s doing in the world today. Isn’t it true when your father first went to Africa, there were so many places that had never even heard about Jesus. That’s right. And now some of the greatest churches in the world are on the continent of Africa.
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (49:59):
That’s
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (49:59):
Exactly right. And so God is raising up people who are passionate about bringing the lost to Christ, right?
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (50:06):
That’s right.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (50:08):
It’s such a privilege to be a part of it.
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (50:09):
My father’s book, you mentioned it as part of your early exposure, his book, Soul Winning. It was not a book about mass evangelism. It was a book to challenge the ordinary. Can I say ordinary Christian? That’s an oxymoron. I’m sorry, Lord. I didn’t mean that. There can be no ordinary follower of you, but one who doesn’t feel that they’re special. And this book was to challenge everyone. If you have the Holy Spirit, you are empowered to be a witness of Christ. It was a challenge to get the people off the pew onto the streets because he wrote it when he released this book, gave it to every preacher he had on his mailing list. I think he sent to 25,000 preachers at the time in 1963. And this is the book that began the revival of personal evangelism. Before that, only the pastor could win souls or only the known called evangelists.
(51:16):
It was a unique thing. You wouldn’t think the person in the pew, they just taught to pay their tithe and show up and do what they’re told. And so this book came as a revolution, a revelation, really. And out of that, so many ministries have launched and people look at you 18 years old, whatever God was doing in your heart, you knew you had the equipment to do it. You had the Holy Spirit. You had everything that Jesus had, and you could do everything that God put in your heart to do. That was to the I give my father the credit. God gave him a way to say it. That was so simple. And so that revival has spun what you’re describing, this massive spread of the gospel and the founding of churches and denominations all over the world. Massive. I’m not giving my father all the credit for that. You understand? But it was that I idea that was at the right time. It took hold.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (52:20):
Yeah. I remember I had the opportunity to go to one of Dr. Osborn’s crusades in Costa Rica. I had tried to meet with him here in Tulsa, but your office told me that he was always traveling and not available. So finally, just in order to learn from his ministry, I found out he was doing a crusading Costa Rica. I went to the crusade, sat in the front row of the pastor’s conference, and he spoke for five days, morning and evening for many long hours. And the pastors would just sit there and take notes, and they would listen. And I remember in one of the services, some of the pastors got tired and stood up to leave, and he says, sit back down. He says, this is the last time in my life that I’m coming to your nation. I’m very old. Good for you. He says, sit down. You need to hear what I am going to say
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (53:12):
To you. He was probably in his eighties by that time. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (53:14):
But in that meeting, I was there. I was influenced In that meeting, I think was the first time that my friends, Michael and Christina Lust met Dr. S. And so now they have a tremendous ministry. And then I have another friend, his name is Alejandro Arias, and Alejandro was in that meeting. He was a young preacher at the time, only a young teenager, but already preaching and was impacted. And so from just that one meeting, sitting in one of the rows, three ministries that are now impacting the world,
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (53:48):
And look at what you’re describing, each of these were young people. That’s who we look for to pass the flame of evangelism to the next generation. Old people have their methods, but the young people, they’ll catch the fire.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (54:06):
They’ll take the vision and run with it.
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (54:07):
Yes. Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (54:09):
Amen. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Osborn, for your inspiration and your example over the years and just your love for people, and we’ll continue to have an impact for many years to come. Amen.
Dr. LaDonna Osborn (54:24):
I love you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (54:25):
Thank you for being on The Evangelism Podcast.