Today, Daniel King talks to Carrie Headington, an Episcopal evangelist serving the Anglican community in Dallas, Texas. They discuss Carrie’s work equipping churches and everyday believers for evangelism, with a focus on raising up female evangelists. She shares lessons she learned from the late evangelist Michael Green, including the importance of having an “audience of one” in Jesus, persevering through spiritual warfare, and seeing how the Holy Spirit can revive even the most dormant churches when they engage in mission. We highlight the need for more bold, Spirit-filled evangelists, both men and women, to share the good news of Jesus in the world today.
Learn more about Carrie Headington: https://www.goodnewsinitiative.com/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me, Carrie Headington. So thank you so much for joining me.
Carrie Headington (00:11):
Thank you, Daniel. You have always inspired me as an evangelist, and we met way back, went through Luis Palau and just watching you and seeing the work of God working through you. It’s such an inspiration to me and it’s great to be with you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:32):
So we are here at the Lausanne Congress in South Korea and it was such a delight to run into you and to see you here. I thought let’s take the opportunity to have a conversation. And so you might hear some Korean talking in the background, some singing, but this is so wonderful
Carrie Headington (00:52):
To be, I just ate Korean barbecue.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:54):
Yeah. So you are serving the Lord in Dallas, Texas, and you are with the Episcopal Church and you’re serving the Anglican community as an evangelist. Tell me about that. What is God doing?
Carrie Headington (01:10):
People always say to me, wait, you’re an Episcopal evangelist. And I say, yes, absolutely.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:18):
Thank God for you praise. We need some good Episcopal evangelists.
Carrie Headington (01:21):
We’re an evangelical diocese and we have 65 churches under our bishop. So the way the Anglican communion is formed, the Anglican communion globally is actually the third largest Christian body in the world.
(01:39):
Wow. You have Roman Catholics, Orthodox and the Anglican communion right now, particularly in the global south. The Lord is moving so powerfully and we’re seeing so much fruit, a lot of people coming to the Lord. My context is Dallas, so we have 65 churches in the North Texas region, and my work as an evangelist is one, proclaiming the gospel, two is equipping the churches. The second part of being an evangelist that you and I know from Ephesians four equipping everyday believers and casting that missional vision to say, did you know you’re a missionary? Did you know you’re an ambassador for Christ? Sometimes that’s hard in our context because our ministers wear collars and it’s professionalized. But we say no ministry is for all believers, but the Anglican communion is in part every country in the world. And there were many, many evangelistic movements that came out of starting with Great Britain and truly, literally around the world. Yes, there’s some colonialism part of that, but a lot of it were Christian believers, missionaries who felt a call to go and share the love of Jesus. And so we’ve seen just a rapid spread in our communion and it makes it so rich because one body, we have a prayer book, a book of common prayer that we pray from each country in province often has their own prayer, but they’re similar prayers. And so we worship together, we praise the Lord together and we’re in common mission together.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:46):
Well, I love the Anglican communion in Africa. We often work with Anglicans and their churches are growing by leaps and bounds, and the Holy Spirit is working in such a great way in so much of the body of Christ through the Anglican community. So tell me a little bit about the churches that you work with. What does it look like? How do you activate believers to be involved in evangelism?
Carrie Headington (04:14):
Yes. Well, the first thing we do is to cast that missional vision to say, think of it this way, the great mythologist Leslie Newgen said, and he was a missionary bishop in India, and then he went back to England. He wrote and he said, think of the universal church like the kingdom of God, the embassy for the kingdom of God on earth, the universal church, and every local church is a local kingdom outpost. And he said, who are the ambassadors? The ambassadors are everyday believers. And as we’ve been hearing here at Anne, 99% of believers ambassadors for Jesus Christ are in the workplace or in the homes. They’re not the professional pastors, they are the ambassadors. And so we cast that vision and then we say, okay, you’re an ambassador for Jesus Christ. This is your calling, whether you’re in a workplace environment, whether you’re in the home, wherever God has placed you an unemployment line, whether you’re retired, wherever you are in your stage of life, stay at home mother, you are an ambassador for Jesus Christ.
(05:34):
And then we use the model of Jesus. What I love Daniel, and you know this, that Jesus gave us a template. He said, wait, pray the Holy Spirit will come upon you. That’s crucial. This is God’s mission, not ours, God’s mission. We do it all in the power of the Holy Spirit. But he said, okay. His first commission to us was to think about intentionally, think about our mission field. So he said, go to Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. We have in our congregations, we have everyone think about who’s in your Jerusalem and intentionally to think about who’s around you, who are your friends, your family, your neighbors. Then we think about the Judea, what’s happening in your city, your workplace, your acquaintance, the places where you frequent, and then we go to Samaria, who’s on the margins? If Jesus walked into your community, who would he care for first and then ends of the earth and the ends of the earth can be what I love about the Anglican communion.
(06:45):
It could be connecting with another diocese around the world or God. And you know this living in Tulsa, Oklahoma, God is bringing the nations to one another. So right there in Dallas, Texas, we have one of the highest number of refugees per capita in the world. New immigrants and new refugees get invited into an American home once every 15 years. So we say, make a friend with a refugee or a new immigrant, invite them into your home for a meal or invite them, church host a meal and invite the community around you. So have everyone intentionally look at who God has placed around them. Then the next thing we do, we look at the model of Jesus and we say, we teach three things, prayer, care and share. Pray for the people who God is placed in your mission field. Pray for them. Then you ask God, how can I best share care for them and show the love of Jesus? We’ve talked a lot here about display and declare the glory of God. So we need to show it and we need to tell it words. And then so we do prayer care for people and then share. And we teach people how to share their personal story, how to get in touch with what have you found in your relationship with Jesus Christ.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:19):
One of the things that is very close to your heart is raising up female evangelists. And we need more women that are bold about proclaiming the gospel. When you go to different nations around the world, women often are half or more of the church. Usually the ones in the church that are doing most of the work tend to be the women, but yet some churches have told women to be quiet. But you say, we don’t have to be quiet. We can do something for God.
Carrie Headington (08:55):
Yes. Well, the first evangelists were women. The first evangelists at the empty tomb were women. And they ran and shared the good news.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:06):
And I think that’s so significant because Jesus showed that he trusted them with the message he did.
Carrie Headington (09:15):
He trusted them with the message. And this was in a culture where women’s testimony was not heard in the court of law where women didn’t have any property or women were asked to really not leave the home. There was a Jewish prayer at that time that said, thank you, God, I was not born a woman. It’s in that context that Jesus first revealed himself the risen Jesus Christ to women. And then he says to them, go and tell the others. And so the great commission was first given to women. Go and tell the others. We also see the woman at the well. And of course she encounters the risen Lord goes to the village, she said, come meet the man who told me everything I ever did. The whole village came to know Jesus. So clearly he wants to use us. And I always say, so women, we need to be living in the great commission.
(10:20):
It doesn’t say, go all you men and make disciples. It says, go all of you, all of you. And so half the population are women. And often women can speak to other women’s hearts in a very deep and vulnerable way. And I’m really all for women’s proclamation events. And it can be small or it can be large, but where women are speaking to women because we know the needs of women, women, our vulnerabilities, our brokenness, some of the unique pains that women experience. And to give women space in those contexts to hear the healing, healing word of God and that Jesus has come for them. I’ll never forget being in Paris and we were speaking to women in an area trap in Paris, and these were mothers of radicalized Muslims and their sons and husbands have been radicalized for isis. And it was such an intimate group.
(11:39):
I mean, there were about 50 women and we just shared about Jesus. And one woman after another said, would Jesus heal me or would Jesus meet with me? And I think the fact that it was women with women, we created that safe space and women felt safe to open up. And we saw Jesus do amazing, amazing work that day in women’s hearts and women committing their lives to Jesus. So we need women. We need women to be ambassadors, and we need women to say yes to the great commission and we need to equip and encourage women. And that doesn’t mean we don’t respect the structures and women are in all different kinds of different church structures, but whatever structure we’re in, we still have the opportunity to share Jesus. And so we’ve got to do it. And I think my heart is to mobilize. Well, a lot of times women think, well, I’m not a professional pastor, so they think that they’re not evangelists. Women make some of the most extraordinary evangelists and often have an opportunity to meet people in all kinds of different contexts. I mean, I think the average person reaches, meets three new people in a given day. Women are constantly, we’re out, we’re often getting the food, and we’re in the marketplace and we’re caring for children, and we’re meeting with other mothers. That’s an incredible mission field.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:24):
Yeah, I’m thinking about my mother. She was a missionary along with my father in Mexico for 20 years, and then they went to Afghanistan, and three years ago she passed away very suddenly, but we found out that she had cancer. And then for just a couple of months she had left. Lots of friends came to visit her, but I remember just a few days before she went to heaven, she was calling some of the Afghan students that she had been working with in Afghanistan via Zoom. And she was sharing her personal testimony with them because my grandparents worked in Afghanistan and my mother got saved in Afghanistan. She was born there. She got saved there. So she was calling them and giving the testimony of how she got saved at the age of seven in Afghanistan to them and saying, you need to call on Jesus too. So in her last days, she was evangelizing and it was so beautiful.
Carrie Headington (14:27):
Praise the Lord. That’s how we all want to be. And I’ve met people here who were ministering in Afghanistan to women. So carry on. Your mom’s good work
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:40):
There. And my wife is a great evangelist, and she was on the mission field for many years before we met. And so she’s great at preaching, she’s great at leading worship. And my daughter also, she’s 12 years old, she tells me, daddy, I want to be a missionary and is talking about where she wants to go and what her calling is. And so it’s so beautiful.
Carrie Headington (15:05):
And oftentimes, someone was asking me earlier, where do you think women are held back? And I said, often it’s ourselves that we don’t feel worthy. And Daniel, I venture to say that that’s the perfect posture because none of us are worthy and we just open our hands and say, God, I am willing, here I am, use me. But that humble posture, we don’t come with wise and persuasive words. We come in the power of the Holy Spirit. And so that kind of posture just makes so much room for the Holy Spirit to move and work through us. And
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:48):
Amen.
Carrie Headington (15:49):
It’s really inspiring.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:51):
I’ve got another question for you. You studied under Michael Green. He was from Great Britain and he wrote a great book on evangelism in the early church. And so you studied under him. Yes. If you’re listening, I really encourage you get the book on evangelism in the early church. There’s some really great material. He’s passed away now. But what did you learn from Dr. Michael Green?
Carrie Headington (16:17):
Yes, I’d love to share how we met. He and I were taught my first day in seminary, and he was across from me. I didn’t know who he was, that he was a giant of the faith. And he said, you’re an evangelist. And I said, I laugh. I said, I’m an Episcopalian. He died laughing. He said, my dear, you need to read your Anglican history books. There are many, many, many Anglican evangelists. So we met, but a few days later, he had a heart attack and his wife came up to me and said, my husband would like to talk to you.
(16:57):
He’s in the hospital. We’re not sure if he’s going to make it out. So I’m American student here in England. I go to this hospital and there he is. And he prayed for me and he said, my dear, what are you going to do with your life? I said, I don’t know. He said, whatever you do, share the gospel. And he said, when I was on the cold slab of the theater in the surgical room, he said, I’m more convinced than ever that Jesus Christ is Lord. And then so as I was leaving a deeply moving moment, as I left, a nurse said to me, could I talk to you for a minute? I said, sure. She said, is he a preacher or something? And I said, why do you ask? She said, at night, we can’t keep him in bed. And she said, he goes room to room.
(17:54):
And she goes, I think he’s preaching to people. And she said, we politely. And we say, well, you must get back in your bed, Mr. Green. She said, he’s, he is cooked up to machines. She goes, he gets in bed, but five minutes later he’s up. I went home that night, got on my knees and wept, and I said, Lord, I want to have that passion for the lost when I’m in my eighties. He got well, and the minute he was back at college, I knocked on his door and I said, I want to learn from you
(18:34):
And what I learned from him. So our first outreach together was back at that hospital and there were about 80 people there, people who had come to know the Lord, doctors, nurses, and patients through his time in the hospital. So what did I learn from him? I asked him one time, what is it that keeps you going? He said, I have an audience of one. He said, I have an audience of one. Jesus is my audience, and he has called me to share his good news with every single person I meet. So I learned that from him. Audience of one. The second thing was perseverance. Every time he was going to do an outreach, an evangelistic campaign to a time Daniel, he got sick. He had lung problems, so he was always down. So he would go and get in the hospital, get his infusion, and then inevitably get back up to preach. It never kept him down. He said, expect spiritual warfare. And he said, just say in the name of Jesus, back off old Nick. That’s what he always said, back off old Nick. But he said, just love the Lord. He said, when you’re in love with the Lord, you can’t help but spill the beans.
(20:01):
So he said, stay in love with the Lord. Stay in his words. Stay in prayer. Stay in a posture of worship. Have an audience of one persevere run the race. And I’ll say this on his last thing he taught me, we would go to these village churches in England. They would be dying. We’d get in the car and he’d say, what do you think? When I say dying? I mean like four people and a woman bringing her dog in. He’d say, what do you think? And I’d say, oh, Dr. Green, I think they’re going to shut down this church. And he’s like, you just watch. He said, when a church, when the local church puts its pinky toe in the water of mission, the Holy Spirit moves. Wow,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:54):
Daniel.
Carrie Headington (20:55):
I saw it over and over and over again. And what did we do? We prayed. We prayed for renewal. We prayed for a move of the spirit. We equip the believers saying, did you know you’re an ambassador for Christ? Here’s how you share your story. How’s God wired you? What do you love to do? Well, let’s do it for Jesus. Let’s invite your non-Christian friends. Give a little testimony and invite him to the message. Invite him to hear the message at the outreach or invite him to church over. And again, it was like I was seeing a baby being born, little parish church in every village after village after village come alive. And so thus people always go, oh, you’re in this kind of mainline church. It’s dead. It’s dead. And I said, it’s not dead. The minute it puts its pinky toe in the water and mission and the power of the Holy Spirit, it comes to life. Amen. I love
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:58):
Watching
Carrie Headington (21:59):
Things come to
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:00):
Life. And our God is the God of resurrection. So even if it is dead, he can raise it back up.
Carrie Headington (22:04):
Yes. Yes. And some of our churches are asleep. And what we do as evangelists is to say, wake up. Wake up, get connected in the power of the Holy Spirit and live into God’s mission and churches come alive.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:22):
Wow. That’s amazing. Well, if someone would like to find out more about your ministry or maybe invite you to come speak at their church or their conference, what’s a website or a good way that they can connect with you?
Carrie Headington (22:36):
It’s good news initiative.com.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:40):
Good news initiative.com.
Carrie Headington (22:42):
Good news initiative.com.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:45):
Awesome. Well, Ms. Carrie, I’m so delighted to spend some time with you. Love what you’re doing, and let’s just pray together that God would raise up a multitude of evangelists, both men and women around the world. Would you pray?
Carrie Headington (23:01):
Yes. I will pray. And I praise God, different denominations working together too. Amen. This is a picture of what God longs for. Amen. Amen. Lord, we love you. We praise you. We worship you this day, and we ask, Lord, that you would raise up evangelists for such a time as this raise, raise them up. And Lord, thank you for allowing us that we have the privilege to participate in your work, your work in the world of drawing all people to yourself and spreading your good news and your love throughout the earth. So we pray, Lord, that even now as I’m speaking, that someone hears your call, go and make disciples, go and take the good news to the ends of the earth. Lord, you have called every single person to witness to your good news. Fill us, give us your heart and your spirit for every single person around us. In Jesus’ name,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:15):
Amen. Amen. Amen. Well, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Carrie Headington (24:20):
Thank you, Daniel. And thank you for the work you do. And keep going, brother.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:24):
Yes, ma’am.
Teen Challenge is a global ministry that helps young people struggling with addiction and crime. Teen Challenge was started by David Wilkerson in New York City, with a vision to reach troubled youth and help them find transformation through the power of the gospel. Bernie Gillott is the Global Evangelism Coordinator for Teen Challenge. The focus of Teen Challenge is not just rehabilitation, but true transformation through the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. They disciple the men and women in their care to become evangelists themselves. Today on the Evangelism Podcast, we talk about David Wilkerson’s legacy and about what God is doing through Teen Challenge.
Learn more about Bernie Gillott: https://www.bgillott.org/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me, brother Bernie Gillott.
Bernie Gillott (00:10):
I’m the Global Evangelism Coordinator for Teen Challenge. We serve the 1,200 Teen Challenge centers in 132 nations that are not the United States.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:25):
And it is such a delight to meet you. We’re here in Seoul, Korea at the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, and last night we were sitting on the bus and I was just so happy to meet you and to hear about what you’re doing for evangelism. Teen Challenge does such a great job of taking people who are dealing with addictions, with problems, with alcohol, with drugs, taking them off the streets and then developing them into disciples of Christ. Tell me a little bit about what Teen Challenge does.
Bernie Gillott (00:58):
Well, while so many people see Teen Challenge as a drug program, it was never David’s Wilkerson’s vision for it to be a drug program. It started as a ministry called Teen Evangelism. He wanted to go to New York City and reach seven boys in the Michael Farmer case that had brutally murdered a handicapped boy. He never got to see them, but when he went into the courtroom, many of you have seen the cross and the switchblade. They threw him out of the courtroom in disgrace. They had his Bible. They said, hold that up, don’t be ashamed. He was on the front page of the Daily News, crazy Bible waving, preacher interrupts trial. He went home in absolute disgrace and he told me, he said, Bernie, I prayed because I knew God had told me to go, and everything went so horribly bad. And he talked to his grandfather and he said, Davy, maybe God didn’t send you for those boys, but boys like those boys.
(01:52):
And so we went back to New York City only this time he didn’t go to a courtroom. He went to the Fort Lee projects. First miracle was he slept in his car overnight and lived when he woke up, they’d stolen the tires off of his car. They were stealing the hood. When he got out of the car, one of the boys grabbed a knife to cut his throat and one of the boys bottle cap said, Hey, aren’t you the preacher from the Egyptian Kings trial? The cops hate you and the cops hate us, so you must be one of us. And God opened the doors to the most violent gangs of the New York City through his disgrace on the front page became his opportunity, and that’s how Teen Challenge was born, began working with gangs. Then in the sixties as we began to see the gangs broken up by heroin addiction and drugs, they began to intervene there. And that’s how we kind of got our reputation. We worked with men and women with life controlling problems with drugs, alcohol, crime, and victims of human trafficking. Now around the world
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:53):
And as the leader of Evangelism for Teen Challenge, tell me about how you get these people that have had so many issues then turning them into evangelists. You told me that last night that you were just recently in Congo, DRC
Bernie Gillott (03:12):
In
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:12):
Lumas. You took a team there from Teen Challenges all over Africa. Tell me about what God did there. Sure. It was
Bernie Gillott (03:21):
In Lu Bai. We had 192,000 people. Over the course of four days, we ministered to over 5,000 in the schools. We had men from Zambia, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, and from the Congo. And what we do is we disciple the men. The key to Teen Challenge is not psychology, it’s not about rehabilitation, it’s about transformation. It’s not about recovery. It’s about resurrection. And we want them to take that power and then apply that. It’s interesting, I have one guy who was praying, prayed for someone that was deaf and they were healed. I looked at him and I said, how long have you been in the program? He said, three months. He said, all I know is I prayed. And they heard. I think sometimes we want people to get so, so good enough to be ready to witness. But if you love Jesus, he’s ready to use you right where you are today. He’s ready to use you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:21):
Amen. So Teen Challenge was started by David Wilkerson. Yes. Great man of God,
Bernie Gillott (04:29):
My team
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:29):
And a prophet, a pastor right in Times Square in New York City and then doing Teen Challenge all over the world. Tell me some of what you learned from David Wilkerson and some of your favorite stories about him.
Bernie Gillott (04:43):
Well, probably one of the things that had the most profound impact on my life was one time we were in South Philly and that was my job to get him from his bus, which was like 10 blocks north down to the outreach and two of my choir guys, and we were trying to get him. But every few feet, somebody would stop him and say, brother Dave, pray for me. Pray for my son, pray for this. And I kind of grabbed him and I said, brother Dave, I said, man, we got to get you to the stage. It’s time for you to minister. You’re going to get me in trouble. And he looked at me, he kind of pushed me. He said, brother, be the stage is where I preach. Ministry is what happens on the way to the stage. And he understood the heart of evangelism. The heart for the lost the heart that it’s not about the big stage that he would have in the thousands, but every individual walking down Broad Street, that was his heart.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:34):
I’m reminded of Matthew chapter eight where it says, as you go preach saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It doesn’t say when you get there. And so sometimes I think as evangelists we make the mistake thinking the evangelism is what’s going to happen on the platform, but he was evangelizing everywhere he went. That’s right. Usually the greatest fruit in our ministry happens just as you’re going. As you’re going to someplace to go evangelize. You get to evangelize on the way and impacts people’s lives.
Bernie Gillott (06:08):
That’s right. You can’t get so focused on the destination that you miss the fact that God works in the journey. Jesus was on his way to heal J IRA’s daughter, the woman with the issue of blood. He had time for her. It seemed like most of his most incredible miracles happened on his way to do something else. And God met him there and led him to someone in need. And there’s people all around us. We can’t miss the fact that God’s got an opportunity because you’re a great evangelist. I mean, I was so excited when we met on the bus and you said, listen, we’re going out on the street witnessing on Wednesday. It would take somebody like you to say, at the Lason World Congress on evangelization, we ought to do some evangelization, and we’re so excited to go out with you and to see what God’s going to do here in Seoul, Korea.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:53):
Yeah. That’ll be with Greg Steer from Dare to Share and Desmond Henry from the Global Network of Evangelists. There’s so many different evangelists that have come together here, and we can’t have so many evangelists for a conference without doing some evangelism. That’s right. It’s important. There’s still people here in South Korea that need Jesus. Oh, that’s so
Bernie Gillott (07:12):
True.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:13):
So I think it’s so neat how God uses every different gift that people have to bring people to Jesus. And so one of your gifts is wrapping.
Bernie Gillott (07:25):
That’s right.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:25):
So you can wrap in English, you can wrap in Spanish,
Bernie Gillott (07:30):
Russian, Swahili.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:31):
Okay. Give us just a little bit of rap and give us some English and then give us something in another language. Okay. Word up.
Bernie Gillott (07:38):
All this is my story. It’s not about me. I got to give that the glory. I was lost. I was bound in sin boxing it down. I took it straight in the chin in Swahili it Mabo VP in Spanish. It’s, you know what? I’m a as slick as the peel of a ripe banana, and I got more juice than crop. Can I come on the scene? I could turn it out. I even brought the president out the White House to listen to me, de Mayor Heavy. Be a rap for Jesus because he set me free and he’ll set you free too.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:21):
Let’s talk a little bit more about Teen Challenge. What are some of the elements of the program of Teen Challenge that really help people?
Bernie Gillott (08:30):
Well, the key to Teen Challenge is the word of God going in their lives, in their hearts. They memorize 125 verses in the first three months at Teen Challenge, and it gets it down into their minds and begins to work healing over. I had a guy one time, he was getting ready to graduate because the program’s 12 months, and he said So many of those verses I learned at the beginning, I can’t remember anymore, and said, I remember the verse, but I don’t remember the numbers. And I said, yeah, but you know what? Psychologists tell us that 90% of what we do come, the 10% that we do comes from the 90% in our subconscious. The more of scripture we can get in their subconscious, even if they don’t remember it, it’s working Just like all those bad memories. The teacher that said, you’ll never amount to anything.
(09:21):
I mean, my dad told me every day of my life, you were a loser. You’re born a loser. You live the loser and you’ll die a loser. Well, I may have been born a loser, but hallelujah. I was born again a winner and I’m not built. And the power of the Holy Spirit, the baptism, and the Holy Spirit is, I mean, teen Challenge is not just an evangelical ministry. It’s an evangelical ministry with a Pentecostal distinctive because these guys need the baptism in the Holy Spirit and a prayer language to overcome those temptations as they face them.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:53):
Amen. Well, that’s the only way I can wrap is with my prayer language. Amen.
Bernie Gillott (10:05):
It was just three months before Brother Wilkerson went home to be with the Lord in the car accident. I was with him in Dominican Republic and he laid his hands on my head and he said, brother Bernie, don’t let the flame of evangelism go out in Teen Challenge. Keep the fire of the Holy Ghost burning. Amen. And that’s what keeps my wife and I going over a hundred thousand miles every year on five continents, training teen challenged men, those that were once hopeless to be givers of hope in the name of Jesus Christ. That’s
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:43):
Evangelism. For someone who’s listening, who’s a young evangelist, what advice would you give them? You’ve done evangelism for many years. What advice would you give to those called to be evangelists?
Bernie Gillott (10:57):
Don’t trust your own strength. Recognize that when you can’t, he can’t and when you don’t want to. He wants to. He’ll open doors if you’ll just watch for him. Number two, trust the word of God. It’s really challenging. I remember back in the seventies when we’d be on the street with David Wilkerson, the most important thing was knowing your scriptures. Nowadays, when you’re ministering on the street, if you share scripture, people just want to argue on whether scripture’s real because they don’t really believe the word. And for that reason, some people don’t use scripture on the street. I still do because I believe the word of God is the only thing that guarantees it will bring a harvest. So even though it may not seem like they receive it, the word of God has power in its own right to bring forth the seed because he never sends on his word without bringing forth the harvest. And number three, obey the Holy Spirit. Believe God, this is an hour evangelists where we need the power of Jesus Christ. We need the gifts of the prophetic word of knowledge and word of faith, because that’s just going to change this world.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:03):
Amen. Well, it’s such a delight to meet you. Thank you for sharing with us, and I pray that God gives teen challenge even greater fruit in the years to come. If someone wants to find out more about Teen Challenge, what’s a good website for them to go to?
Bernie Gillott (12:19):
You can go to my website, which is B gilot. That’s G-I-L-L-O-T-T-B gilot.org. I’ve got evangelism training. I’ve got music videos, rap videos, or you can go to global tc.org, global tc.org. That’ll tell you about Teen Challenges, work around the world, or teen challenge usa.org. If you need someone to get in the program that’s here in the United States, those are all available resources.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:48):
Well, I encourage you to go to my brother’s website, support him in his ministry. I’m sure you need help as you go around the world preaching the gospel.
Bernie Gillott (12:56):
But the thing we need most is prayer. And I am so blessed that I got to meet you, Daniel. Man, you have made this conference for
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:01):
Me. Hallelujah. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much, and God bless you.
Bernie Gillott (13:05):
Amen. God bless you, man of God. Lord, we thank you that you are raising up a voice of hope. Amen to the hopeless Lord, that even a teen challenge you just take the hopeless and make them givers of hope. Lord, those that are struggling, you’ll feel your strength to say that next word, that next step because you called them God and you’ll enable them. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:28):
Amen.
Bernie Gillott (13:28):
Thanks Daniel.
Paulo Lopes is the Emerging Leaders Director for World Methodist Evangelism. On today’s episode of The Evangelism Podcast we talk about the rich tradition of evangelism in Wesleyan Methodist movements going all the back to John Wesley and Francis Asbury. The goal of World Methodist Evangelism is to be a connection point for the worldwide Wesleyan Methodist family offering training, gathering opportunities, and resources that empower Christ followers to share their faith in the context of today’s realities. We talk about the importance of evangelism and the need for revival in the church. Paulo Lopes shares his observations on the current state of the church and the signs of awakening and hunger for God that he has seen around the world.
Learn more about World Methodist Evangelism: https://worldmethodist.org/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me, Paulo Lopez. Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (00:09):
It’s a pleasure to be here, Daniel. Yeah, thanks for having me.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:12):
Now you are with World Methodist Evangelism. Tell me a little bit about what you do.
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (00:20):
Well, World Methodist evangelism started in the 1970s as the Methodist movement around the world realized that we had lost steam in evangelism and mission. And so this ministry was sort of commissioned out of the World Methodist Council. Today, 50 years later, we’re an autonomous organization. We serve the whole Wesleyan Methodist movement around the world. And so there are over 80 denominations and just over 85 million people around the world that would claim a Methodist or Wesleyan heritage. And so our work is to come alongside leaders to help them build faith sharing movements in their context, whatever that might be.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:14):
Yeah, I think it’s so wonderful that you’re doing that because the Methodist Wesleyan tradition has such a rich history of evangelism. I mean, going all the way back to John Wesley, he had a great heart for evangelism. And then in America we had Francis Asbury, who was a circuit writer, who traveled all over the United States, the Eastern United States at that time, planting churches and really evangelizing
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (01:44):
Countless others. I live in Virginia. My wife and I are from Brazil. We’ve lived in the US now for 17 years, but I get to live in Virginia. And Virginia was one of the first states to have circuit riders in them. And they were so prolific in fact that if you go to Virginia today, you’ll find many towns where all these churches are very close to one another for modern day. It doesn’t make that much sense to have so many churches close by. But when you imagine people horseback riding to church, having a church five miles, it’s
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:22):
A little bit
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (02:22):
Farther. That’s right. Having a, when you’re on a horseback, five miles, 10 miles down the road, made sense in a way that it doesn’t make sense anymore. But these folks, they would often only return to a congregation after two months, six to eight weeks by the time they got to come back. And so they relied heavily on lay leaders and preachers and evangelists and the pastors or the circuit writers were sort of apostolic ministers. So they were going out and starting new works. Really incredible.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:00):
I was reading John Wesley’s journal and he actually was introduced to the idea of preaching outdoors with George Whitfield. That’s right. And so George Whitfield, he kind of got kicked out of the Anglican church. Some of the leaders didn’t like him, so he went out and was preaching outdoors and seeing great results. And he told John Wesley, you got to try it. John Wesley said, I didn’t even think God could work outside the doors of the church, but he tried it and lots of people were touched by God. And then over the next year he says, I preached over 300 times and only once or twice was inside a church. And so now we’re actually here in Zambia together doing a mass outdoor gospel event, really kind of in the tradition of what John Wesley kicked off all those years ago. And
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (03:57):
In many ways, Daniel, we’ve kind of lost that in many parts of the world. The guy on the corner of the street with the bullhorn is what comes to mind. And in the West, it’s not how you do ministry anymore. We’ve kind of lost touch with meaningful ways of doing ministry. At one point in one of his journals, John Wesley says, in response to seeing how people are responding to Whitfield, he goes, I submit to be more vile to him, it was like this crazy thing that Whitfield was doing going out preach
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:39):
To preach outdoors.
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (04:40):
But then I got to go to Bristol in the UK a couple of years ago and visited at the new room, which was kind of John Wesley’s home base for ministry where he was training preachers. And there’s a little museum there, and there’s this story of him going down to the port where all these mine workers and port workers would come, some of the hardest men that you could think of. And he would preach to these folks and their stories of their faces being all darkened by dust and
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:20):
From working in the minds, from
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (05:21):
Working in the minds. And then after preaching, you would see streaks of white in their faces because these hardened men had been having an encounter with Jesus through preaching outdoors like that. So yeah, there’s a lot of similarities between what we’re
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:38):
Doing here. We got to go out on the street today here in Zambia and preach, and we had a bike rider who was doing some tricks. That’s right. And gathered a crowd and it was pretty amazing. I mean 50 a hundred at one place, I think we had almost 150 children and adults who gathered around to watch the bike tricks. And then we preached to them, and I saw a picture of you. You were doing the
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (06:00):
Same. What’d you see God do today out the streets? We were in the back of the truck. I tend to find this to be real here in Zambia and other places around the world. I think there’s a caricature of being out in missions somewhere remote and seeing the kinds of things that we see all these people gathering and the hunger. I think people are hungry everywhere in the world. It’s being able to discern the hunger and then respond to it. And I think the way that the Paal Association g and e, and the way we’re doing this outrage here is just appropriate for this place and the moment. But I’ll tell you what the thing that I really like about what we’re doing, if what we were doing was simply coming out and doing rallies and doing a festival, it would be a bit of a turnoff for me because I’m a Wesleyan.
(06:59):
The innovation that John Wesley had that Whitfield later said, I regret not doing that, is that John Wesley, he would preach, but then he would stay in that place until people that were receiving Christ would be put into small groups called class meetings back in the day. And so what I’ve been impressed with what we’re doing here is the fact that there has been some groundwork prior to the festival for months as church leaders have come together. So the church in Ndola has kind of unified around the purpose of evangelism, and there are strategies for how to receive people that are now making decisions for Christ in those local churches. So what are the next steps? How do they connect with a local church? All of that has been figured out. So it’s not kind of a one and done and you come in and there’s impact and then people are left like lost sheep waiting for a pastor to care for them.
(08:04):
No, they’re being connected to local churches in the area. And I think that’s the way to do it. There’s a bad rap in evangelism, and I think we often disconnect the notion of sharing our faith with others from discipleship. When I stop to think of it, particularly when I see the pattern of Jesus and the 12 disciples is that Jesus calls them to follow him. But we don’t know. I always ask the question, when was Peter’s conversion? Was it when Jesus called him and he started following him? Jesus says, who do you say I am? Or was it later on after the resurrection when Jesus says, do you love me, Peter? I don’t know for certain when my guess is, do you love me, Peter? That’s the conversion moment. But by then Peter had followed, Jesus had been a disciple for three years, and so we
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:02):
And been rebuked by Jesus.
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (09:04):
And so he had walked with Jesus, had seen stuff with Jesus. And so we can’t control conversion, but we can invite people to walk alongside us. We can’t control how many people are going to raise their hands and receive Christ, but we can encourage them to find a local church and to follow in Christian community. And I think when those two things are married, then what we see is great fruit that lasts generations. I think unfortunately a lot of what we’ve done for many years is just write down the number of people that have said yes, and then we leave and we celebrate it. Right. And the donors are really happy because their numbers are good, but we haven’t really done anything about it.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:49):
So let’s talk. We talked about the historical impact of John Wesley and Francis Asbury. How do we bring their passion for evangelism and for reaching people into this modern time? What are you doing to inspire Methodist evangelists and just inspire the entire Wesleyan tradition to keep evangelism as part of their passion and focus? Sure.
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (10:19):
Our mission is to help leaders build faith sharing movements. And what we are realizing is that there are two separate realities right now might be an oversimplification, but generally speaking, there are two separate realities in the world. There’s the part of the world that is wide open and very hungry for the gospel. Generally speaking, the global south kind of fits into that
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:51):
Category,
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (10:51):
Which you’re from the global south, you’re from Brazil, I’m from Brazil.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:54):
So you’re kind of a missionary to the United States.
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (10:57):
I feel that way. Yeah. Actually, technically I am a missionary from the Brazilian Methodist Church to world Methodist evangelism. So that’s my Well, thank you. We need
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:10):
Some of the fire from the south to come north again.
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (11:14):
That’s right. But see though it’s true that people are on fire in the south. What I often find is that people in the global south struggle to be mobilized outside. It’s almost like in salvation, in finding Christian community that becomes kind of a bubble. And so they go from Sunday to Sunday from discipleship meeting to discipleship, meeting from conference or revival to revival. And it’s something that stays, it’s almost like a subculture in the global south. The church becomes like a subculture that’s almost removed from everything else. And the biggest challenge for me in the global south is helping leaders figure out ways to mobilize their people to look outside of the church and into the field. And so we don’t see a lot of that. We don’t see as large as the church movement is in the global south, we don’t see nearly as much in the way of mission workers coming out of the global south. And there should be way more.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:28):
Yeah. Several years ago, God spoke to me. He said, Daniel, the mission field shall become a mission force. And I think that we’re on the cusp of seeing that in the global south where we will see more and more passion for mission because really in many churches in the global south, they have become very mature. They’re mature theologically. They have a lot of passion. And so now I think that if they will catch the vision of the Great Commission, we will evangelize many parts of the world that used to be Christian and now need a new witness of
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (13:08):
Christ. Yeah, I think you’re completely on track, and I think it makes sense in the greater context of what we’re seeing all over the place. I think that’s the big challenge for the global south. It’s getting people to get out. I think part of that challenge is maybe because the global South has been accustomed to receiving in the way of investment and funding and all that sort of thing. So having a leadership mindset that says, in order for the great commission to continue, we need to take the lead and do this. That’s a big deal. But we were with a bunch of young adult leaders in Cape Town in March, and many of them raised money to get there by telling people that they would be investing in missions. And so my word to them was, coming to this training in this conference is not the mission if you don’t leave here and get involved in the mission and this wouldn’t have been worth a thing.
(14:25):
So we conflate often being a part of conversations about mission with the mission itself. And that happens a lot in the global south, in the west and in the north it’s a different picture. You have a cooling down, if you will, of the church movement. You have a loss of steam in evangelism and mission. Churches are generally decreasing in size. Denominations in particular losing many people. You can point to Europe, but in the US this is true as well. And so the kind of work that we do than in the West has more to do with awakening people to their faith and their calling.
(15:14):
We want the same results wherever we are in the world, but we realize the challenge in the west and the north is different than the challenge in the South. And so we try to respond accordingly to that. So one of our guys that we bring with us, and a lot of what we do does these talks on the Holy Spirit, DNA in the Wesleyan movement. And so you have people that have been Methodists or Wesleyans for their whole lives and never understood how rich a theology of the Holy Spirit we have. And so then you get to minister the Holy Spirit over pastors that have been pastoring for years and never been baptized in the Holy Spirit. And so you go from that to, okay, now this is what evangelism could look like. And there’s sort of an awakening the mission versus mobilizing the mission in the south.
(16:11):
And we do that primarily with pastors, younger pastors, usually under 35 through a ministry called Ordered of the Flame. So we gather pastors in this community, invest in them in the area of mission and evangelism, and then invite them into cohorts afterwards where there can be some accountability around what they’re doing. And then we do have a ministry called Metanoia, and that’s with young adult leaders. We’re getting ready to launch a separate ministry out of metanoia that’s with marketplace leaders. What does it look like to be involved in mission and ministry and in faith sharing ministry in the marketplace, in your business, your career in the public square? What does that look like for people who aren’t professional ministry people? So that’s something that we’re involved in as well. And so we do these wherever we are invited churches, people in these different parts of the world will invite us to come and we partner with them in ways that make sense for continuity of the ministry afterwards. And then we offer a way for them to connect online through an online community platform that we’ve developed called We four 19. And people can join in over there, find resources, webinars, and all kinds of things. So that’s how we spend a lot of our time.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:44):
Amen. Is there hope for the Methodist church in America? In my hometown in Tulsa, Oklahoma, there’s just a couple miles from my house. There’s Asbury Methodist Church, which is extremely evangelistic. They have done amazing work in our city, identifying different areas that need help in going and offering the love of Christ and leading people to Jesus. And they’re really significant. And then down the street the other way, there’s a much more liberal Methodist church. And it seems like sometimes there’s issues that are very far from what you would see in the Bible. What do you think the solution is? Is that a fair question?
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (18:33):
Totally
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:35):
Tough to deal with on a podcast.
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (18:38):
I have a bit of an outsider view of it, which I think is an advantage not being from the us but having enough time living in the US to kind of understand what’s going on and the way I feel about, and I would say not just the Methodist church in the US but the more established, established historical denominations in general, mainline denominations and so on. I think what we’re going through right now is not a whole lot different than the scene that John Wesley found himself in England in the 17 hundreds, which was a church with all the trappings and the lookings of church, but without the spirit and a lukewarm faith, a socially acceptable faith. I think it’s Alan Hirsch that once said that Methodists lost their steam when they decided to become respectable. And I
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:48):
Think there’s something about being an evangelist that you have to leave your respectability at the door. You have to leave it because to go out and you have William Booth, he would send people out in uniforms, they’d make music on the street corners. That’s not really respectable, but it’s what you have to do to get an audience to preach to them about
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (20:07):
Jesus. So to me, that’s exactly right. And so to me, John Wesley, one, he realized mentally and with reason that there’s something wrong. Stuff I’m reading here doesn’t match what I see in practice of the church. And so he, he’s seeking and trying, but there’s a humility about him in that he’s traveling back from Georgia where he was a failed missionary traveling back from Georgia, and he’s on a boat and there’s this big storm and
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:49):
Meets the Moravians.
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (20:50):
He meets the Moravians and instead of a pride of I know how to do things, he couldn’t help but be curious about why is it that these folks are not afraid to die right now and I’m afraid to die? And we’re both Christians. There’s something about them that I want. And so he has an awakening experience at Aldersgate, which is the heart strangely warmed experience. But what few people know is he actually went and visited with the Moravians Count Zinzendorf and learned from them. So in the Methodist discipleship system, bands were like the smaller group of people three to five that would ask each other tough questions about their sin and about how they’re dealing with their family and how their soul and how they’re serving and how they’re giving and all that sort of thing. And their prayer life. And he learned to do bands with the Moravians shamelessly, copies it and starts using it in the Methodist
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:55):
Movement very effectively in the method very
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (21:56):
Effectively. And so there was a humility there where he’s not afraid to pick up stuff that seemed to be working with other people. And I think in the world today, I think Methodists could learn a great deal from the charismatic movement and the Pentecostals around the world who have no trouble with evangelism, and they’re very bold and rediscover the power of the Holy Spirit.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:30):
I mean, that really was why the Holy Spirit was given. I mean, acts one, eight, you’ll receive power after the Holy Spirit comes upon you to be my witnesses. That’s right. And so the whole encounter with the Holy Spirit is what gives the believer the power, the ability to go out and be bold and witness. And we see that on the day of Pentecost where Peter we talked about earlier, he denied Christ went out and preached, and 3000 people were saved that day because he had been filled with the
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (22:58):
Power of Holy Spirit. It wasn’t because he was a skilled preacher, right? It was entirely the work of the Holy Spirit. So to me, that’s it. If there’s hope for the church, it lies in leaders willing to humble themselves to realize, one, we have a problem, two, we don’t. While in our heritage, there are solutions within our heritage. Right now we’re not living within solutions. And so who is it around us that seems to be alive and what can we learn from them? And then you apply your theology and your way of thinking and you innovate and you do all kinds of things. But I think where Methodists and Anglicans and Presbyterians have been learning from others and not afraid to innovate, I’ve seen a lot of promise. Many churches, just like the Asbury Methodist Church in Tulsa, I could point to a number of churches just doing really great ministry. I would say their exception, not the rule right now, but I don’t think it’s a Methodist thing. I think it’s a church in general thing. But in particular, mainline denominations have struggled to recover their identity.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:21):
I’ve made an observation as I’ve traveled around the world. You have different types of countries around the world. So you have the countries that were colonies of Great Britain, so places like the United States, like Australia, like Canada, even. You had an influence of Great Britain here in Africa where in Zambia at one time,
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (24:48):
They still drive on the left side, they still drive, which is
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:50):
So weird, Kenya. Okay, so that’s one type of country. Then you have another type of country that was really strongly influenced by Roman Catholicism. So Brazil would be an example of that. Like Dominican Republic, a lot of central and South America had a strong Roman Catholic presence. And then you have the Francophone countries that were colonized by the French. And I was just in Congo a couple weeks ago, and it was colonized by Belgium and really mistreated in many ways. And so you have these three different types of countries, the Francophone, you have the Roman Catholic, and then you have the Anglican, the people that were colonized by Great Britain. And you see the difference in how the countries are like the Francophone countries often are very poor. And I think it goes back to the French Revolution where they went into the churches and they turned them into cathedrals of human reason instead of worshiping God.
(26:10):
And that spread as France spread its colonies around the world, and where you see it really vividly is like Dominican Republic in Haiti. Haiti was settled by the French, Dominican Republic was more Roman Catholic, and when you look at it on a map, the Haitian side is brown because they’ve burned all the trees. The Dominican side is lush and green. And so there was a blessing I think that came from God during the Methodist. What John Wesley did changed the course of history, and as it spread, you really saw the blessing of God come on many nations because of what impact Wesley had on spreading the gospel. And you see in Roman Catholic countries, you see they’re not as bad off as some of the francophone countries, but I think you can really trace in some ways what God has done through the ministry of John Wesley. What do you think about that theory? It is kind of interesting looking at how different countries are.
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (27:38):
Yes, and I would say you can easily point that to the, it’s been studied, the Protestant work ethic and what that did in terms of economic development countries that took on the Protestant work ethic. I don’t know how much to do with John Wesley. That part had, right. England was a Protestant country before John Wesley. I say the revival I think is by the mid 18 hundreds, I believe one out of every three Americans was a Methodist, which is absolutely bonkers. Right?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:25):
When Francis Asbury came to America, I think there was something like 200 Methodists in the whole country, and by the time he died, it was like half a million
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (28:33):
And there were a hundred thousand in England. When
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:38):
John Wesley, I mean, when you have the stories of Francis Asbury going out on the frontier, the frontier men in America were extremely rough. I mean, they were drinking, they were out there just on the edge of, and the circuit writers would come in and start preaching to them and really turn sinners into saints. And that had to have an impact on the spread of America. Yeah,
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (29:07):
Absolutely. So I think you can say, well, definitely religious movements had a lot to do with that. The type of colonization had a lot to do with that. Africa and a lot of South America were what you would call exploitation colonies. And so even today, there are signs of that, like the railroad system in Brazil, most railroads go west to east. Very few of them go north to south. Why? Because they were moving goods to the ocean, to the port, to ship to Portugal, and then Portugal was using that as currency to purchase industrial goods from England and from other places. The same with Spanish colonization. Colonization in North America was different. It wasn’t colonization out of exploitation. It was people looking for a different kind of life. And so your attitude towards development and building things is just different when it comes to that.
(30:23):
But the effect of mission, sort of the missional evangelistic mindset, the Methodist movement, and a few others, I would say have definitely marked what society looks like in the US and certainly in Great Britain. Man, you said the change of in history and in Great Britain, there was a huge issue with drunkenness. A lot of mine working was one of the main things, and there were no labor laws back then. You can trace many of the early labor laws to Methodists, vowing for or fighting for better, for human dignity, for human dignity. John Wesley wrote a book, an entire book on health, a book of medicine, and a lot of the things that he wrote are still things that we utilize today because it was a gospel for the whole person. It wasn’t we’re going to just save your soul. You’re going to save your soul, but your life is going to be different.
(31:48):
You’re going to become healthier. You’re going to stop drinking, and therefore you won’t beat your wife anymore and therefore your kids will grow up to be healthy people. It is just all these things, which to me is the definition of revival. Revival is something that gets stirred up in the hearts of Christians. It has an impact on the entire society, and it starts in the church, but then it affects society in general. And when you see societies changing, then you go, yeah, that’s revival right there. So I mean, that was in the west. In the West, I would say probably the last great revival. You have the great awakenings in the us, but nothing that was like society shifting in the way that the Wesleyan movement is now. You see signs of that in other places in the world underground church in China, what that’s doing in that culture in society. You see the church growth in India and what’s happening there. There’s many places in the world that are just experiencing social change because of revival in the church. And
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (33:06):
So yeah, last summer I got to preach at a little tiny town up in the Nebraska area, and I was invited by a female Methodist pastor from India.
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (33:23):
Oh, that’s
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (33:23):
Cool. And so she had come
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (33:26):
How unusual, right
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (33:27):
From India, I think one of the Methodist schools had given her a scholarship. She’s come over and studied, and then they put her in this little tiny town and made her the pastor of the church. And there were like 10 people in the church, which is a little tiny church. And the first thing she did when she got there is she went to all the other pastors in the city. There were seven different denominations. And so she went to the Baptist pastor, the Lutheran pastor, and she says, in India, we get together and pray. And so she said, we need to start praying for our city. And so she gathered these pastors and she was a fireball, and she gathered them together and they started to pray every week together. Then after several months of praying, she says, you know what we did back in India is we would have a revival where all the churches would work together. We need to have a revival in our city. So she challenged the churches, let’s have a revival. And they called me in as their revival evangelist, and some of the churches were like, I’m not sure who this guy is, and we’re a little hesitant, but we saw revival in that city and it was because this Indian Methodist pastor female was just on fire and brought a fire to the entire city.
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (34:58):
Yeah, that’s amazing. It’s really cool. Yeah. What’s great about that is that as a female minister, I mean just saying that an Indian female minister is already a big deal because it’s culturally not something that would be typical. So what an incredible story.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (35:22):
And so I’m just really excited. I think in talking about the different movements, I think it just shows the need for a new move of God in our time.
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (35:33):
Yeah, you see signs of it though. I feel, man,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (35:39):
God is
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (35:39):
Moving. Yeah. I’ve been talking about this with some friends, especially since I had been thinking some of this, but it didn’t become a theme of conversations with others until the outpouring at Asbury University in 23, so last year, early last year, and
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (36:08):
Did you get to go to that?
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (36:09):
No. See, I was heading out to uba. I didn’t get
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (36:12):
A chance to go, but I mean, it was so neat to see so many young people there. It
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (36:16):
Was just
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (36:16):
Worshiping the Lord.
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (36:17):
Well, what doesn’t make the headlines is the fact that that sort of thing is happening in all kinds of places around the world right now. There’s just a fresh something going on. Daniel, wherever we’ve been in the last three years or so, we have seen signs of awakening, particularly with young leaders, pastors, and lay folks, just humility about them, a hunger about them, and a lot of repentance and realization their sins. So what I realized is in the places where we go, where we’ve had these events, we are not the ones causing anything. Neither is it a move of the spirit that is primarily through us, but we’re kind of riding a wave of something that God’s already doing there, and we can’t quite put a finger on it, but it just feels different, I would say over the last three years. It just feels different, and I keep hearing that from people that are not a part of our movement at all, who are saying, I was in this place and I was like, man, it just feels different. There’s just something going on. So I guess we’ll have to shoot another one of these in 10 years to talk about it and say, did something actually happen or not? But I don’t know. I have a feeling that there’s something fresh going on, and it’s transnational. It is not in one country and
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (38:10):
It doesn’t seem to have any identifiable leader.
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (38:13):
No, no.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (38:14):
There’s no one who’s leading it. It’s a divine move of the Holy Spirit.
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (38:19):
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (38:22):
It’s something that’s kind of happening under,
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (38:25):
And what a beautiful thing that is. We’re in an age of celebrity where anybody with a phone and a camera can become a celebrity of sorts, an influencer or something. How cool is it that God would choose to move in a season like this in the world in a way that’s sort of faceless, go to places, and it’s just neat to see God doing stuff and nobody claims it. Everybody’s just happy to be a part of it. Amen. And that’s cool. That’s better than all the division we’re used to, isn’t it? Amen. Yeah. Well,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (39:05):
Let’s finish up today by just praying together.
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (39:07):
Yeah, that’d be awesome.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (39:08):
Would you just pray that God would raise up more great evangelists around the world? Yes,
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (39:16):
Absolutely.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (39:16):
That we would see God pour out his spirit upon all the different movements around the world.
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (39:21):
Yeah. Let’s pray and I invite those that are watching, even though it’s not live to pray this prayer with us. I think as we humble ourselves, whether it’s on listening to the podcast or watching it on YouTube, we can invite people to join us in prayer as well. Yeah. Let’s pray. God, we are humbled that a God like you would invite people, even us to be a part of your mission in this world. And God, we’re just in awe of who you are and what you’re all about. God, we thank you for your reconciling work around the world where person by person, heart by heart, community by community, nation by nation, you are in the mission of bringing people back to you and reconciling them to yourself through your son Jesus, through so God. We know that right now there’s a rising hunger for something more in this world, and God, you say this in your word, that the fields are just full of fruit and there’s nobody to pick it up.
(40:43):
The laborers are few. And so God, we pray right now that you would raise a new generation of laborers, of workers, of passionate followers of Jesus that would go out into the world boldly, humbly in ways that reach to the heart of each community that they go to God. We pray right now that you would call people who you are preparing that they would awaken to your mission in this world. God, we pray that you would lift up leaders not just here in Africa and not just in North America, but all over the world, God, that your mission would be accomplished from people from all over the world going to all over the world, and God, that the world may know who we are because of our unity God, because of the common spirit that we share with one another and God because of the humility that we come into this mission.
(41:47):
God, it is your mission. It’s your church. It’s your spirit. We just get to be a part of it. God, so would you do that? Awaken us, God, revive our hearts even as you do this with those that are still yet to be called, and God allow us to be a part of this beautiful movement that you’re beginning in the world right now. We want to be a part of this fresh outpouring of your Holy Spirit, so do it in our hearts. Do it in the hearts of those that are watching or listening to this and in their communities and in their families. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (42:26):
Paulo, Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast. I just have one more question. Someone’s listening and they’re from one of the Wesleyan traditions. They have a heart for evangelism, and they want to get to know you to connect with some of the resources that you guys have. What’s your website? What’s the best way for them to get
Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (42:43):
Connected? You can find us online@worldmethodist.org or you can follow our handle on Instagram at World Methodist, which is our handle for most of our social media, and if you really want to get into it, I invite you to go to your app store and look for we W four nine, we four 19, and that is our online community platform. We hold live events, webinars. I need to get you to do a webinar for us on evangelism. That would be amazing. I’d love to. We’ll have to set that up. We do monthly webinars, book clubs. We’re putting out videos, podcasts and all sorts of things, and then leaders get to connect with one another on the app as well. People from all over the world. I think we’re up to 26 countries right now on the app, and we launched just a few months ago, so we’re excited about that. But yeah, those were the ways to connect with us. If you want to reach out to me, you can email me at paulo@worldmethodist.org and I’d love to connect. Daniel. Thank you so much for having me, man. Been a joy.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (43:53):
Well, thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Today’s generation is not worried about going to hell when they die because they often feel like they are living in hell right now. So how can we reach them for Jesus? Sean Dunn is reaching Millennials and Generation Z with innovative digital strategies. First he interrupts their social media time using paid advertising and Hollywood produced content. Then he uses online chats to provide answers to the real questions young people are asking about the pain they feel in their lives. They present the hope that comes through Jesus and ask people to make a commitment to follow Christ. You are going to love hearing about Sean’s innovative method of evangelism on today’s episode of The Evangelism Podcast.
Learn More About Sean Dunn and Ground Wire: https://www.groundwire.net/home
See how Sean Dunn reaches people who are hurting: https://www.jesuscares.com/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Today’s generation is not worried about going to hell when they die because they often feel like they’re living in hell right now. So how can we reach them for Jesus? Sean Dunn is reaching millennials and generation Z with innovative digital strategies. First, he interrupts their social media time using paid advertising in Hollywood produced content. Then he uses online chats to provide answers to the real questions. Young people are asking about the pain they feel in their lives. They present the hope that comes through Jesus and ask people to make a commitment to follow Christ. You are going to love hearing about Sean’s innovative method of evangelism on today’s episode of The Evangelism Podcast,
Evangelism Podcast Host (01:00):
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 (01:24):
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, Sean Dunn. Thank you for joining me on the Evangelism Podcast.
Sean Dunn (01:36):
Well, thank you sir. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me on.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:39):
Now you have a very unique ministry reaching out to Generation Z. Tell me about it.
Sean Dunn (01:47):
Yeah, actually our focus is really millennials and Gen Z. I’ve been a youth ministry guy since I was 18, and as the generations continue to flow through, my focus is continue to stay right in that spot. So we specialize in 15 to 34, 39 is really our specialty.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:05):
And you are using innovative strategies to reach out to this demographic, mostly here in America. Tell me a little bit about some of what you’re doing to reach out.
Sean Dunn (02:20):
Yeah, well, we in the church and parents and grandparents, we look at our kids who are staring at their phone all day and we wish that they’d put ’em down, engage with people. And I’ve had pastors pound the table and say They won’t come to church. And my response is, but they won’t put down their phones either. So it’s either a problem or it’s an opportunity. We’ve seen it as an opportunity to really engage with them and go after them. So our strategy is really not to invite them to a location where they can hear the gospel, but it’s really to interrupt them as they’re living their life on their phone every day with messaging like Jesus cares dot God likes you.com. What’s the point? Do I matter? I feel broken.com. Invite ’em into a conversation through marketing. Our tagline is often when life hurts, Jesus cares.
(03:13):
Chat with somebody who understands, and we have this massive team of online volunteers that are engaging with the lost. They don’t come online and say, Hey, I need to go to heaven. They’re saying, Hey, I’m going through hell. And we’re able to help them understand how Jesus interacts with them to give them peace, hope, joy, perspective, purpose, but also let’s talk about what he does eternally as well. So really it’s a marketing play with a backend call center that’s not on the phone like our generation embraced, but it’s really through text, instant message with volunteers all over the world.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:47):
Okay. So you mentioned the word interrupt and that seems to be a really important term that you use. So you are going after people, they’re on their phones. I know my son and daughter 14 and 12, they love screen time, they love getting on the phone and we have to pry it out of their hands sometime. But this generation is spending all their time on phones. And the challenge that a lot of churches have is how do we get people into the four walls of the church? People just aren’t going into the four walls of the church anymore, but you’re trying to reach them on their phone and you use this term interruption where you’re interrupting them in the midst of whatever they’re doing. They’re on TikTok, they they’re scrolling doom, scrolling over, just watching videos and how do you interrupt their random search for entertainment and bring them to a point where they start thinking about spiritual things?
Sean Dunn (04:45):
So the same way that if you start thinking about getting a new car, all of a sudden the Jeep dealer knows and he starts targeting you. So it’s really through strategic advertising where we’re leveraging the algorithms. We are going after young people that are, they’re walking past the church, not into it, and they’re struggling with some form of depression, suicidal ideation, purposelessness. They’re showing those signs in the way that they’re behaving online and our messaging finds them. And so we don’t approach them in that moment and say, would you like to have a theological discussion with me? We approach ’em and say, life’s hard. How are you doing? Come talk to us about it.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:36):
And so these are kids, they’re going through depression, they’re thinking about suicide, they’re having issues with their parents having issues at school, and you come to them in that moment where they’re experiencing pain. And what do you say to them?
Sean Dunn (05:52):
It depends on the campaign, but like I said, some of the campaigns are when life hurts Cares come to Jesus cares.com. Some of it’s God likes you. I had people wrestle with me and say, no, God loves you, but God loves you is almost white noise to them. They believe that God loves ’em. They don’t believe God likes them. Some of it’s I feel broken.com, some of it is one of the young ladies logged in and she said, do I matter? And she instantly connected one of our online volunteers who said, you absolutely matter. You matter to me. I’m sure there’s people in your life that you matter to, but most importantly you matter to God. So we teach our online volunteers. You have to transition the conversation because if you let people, they will talk around the true issues for days. And so she said, you matter to God. Has anybody ever shared with you what God sees when he looks at you? And she said, no. Can I share? Absolutely. So she said, just eight, like one-liners out of scripture says, you are created in his image. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are precious in his sight.
(07:01):
You are. The apple of his eye just started to layer these things and you could just tell the young people today, they just want, they need to know because they’ve been beat down so much. If they know that somebody’s there for them, that God loves ’em, they just eat it up. And so she was eating it up and the coach, the online volunteer takes it and transitions and says, not only does he say those things about you, but he thinks you matter so much that he can’t imagine eternity without you. Did you know he made a way so that he could spend eternity with you? And she said, no. She ends up praying to give her life to Christ. It was beautiful. And at the end of the conversation, the online volunteer says, Hey, you came online and you asked me this question. You said, do I matter? But now that you know what God sees when he looks at you, now that you have a hope and a future in him, I’m going to ask you, do you matter? And her response, she came on with a question mark. She left with three exclamation points in all. She said, I do matter. So that’s just one of literally the thousands of stories of young people that are just coming to us because the marketing captures their attention and they end up having these amazing conversations with somebody who will take the time for ’em.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:14):
And so you are actually marketing to people. You’re doing advertising campaigns. Which platforms have you found the most success on? Are you advertising on TikTok, Facebook, YouTube? Where have you found the most success?
Sean Dunn (08:30):
Well, as you know, technology shifts, platforms change. Right now our top two platforms are TikTok and Instagram. So TikTok is very unique in that TikTok, TikTok will not let you succeed if you take people off of their platform. They want to keep everybody on their platform. So we had to figure out how. So our old call to action on all things meta is come over here and chat with us. In TikTok, we had to figure out how do you share the gospel, give a call to action, start follow inside of their app. And so we have videos that just like we have an animated video that just starts with this animated person just says, Hey, you got a minute. God’s got something he wants you to know. And just pure gospel for a minute, 27 seconds long. I thought it was too long, but it worked.
(09:19):
And at the end of it, it says, if you recognize that you’ve sinned and that sin has kept you from being close to God, you want to be, if you realize Jesus paid the price for your sin, it takes care of the eternal, I mean walks through the gospel, then go in the comment section and just make a declaration. I just gave my life to Christ. It is a public profession of faith because everybody who follows them on TikTok can now see that we’re seeing between five and 600 people every day on TikTok make a public profession of faith on there. So each platform has its own unique nuances, but man, it’s just been so fun to see what God’s doing.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:57):
That’s awesome. What are some of your TikTok channels that you’re sending people to?
Sean Dunn (10:02):
Yeah, so just off the top of my head, it’s the campaigns, but I don’t know how they’re worded, but Jesus cares. Jesus changes everything. I feel broken, do I matter? What’s the point? According to him, which is a website where we’re just encouraging people to say, Hey, come explore what Jesus sees when he looks at you. When I ask somebody, what do you think Jesus sees when he looks at you? I get two answers usually. First one I get is He doesn’t see me, he’s ignoring me. He’s not paying attention. Or the second one is he doesn’t like what he sees. And either one of those we can interject. Let me tell you what Jesus really sees when he looks at you and he adores you. He created you intentionally. You can just, so yeah, so those are some of the different URLs and the different campaigns on TikTok that you can go and explore.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:55):
That’s awesome. And are you putting out multiple pieces of content per day? Yes. Because I know that on the TikTok algorithm, they love it when you just pump out a ton of content. And tell me about some of your content. What is it that’s catching people’s attention? What hooks are really resonating with the younger generation?
Sean Dunn (11:17):
Well, so TikTok is different. TikTok has, we had to create a whole new strategy around TikTok, but meta for what’s been working for us for years is it truly is we need them to see themselves in the content. So we’ll have a picture, an image of a girl she’s sitting in a car and slow motion, just a tear dropping down. Her who of us hasn’t just had a bad day.
(11:46):
So it dropped because of the slow motion, the artsy piece of it, it’s dropping. And then as soon as it hits her leg, you hear a honk and you realize she’s sitting at a green light and she’s not moving. And it just says, when life hurts, Jesus cares. People say, Hey, I feel that pain too. Or there’s an African-American girl who she’s getting in her car and she’s talking to her phone and she just says, why is life so hard? I try so hard and I keep failing. I just don’t know if anybody cares about me. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get this right. When life hurts, Jesus cares through that content, we know that we’ve hit it, hit it perfectly. When people log in and they say, Hey, I just saw this piece of content and that’s me. That’s how I feel.
(12:35):
And so again, unfortunately young people aren’t waking up saying, oh no, I’m going to hell. They’re not asking the right questions. We have churches out there that we talk about the seeker sensitive model. They’re not seeking, they’re not asking the right questions. They’re in survival mode. So we have to help them ask the right questions, suggest Jesus is the answer, and then give them an opportunity that’s safe for them to walk in. So again, the attitudes and the perspectives of younger generations, especially Gen Z when it pertains to the church is very negative. 70% believe the American churches irrelevant. But here’s the one that really gets me. 26% of Gen Z trust pastors, that means 74% of the younger generation, they drive past the church and they think, I don’t trust them. That’s not safe. So if we help them ask the right questions, hoping that they’ll walk into a church, most of them won’t, but we know that they’ll live their life and they’ll dig into deep conversations on social media. So that’s what we offer ’em as the stepping stone. The old model of ministry used to be, let’s get ’em to a building so we can tell ’em about the man. Now let’s introduce ’em to Jesus and then move him towards the local community.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:50):
So once you capture someone’s attention, then you bring them to one of your websites where they can actually chat with someone who will minister to them via their typewriter. And so these young people, they’re not worried about going to hell because they feel like they’re living in hell right now. And then how do your counselors, the people that volunteer to help, how do you train them? Is this something that anyone can do? Do they have to be, do they have to go to seminary in order to answer questions? What do they need in order to actually help some people?
Sean Dunn (14:29):
Yeah, so our training is actually, we call it the Groundwater Training Academy. It is pretty extensive because there is both message as well as methodology, meaning we’ve learned a lot of things. When you don’t have tone, you don’t have eye contact, you don’t have body language, all you have are words. There are some really there, there’s some things that you need to understand. You need to understand how to language things so it doesn’t come across as aggressive. And so we take you through all that. It’s about a six hour training, but you can’t do it in one setting. But it covers everything from the technology behind the ministry to the heart behind the ministry, to how do I deal with the suicidal kid, or how do I minister to a Hindu, or how do I minister to a Muslim? So we train you on all those things and you’re assigned a mentor to walk with you through it.
(15:21):
Our team of volunteers both 24 hours a day in English and Spanish both, and it’s about 15 to 1800 people that are active on that team, ministering to people all through the day, 24 hours a day. And it’s amazing because the models of ministry I’ve been involved with is you had to show up at church at seven o’clock to be able to engage. If you wake up at three in the morning and you can’t sleep, there’s people who want to talk to you. If you have time at three in the afternoon, there’s people who want to talk to you. And so it’s always moving and always flowing. And one of our greatest needs is more of these volunteers so that as our traffic continues to increase, which it has been, we have enough coverage to make sure that we can do a good job with them.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:08):
Now, I have a lot of evangelists and people that really care about the Great Commission who listen to the Evangelism podcast. So if someone’s hearing this and saying, Hey, that is the great opportunity for me. I would love to be a keyboard warrior for Jesus. How can they get connected to you and find out how they can volunteer to be a part?
Sean Dunn (16:30):
Yeah. Let me tell you a quick story. First. I had a new volunteer just join, it’s probably been six months now, but he called me and I think in the first month he led eight people to Christ. And he said, this has amazing. He said, it reminds me of going fishing with my grandpa. And I thought it was a great analogy. He said, when I used to go fishing with my grandpa, I loved it because he loved it. My grandpa loved to fish. And he took it a step further and I thought, that’s beautiful. He said, when I used to go fishing with my grandpa, my grandpa did all the work and I got all the credit. He baited the hook, he cast it, he reeled it in. Eventually he’d clean it, but I got to stand there and take a picture like I did something. He said, I feel like the harvest truly is ripe. People are more open to the gospel right now than they’ve ever been. They just need to be approached in the right way and invited into kind of process what’s going on with them. So if you’re interested in learning more, the best place to do that is to go to ground wire.net/coaching. It will take you to a place where there’s frequently asked questions, some interviews with some online volunteers or a place where you can begin with an application. But that’s ground wire.net/coaching.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:41):
Let’s talk a little bit about your history and how you got started doing this. What is it that drives you? What gives you this passion for evangelism? Where’d that come from? And then how’d you get started in doing this type of ministry?
Sean Dunn (17:58):
Yeah, well, thanks for asking that. I was a weird kid. I’m a weird adult, but at 14 years old, the Lord called me to ministry. It was so clear that I actually wrote in the back of my Bible, contend for a Generation was the phrase he gave me. And I just assumed that meant youth pastor because that was the only model of ministry at the time. Nothing entrepreneurial was encouraged. And so at 18 years old, I go to Bible college, I get hired the first week or the second week I was there at a church to be their youth pastor. At the time, my arrogance thought, wow, they recognized God’s hand on my life. Looking back, I’m thinking they were stupid and desperate. I mean, they did not. I was 18. They didn’t check references. They needed some help. And so I stepped in and I just say that to say I’ve been in full-time ministry since I was 18 as I stayed in the local church and started to travel full-time as a speaker and an author in 97, and I was the guy traveling with the bands, the bands could get ’em in the field.
(18:58):
It wasn’t about my name, it was about the band, but I got to share the gospel with them. And I learned very quickly, I’m an evangelist. I am not a pastor. And so I thought that I would do that my entire life. I mean, that filled my cup. My ego was out of control. I thought it was all about me and I was loving it. And it was December, 2002 and I was climbing the ladder and it was on a Tuesday. I’m sitting in my office and I’m adding up the number of people I’d spoken to that year. And that year I’d spoken to 156,000 people and I was patting myself on the back thinking that I was pretty great. And two days later, I was deflated because two days later I started reading a George Barna book, and George Barna never leaves you feeling good.
(19:41):
He points out the problems, he points out the trends. He says, we are losing. But the thing that got me was, and we all know that there’s times when God amplifies something and whether it’s a scripture that you’ve read so many times before this particular time, it was a statistic that I knew, but it grabbed my heart differently. On Tuesday, I’m excited about 156,000. In the first paragraph of this new book that I’m reading to prepare for the new year, it says that there are 33 million teenagers in the United States. And I went from feeling, really, I’m sorry,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:16):
That’s a huge number. It’s it’s a great harvest field that Jesus says, pray that God would send laborers out into the harvest field.
Sean Dunn (20:25):
And I went from really excited about 156,000 to being deflated. And it put me into this kind, a little bit of a tailspin for three months where nobody knew what I was struggling with, but I was struggling with my model of ministry because God was doing something different in me. And I had three epiphanies that came out of this. Number one is my model won’t meet the need. There is no way, even if I can triple what I’m doing and get it to half a million people, it’s a drop in the bucket. Second thing I realized was in the western world, heathens don’t go to Christian events. So I’m an evangelist who’s speaking to people who agree with me. And I was saying, God, where the lost? Where are the lonely? Where are the discouraged? I started to ask questions like, God, how do we reach a generation?
(21:13):
Doesn’t want to be in the same room with us. How do we reach a generation that plugs their ears every time we disagree with them? And the third one was scripture says, go into all the world. And I kept saying, come to me. And I was really wrestling with that. And three months in, as God tends to do, he just gave me a statistic that set us on a new journey. And that statistic changed my paradigm immediately. And the statistic is no longer relevant, but it simply said that 97% of the students in the nation listened to the radio at least five times a week in 2003. And I went to my board and I said, if we know where they are, why do we keep asking them to come where they don’t want to be? Let’s go to them. Let’s go buy time on these alternative rock stations, hip hop stations, country stations.
(22:05):
And so we started on traditional media. We started on radio. We added tv. We were on MTV, vh one Adult Swim. We were buying time on those major platforms. We added billboards. But our biggest pivot came in 2017. I went to my board and I said, young people consume media differently than we do. I love telling people my age that we’re talking about Jesus on MTV because we remember what MTV used to be, but it no longer has that influence, and the audience has changed dramatically. I said, they look at the small screen, not the big screen. I said, if we want to be relevant, we have to figure out how to invade their phone. And that’s really what we started to do, and that’s really when our scale began to grow. Can I share with you some of our numbers from last
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:53):
Year? Yeah. Please tell us what results have you seen?
Sean Dunn (22:57):
Yeah. So first of all, let me tell you that the numbers seem like I had a friend tell me, they’re like video game numbers. They don’t seem real. I had another guy in Houston look at me and say, Sean, I want to believe you, but I don’t. He said, because I know how difficult it is, the Western world Church doesn’t know how to reach young people in mass. And he said, I know how expensive it is. And so he challenged me. He said, don’t come back and talk to me until you get your numbers validated, but if you get them validated, please come back and talk to me. So we took that as a challenge. We called the Ranon Foundation, said, who do you trust to do non to do nonprofit metric evaluation and make sure that they’re not fudging the truth? And so they gave us the name that everybody trusts. And so we called ’em and said, Hey, we need you to do a deep dive. So they do that every couple of years for us. I can provide that if anybody has questions, but they basically validate our numbers. So here’s our numbers. In 2023, our commercials were seen 1.3 billion times.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:58):
Wow.
Sean Dunn (24:00):
And the way you measure if your marketing is effective is how many people take steps of the 1.3 billion? We had 6.8 million people take the next step and visit one of our websites. George Barnes, as the average church in the United States sees one person a year come to Christ. Last year we saw 567,545 pray to receive Christ.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:24):
Praise God.
Sean Dunn (24:26):
And here’s another one too. Churches and denominations in the US will tell you that it costs ’em over $35,000 on average to see one person give their life to Christ. Last year, our all in costs was $6 and 51 cents.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:41):
Wow.
Sean Dunn (24:42):
So it’s been mind blowing. And I talk about when I was traveling and speaking and people were asking me to sign things, my head was just, I thought it was all about me. This is really a humbling place to be because we know that God is doing this, and our job is just to make sure we stay as close to him as possible. He’s got the strategies, he’s got the messaging. We just need to be faithful and not get in his way.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:07):
So with all the advertising you’re doing, that’s a pretty significant budget. How do you raise money to put into evangelism? Do you have people that help to support you?
Sean Dunn (25:20):
We do, absolutely. Yeah. And it really is just about telling our story. There’s people out there that are saying, man, I care about my kids, my grandkids. I care about culture. I care about the morale in our nation. Some of ’em truly care about evangelism, and they say, man, I want to invest in something that’s effective. And so, yeah, it has become easier and easier to tell our story as we’ve continued to see more and more people come to Christ. And so people know that, okay, so for every $7 that came in last year, somebody walks the island, gives their life to Christ, and we have people say, Hey, I think I want to take care of 10, or I want to do a hundred, or I want to do a thousand. And so yeah, we continue just to let God bring in the resources and we invest it well when it’s given to
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:07):
Us. That’s amazing. So if someone wants to support you, how do they find out more information about how they can do that?
Sean Dunn (26:15):
If you go to ground wire.net, that is really the best website for that. So all of the other websites are facing the young people we’re reaching. So we don’t have donation buttons on those sites. We don’t. Here’s who we are about us. We just have messages. We’re trying to funnel them directly into the God conversations. But if you want to learn about us, go to ground wire.net and you can request request those financials. You can request our metrics audits that we’re happy to share with you, whatever we can, but you’ll probably find most of it on that site.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:54):
That’s awesome. Now, you mentioned this big number of young people that are giving their lives to Jesus, and as an evangelist, one of the questions I’m always asked, I’m sure you’ve been asked a thousand times. What do you do about follow-up? How do you get them to the next step?
Sean Dunn (27:11):
Yeah, so we have two primary goals this year. One is on the evangelism side, one ISS on the follow-up side. Our evangelism goal is to see a minimum of a million professions of faith in the calendar year. We are on track. We’re very, very close to that. As we approach the new year, we need to pick up just a little bit of steam to hit that goal. But the second one is to see 30% of those who make a profession of faith take a meaningful and measured step in their spiritual journey. So that can be everything from signing up for our, we have a discipleship drip that we call Hope Connection, where for 16 days it’s delivered to their cell phone. It’s basically spiritual discipline, but young people don’t want to be told what to do. They want to watch somebody else’s story about how did reading the Bible change their life?
(28:02):
And then they get to decide if they want to do it. We are building an online community on the app called Discord, which is an app that young people are very familiar with because it was built for the gaming community to have community. And we’re building a community there called Chasing Christ. That’s another one of our growth tracks that they can opt into. We have a group of people who will walk with them for four weeks after they come to faith to figure out how do I grow closer to Christ? So we give them different options. There’s about five or six things that we offer them, and we invite ’em. We have partners. Most of what we do is in the US when we do something internationally, it’s because we have a discipleship follow-up partner in that country that will take the follow-up. And so in Kenyan, India, some countries in South America, we are partnering with some ministries that are boots on the ground to move them forward as well.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:58):
Now you said that you do it in both English in Spanish with your Spanish track. Are you doing some things in Central and South America?
Sean Dunn (29:07):
Yes, sir. Yeah, on the Spanish track, we’re in five other countries in, so we’re in Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador, Columbia, and Argentina. I think I could be wrong, but that’s roughly what we’re doing. But yeah, we’ve found that it’s a model that’s working very, very well, even in these other countries. And so when we have the right partners on the ground, we take our expertise in the marketing space and we take our massive coaches and we move in and buying marketing in their country.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:43):
That’s awesome. And I think that’s very innovative. Every country I go to around the world, I mean, people all have very nice cell phones. They spend a lot of time on cell phones just like kids here do. And so I think that your strategy will work well in many different countries and even in some Asian countries where here you would pay a significant amount for each impression. In some countries, I’ve done some advertising and it can be pennies to reach thousands of people. And so there’s just so many people and the advertising isn’t expensive in some other parts of the world like it is here. So I think the years to come as you strive to reach your million and even beyond that, I really pray God gives you a strategy that will work around the world.
Sean Dunn (30:43):
Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. Our board said a couple of years ago, we weren’t going to even begin to think internationally until we hit a milestone of a thousand or a hundred thousand Professor of Faith in the US in a calendar year. Because the quickest way to destroy momentum is to try and grow too quickly. So when we hit that a couple of years ago, we began to explore internationally. But our focus continues to be the us. This is where we believe, this is my calling. It is Western world predominantly us young people who have everything, and yet they have nothing because they don’t have Jesus.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (31:18):
That’s awesome. Well, Sean, it’s really wonderful to talk to you today. Thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast. Really appreciate it. And I love your strategy. I love what you’re doing. The young people of America need a touch from Jesus, and you’re connecting them to Jesus right where they’re at. So thank you for what you do, and thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Sean Dunn (31:45):
Thank you, Daniel. I appreciate you having me.
Evangelism Podcast Announcer (31:48):
Are you called by God to be an evangelist? Do you want to lead millions of people to Jesus? Do you desire to be trained in the practical side of building a ministry? Then check out the Daniel King’s School of Evangelism. Learn how to be an effective evangelist from Dr. Daniel King’s 20 plus years of experience. Daniel King has done crusades all over the world in over 70 nations and is seen over 2 million people give their lives to Jesus. But it wasn’t easy. There was no crusade school. So Daniel traveled the world learning from and observing top evangelists, noticing how they successfully won souls for Christ. Now he wants to share decades of knowledge and experience with you. Topics of the Daniel King School of Evangelism include what is an evangelist, how to be a master soul winner, how to give antar call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry, and much more. If you want to be an evangelist, but don’t know where to start, the Daniel King School of Evangelism is for you. Enroll today in the School of Evangelism by going to Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (32:50):
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 (34:10):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
Today on The Evangelism Podcast, Daniel King interviews Bret Sipek, a Christ for All Nations Crusade Director, about their recent successful crusade in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They discuss the challenges and miracles they experienced during the organization of the crusade, including the logistics of transporting equipment and the overwhelming response from the people. You will learn the secrets of organizing a successful crusade in Africa.
Learn more about Christ for All Nations: https://cfan.org/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest here today, Brett Pac. And thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Bret Sipek | CFAN Crusade Director (00:12):
Thank you so very much evangelist Daniel. It’s so, such an honor for me.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:16):
So we are here in the Democratic Republic of Congo and we have just completed a very successful crusade in Ika with Christ for all nations. And you’ve been working with Christ for All Nations for many years, helping to organize crusades, and you have helped to organize a series of crusades across the nation. Tell me what have been some of the biggest challenges and also the biggest miracles that you’ve seen here in Congo.
Bret Sipek | CFAN Crusade Director (00:51):
Well the Congo, as you can see, democratic Republic of Congo is a very different level than many other African countries. Even some of our African coworkers, directors said, we never ever in our life seen so much poverty. So the infrastructure is very, very, very low. There are people living in the houses, there’s no water, no electricity, electricity comes from only from Gensets, which are expensive and water is distributed in the barrels and people have to buy. So there’s a lot of challenges in just a pure staying in the country. And first of all, we are amazed of the hunger of people, the response of people. People are very hunger, very responsive. We see so powerful response for altar call. I know that in Gda gca, you had almost every hand raised, I was looking at the numbers and I was like, oh my almost everybody in the crowd wants to receive Jesus. And that’s true. The country is Christianized, but many people has very more prodigal sense relationship or sleen relationships or more like a nominal Christian relationship with Jesus. So it is so important to preach gospel and we are so excited to have you here in gda gca. Yeah, it’s a great honor for us.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:26):
Well, I want to say thank you to you and to the entire staff of Christ for all nations. I know that it has been a lot of work organizing here in Congo. Great challenges. I was watching the trucks, the pictures of them coming across the country to get to this place. It took several weeks and at one point they’re only going like 30 kilometers a day because the roads are so bad.
Bret Sipek | CFAN Crusade Director (02:51):
It is, yeah. It was really a new challenge, a new level of challenge for us. And we have experienced drivers like Vinny Wetland, our chief driver. He’s very well experienced. He crisscrossed Africa, all the roads that you can imagine, and he really believed that he will be able to, he would be able to make it, but they had to stop and they had to go back to Mumbai after three, four days, pushing forward, pressing forward. It was simply impossible because they have 20 meters, 60 feet, long track, very heavy, like 40 metric tons. And you can go on the road and suddenly there is a big, big bump down, maybe one and a half meter, five feet deep, and in between are another bumps. So the trucks, they had to use beams to support the wheels. It was so difficult, so much dust because it’s a dry season. It was very a load load of dust. So we had to and unload, unload and load everything to the local, they call it hobo trucks. It’s more like kind of construction side tracks or kind of military truck with higher, higher chassis and bigger wheels. And that’s how we finally get it to the crusade locations. That was the biggest logistics challenge probably in so many
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:23):
Years. I mean this is true pioneer crusading. It is, yeah. But it’s very rewarding because in Ganja where I was, there had never been a crusade there before. The people were so hungry and they came from everywhere and they were ready to receive Jesus.
Bret Sipek | CFAN Crusade Director (04:44):
Yeah, I’ve seen the photos. It was powerful crowd and all our stuff on ground, they were amazed. And you are very right. There was never, ever international evangelist crusade, like maybe some local crusades. We sometimes call it like church yard crusade, which is good. People can come, but typically like one 2000 people know your number. I was looking like 50, 60,000, maybe even bigger. I was so amazed. It never ever a day, never ever heard in this city. And it was the same for we do all, actually we already did four ess including Yor, inand, gca in every place. We were amazed like
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:22):
This. And you have two more coming up. We have
Bret Sipek | CFAN Crusade Director (05:24):
Two more. We have two more in another big, big city called Kanga, probably 1.2 million people. So we expect another great
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:32):
Harvest. And my good friend Nathan Morris is coming for that crusade. You’re
Bret Sipek | CFAN Crusade Director (05:35):
Excited
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:36):
To have the nation. It’s wonderful. And Ruben’s, Kya will come as well this coming week. And so it is really exciting to see the teamwork between different ministries, different evangelists working together.
Bret Sipek | CFAN Crusade Director (05:49):
I believe that that’s the part of end time vision that we are really standing together. Evangelists are like lone runners. You want to go and you want to press forward, push forward. But we need to understand that some territories are too big for one ministry, even for two ministry. So we really need to strategize how we can make it. And Congo, Congo is over 110 million people and the territory of Congo is 2.4 million square kilometers, which is like six times bigger than Germany in Europe. It is huge territory. And as there is no logistics, we need to go to some region. Now we are in the region called Kasai, Kasai Central Car Oriental, and it’s just a little part of Congo in a way. But still we need combined four like yourself, evangelist Nathan Morris, evangelist Ruben. That’s the beauty of it. End time harvest, let’s press forward, let’s push forward.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:51):
Together everyone achieves more. We can do it by working together. Now you have come from the Czech Republic and you were friends with one of my friends, Terry Hinshaw and Terry and Brenda Hinshaw many years ago went to the Czech Republic to plant a church, a victory Christian Center. And you knew them all the way back
Bret Sipek | CFAN Crusade Director (07:17):
All those years ago. It was more than 30 years ago. As you know, evangelist Billy Ty, he did a crusade in St. Petersburg, Russia in early nineties after the fall of regime.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:30):
That was the first crusade I ever went to. Really? I was 14 years old. I went to one of the Crusades in St. Petersburg, Peter Praise. And I remember 30,000 people ran as fast as they could to the altar call when he gave the altar call. They were so hungry for God, they just ran forward. And I think that had a big impact on my life and is one of the reasons that I’m so excited about being an evangelist.
Bret Sipek | CFAN Crusade Director (07:52):
It was kind of like Holy Spirit outpouring in Eastern Europe and Soviet Union right after the communist regime collapsed. We’ve seen it in many countries in Czech Republic, in Hungary, in Bulgaria, most very much in Russia, Soviet United at this time. So it was, people are so hungry for God. And at this time we connected with, as you mentioned, with missionaries Terry and Brenda Hechos. We helped them to relocate from St. Petersburg to Czech Republic and then help them to start a church. It was great. We have great memories. It was so beautiful time.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:31):
Then how did you get connected with Christ for all Nations?
Bret Sipek | CFAN Crusade Director (08:33):
Well, I always admired Evangelist Rein Haron from early eighties when I seen him pushing forward in Africa. And it was kind of like my dream to meet him sometime and to be around him. And it happened in 2002 when he came to Prague, Czech Republic for a small Christian conference, and I happened be his driver driving evangelist Bunker. It was a great privilege and great experience because he was sharing his heart and his heart was evangelism. His life was what he was preaching, just so winning. So winning, so winning. I asked him whatever question I could ask. He always end up with evangelism. So many. I was like, oh my. He’s so much focus at this time. I realized focus in your life is something that will take you way higher. So evangelism was like embodiment of focus. Focus on the soul’s focus on Africa. Africa shall bee. So it was my first connection in 2002, and then I ended up to go for on Cruise eight one, cruise eight in Aki Nigeria. And it was mind blowing. It was time of huge opening and outpouring of holy the Spirit after 10 years of closed in Nigeria. And it was time of super, super great harvest and powerful miracles.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:52):
And what is your role with Christ for all nations now?
Bret Sipek | CFAN Crusade Director (09:55):
I am a crusade director and in a way, crusade Director is somebody who’s preparing the stage for evangelists like yourself or evangelist Reinhard Bonky and or now evangelist Daniel Kolenda. My goal is to see the powerful harvest. I’m praying for harvest. It is like mobilizing all the local churches. We are meeting hundreds of churches sitting with bishops, these pastors, and face-to-face, sharing the vision. It may seem easy to get several hundred pastors together, but I can tell you it’s not that easy as it may seem. They have so many different opinions, so many different church backgrounds. So it’s a lot of work. As Evangelist Bunker used to say, you have to drink a lot of coffees to cast the vision. So that’s what we are doing, casting division. And then of course we need to do a lot of logistics things and mobilizing training the volunteers. We are training for your crusade. In gda gca, we trained well over 10,000 local volunteers, giving them teaching what we want to do, how we want to reach out to people on ground. And after that, when you have to make the bridge from the crusade to the churches. So that’s the big part. And then of course the event management itself that you experience. We are on the meeting, we have everything on spot. Generators are working like sound is working on. It may seems easy when the show runs, but the
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:26):
Backstage, there’s a lot of logistics behind it. It is, it is. They say with the military, they run on logistics. And I think it’s true of crusade evangelism too. The logistics is so important. It’s not just the preaching. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes to make a successful event.
Bret Sipek | CFAN Crusade Director (11:47):
I always say to our directors, if you want to fire fall on some ground, you need to prepare a lot of material, which is flammable like a lot of wood. Everything that you can bring together. And this is our task, prepare everything, make sure that people would come definitely for the first night or for the whole crusades, because when people are there and evangelists preach gospel and the Holy Spirit come, there is thousand or tens of thousand people that are ready to hear because we are preparing them for it. And if you do a lousy job as a crusade director, you have just few hundred people. Evangelists can do his best. He can preach his heart, and it doesn’t have too much impact because there is just few hundred people. But if there is already 10, 20, or in your case, I would think that the first night it was already like 70,000 people. It was mind blowing. In other crusades, we typically see five, 10, maybe 15,000. But in here in Congo, everything is twice or three times bigger. And we are really excited
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:49):
Now. Something very special happened this last week here in Muji Maya. Your daughter preached a woman’s crusade. And tell me about that and how that came to pass.
Bret Sipek | CFAN Crusade Director (13:01):
No, Yana, Ava, our daughter, she’s here with her husband David. He’s working as a technician. She had a dream to preach gospel in Congo. She was preaching now in Uganda and in many, many different places in churches doing kind of this crusade director’s work. Now she’s transiting, although to being evangelist, and she’s doing I believe very, very good. And the dream was like, I want to preach gospel in Ji Mai. But when we shared with a local bishop, they were like, yeah, well, we don’t like women to preach. They should rather sit at home and maybe do cooking or cleaning of the house, all these old school mentality. So you cannot change the whole culture in one shot. But we didn’t want to just submit. We were like, okay, okay, what we can do, what the woman can do. Okay, she can sing. She can prophesize. She can teach ladies. Oh good. If she can teach ladies, she can preach like the ladies conference or ladies crusade. Yeah, for sure. No problem. So that was the discussion. So that’s how we jumped into this ladies crusade. Of course, many children and many husbands came, so no doubt.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:16):
Well, I heard her preach the other night and the adulterous woman, and she did such a powerful job. Amen. Your daughter is a great evangelist. Amen. You were sitting on the platform with your wife and I could see you are a very proud papa.
Bret Sipek | CFAN Crusade Director (14:29):
Proud, proud papa. Yeah, definitely. Honestly, when I was young, it was my dream to preach Crusades. Now my dream is a little bit different. I want to train crusade directors. That’s my dream to see that there are evangelists trained by evangelist Daniel Kolenda or other evangelistic ministries. But we also need to train crusade directors because without crusade directors, the impact of evangelists is limited. So that’s my dream. So we are now training teams of these crusade directors, and that’s how we can do six crusades in three weeks because we have six teams. And that’s the beauty
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:04):
Of it. Well, I say thank God for that vision. Every crusade evangelist needs a good crusade director. And so I believe that as God raises up more evangelists, more people that have gifts with administration and organizing and meeting pastors and all of the logistics of doing the crusade, God will raise them up as well. Praise God. We need them
Bret Sipek | CFAN Crusade Director (15:25):
All. Amen. Thank you so very much for,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:27):
Well, brother Brent, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast and thank you for your work here. And thank you for organizing such a beautiful crusading. It was wonderful.
Bret Sipek | CFAN Crusade Director (15:38):
Daniel, thank you for coming. We really honor you. We appreciate your hard work. We know that it’s not easy to come to travel in and out to fundraise. Thank you so very much. We really honor you and let’s pray and strategize for the future, how the impact on the territories can be even bigger. So thank you so very much and God bless you and thank you for having me.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:00):
Amen. Amen.
How can we take a city for God? As evangelists we want to take cities and regions and nations for the Kingdom of God. But as we find out today in an Old Testament story, sometimes it is not easy to take a city for God. Recently I was asked to give a devotion to the organizing team for a crusade in Gandajika, Congo. On today’s episode of The Evangelism Podcast, you will find out that the people who take cities for God are heroes in heaven.
Transcript:
Evangelist Daniel King (00:00):
The devotion that I want to talk about is how to take a city for God. I’ve gone to many different cities around the world and we do big evangelistic events, and our goal is to take the city for the kingdom of God. The city I want to talk about is the city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is very significant. It is the capital of three different major religions. The Jews claim it, the Christians claim it, and Islam claims it. And so Jerusalem is known all over the world. But what made Jerusalem famous, it’s not a port city. Usually the famous cities of ancient times were port cities where the ships would come bringing goods. It’s not on a river, it’s up in the mountains. It’s hard to get to. So what made it famous? The thing that made Jerusalem famous was King David decided to make Jerusalem the capital of his kingdom when he decided that he didn’t own it.
(01:17):
It was known as the city of Jab bbis, and it was owned by the Jbu, the Jebusites. And so how did King David come to own the city of Jab bbis? The story is found in two Samuel chapter five, verses six through nine, it says, and the king and his man went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, who spoke to David saying, you shall not come in here, but the blind in the lame will repel you, thinking David cannot come in here. Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion. That is the city of David. Now, David said on that day, whoever climbs up by the way of the water shaft and defeats the Jebusites, the lame, the blind who are hated by David’s soul, he shall be chief and captain. Therefore, they say the blind in the lame shall not come into the house.
(02:21):
Then David dwelt in the stronghold and called it the city of David. And David built all around from that region inward. So the city of Jab bbis was on top of a mountain. It was surrounded by high walls of stone. There were large wooden gates that guarded the only entrance to the city. When David and his men arrived, the gates were slammed shut, and it was impossible for anyone to enter the city. The men of jab were extremely confident. The Jebusites felt safe. They were hidden behind their eye walls of stone, and they began to make fun of David. They stood high on the walls and they shouted down, you cannot enter here. They said, even if the only soldiers in the city were deaf and lame and blind, you would not be able to enter. And so they’re taunting them from the walls. I don’t know if you remember the Monty Python in the search for the Holy Grail. There’s a group of French soldiers on top of a wall, and they’re making fun of the knights who come. You remember that scene? I don’t remember what they said, but it was funny at the time. Does anyone remember to quote it? You know what they say? You are a monkey. You are so smelly.
(03:55):
I mean, that’s what the Jebusites were doing. They were standing on the wall saying, oh, you can never take our city. It’s impossible for you. You are so stupid. We are here in the city. Even if every one of our soldiers was dumb and deaf and blind, you would not be able to take the city. But somehow, perhaps through a spy, David heard about another way of entering the city. It was a tiny water shaft that extended from the valley all the way up the mountain and came out in the middle of the city of jab bbis. And so here was a flaw in the city’s defenses, a tiny chink in its impenetrable armor. And David said, I am tired of these heathens making fun of me in saying that even the blind in the lame could defeat me. And so David gathered his men together and he promised who whoever climbs up by way of the water shaft and defeats the Jebusites, he shall be chief and captain.
(05:16):
And so for many years when I read this passage, I thought of a water shaft with fresh water going down to a well. And I had this picture of a soldier climbing up with his sword strapped to his back and his shield. And as he climbs, there’s a little bit of moss on the wall and the water is splashing in his face, but he manages to climb all the way up this water shaft, and he comes out at the top in the middle of the night, pulls out his sword, and begins slashing and takes the city. That’s kind of the picture I always had of this story. But as I studied this passage, I discovered that there are several commentaries that suggest that my picture of old fresh water well is not entirely accurate. Instead of being fresh water, it’s possible that this water shaft was actually a sewer.
(06:21):
And that’s why the Jebusites thought that it was impossible for anyone to climb up this water shaft. What’s in a sewer? It’s full of trash. It’s full of bones from dead animals, it’s full of feces. It stinks to high heaven. It’s full of rats flies and creepy crawly bugs. Climbing the water shaft would require more than just physical strength. It would also require a strong stomach and a stopped up nose. And so never in their wildest dreams did the Jebusites imagine that someone would climb up the sewer, who would push their way through the trash and waste altogether in a cramped up space. They didn’t imagine that it would be possible for anyone to attack the city through this sewer shaft. And so imagine the slime. Imagine the smell climbing this shaft would make you want to gag, and it would make you feel like you’re going to throw up.
(07:36):
By the time you reach the top, you would not be in the mood to fight a battle. Your sword handle would be slick in your hand. This attack was not a picnic, but sometimes in order to take a city for God, you have to go through waste. I don’t want to be too crass, but what would you call it? I mean, it’s waste feces, poo dung shit, kaka, stinky. It doesn’t matter what words you use, the reality is foul. And so David was surrounded by mighty men, but this mission required someone who was exceptional to lead. Usually climbing through the sewage is not heroic. It’s a job for a trash man. So who would step up to take the lead? Who would lead David’s men? Who would win the award that David was offering to the person who could take this risky climb? In 1 Chronicles 11:4-6, we find the name of the chief who volunteered for the job.
(08:59):
His name was Joab. And so Joab lifted his hand and he said, I will be the one to climb up this sewage shaft. I will be the one that will go first in the city. And he grabbed some of the other mighty men of David, and he grabbed and said, come on guys. We can do this. We can work together. We can get up there and we can take this city. And so Joab was a hero. And because he was the one who ascended the shaft later, David appoints him as the leader of all of his armies. And so taking a city for God requires heroes. It’s not easy. It’s not a stroll through the tulips. It’s not just a walk in the sunshine. Coming to a city like Ganja, dika requires sacrifice. Sometimes it’s hot. Sometimes when you take a city, it’s cold. Sometimes you have to take a cold shower out of a bucket. Sometimes it’s smelly. Sometimes you have to use an outhouse. Sometimes the road is bumpy. Sometimes there are mosquitoes. Sometimes you have to leave your wife and children at home for long periods of time. Sometimes there’s conflict. Sometimes there’s not enough money, and you have to bargain for everything.
(10:53):
Sometimes you have to sleep on a hard bed or even a hard floor. My bed over in Muji Maya, it was a nice room, but the bed had slates in it. It was very uncomfortable. Sometimes you’re sick. Sometimes you have to go for a long period without eating food. Sometimes you’re thirsty. Sometimes you have a gun pointed at you. I’ve had that happen to me in a couple of different countries in Pakistan. One time we were shot at. But in order to take a city, you have to be willing to go through dumb. Taking a city requires hard work in sacrifice, but the man or the woman
(11:49):
Who is willing to make the sacrifice to take a city will receive a great reward. And so I want to tell you today that each one of you are heroes. Some of you have been coming with C fan for many, many years, and that’s one of the greatest things about Christ for all nations is the years of dedication that people have given to it. And it’s not easy. When you read Reinhard Bonnke’s autobiography, there have been sacrifices, even people that have died. If you listen to Brother Winnie, he tells the stories of traveling across parts of Africa and some of the adventures he’s gone on would make a great blockbuster movie. It’s not been easy what CA has done, but that is what is required in order to take a city for God. It’s required your sacrifice to take ganja dika.
(12:56):
And for that, you are a hero. And I want to say thank you to each one of you for your sacrifice, for the effort you put into this, and not just this one. Some of you were here last week. Some of you are going to be here next week. We’re going to go from this city. We’re going to take the next city. We’re going to take all of Congo for Jesus. We’re going to take all of Africa for Jesus from Cape Town to Cairo. Do you know how audacious it is to say we’re going to take 50 cities in one year for Jesus? Never been done before, never even been attempted. But 50 different decap events. I mean, this is historic, but what are we doing? We are taking cities for Jesus Christ and we couldn’t do it without you. And so thank you. Let’s pray together.
(13:45):
Dear Heavenly Father, I want to say thank you for the heroes who are in this room. Thank you for their sacrifice. Thank you for the effort that they put into ganja and into Congo and into the other cities where crusades are happening. And Lord, I pray that because of them being willing to go through the challenges of operating in a nation like Congo, Lord, I pray that you would give them a great reward that just like Joab became the captain of all of David’s armies, he received a great reward. Lord, I pray that you would reward each one of my friends, my brothers, every staff member that’s here. Lord, I pray that they would receive a great reward. The type of reward that only comes through you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
At our crusade in Gandajika in the Democratic Republic of Congo, I had the opportunity to sit down with some of the graduates of the Christ for All Nations Evangelism Bootcamp. They all came to Congo to help with organizing the crusade. Today on the Evangelism Podcast they share about what they have learned as evangelists and about the calling that God has on their lives. You will be inspired by their stories to do great things for God.
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today I am in Ngandajika. Congo DRC, and we have a tremendous team here that has been helping to organize everything. And so I have with me some of the graduates from the Christ for All Nations Evangelism Bootcamp. And so they came to Orlando to be trained and now they are sent out and we are together here in Congo. And so let’s just begin by each of you introducing yourself and telling me who you are and where you’re from. My
Jasper Kim (00:41):
Name is Jasper Kim, and I am from Los Angeles, California.
Anastasiia Dvoinikova (00:47):
My name is Anastasia Awa, and I was born in Russia, but now I live in Orlando, Florida.
Grace Smith (00:53):
My name is Grace Smith. I was born in Zimbabwe and I now live in United Kingdom.
Maxie Smith (01:00):
My name is Maxie Smith. I live in England, but my parents come from Jamaica. I live in London, England.
Jacob Habiye (01:08):
My name is Jacob Habiye. I am from Tanzania. ausa.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:14):
Well, let’s start with you Jacob. What did you learn in the Evangelism Bootcamp? How did you end up at the Evangelism Bootcamp? And then what did you learn while you were there?
Jacob Habiye (01:27):
So the bootcamp, I learned about to have a heart for the lost, and I know I did before I preaching in the local church. But from there I just thinking now I’m going international and thinking about the loss. That is what I learning. And then as evangelist to have a personal relationship with God, that is really what are learning and yeah,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:54):
Can say that. So Maxie and Grace, the two of you are married. How many years have you been married Now?
Grace Smith (02:00):
We’ve been married 28
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:02):
Years. 28 years. Congratulations. And so how did you end up at the Evangelism Bootcamp?
Grace Smith (02:11):
Okay, I think he gives me the mic. Personally, I’ve been following Reinhard Bonnke’s ministry, Christ for All Nations for years. So I’ve been stalking the ministry and eventually there was a time that they were actually asking if anyone wants to come to the Crusades to sit in the crusade. And we were dreaming of that. So I told Max we were dreaming of that. So one day I saw on the website bootcamp, that was the first bootcamp. So my husband applied for that. He was accepted, applied for the second one. He was accepted. But we didn’t have enough faith to step out financially. But eventually this year’s bootcamp, we went for it and that’s how we ended up there.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:01):
And so the two of you are really a power couple. God has called you together. What did you learn while you were at the Evangelism Bootcamp?
Maxie Smith (03:13):
Yes, we learned practical evangelism that could be applied on the road. We’ve been so empowered, impacted to go out and preach the gospel. It’s been so excited. We’ve learned the need to pray and be constantly before God. We’ve learned how to apply ourself and the things that we’ve been learning. We’ve come out to DRC to practically use them. And we’ve seen through the training of bootcamp that we have been able to apply the stuff. And for myself personally, it’s been so life transforming and changing, and I’ve learned so much practical things that I’ve been able to apply and I’ve seen lives so changed and transformed. It’s been awesome.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:03):
Anastasia, you came to the Evangelism Bootcamp and you feel called to be an evangelist, and God’s really put the Slavic people on your heart. What were some of the big things that you got out of your time at the Evangelism Bootcamp?
Anastasiia Dvoinikova (04:22):
One of the things, the biggest thing which I get out of the bootcamp, it’s no compromises when you’re preaching the gospel because this is what many people doing when they’re preaching the gospel. Either they’re not mentioning sin or something, but this is a critical in the gospel to mention sin, to mention repentance. And in the Slavic community, it’s often you can see that they’re not preaching about that stuff. And so when you’re growing in your faith, it’s not really mentioning. And in the bootcamp, the big part for me, it was preaching the clear gospel, not only simple gospel, but the clear gospel and the true gospel.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:01):
Jasper, it has really been tremendous to be a teacher in each different year that the bootcamp has been running. And so I’ve had the opportunity to come and do several days of training for each bootcamp. Do you remember anything that you learned in my class that really impacted
Jasper Kim (05:23):
You? Oh man, Daniel, you know what I really remember was when you came and you were critiquing all of us, when we were giving our stories, I believe it was a boat story. And you really gave us really practical advice on what we need to do to do things better and what we could add, what we could take out. And these little tips are critical tips that only like an experienced evangelist can really see and identify. So I believe that part of you coming to bootcamp was awesome. Also, just your story and your testimony when you told us about what you do, how long you’ve been doing it, and just seeing someone with such a heart for evangelism, it truly inspires us to see that, to see someone actually living what we aspire to do for the Lord. So I think that was a big thing,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:13):
And God’s brought us together here in Gica one more time. And so it’s just been wonderful to spend time with each of you, and all of you have had a very significant part to play in helping with the outreach here. And so Jasper, one of the things that you were helping with, which was a big hassle here, was generators. Talk to me about the generators and what happened here in Conica trying to get the generator to the crusading.
Jasper Kim (06:43):
I’m going to try and do this in just a little jam packed kind of explanation. But yeah, so the roads out here in DRC are so just treacherous and rugged. It’s probably the most difficult terrain that I personally have seen, and I’ve driven in snow, I’ve driven in mud and all these different terrains. DRC is on another level. So logistics is really a nightmare to move things from one city to another. And yeah, we have big semi-truck that need to get things across. So my personal responsibility was getting power to our sound system, getting power to our lights through these generators. But finding a good generator and being able to transport it across cities has been such a big task. It’s been really difficult, but the Lord’s really been making it possible. We do everything we can on our end, Daniel, but in the end, the Lord is the one that really, really comes through and really pulls miracles
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:45):
For us. On Wednesday night, we were in Muji Maya and one of the generators stopped working. Yes. And that’s a horrible tragedy for a crusade because suddenly the people cannot hear. And that’s the whole reason we’re here, is so that people can hear the gospel. Exactly. And so for 25 minutes it wasn’t working, and finally the repairman came and he fixed it and it got working again. But he was supposed to be there all the time. And he’d wandered off. Yes. And he wasn’t supposed to. Exactly. And you talked to him. What did you tell him?
Jasper Kim (08:20):
Oh man, I, I don’t like having to raise my voice unless I don’t have to. But in this moment I had no choice because we literally had no power, no sound for 30 minutes. And that’s probably the worst case scenario when it comes to what we do, mass gospel crusades. So yeah, I had to really tell ’em like, Hey, you cannot leave. You have to stay here. And I had to say it in a kind of a loud tone, so that’s what I had to do.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:49):
But it’s worked every night since. It’s worked
Jasper Kim (08:51):
Every night since. And he’s been great and I apologize to the guy. And we’re on great terms now. So
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:58):
Here in Ika, there was a need for a generator and you found one that was actually built into a house. And so you had to rent a backhoe, a big shovel truck to actually lift the roof off the house and then lift the generator out of the house and put it on a dump truck to bring to the crusade. Exactly. So it is quite the challenge to have power. So your job is to get power to the sound system. My job as the preacher is to get the power of God to the people. Hallelujah. Come on. But both are needed. We need both kind of
Jasper Kim (09:38):
Power. That’s so
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:38):
Amazing. Alright, so I want to ask each of you, what has been your big role that you’ve played here at this crusade?
Anastasiia Dvoinikova (09:47):
So my big role here, overall, I’m interning with the senior director, but in Gada Gica, I’m a crusade photographer.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:57):
I gave you my camera. You’ve been running around getting pictures. I told you to take lots of pictures. I think the other night you came back with over 500 pictures and many of them were so good.
Anastasiia Dvoinikova (10:08):
Praise God. Praise
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:09):
God. So you just jump in with your talent.
Anastasiia Dvoinikova (10:11):
Yeah, this was happening when you on the crusade, you need to fill the need where it’s the most needed.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:19):
Yeah. Now Grace, you have a couple of different roles here. You are one of the scribes that is recording everything that happens. Why is that important? Tell me about what you do there and why it’s important.
Grace Smith (10:35):
Okay. So I have to make sure that I’m there when the service starts, and then I’ll record every moment of what is happening on the stage in from when you come on the stage, the mc. And it’s so important because then it allows everybody to know what is actually happening in. So it’s like a live scribe of what is happening. So anyone who is in the United States can actually know that, okay, we are starting the worship, the the worship team is there. So that’s what I’ve been doing. So it’s been important, but the most important thing is the testimonies as well. So if there’s no picture, if there’s no’s, no story. So I take the picture and then I write literally I have to type as the testimonies are going on. But I think one of the most challenging was trying to get the names because the names are French,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:36):
They’re hard to understand,
Grace Smith (11:37):
They’re very hard to understand, hard to spell hard. The pronunciation I, I’ve done my best to actually make sure that everything is in place up until the evangelist leaves the stage and leaves the field. I think of that time I have to be really focused in what is actually going on on the crusade.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:00):
And then you also are in charge of hospitality, and so you have been helping with the meals. You can’t go to the supermarket to buy food. Where do you find the food to feed everyone? Mama Grace.
Grace Smith (12:13):
That has been very challenging. I mean, this hotel that you’re staying in is quite a new hotel. So there’s no kitchen, there’s no food. But we’ve got another hotel that some of the C fund stuff are staying. There’s food there, but you cannot go to a supermarket or a store and buy stuff. So the lady who actually cooks there has to buy things from Ji Mai. So all the transport that goes to Ji Mai comes. So I’ve given her, which
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:41):
Is a challenge because Muji Mai is four hours away over very bumpy roads, is very difficult to travel from there to here. So you have to send a shopping list and then they send the food back.
Grace Smith (12:54):
So before the crusade I had to sit down with her. We went through a list of what we need, things like a burger. They don’t eat hamburgers here. They don’t eat chips here. So I had to actually take a picture to mama and show her what chips are,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:10):
What are chips, because we don’t know what those are in the United States either. Fries, french fries. In the United States, we call them french fries.
Grace Smith (13:18):
So in United Kingdom we call them chips. So the fries. So we made a list prior to the crusade and then she had to buy those things in Jamay and bring those things over. Wow. Yeah. Wow.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:31):
Brother Maxie, what have you been in charge of here?
Maxie Smith (13:34):
Yes, thank you. Yes, I’ve been in charge with working with committees. I’ve been involved with the prayer committee. People of DRC have a passion for prayer. They pray very powerfully. I’ve been organizing them and having meetings to see how best we can pray for the crusade and pray for the salvation of the people of DRC. It’s been awesome. It’s been challenging at times, gathering people from different churches, but God has been faithful and we’ve been able to gather very powerful prayer team who have prayed throughout the crusade and it’s really been an awesome time.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:12):
Brother Jacob, what have you been doing while you’ve been here?
Jacob Habiye (14:16):
Before Crusade, I was helping in promotion. So to put all material
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:22):
Posters for How long have you been here in the city
Jacob Habiye (14:24):
For three weeks here, inand
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:26):
Chica. Okay. And so you were helping to put up the posters?
Jacob Habiye (14:29):
Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:30):
You have done a good job. The wall in front of our hotel, it’s a big wall. Every inch of the wall is covered in a yellow poster. It looks like a billboard. And so you were helping to coordinate the local teams that were
Jacob Habiye (14:47):
Putting out the publicity? Yeah, so the local team, we start with a three by two billboard and then we come with light poles. And then the last week before crusade we put some posters. And so that is before crusade. And during the crusade I’m helping in security and technical.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:05):
Wonderful. Yeah. Well, God’s call is upon each one of your lives, and I want to hear a little bit about what you feel that God is calling you to do in the future. You’ve got your training, you’ve come here and you’ve done work on the ground. What do you feel God is calling you to in the future?
Jacob Habiye (15:28):
For me, this is what I feel, and I already start even doing is for youth ministry. That is what God called me to do to evangelize with youth. So I did like for 10 years ago, before even I meet with Han, so I was doing in the local, preaching the schools is what God put in my heart to do. So when I go to the bootcamp, I’m learning also, it is not about going to the maybe pulpit to preach. You can evangelize, you can do evangelism, even one by one, everywhere in the bus, everywhere you can do that is really what I learned before. It’s like, okay, maybe I need to go on the stage to preach, be Avengers. But when I went there, no. So there’s Jesus at the door one by one. And then so for me, everywhere I go, even when I came here, when I saw those youth and kids, and it is really touched my heart is what God’s called for me to really put to help youth to know Jesus,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:36):
Maxie and grace. What do you see God doing in the future in your ministry?
Maxie Smith (16:42):
Yes, we feel called to crusades and we would hope to step out and do some mini crusades. We’re learning all the time, learning how to,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:51):
Where do you want to do crusades? You’re from Great Britain and Jamaica and Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe. So those are three good countries to start in. Do you see yourself doing crusades in those countries?
Maxie Smith (17:05):
Yeah, we would love to go to Zimbabwe to do a crusade and looking at Jamaica also. But the first goal would be to go towards Zimbabwe.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:15):
My wife and I, we did a crusade in Jamaica in Montego Bay. One week after our honeymoon. We took a big team with us and we took all the money that people gave us at our reception and we used it to pay for the crusade. That’s amazing. And the team was out to ministering every day. But we were just home from our honeymoon and we mostly stayed in the hotel. We were not interested in going out and ministering. We came out to preach at the crusade, but we pretty much stayed inside the hotel the rest of the time. But I believe God will use you in Jamaica. Jamaica needs a touch from God and Zimbabwe and even Great Britain. When you see what is happening in the news in Great Britain right now, it needs a revival. So many people there are in a post-Christian world, they don’t even consider themselves to be a Christian heritage anymore. And so I believe God will give you an opening in each of those nations and to other nations across Africa and around the world. In Jesus’ name. Anastasia, you speak Russian, you have a heart for the Russian speaking world. Tell me, what has God put on your heart to do in the future?
Anastasiia Dvoinikova (18:43):
So after finishing bootcamp, I’ve really felt to organize not only a massive crusades in the countries where nobody wants to go, like Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Stan, even South Korea, North Korea, in the countries where I don’t hear people doing a crusades or if they had a crusades. It was long time ago, and I don’t hear anything at this point, but I really want to see not just like a cities coming to Jesus, but like a nations, a massive transformation of a whole nations coming to Jesus and just coming to him and finding him again because for the Slavic, we have an inheritance in the Christianity, but the more generation is going, the more people forgetting about it. And I want just to see them coming back to the feet of
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:42):
Jesus and to have the fire of the Holy Spirit.
Anastasiia Dvoinikova (19:44):
Amen.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:46):
Amen. Jasper, what’s God put on your heart?
Jasper Kim (19:50):
Oh yeah. I believe the Lord has put on my heart just really like Asian nations. I just always felt like a, now
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:00):
You’re Asian in
Jasper Kim (20:01):
Heritage
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:02):
From South Korea.
Jasper Kim (20:03):
Yeah, my parents are Korean. But
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:05):
You grew up in
Jasper Kim (20:06):
Born and raised in America.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:08):
America, born
Jasper Kim (20:08):
And raised in America. So
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:09):
You’re American by culture, but you look like you’re
Jasper Kim (20:12):
South Korean. My blood is Korean, but I am actually born and raised in California. So
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:19):
Yeah. So God’s put Asia on your heart.
Jasper Kim (20:21):
Yeah, God’s put Asia on my heart even I kind of feel even Asia, Africa obviously, because here now, and I’ve been here for the past couple years with C fan kind, I feel like this is a preparation season for me, but also our home nation of America. I know the Lord is going to, there’s going to be a time where the Lord calls me back to our home and really start evangelizing out there because the Lord knows America needs it. Amen. Really bad America needs him right now.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:52):
Amen. Especially la, the area you. Exactly. California. They need Jesus.
Jasper Kim (20:58):
Pray for California.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:59):
Amen. Amen. Well, let’s finish with a word of prayer. I want to just pray over each one of you a dear heavenly Father, I thank you for these mighty evangelists. They’ve graduated from the Evangelism Bootcamp and they are pursuing your call upon their lives. Lord, I pray that you would open up great doors of ministry for them. Lord, I pray that through their ministries, through their influence, many thousands of people all over the world would come to know you. Lord, I thank you that you are raising up an army of evangelists that will go all over the world preaching the gospel. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen. Amen.
What is the process for setting up a crusade? How long does it take to organize a crusade? What are the vital phases of crusade organization? On today’s Evangelism Podcast, I speak with Pastor Mike from Zambia. He has just finished organizing a successful crusade in Gandajika, Congo. If you want to learn how to organize a crusade, today’s episode is for you.
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, Pastor Mike Kasonde.
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (00:10):
Oh yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:11):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast.
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (00:13):
Thank you very much, evangelist. I’m so excited.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:16):
It is very special being here with you. We are in the city of Ngandajika, Democratic Republic of Congo, and you have been living here since last February as a crusade director for the Crusade, which we have done here this week, and we have seen God do amazing things. Tell me what excited you about what you saw God do this week.
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (00:45):
Wow, wow, wow. I think first and foremost, it was really, really an honor to have you come as a guest evangelist to Gica and just how God uses you, especially when it comes to delivering the gospel. It was more than I expected to see. I’ve been in different crusades, but this one I really want to really, really keen into one particular thing, the delivery of the gospel, how people receive the gospel, how connected they were, and we could see instant transformation. I would set an example when you did the children’s crusade, how before that, how the children were so they could move around. They were so
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:41):
Yeah. One night the kids were at the front, they were pushing, they were fighting and the people from the back were pushing them and it actually was a little dangerous. It looked like in a moment, very, very dangerous. It could all get out of control. But then we did the children’s Festival Festival and the demeanor of the children completely changed. Exactly.
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (02:01):
It completely changed. And when they came in the afternoon for the bigger crusade, they were calm. They were just there enjoying what was happening. And of course, talking about the great miracles that God did, healing the people, especially the brother who had an injury in his chest because he had an accident of the motorbike.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:23):
Yeah, he was driving down the road on his motorbike. He hit a hole in the road and it threw him off the bike. He hit his chest and for one year he had trouble breathing. One
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (02:32):
Year he had trouble breathing and you could even tell the excitement after God touched him. And also not forgetting the fire conference man, when you did that, the pastors rejoiced the bishops. It’s something that they’ve never experienced, where pastors come together and experience the move of the Holy Spirit filled with the Holy Spirit where we could see people speaking another tongues. And in the evening you did the same on the crusade. I saw this guy sl under the Holy Spirit speaking in new tongues. So God has really, really did wonderful things on the field. I’m super excited.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:17):
So you are working with Christ for All nations. Yes. Tell me, where did you first get connected to CAM?
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (03:24):
Alright, so way back in 2022, CA came to Zambia to do five crusades. They plan to do 10, but because of one or two things, they scheduled for five. So now our city was among the five that they concluded.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:41):
In which city were you in?
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (03:42):
That was in Zambia, the city called soi, the north part of Zambia. So the city called soi, that’s where I’m coming from. So Chan came, did a crusade. I was just the vice, I mean the secretary for the youth committee because they have different committees. So I was helping out as a secretary in the youth committee, and I remember working, just gave myself to just work to see people saved. And after that I joined the protocol team during the crusade so I could ritually get on the field early leave. I would be the last person to leave the Sade field because I needed to make sure that everything is done, the evangelists are well taken care of, and they leave the field and everything is done. So from there now Chan came back to Zambia last year. They wanted to do do 10 crusades. They ended up doing 11 crusades.
(04:50):
So they were looking for local people whom they saw really had put in, sacrificed, like they really worked. So they were getting recommendations from the five cities prior to that year, last year where they did those crusade. So they were getting recommendation for local people who will be trained by C fund and they work as managers, which means that last year they had a director and the director had a manager. So they were looking for 10 people. And by God’s grace I was picked to be one of the 10 people they were looking for to work as a manager. So it was last year that I was fully, fully direct connected. I worked as a manager where I was helping the director. When the director is away, I was literally doing anything. And my director last year had two cities, one big city and a smaller city.
(05:55):
So we were two managers under him. So he took this other manager to the big city because it had a lot of concentration. Then this smaller city said, Mike, I want you to manage this ritually directed. So he just gave me what to do. He gave me what to do. So basically I could give him reports where I got stuck, I could call him, hear from him. So I literally directed and managed the crusade. So from there it is where Chan saw something and they asked me if I am willing to help in different crusades because of the outcome. Then we did the fire camp with them. So I’m a graduate for fire camp, which they did last year.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:44):
And so you were chosen to come here to Ngandajika you came in the month of February. Exactly. And now it is August. So you’ve been here for a long time. Many months. You’ve been working very hard. And first I want to say thank you so much for your hard work. I know that it is not easy to organize an event like this. There are many challenges, but I’m very grateful for you because you have done a good job. You can always tell the first night if the manager, the director, has done a good job because the number of people that come the first night is up to the organization, the posters, the flyers, everybody knowing about it. And then I always tell the crusade director, how many people come the second night is up to the preacher. If the preacher preaches good, then many people will come the second night after that, it is in the hands of the preacher, but the first night is in your hands. And every night here we have just seen God do amazing things. So tell me a little bit about the process each month, what were you doing to prepare for it? So you got here in February, what was the first thing you did?
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (07:56):
Alright, so the first thing we did is to scout the place, like go around the place, be familiar with the city. Then you do a Google mapping of all the churches. You ritually go around, you try to map the churches. How many churches are there? So the first thing we do is you do that. Then you must make sure that you find a hotel, a place to live. That’s the first thing you really want to do. So when you are settled, then you create a relationship with the big fathers of the city. So you literally ask around how many fathers are here? So
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:34):
You went and met with them, you ate with them, you became friends with them, and you began to share the vision of doing a crusade. Yeah.
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (08:44):
So when you meet those fathers, then you organize a meeting for them, and then the senior director who is Voer would come to the city and Mr. Brett probably, if he’s around, they’ll come to the city to meet these fathers. So that they’ll be the one really just emphasize on what already you’ve been talking to them about. So they really emphasize about the vision of C fund. They really need to ask them from a personal level, do you really want the crusade here? And then it is from their response and their involvement that the crusade will be chosen
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:24):
To you either say yes or no for the city.
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (09:26):
Exactly. Exactly. So once,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:28):
If there’s disunity among the pastors, I think you shake the dust off your feet like Jesus said, and go find a city that really is ready for a move of God. But thank God this city said yes, yes,
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (09:39):
Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:40):
The bishop was ready,
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (09:41):
So excited. The fathers were so excited. So when we did that, then we had to break. Then we had to come back again for the second phase. Now the second phase is where now you need to run because now the BOA, the board of advisors who are the fathers of the city, they needed to give us the person we call the ECC executive committee chair person. So the executive committee chairperson needs to have his vice. So there are two people, these people are pastors. You want to choose a pastor who is young, not like a bishop, a young pastor, but well respected, well connected and has got influenced over the pastors and over the city. So when the bureau, the board of advisor gives you that person, that is the person we call the engine of the crusade because he’s the one now that needs to supervise different committees. So the first two committees that we start with is the prayer committee like Evangelist Rena Bon always said one leg preaching the
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:49):
Phe,
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (10:50):
One leg prayer. And we have a successful crusade. So you have the prayer committee, which consists of 10 or five to 10 people. So now when you have that prayer committee, they need to begin to pray for the crusade. They need to begin to pray for churches. Then the important committee that you form immediately is the church mobilization committee. So remember in the first time you did the scouting and mapping of churches, so you have an idea. But now these people comes to give you now the reality of what is on the ground, how many churches are on the ground. So you have 10 people in that committee. So those are the people who go around the city to ritually mark the churches. They get the phone number for the pastor, they get the name of the church, and at least they get an approximation of how many people are in that church.
(11:45):
But what we’d want them to do is to get all the churches, small, big, large, all the churches in the villages. So you work like with them just marking the church, marking the church. Then when they bring these churches together, then we do now what we call planning for the FTM, which is the all pastors meeting, where now we need to bring these pastors together in one big place and so that we can sell the vision to all the pastors. So these two committees are very critical in the second phase as you’re preparing the crusade. So when they bring the contact of pastors, you now come up with what we call a call center. So the same committee begins to call the pastors the same committee. You come up with letters like letters, invitation letters to the A PM. So they need to go to give letters they need
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:46):
To find And do they take them by hand to each church and deliver them to the pastors?
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (12:51):
Yes. So you divide the city in zones like this. JI was divided in four zones. So we had kaban, kaban, jiji and Luga commune, we call them zones. So you divide these guys into each zones. So this person maybe let’s say three of them in one zone. So they’ll ritually go and hand over the pastors in that zone, the invitation letters. Then you do calls. Then we do bulk SMSs where you send messages to these pastors, the invitation for the A PM, then I did radio. You need to go to radios to make an announcement. All the pastors, we are calling you to this important A PM. So now when the pastors come for the A PM, that’s when it’s like now the crusade begins to run. Now the executive director comes, the senior director comes and all top C fund officials, they come to meet these pastors. They sell the vision to them. And what do in that all pastors meeting, we ritually give them testimonies of their past crusades that we’ve done. And then we encourage them about volunteers, about counselors. We tell them we need your counselors, we need your,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:15):
How many counselors did we have trained for this crusade?
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (14:18):
Alright, so registered counselors, we had 8,000. Then I did training for those counselors. I did 4,000. I trained like 4,000 because the other 4,000 actually discovered that they were counselors from the far villages.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:37):
So they didn’t know if they could make it.
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (14:39):
Exactly. So in the A PM, the old pastors meeting, we discovered that 40% of the pastors came from these villages around because the radio message could reach them. So they had to come
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:55):
Do people from those villages, are they coming to the crusade? Yes, yes,
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (14:58):
Yes, yes. I had one lady give the testimony, I can’t just remember the testimony that she gave. She said she literally came from one of the five villages. She literally came from there. So we trained counselors. So we encourage the pastors to give us volunteers. And so what follows after the all pastors meeting is now to begin to run with the volunteers committee to go and get now the names of these counselors, they begin to call pastors or we want names. So what I did is that before we can push the pastors to give you counselors, we needed the pastors to give us two key leaders in their church. These are the people we trained as captains and we trained about 400 captains. And this time around CfAN had introduced a very wonderful thing. They gave them certificates. So if you’re trained as a captain, we give you a CfAN certificate signed by Daniel Kolenda.
(16:02):
So to them it was like an owner, they felt this, they bought into the vision. So when we train those two people, those people are very key because they’re the ones who will give you volunteers from their church. The pastor is busy, can’t start writing down names. So those two are the point of contact to that church. So they’ll give you counselors, they’ll give you volunteers, and then after that is done, you think of forming. Now the different committees. So the committees we have apart from the prayer committee, church mobilization volunteers committee, we have what we call the youth committee, youth promo committee. We have the women’s promo committee, then we have the promo committee itself to help us to do the promotion and everything.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:54):
That’s putting up all the posters. Exactly, the banners, the billboards.
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (16:58):
Exactly.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:59):
When do you put those out at what point?
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (17:02):
Third phase. So the third phase is for promo. So when you have those committees and you have all the committees put together, then you need to look now at the promo budget. So now Chan will tell you, okay, we are doing prints from this company, the poster, this is the prints that we are doing. So when C fund gives you the budget, then as a director you really want to sit. You look at the city, how many banners do I want? Should I go for three by four? Should I go for two by one? Should I go for posters? So you have to really sit down and have plan for the city
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:46):
And to know where you’re going to put the publicity.
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (17:48):
Exactly,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:48):
Exactly. And so do you remember the numbers for ganja dica? I’ve seen posters everywhere. I mean even in front of the hotel where we are, there’s a wall and there are hundreds of posters on the wall covering the entire wall. So the whole wall is yellow? Yes. And I think this is very good. Instead of just putting one poster on the wall, you make the wall into a billboard and then if someone tears down one, they cannot tear down all.
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (18:18):
And the idea behind that is also to attract people. Because from a father looking at this, what’s that? What’s the So they really want to look at it. So got gca, if I can remember very well, we had about 40,000 posters. Then I had ordered for 252 by one. Then I had 53 by two. Yeah, I mean one 50. And then I had 24 by three the big ones. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:56):
Well you have done a good job when you come into the city, you cannot miss it. So there’s a lot of anticipation. You also go on the radio and you’re telling people and you’re running radio advertisements. Yes. And so is there one station or many stations?
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (19:12):
Okay, so in Gand, GCA is three station. We’ve got the main one in the second, then the third. So you pay for all those radios. So in this city they did 28 jingles per day for three weeks.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:27):
Wow. So how much would one jingle cost?
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (19:30):
Okay, so one jingle would cost probably a dollar. But because you’re paying for a long
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:36):
Time, you negotiate for a good deal, you negotiate for a
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (19:38):
Good deal.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:39):
So you’re running all day long. Yes, they play a song, then they play your jingle. So it’s like
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (19:44):
Every after one hour at
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:46):
The radio, everyone knows
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (19:48):
The jingle plays in all the three radio stations and it runs for three weeks. From the three weeks before the day of the crusade. And you do interviews also at the radio.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:02):
How long before the crusade do you start to train the counselors?
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (20:05):
Alright, so we do three weeks before the crusade. Then we also do a second training two weeks before the crusade.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:15):
And the counselors have books. The books for the adults are given to the adults and they capture their name. And then we also have books for the children as well. And so how are the counselors trained? What are they told to do?
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (20:31):
Okay, so the counselors, they’re told about field logistics where we tell them ritually what the field looks like, what happens on the field, when do the evangelists come on the podium to preach? Then the most important thing is about on how to use the book. So we tell them this is what we do. There are three important things you don’t want to miss in that sleep. So we show them the name. You need the phone number, which is the most important thing because your pastor need to do a follow up.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:07):
And so the name and the phone number is used to follow up on the new believers? Yes,
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (21:10):
Exactly. Exactly. So the phone number and the address. And then when they do that, then they have to take off that slip and they give the book to this person. They keep that slip, but the slip is also divided into two. The lower part is just the signature and the date. So that is for chan to do the counting. Then that which has got the name, phone number and address goes to the pastor so that the pastor comes up with a committee because we also train the pastors to do follow up. So they come up with a committee so that they can begin to call those names.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:54):
Well you’ve done a wonderful job through all this process. I know there’s so many details, but you have worked very hard and I can see that your work has been successful. Amen. And tell me what have you thought about the crusade? Are you happy with the results that we’ve
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (22:11):
Seen? I’m so excited. I’m super excited. The second day I literally wept. I was on the stage, then I went behind looking at the people, looking at how they were involved just to receive Jesus Christ. It is so emotional. You like
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:30):
Even people crying, being touched by Jesus.
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (22:34):
Yes. So you saw that, okay, thank God that God that to use me to put in my effort. And this is more than we expected. So I’ve been super happy, super excited.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:47):
And would you say that Congo is more difficult than Zambia for organizing?
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (22:53):
It’s more, it’s like triple difficult.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:55):
Triple difficult. Yeah.
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (22:57):
It’s like Congo is.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:59):
What are some of the challenges of organizing? What have been the biggest challenges that you faced?
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (23:04):
Logistics. Things are super expensive.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:09):
The roads are not good. The roads are not good. So if you buy anything, it must come from far away. Exactly. Over bad roads.
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (23:17):
Exactly. And here, inand gca, you discover that they don’t have a lot of stuff. So you want to get them from Bji Ma. And you could literally go with a bike on the bike. You are five hours on the bike with this road full of sand. It has not been easy. It has not been easy. Congo has not been easy. And people ritually.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:46):
Now this is the first time anyone’s ever done a crusade in this city. And because of that there is lots of excitement. But there are also some very significant spiritual challenges here. And each night we’ve been praying to break every curse. Yes. As you’ve been living here, you have learned about some of the spiritual needs of the city of Ganja dca. What are the needs of the people here?
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (24:14):
Alright, so two needs. I’ll talk about the most. One lack of development. The city needs development. This city needs just God to make a way. There’s this too much of lack of development, poverty
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:30):
That will come tonight is blessing night. Exactly. We’re going to pray for a blessing on Ika. And when the blessing of God comes, God will elevate the prosperity of the city. Exactly.
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (24:44):
But the other thing is the premature death of young children. When I came to this city, it is my first time to see small coffins like carpenters are ritually, making small coffins to sell out. And you’d see when you’re going in the roads, those small coffins, actually they are more than bigger coffees. So that would tell that they usually have these deaths for young children.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:16):
And so there’s a very high childhood mortality rate here.
Mike Kasonde | Crusade Director (25:20):
Mortality rate is very high. So I asked the pastors about that. They said, yeah, the child mortality is that high. It’s like every week they have to bury a child.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:33):
Wow. Well, we broke the curse of childhood mortality. And I believe that Jesus is working here. We did the children’s festival, which was something I thought the pastors found very interesting because they saw us minister to the children. And I believe that as they minister to the children, that we will see many children get saved here in the city. And I also believe that as prosperity comes, the childhood mortality rate will go down. A crusade like this brings God’s blessing upon the entire region. And so I think this will have a significant impact on ganja dika for many years to come. Definitely. So Pastor Mike, I want to say thank you so much for your work. Thank you. Thank you. You have been a great blessing. I am very honored to work together with you. I know that the crusade does not just happen because of the preacher.
(26:31):
There is a lot of work that it must be done. It’s like an iceberg out in the Arctic Ocean. A small bit of the iceberg can be seen above the water, but under the water there is so much. And so in the months you’ve been here, you have put so much work into the crusade. But we have seen God honor your work. Thank you. And it is an honor to serve God with you. And I want to say thank you. And I hope that we can work together again to do more Crusades. Yes. Let’s go for it. Let’s bring all of Africa to Jesus. Amen. Amen. Amen. And thank you for being on the Evangelism podcast. Thank you very much.
For fifty years, Peter Youngren has been reaching people for Jesus. His ministry reaches out to people from many different religions through his Friendship Festivals. He is known for pointing people to Jesus. On today’s episode of The Evangelism Podcast we talk about the importance of reaching unreached people, the role of grace in evangelism, and the central message of preaching Jesus Christ. Pastor Peter Youngren also talks about his global mission center in Kenya and his goal to train young evangelists. He emphasizes the need to strip away “Christianese” and adapt the Gospel message to different cultures while keeping the central message of Jesus Christ. Pastor Peter also shares some of his greatest memories and victories in ministry, as well as the challenges faced.
Learn more about Peter Youngren’s ministry: https://peteryoungren.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, Pastor Peter Youngren. Thank you for joining me on the Evangelism Podcast.
Evangelist Peter Youngren (00:12):
Well, thank you, Daniel. It’s my pleasure and I haven’t seen you for a while. It’s good to see you again.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:17):
Well, I want to start by saying how grateful I am for you and for your ministry. I was attending Pastor Charles Neiman’s Church down in El Paso, Texas as a young evangelist. I told him, I really feel this call from God on my life to be an evangelist says, you need to meet my friend Peter Youngen. So I called your office up in Canada and asked if I could come meet you. And you said, no, I don’t want to meet you in Canada, but if you want to come meet me in the middle of Africa, I would love to see you in Africa. And so I went all the way to Goma, Congo and got to see a great gospel crusade there, a festival. And God moved in a tremendous way. And that was where I met my beautiful wife, Jessica, who was working for you. And so I apologize, I stole her away, but she is a great worker there. Jessica is a great blessing.
Evangelist Peter Youngren (01:16):
Lemme give me, give you the first impression. I knew that this man, Daniel King, was going to meet me in Goma. We somehow arrived in the city and I saw this, obviously you look different than the locals with your white skin, but you were all dirtied and you had been really in the trenches. And I said, who’s that man? They said, oh, that’s the Daniel King. I said, I like him right away. He’s not afraid of getting his hands in the dirt and doing the job. So that was a good start for both of us, I hope.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:48):
Yeah. So just this week I got back from Congo. This was the first time I went back to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since I met you there about 17, 18 years ago. That’s a
Evangelist Peter Youngren (02:00):
Long time ago. Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:02):
Yeah. And we had a great, great gospel festival in Ganja Dika, and God is moving in the nation of Congo. That’s
Evangelist Peter Youngren (02:11):
Beautiful. I saw the pictures that look really wonderful. So
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:14):
Tell me a little bit about what you’ve been doing and what you’re planning right now.
Evangelist Peter Youngren (02:20):
Well, we continue to do the festivals. I call them festivals instead of crusade. A lot of them are in areas we are trying to reach out to people of other religions other than the Christian religion. And so the word festival works very well and parallel with that of, because we have our Bible schools, we have Bible schools in Myanmar, which is formerly Burma. We have a many East Africa. We have two in Indonesia, one in the Sumatra on the one side of the country, another one in Papua, the other side of the country. But we’ve been working on our school in Africa, in Kenya and creating a global mission center there where we train to train evangelists. And we are also just about to start inviting pastors, evangelists, believers who feel called to evangelism to come and spend 10 weeks in Africa. Years ago, a dear friend of mine, he had a tremendous idea.
(03:20):
He bought a hotel in California and invited students from all over the world, India, Africa, come to San Diego. I’m talking about a person who had profound influence of my own life by Morris Cerullo, inviting people to come and study in San Diego, be empowered by the spirit. And that was a tremendous idea to spend three months like that. But there was one little problem, which I think he discovered that was once all these folks from Africa and India and Pakistan and had come to San Diego, they didn’t want to go home again. They wanted to stay in California. Who can claim that, Daniel? I think I would’ve stayed as well. California is beautiful. So what we are saying is that come and join our students for 10 weeks or eight weeks in Africa and be trained and then have your own campaign, your own crusade or festival in Africa. We will help you set it up and then we’ll send you back to wherever you came from, whether that was California or Europe or wherever you came from. Because we need to train workers for the harvest. We need to train people. And I think our particular gift maybe is to reach people, communicate the gospel with Muslims, Hindus, Buddhist, people of other religions. And so I want to pass that on to others. I’ve been doing this for 50 years now, so I’ve been doing this for a while.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:40):
Well, let’s go back to the beginning. How did you know that you were called to be an evangelist? How did you come to know the Lord as your savior? And then how did you get started doing evangelism?
Evangelist Peter Youngren (04:51):
Well, we just got 20 minutes or so. So let me say that I received Christ, it was obviously very meaningful. I was baptized in the Holy Spirit. That was a big change for me, made me very bold so that we could talk a long time about that. But then for me, one of the great influences of my life was the late Dr. T.L. Osborn, who by the way I got to know later on, spent time. He came and celebrated my 50th birthday spending a week with me here in Toronto. So we became friends. So, but he influenced me a lot. And I heard him one time say, all you need is a call, is Mark 1615, go into all the world that preach the gospel and some of that. That really touched me in a profound way. It may seem like it is a statement, but it touched me very profoundly.
(05:40):
So what I did, I started to just share the gospel. I always said that in the town where I was raised, there was a lot of alcoholics and they gathered in a certain park and I would go to that park and preach, you have to start where you are. I wasn’t looking for a ministry. I wasn’t looking to start any great ministry organization. I was just sharing the gospel with Pete. Well, one thing led to another, some pastor heard about it, said, can you share on Sunday night in our church? And so that led to that and that led to other things. And so I, I’m a firm believer is just start where you are, do what you can. Don’t wait for some great opening, don’t wait for some great opportunity. Start with what’s in your hand. Because as I look back, this wasn’t some plan I had at the time. I just looked back on it what caused doors to open for me. I was just doing what was before me to do and the one thing led to the other. So that’s the advice I give to young men and women who are starting in ministry. Don’t wait for some great opening that you’re going to be invited to the world’s largest church and suddenly it’s going to put you on the map. Just love and reach people where you are.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:53):
Amen. Well, you are a very innovative thinker and you have brought some great innovations to evangelism and there really is a huge need for evangelism. I was looking at one page on your website and you have some statistics there. It says, of finances that are given to foreign missions, 87% goes for work among Christians. 12% goes for work among already evangelized. And only 1% of money given to foreign missions is used for work among on reach people groups. And then 0.1% of all Christian giving is used for mission’s efforts into 38 least evangelized countries. Christians spend 95.4% of offerings on home-based ministry, 4.5% on cross-cultural efforts among already reach groups and only 0.1% to evangelize the on reach. The average Christian only gives an average of about one penny a day to global missions. And so your whole life, you’ve been talking to the body of Christ saying, we need to change our methods and our focus. We need to put more resources into actually reaching people who are unreached. Talk to me a little bit about that.
Evangelist Peter Youngren (08:09):
Yeah, because it is very natural. We don’t need to beat ourself up about this. It’s true about all of us evangelists and pastors. We tend to go where we’re invited and if we are invited to a certain place, it means they’re already believers there. Sometimes somebody contacts me and says, oh, we can guarantee a hundred thousand people. We’ve done it before. I’m thinking I don’t want to go there if they’ve done it before, if they’re so sure, they just have such masses already, that doesn’t appeal to me so much. And so to go to areas where there’s not a lot of people to celebrate you, but to break into those areas, you need more money because the television station owner doesn’t feel led to give you a special deal or the radio station has it. So you have to believe God for the finances and then seek a way into these areas.
(09:02):
What I have developed is an approach I call simply the friendship approach, which sounds innocent enough, but we search out religious and governmental leaders that are people at least open-hearted, whether they’re Muslim or Hindu or whatever they are. And we try to make an inroads with them. And once we get to know the leaders, and your wife used to work in this area and she was like, so good. Let me tell you, you took a good worker there, Jessica, I can still see her. She was so good in organizing these things. And once you meet the leaders then and you’re able to, and the people see, oh, this foreign preacher here, he’s here with our head of the Buddhist Monks Association, so then he mustn’t be too dangerous so I can go and hear him. So my friendship approach to these people of other religious is not for the purpose of religious dialogue in the conventional sense.
(10:04):
I stand for a hundred percent for Jesus. I’m not dialing it down. I’m just creating friendship approach. And thereby I eased the way for the people in the certain city to come and listen to my message. After all, I’ve already befriended their leaders. So some of the things we work on and it takes a little bit more effort and we try to work with, I’m just going to be in Madagascar in a couple of weeks time. And so when I was there last year, the Lord really opened the door to the President and to his advisors. And so we are looking for openings to really touch the whole nation, not just have a church meeting or a church conference.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:45):
God has given you a powerful revelation about the grace of God. How should God’s grace flavor the message of the evangelist?
Evangelist Peter Youngren (10:58):
Well, I say, I know people say you preach grace. Well, I preach Jesus Christ. Really. I say to people, we don’t preach miracles. We preach Christ, but miracles follow the proclamation of Christ. And so to preach grace is to preach Jesus Christ, who he is, how he reveals God and what Jesus has done, we call it the finished work of the cross, is one theological expression, the finished work of the cross. So we preach Christ and people say that’s a message of grace. And I think that’s true. Jesus Christ is the personification of God’s grace. So that’s very accurate. And my focus there in preaching that is focusing on very Christ-centered. I make that very clear when I train other evangelists, I was training someone and he was preaching and he was telling all the miracle stories. So it is good to tell the stories of what God has done in other cities, but don’t build your whole sermon on those stories. Preach Jesus Christ and let the miracles fall of the proclamation of the gospel. And in some parts of the world, I don’t need to tell you, but maybe your listeners don’t realize how much they talk about miracles, miracles, miracles all the time. So I want to really make a distinction. We don’t preach miracles. We preach Jesus Christ and miracles follow.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:26):
So what does it sound like to preach Jesus?
Evangelist Peter Youngren (12:30):
Well, I published a book called You are There where I published eight of my most favorite sermons that I preached. And so I usually start the first night and I receive this I think with the watching TL Osborne, I preached Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today and forever because I find that message introduces the city to the concept that we expect to happen today. What happened 2000 years ago. So that’s the first installment of my series of sermons in the festival. I want to introduce the people to Jesus Christ today, not just Jesus of history, not Jesus of the future in heaven, but Jesus today, I say, if you are sick today, it’s wonderful to know that he healed people 2000 years ago. It’s wonderful to know you’re going to be in heaven one day, but if you have cancer right now, you need to know that Jesus Christ is today. So I see my producer brought me this book. You Are There is the book that I published with about eight messages. I give it to future evangelists. I said, listen, these eight messages, some of them I got on my own. Some of them I probably got from listening to somebody. I can’t remember after 50 years I got them. But I tweaked them and I said, take these sermons, preach them. They will work for you. So I have different questions.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:57):
Well, I know I’ve preached a few of your sermons, so thank you for lending those to me.
Evangelist Peter Youngren (14:03):
Well, I probably received them from others. And so our message, people say, well, what do you preach in different countries? What do you preach to Buddhist? What do you preach? I preach Jesus Christ. It’s not that complicated really. You don’t have to adapt your message and make some fancy new formulation. People all over the world understand sin, shame, guilt, fear, bad karma. These are all negative emotions and beliefs that people have. And Jesus Christ answers all those problems. Guilt, shame, fear, bad karma, whatever you want to call it. Jesus Christ responds to all of that. So if you preach him, you don’t have to worry about, well, what do I say to this group? And what do I say to that group? Now, your illustrations of course adapts to your circumstance, but the central message is the same.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:54):
So you’re launching this global mission center in Kenya where you’re bringing evangelists in from different parts of the world to train them. What are some of the key things that a young evangelist should know before they launch out in their evangelistic ministry? Well,
Evangelist Peter Youngren (15:14):
Our emphasis is on reaching people without Christ. So frankly, some young preachers who start, they have to be stripped of their christianese. They’re so full of
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:26):
Hallelujah
Evangelist Peter Youngren (15:27):
Church language.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:28):
Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
Evangelist Peter Youngren (15:29):
Yeah, so Africa, east Africa won. They’re so full of that that they can’t communicate with someone who is outside their realm. They’re so used to God’s going to send a reliable God’s making a way where there’s no way, and he’s opening the Red Sea. 40 people, Buddhists don’t know what you’re talking about. So we want to help them. And I think that act, chapter 17 to me, is a great teaching chapter for anybody who wants to evangelize outside of the church realm. How Paul, though he initially was grieved by the idolatry of the Athenians, he initially was disturbed, probably felt like rebuking them, like maybe we do. But he somehow simmer down and he didn’t. And instead he commenced them. He says, oh, I see you Athenians. You’re so religious, so you have these altars. See, his approach really teaches us a lot about how to approach people that are not from the church world. So act 70, that’s just one thing. But there are many things that we teach people. I’ve written a whole book about menacing to Muslims, how to present Christ to Muslims. That’s the answer for everybody.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:52):
Yeah. I have a copy of your book here, my Muslim friend, which I have read through many times. I also have your book Triumph on the Enemy’s Turf, which tells about some of the early victories over in the former Soviet Union. I mean, you’ve been doing evangelism for a long time. What are some of the greatest memories and greatest victories that you’ve experienced? And then what are some of the greatest challenges that you’ve faced in ministry?
Evangelist Peter Youngren (17:24):
Although that’s very nice, you obviously are in this work yourself. That’s why you ask us good questions, Daniel. But to me, not to another person name is, oh, I saw this person who was paralyzed in a wheelchair or carry it in. That will be the greatest thing. And that is a great thing. I’m not taken away from that. But to me, our greatest victories have been on the occasions where we have gone to a, not just where they haven’t had a festival or a crusade before, but where there are so few Christians that you really couldn’t do it. And we have seen a great breakthrough in a place like that that I consider the highlights where we were allowed to go in somehow got the permit because you always got to work with the politicians and the police to get the permit. And we’re able to do that.
(18:13):
And with our friendship approach, we kind of paved the way for any future resistance. For example, in the Muslim community, by the third, fourth night of the festival, when there are Muslims coming up, Mr. Muhammad is on the stage saying, Jesus has opened the blind eyes of my daughter here, and it can cause quite a ruckus in the community. So if I’ve already taken the leaders to dinner, I’ve already spoken with them, it gives me that opening. So I consider the greatest, I’m thinking of Kuta Pakistan, which is right on the border of Afghanistan where we had an enormous campaign and several like that in Burma. Some places where the total number of Christians, if you count every Anglican, every Catholic in these big cities will be three, 400. And where we see tens of thousands of people come, that got considered great. Now, the greatest challenges have been when we, for some reason, maybe it was a time limitation or whatever limitation, we didn’t maybe communicate adequately with people about the religions.
(19:18):
So we’ve been stopped, like I was in one city in Indonesia. We had, according to the chief of believe, 14 death threats against me personally. I have no way to verify. He was showing them to me, but they were in the Indonesian language. It was a here, 1, 2, 3, 4. That’s why I know it was 14 because he counted them out for me. And of course then they say, we have to cancel your permit for your own safety. And it’s very hard to argue with that because I’m saying I’m willing to go, you don’t have to cancel it for me.
(19:51):
You don’t know whether they’re playing a game with you or whether in that case it probably was actual threats, some of those things. Because I hate to waste the partner’s money. So we have already advertised, we have the stadium, we have the printing. We’ve already spent a lot of money as you know, spend that upfront. And so then suddenly you are faced with these kind of challenges. I find that very frustrating. But my partners, I mean this happens rarely. And our partners have been very understanding. I try to tell ’em the truth. Listen, in our kind of work one time Paul had to escape over the wall and a ladder. So it’s not a defeat just because we have to chased out of town, which happens rarely. But it does happen maybe once every five, six years. So our partners have been very good in understanding on the risk with the work that we,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:48):
Amen. Well, if someone is listening and they want to partner with your ministry, or if someone maybe wants to attend your school of evangelism in Kenya, how can they find out more information about you? What’s your website?
Evangelist Peter Youngren (21:06):
Our website, like everyone peter youngin.org, and there’s phone numbers there that takes some people to what we call the Grace Prayer Center. But this information there, including what we call the Global Evangelism Institute, just to paint a picture of that, we have purchased a very nice facility. There’s even a nice swimming pool there, but I don’t promote that a lot. It just came with the property already. And our Bible school assessment, there’s students from all over East Africa, they’re already, they’re studying a two year program. So when we invite people international to come, they come for eight weeks of studies where we give some very key courses for evangelists and they study some of them side by side with the African students and some will be separate. And then at the end of that, we’re saying if you want to test your own wings, so to speak, you say, I feel a call of God.
(22:00):
We will set you up, we will help you. We’ll facilitate you with a pastor or a group of pastors to have an outreach campaign and connection with a local church. And we’re not going to send them out in the booty, so to speak, and they can test it. I’m a firm believer that theory is very good, seminars are good, but when somebody experiences Jesus Christ working through their eyes, their hands touching people and they see a miracle that changes a life. Many people come with me and 20 years later I meet them and I say, now, when you were with me in such and such situation, what do you remember? Or they say, I remember the time when you sent us out on some street evangelism and this mother brought her the death boy and I prayed. And Jesus healed the, that’s what they remember the most. They don’t remember all the Americans in our meeting. And that’s okay. They remember Jesus working with them. That’s the experience I want to give to people.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:07):
Well, one of my memories from Goma was we got to go to a Pygmy village. I think you and I went and minister to the Pygmies, gave them some food to be a blessing to them because they’re very hunted there and you preach Jesus to the pygmies. I remember it was a very short sermon, which is appropriate for Pygmies, but it was a great experience, something they should
Evangelist Peter Youngren (23:34):
Explain to you, the audience that Pygmys are kind of short people. So I remember that very well because there was a very, their plight, I remembered well, they were poor people, very poor and suffered a lot. Of course within their culture there’s racism in every culture and the pygmies are kind of looked down upon, and I always like to root for the underdog. So I’m glad we could maybe be a little small blessing to them in some way that day.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:07):
Yeah. Well, pastor Peter, I honor you for your many years of dedication, serving Jesus and proclaiming Jesus to on save people around the world. What a great impact your ministry has had in so many lives. And I want to thank you again for giving me your great staff member, Jessica, she has become a great wife, and you actually performed our wedding ceremony. And so we have many wonderful memories. Jessica really greatly enjoyed her time working with your ministry and you’ve had a big impact on our lives, and I’m very grateful for you. So thank you.
Evangelist Peter Youngren (24:49):
Well, let me just respond by saying that Jessica was a great blessing. She was a general, I mean, when she took charge of something, she took charge of it. I’m sure you ever seen much blessing in many ways from her, but also in that area. And so she is, I always think very fondly about what a blessing she was. And then I want to say I rejoice, Danny, when I see you post something on Facebook someplace in the world where you are, it brings great joy to my heart. So God bless you and thank you for this opportunity to share with your listeners.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:24):
Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Evangelist Peter Youngren (25:26):
Thank you, brother.
Evangelist Chance Walters joins Daniel King on the Evangelism Podcast to discuss his passion for sharing the gospel. Walters shares that his passion for evangelism came from his own salvation experience and serving with Teen Challenge. He has been involved in various types of evangelism, including street preaching, door-to-door evangelism, and school assemblies. Walters also discusses his experiences in Pakistan, where he has witnessed God pouring out His Spirit.
Learn more about Chance Walters: https://chancewalters.org/
Check out the EMT (Evangelist Missionary Training) School: https://chancewalters.org/emt/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me. Chance Walters. Thank you so much for joining me.
Evangelist Chance Walters (00:10):
Thanks Daniel. It’s my joy. We
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:12):
Are together at a conference in Indonesia where we’re talking about reaching everyone on earth with the gospel of Jesus Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit. And you have been an evangelist for many years. You’re passionate about reaching people for Jesus. Tell me a little bit about where that passion came from. How did you get started telling people about Jesus?
Evangelist Chance Walters (00:37):
Well, Daniel, that’s a great question. I was in jail. I was 23, my fourth DUI didn’t have anywhere to go, and I stepped into Sandhills Teen Challenge on April the 29th. I went to sleep and I woke up. I walked into a chapel service and I got saved. I was raised in church. I tell people the best drug, the best drug I’ve ever done is my parents drug me to church. And so I was kind of born you to church. Yeah, I was born and raised in church, but I wasn’t looking for God, but God was looking for me. And at 23 years old, I encountered the love of Jesus and the largest, most successful faith-based recovery home in the world. I had never heard of Teen Challenge, but there’s Teen Challenge centers all over the world. But they were there when I needed them the most, and I got saved.
(01:35):
I tell people I made a commitment. I made a commitment to graduate that program, and a year later I felt called into ministry. I love to say somebody helped me and now I want to help you. I want to help the next person. But I got saved and my spiritual father was an evangelist and I served him. I was in the program for a year, but then I stayed on staff and I served him for three years. I signed up for a six month internship and it turned into three years and traveling church to church, school to school, doing school assembly, sharing my testimony. It got in my DNA and I just love to see people get saved. There’s no greater thing to live for, I don’t think.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:25):
Amen. It’s always exciting to see someone give their life to Jesus. So tell me a little bit of some of the different types of ministry that you’ve been involved in. What type of evangelism? I mean, there’s many different types. Some people go out on the street and preach, some people are going door to door, some people are preaching big crusades. What types of evangelism have you done over the years?
Evangelist Chance Walters (02:47):
Well, I love my journey because people ask me, chance, who are you? What do you do? They want to put a label on you and me. I’m like a denominational mutt. I was born Baptist, if you will. I went to Teen Challenges and Assembly of God affiliated program. Then I went to Lee University, the Bible School, which is Church of God. So I’ve just kind of bounced around, but I just love the global church and I’ve been able to serve in different capacities. Before we started our nonprofit, before we launched our evangelistic ministry, I served on staff at a local church as youth pastor and associate pastor. And so looking back, I’m so glad that I had these stepping stones, if you will. So I have a greater perspective of the church and a deeper respect for people and their positions. And so I’ve been a part of all different types, as you say, of evangelism. For me, it all started in a nursing home and I was in Bible school. I would go to a nursing home and preach on Sunday mornings at 8:00 AM and I’d just be laying hands on everybody, but it was my Jerusalem. It just kind of started at home and sharing my faith with my family. I’ve watched my whole family tree get saved. I’ve watched so many of my old friends that I usually get high with. They got saved. And so it’s just been this journey of just growing in my faith.
(04:27):
And so I don’t think it’s everything. I don’t think there’s one answer. I think it’s just starting where you are. And I love the tagline of the conference that we’re at right now. Reaching everyone requires everyone, and
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:42):
Amen. You’re good friends with Teron Anaya, who is also a friend of mine working in the nation of Pakistan. I’ve been there several times to Pakistan with Tamran. You’ve been there several times with Tamran and the United Family, have been dear friends for many years. Love him. In fact, I’ve interviewed Tamran on the Evangelism podcast. So if you’re interested, go back and find his episode and if you want to hear about what God’s doing in Pakistan, but tell me some of what you’ve seen God do when you’ve gone to Pakistan.
Evangelist Chance Walters (05:14):
Well, God is pouring out his spirit in Asia. We’re in Asia right now. I think we heard last night 65% of the world’s population is right here in Asia and God’s doing something. I minister all over America. I’ve been to 49 states. I’m missing North Dakota.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:34):
You got to go there. There’s got to be someone in North Dakota that needs Jesus.
Evangelist Chance Walters (05:38):
Amen. And I’ve been to 36, 37 nations, but probably my favorite place to go is Pakistan because people are hungry for the gospel. Mass crowds coming to experience miracles, always say, Muslims are my special guests. I mean, they come to pray and they come for healing and God meets them right where they are. When Tamron opened the door for us to go to Pakistan, we’ve hosted Crusades and a lot of different places. But when Tamron and I met, sparks began to fly. He had been praying for eight years. God sent me back to Pakistan and we met. He lives about 20 minutes from me, and it’s just been a great experience to see what God is doing in that nation. But we’re in Indonesia right now, the largest Muslim nation in the world, but Pakistan is the second largest Muslim nation in the world. And we have to believe Daniel, that God’s raising up evangelists and missionaries in Pakistan to send them into the Middle East. I believe that. Amen. Yeah. This something is about to spark in the Middle East and we’re going to see this billion soul harvest that everybody’s talking about. It’s got to happen there. So that’s where most of the people live. And so now
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:05):
You just recently did a crusade with my friend Alejandro Hondo Arias, who I met in Costa Rica at a TL Osborne Crusade. He was probably about 12 years old at the time, known as a boy preacher of Costa Rica, but now he’s a great evangelist. And Alejandro set up crusades in about 20 different countries this year at Pentecost. And you did one crusade in Dominican Republic, the city of San Francisco. What did you see God do in Dominican?
Evangelist Chance Walters (07:38):
Well, I believe that the key to the Great final Harvest is unity is the missing link. If we would all come together for the sake of the gospel, there’s nothing that we could not accomplish as the church. And I love the initiative that they launched this year as the P 24 initiative. Their goal was 10 countries, 10 crusades with collaborating with 10 different ministries, reaching a hundred thousand souls. And I think they came close to their goal.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:14):
Okay. Maybe I misspoke. Spoke about 20, but 10 is great. Okay.
Evangelist Chance Walters (08:18):
I’m sorry.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:18):
No, it’s good.
Evangelist Chance Walters (08:19):
I like
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:20):
What a blessing evangelists, but I was just talking to Werner Al with the Go Movement, and I think this year they want to expand from the time of Easter into Pentecost This year they want to expand and do more countries. So I think that’s what I was thinking of.
Evangelist Chance Walters (08:39):
You’re right.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:41):
But you’ve also done stuff down in Brazil, lots of different places. Give me some testimonies, some pop testimonies from different parts of the world.
Evangelist Chance Walters (08:49):
I know I’ll give you a testimony from our most recent gospel crusade in Pakistan. My definition of revival is when God comes down
(09:07):
And when God comes down, there’s nothing that’s impossible. And we’ve just seen so many miracles, David, Daniel. People ask me all the time, why doesn’t God do miracles in America? And God does do miracles in America for those who believe. And it’s the same God. He’s the same Yesterday, today, forevermore and miracles. Matter of fact, if you’ve never seen a miracle, I tell people to go look in the mirror because you are a miracle. And the greatest miracle is salvation. And it seems that we’re living in the greatest harvest in the history of the world. Many times we get stuck and we can’t see the forest because of the trees. We’re just so busy in our own little routines. But when you look at what God is doing on a global scale, and I think that’s what we do as evangelists, is we get to see what God’s doing across the board. And we’ve just seen so many miracles. I mean, the blind eyes open, the deaf they hear. I think we’ve seen more demons manifest here recently. That’s what I wanted to say in the most recent Pakistan crusade. It just seems that when God comes down, that I think the devil knows his time is short, and he’s doing all that he can to deceive us, but we know the truth.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:45):
Amen.
Evangelist Chance Walters (10:46):
Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:47):
So if someone’s listening and they want to find out more about your ministry or maybe even support you and help send you to the nations, what is your website that they can find out more information about you?
Evangelist Chance Walters (10:57):
Just real simple. Chance walters.com. And we have a podcast that’s called On the Revival Road. It’s kind of our tagline, where in the world are the Walters is. And so we’re on the Revival Road, and that’s our podcast. You can check it out. And we have an email blast. If you go to our website, you can put in your email. And we send out email every Wednesday with just an update of where we’re at and what God’s doing. Very
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:25):
Cool. And you also have a training program for evangelists. Tell me about that.
Evangelist Chance Walters (11:32):
We do. It is called the EMT School. God spoke to me back in 2020 and all the churches closed. We were seeing so many people get saved. I mean, for the evangelists, it was the heyday. I mean, the world was just perturbed and we were preaching, and so many people were getting saved and with the Holy Spirit. And I prayed, God, what do we do with all these people? Because my schedule, everything was canceled, all my trips. So I was at home and we were ministering locally, and we saw so many people give their life to Jesus that I was praying, God, how can we disciple these people? And he spoke to me and he said, I want you to start the Evangelist Missionary Training School. And so that’s what we did. It’s nothing new.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:18):
I like the name EMT, evangelist Missionary Training. What a great blessing.
Evangelist Chance Walters (12:22):
Yeah. When somebody’s in trouble, who do they call? E-M-T-E-M-T, they show up on the scene. And so it’s been fun. It’s a three month school to help you become more confident in sharing your faith. Just real simple. All that’s on our website.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:38):
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast. I love hearing your story and just love your heart for Jesus. It’s awesome.
Evangelist Chance Walters (12:45):
Thanks Daniel. You too. I love to see what God’s doing through your ministry. And you don’t know this, but I’ve listened to a lot of your podcasts episodes. Oh,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:53):
Really? Wow. That’s
Evangelist Chance Walters (12:54):
Great. So if you’re listening today, share this. Be an evangelist and share this podcast.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:01):
God bless you.
Evangelist Chance Walters (13:02):
Amen.
In this episode of The Evangelism Podcast, Evangelist Daniel King interviews Tim Hall, an evangelist from Australia. Tim shares how he got started as an evangelist and the challenges he faced along the way. He emphasizes the importance of trusting God for finances and not waiting until you have the money to book a crusade. Tim also talks about his recent trip to the Solomon Islands and the amazing things God did there. They discuss the potential for evangelism in Thailand and the need to make every second count for God.
Visit Tim Hall’s website: https://www.timhall.com.au/
Transcript:
Evangelist Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today. I’m with a very special friend, Tim Hall, great evangelist from Australia.
Evangelist TIm Hall (00:10):
Great to be on your podcast, Daniel.
Evangelist Daniel King (00:13):
So brother Tim, tell us how did you get started as an evangelist?
Evangelist TIm Hall (00:20):
Right from the word go. I saw the power of God and I met a guy that was, I don’t know how he was going. He was full on for God. He gave me some books on prayer and fasting by a guy called Franklin Hall. And I read about fireballs coming into rooms and lightning flashing out of these things and all these manifestations. And I went to a couple of meetings and I saw demons coming out and bodies going everywhere. And I went and I was an artist. See, I was a bit of a crazy artist and a mad drinker and I thought, oh, I want to be in this stuff. Some people get nervous to have manifestations of God in their church. I just saw it and I went, oh wow. This is what I want. I want to see this stuff and I want to carry this stuff. I want to be in the thick of it, right from the word go. So I met this camel guy called Camel, and we started fasting two days a week.
Evangelist Daniel King (01:19):
You said, I met a camel. I was like, I thought you were going to say you met your wife,
Evangelist TIm Hall (01:23):
An Indonesian guy called Camel. Okay. And he was into fasting and prayer. So we would fast two days a week and on Saturday we’d pick up hitchhiker. That’s how I started picking up hitchhikers. We picked up weirdos, we picked up strange people and probably risky, but every Saturday picking up hitchhikers, that’s how it started. And I was a high school teacher and I just wanted God. And so I’d go down the river, walk along the river, and I would fast two, three days a week and most weeks, two or three days. And I’d walk down the river every night for four or five hours, walk up and down the river crying out. The guy didn’t know what I, I’d have demons attack me. I would tell ’em where to get off in old language and I didn’t really know quite how to deal with them.
(02:11):
So I used language that I’d used really before I’d. I was slowly being sanctified and I’d walk around and there’s demonic powers and I’m fighting through stuff and life just was this crazy adventure. And then all these kids at school started getting saved. And then I went to these fast seeking God. And anyway, I was really saying, God, I want to go to Bible college. But the Lord kept saying, no, I want you here. I want you to do something. So I’ve been seeking God really diligently and I was at my parents’ place and I saw this half house and it had archways three archways. It had hangers for clothes down the side. And I saw it exactly, and I was sitting in the chair looking, I’m going, what is this? It was my first ever vision. And the Lord said, that’s your house. I was living in that in a week 17 Stewart Street. And so God said, get these people together. I want you to start having meetings in the house. And so I said, well, what will I do? He said, just go and find people. I’ll bring people your way. So I was just witnessing and sharing. And we finished up with about a dozen people and I got ’em in for a meeting and we had this meeting in the house. And at the end of it I said, look, maybe 14 people, something like that. I said, stand up. I think God wants to do something. And the Lord said, ask me to come. I said, Lord Jesus, would you come in the house with that, the window, God hit everybody. The whole lot got poleaxed. The bloke knocked on the door, what’s happening in the house and came in and down. He went under the power of God. And the next couple of weeks, I think 13 members of his family got saved. And the next thing we got a church going, packing the lounge room out. I didn’t know what I was preaching. I’d open up the Bible, I’d go and fast and pray and go down the river and cry out to God for something. People would all fall over, we’d preach heresy, then they’d all fall over. And that was the start.
(04:26):
And that went on for a while. And then I’d go up to the church in Andrew Evans church up at the weekend. I’d take car loads, we’d take five, six car loads. We’d have meetings in the house Friday night. And then we’d go with this parade of cars, 50 Ks to 50 Ks to Adelaide and 80 Ks up there, 50 miles, whatever it is. And so we do that. And then a guy wanted to come and join me, rang me up. He said, I’d love to come and help you there. I’ve just come out of Bible college. I said, you come and run it. I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing. He said, no, you run it. So he came. He needed a house. It’s a long story, but we needed it on a Saturday. And a lady moved out of this property across the road that had big sheds in it. They moved in, she moved out and they moved in. And it was a place where aboriginal ministry had happened. And any rate, we did up all the sheds there and started a church. So I’m only saved 18 months, something like that
Evangelist Daniel King (05:39):
Already pastoring,
Evangelist TIm Hall (05:41):
Pastoring, but not knowing what I was doing plenty
Evangelist Daniel King (05:44):
Of. At what point did you figure out what you were doing? Have you figured it out yet or are you
Evangelist TIm Hall (05:48):
Still I’m still a bit the same and I’m still sort of chasing my tail a bit at 75, but it went really well. Then I got invited to go to a church as a outreach pastor, and that went all right for a while and then it just didn’t work out. And I went tiling roofs and pulled out of everything, got out of teaching and just tiling roofs. And Andrew Evans came to me at the biggest Pentecostal church in Australia and he said, Tim, he said, that’s Russell Evan’s father. He said, Tim, would you consider being my youth pastor? And I said, I would love to. And the Lord said, don’t do it until you’ve been away with me. So I took a bus up to a place called Lee Creek right up in the outback, got a lot in a light plane. I got them to drop me off.
(06:46):
And I stayed out in the bush for up in the mountains for 20 odd days just on my own out there seeking God and just really going after the things of God and came back. First meeting, God just poured his spirit out and the kids were screaming and deliverance and everywhere you walk, people were just going under the power. And the youth group exploded in 12 months from 70 to maybe three or 400, which was a huge youth group then. And that took off. And we did that for a few years. And then I went back to my hometown. God spoke to me to go back to my hometown and started meetings there. First meeting 160 in the church. And from there, just a lot of fasting and prayer. And I wanted to go on the road as an evangelist and this church kept inviting me and I said, no, I’m an evangelist.
(07:51):
I don’t really want a pastor. And God said, have you sought me about this? I said, no. And I went up to the mountains, fasted and prayed for a couple of weeks. And while I was up there, God said, I want you to take that church. That thing went berserk in 18 months from 70 to 700 and doors just started opening now and they’ve already been opening to go and preach everywhere. And now we were all over preaching. And then it was opening up into New Guinea and healing began to really flow. And once the miracles were happening and we started to see really significant miracles. And in many ways I feel like it was a little early for me to quite cope with, but it’s almost like you seek the gifts before you really got the character to handle it. And so when the doors were open, you start praying for the sick and seeing miracles and up into New Guinea and things went off there and it grew from there and it’s just kept growing.
(08:58):
And then you’re daring and you’re growing and you’re believing and fasting and praying, you still seek the Lord the same as you did. You still want the power of God. You try and stay as fresh as you can and you just watch it grow. And I think your faith grows and your daring grows to believe and your capacity to be for money just keeps growing. And where you could hardly scratch yourself to put a crusade together, now you start to have the confidence to do big crusades and bigger and take big stadiums and book ’em before you got the money.
Evangelist Daniel King (09:35):
Now how many crusades have you done in Papua New Guinea now?
Evangelist TIm Hall (09:40):
Minimum 50. Wow. We’ve had the national stadium seven times. We’ve had some great crowds up there. Crowds 80, 80,000, 60,000, 50 here. Some of the regions, 50 plus thousand, seen the dead raised up there, seen every miracle up there. And that’s been my happy hunting ground. But the whole South Pacific has been the passion. All the islands, there’s just something about the South Pacific. The first place I ever did a crusade was Guadalcanal in the Solomons. And we’ve just been back there. Guadalcanal was really a great place. And we went in there, started with a thousand, 2000 people. And after five days the stadium was just jammed to the doors. The power of God, cripples, getting healed, people getting off beds, sticks and stuff that you dreamed about. So it’s been progressive, it’s had its ups and downs. I’ve been through deep valleys. The mountains have been wonderful. The valleys have been pretty awful. But you keep growing. You just grow into it, I think. And many highlights.
Evangelist Daniel King (11:02):
So I’m still a young evangelist. In comparison to you, what advice would you give to younger evangelists?
Evangelist TIm Hall (11:12):
Stay very hungry in the spirit. If you want to go long term,
(11:20):
Keep your prayer life strong. Keep your word life strong, stay in the word. Don’t depend on yesterday’s anointing. Don’t run. I mean we’ve all got key messages. You’ve got your best ones, I’ve got my best ones. And they work wherever you go. But keep building. Keep building the word, keep feeding, keep developing messages you’ve got and keep in that place where you’re staying in that place of intimacy with him because it’s very easy to get too busy and run a little bit on yesterday’s manner. And then you get weary and then the joy goes out of it. When you’re weary and you’re pushing and you’re running on yesterday’s manner, which you’ve all done at times, the joy goes out of it. When the joy goes out of it, you better not in it. And so stay as fresh as you can, develop your prayer life.
(12:21):
And I suggest that every evangelist should at least once a year go away into a place for a few weeks, get away from everybody. I go up in the mountains, I’ve got places I go and go out there in the mountains and wait on God and hunger for God and don’t seek the gifts, just seek him and walk with him. And I find more and more that when I get out there now, it’s not about gifts or power or demonstration of the spirit, it’s about just love relationship. And I think if we can keep that love relationship sweet and strong and consistent, we can do this thing. And don’t get carried away with yourself. Don’t let your ego run ahead.
(13:15):
Don’t let success go to your head. Let success and failure deal with ’em both the same and with people. Stay humble, walk humbly. Keep a humble attitude. Always treat everybody like they’re more important than yourself when you meet people. Don’t be the person wanting to as an evangelist. Most evangelists try to. There’s a lot of competition in evangelism. I think if we can avoid that and work together, which is something I love with what we’re doing, walk humbly preferring one another, not wanting to be the be the kingpin of evangelism. I think we get that knocked out of us. We all want that at some stage. We all want to be the Rhine heart or we all want to be at some stage. But I think just all of us working together, keeping a loving attitude and helping each other and staying close with the Lord, walking with him and also knowing when to take a break and guarding your family.
(14:34):
When your wife starts to show signs of that she’s had enough of everything that’s going on, give us some time and take time, take weeks. And that’s hard because we’ve got to keep the finances rolling. We’ve got to keep everything but trust God too for finances. Don’t feel you’ve got to be out every weekend laboring and working to make money. Dare to believe God that money will come in from many sources and supernaturally and that comes be a giver, be a sower and dare to believe that the financial thing that God will supply. God spoke to me at one stage about the little woman with the bowls of oil and he said, you organize the bowls like stadiums. I’ll bring the oil, the finance and the power. Don’t wait until you’ve got the money to book the crusade. Book the crusade and then watch God bring the money, which is often,
Evangelist Daniel King (15:42):
It’s a little scary sometimes. But faith building,
Evangelist TIm Hall (15:46):
You’ve been there many times when you know that you’ve got a week to find 75 grand or something like that or more. And you are looking at your accounts and you begin to say, Lord, it looks like you’ve got another opportunity to come at five to 12. And I mean we are talking the same subject. We know and I mean, you know what I’m talking about, but that financial thing you’ll learn to trust. And when it’s not happening, don’t get despondent. Don’t let yourself get down. Just trust him. His provision. If he’s organizing what we’re doing, he’ll provide. And just that, I think if ever I’ve had a point where I don’t worry about the account the last couple of years, up until then, I think I was always a bit anxious. He kept us through the whole of the lockdowns in Melbourne and I was able to finance other ministries right through that time. And I was amazed. I said, God, I dunno how we did that. And the last few years, God’s provision has just gone to another level. But it grows, doesn’t it? You watch it grow. And where you used to panic, get really nervous, beating your head against the wall wondering, how’s this going to happen? You settle back and then you go, Lord, you’re unbelievable. And it’s a rest. We’ve entered a rest even though it’s hectic.
(17:35):
That’s a long way around that question.
Evangelist Daniel King (17:37):
Some great wisdom there. You just returned from the Solomon Islands. We did. I saw some amazing pictures of what God did there. Tell me a little bit about what happened just a few days ago.
Evangelist TIm Hall (17:51):
Yeah, the Solomons, I love the Solomons for an American Guadalcanal is so significant. It’s so significant because it was a beachhead in World War ii. You had Rebel, which was a magnificent naval base that the Japanese had set up and they were aiming to set up a big airstrip that would’ve given ’em control. They probably could have taken Australia with that. New Zealand, Australia, it’s a very strategic area, certainly China are looking at it very seriously, that region. And we had the door open to go back and I feel like God’s bringing me right back in circles of places I’ve been. So had a friend in there and we were setting it up before Covid. I was hoping it would be a bigger crusade. It wasn’t massive. The biggest I’ve done there is probably the stadium was full. We didn’t even have room for an Alta, the first one, this is my fourth there. I worked with a guy who set everything up, did a very, very good job. And I financed him to go in, set it up, get around the key people, and it was very anointed. We had a great team on the ground and tremendous miracles.
(19:20):
A lot of deaf mutes. In fact, we were over on Gizo, which is the island where John F. Kennedy was. And it was a little bit, sometimes deaf ears are hard. You’ve probably had nights where you’re really taking authority to bust deaf ears. It was very simple. It was just one after another, deaf after deaf. And the miracles over on Gizo Island, which just one after another. It was the easiest flow of miracles I’ve been in for a long time. I thought, God, is this where it’s going? There was no struggle. Everything we touched was getting healed. And so I guess over the course of the time we had on Gizo, which is a population 10,000, I dunno how many it reached on the last night I flew here, but I’d say it had to have been over half the island or more. And I would estimate that we probably had half the island come to Christ. So it’s not a massive crusade. 5,000, that one. The first one was about 12 or 14 and we were probably seeing three or 4,000 a night getting saved and tremendous healings. It was just the South Pacific is, you haven’t been down there yet, but it’s just beautiful, the weather.
Evangelist Daniel King (20:35):
My wife lived in Papua New Guinea for a whole year as a missionary and loved it. Loved the people. They’re beautiful people. And so I’ve had a great desire to come. And actually other day we were talking, he said, Daniel, you got to come to the South Pacific. And so I’m praying that God will make that happen.
Evangelist TIm Hall (20:52):
We need to do something. I would like next year to take the, I had talk with Daniel Calender about, we talked the possibility, I dunno if that’s going to eventuate or not, but I’m talking to maybe Daniel, maybe C fan coming in. That would be great. And it’d be good to take some of the regions and get some of the guys from here. We’ve just got to know it’s ready and we’ve got to do a bit more research. It’s just opening up. But I’d love to have you come in and some of the other guys that
Evangelist Daniel King (21:27):
I’ve talked to, yeah, there’s some great C fan evangelists that have gone through the Evangelism Bootcamp that are from Australia. My friend Andrew Scarborough is coming
Evangelist TIm Hall (21:38):
To the conference tomorrow. Andrew contacted me tonight. Yeah, he’s is a wonderful guy. You know him. Yeah,
Evangelist Daniel King (21:44):
He was one of my students at C Fan
Evangelist TIm Hall (21:47):
Andrew. Andrew is.
Evangelist Daniel King (21:49):
And so I think we could put together a good team to bring in some good evangelists and
Evangelist TIm Hall (21:55):
Well, we will have a think about it. We are going back and we’re going to chew on a few things for next year. There’s a lot happening, isn’t there? Yeah, there’s a lot going on. Are you looking at Thailand?
Evangelist Daniel King (22:08):
Yeah. So we’re here at this Everyone conference where we’re talking about reaching everyone on earth with the gospel before 2033, the 2000 year anniversary of the Great Commission being given by Jesus and the first day of Pentecost. And so our movement has adopted Thailand as the next country we want to target. And I’ve been in meetings all day to day just talking to different people that have influence there and have done things there. And I think there’s great potential.
Evangelist TIm Hall (22:43):
Did you see the stuff with that village? With all the baptisms
Evangelist Daniel King (22:50):
That made me cry? I mean, we saw a video of a village in Thailand that had over 1200 baptisms of people that gave their life
Evangelist TIm Hall (22:58):
To do. Didn’t they take two days or something to baptize them?
Evangelist Daniel King (23:01):
That’s a lot of baptism.
Evangelist TIm Hall (23:02):
They just kept coming.
(23:04):
And that’s a village can imagine. When I remember yesterday we talked, I think it was yesterday or the day before, whatever it was. And I felt God speak to me and say, you don’t have to work out how we’re going to take this percentage of the population light. The fire fire’s got its own mind. And if you looked at those people being baptized, a fire just broke out there. And all it takes is Australia, we have bush fires and they can start real easy, but all of a sudden you’ve got a wall of fire, a hundred feet high on a 200 mile front, 200 miles moving at 50 or 60 miles an hour with fireballs going ahead of it, consuming everything a devouring fire. And Zechariah 12 verse six says, in that day, I will make the clans of praise or the governors of Judah, like a shovel of white hot coals cast into the dry sticks. And I feel as though the dry sticks are everywhere now waiting for us to just go and light fires and
Evangelist Daniel King (24:22):
Well, the harvest is ripe.
Evangelist TIm Hall (24:24):
It is.
Evangelist Daniel King (24:24):
It’s time to go after the harvest. Jesus is coming soon. We need to make every second count for God
Evangelist TIm Hall (24:30):
Very soon. I love what you do. I feel like we’re just getting to know each other, Daniel, and I love the way you get into it. You just quietly get the job done. And I’m a fan of you. Well, thank you. I’m a real fan of the way you go about things and just to share on your podcast. Pretty nice. And I thank you for that opportunity.
Evangelist Daniel King (24:55):
Well, thank you. Alright, let’s finish up by, if someone wants to find out more about your ministry or even support one of your crusades, what’s your website? How can people find
Evangelist TIm Hall (25:06):
You? Just www.timhallwhatever.com.
Evangelist Daniel King (25:12):
Tim, search for Tim Hall.
Evangelist TIm Hall (25:14):
Tim, just Google Tim Hall Ministries. You’ll find it.
Evangelist Daniel King (25:17):
Yeah. And you’ve got some great resources on there. I know you have some great books you’ve
Evangelist TIm Hall (25:21):
Written. I’ve just written another book. Okay. I’ve written four books. I’ve written one on the first 40 years. Giant Killers is probably the one that sold the most, and Armed and Dangerous a whole opening up of Ephesians. And I did a kid’s book, which is a crazy kid’s book, which is pretty funny. And it’s all alliteration with moan cartoons. And it was really for moan grandkids. But it’s gone everywhere. And I’ve just written one on the book of Daniel.
Evangelist Daniel King (25:54):
I need to read that. Daniel’s always been one of my favorite Bible characters.
Evangelist TIm Hall (25:56):
I’ll send it to you. I’ve done everything. All the illustrations are done with ai. And I really believe that. Somebody said, what does your eschatology do to your missiology? And for me, my eschatology tells me Jesus is so close and that drives my missiology to run. I’ve never run.
Evangelist Daniel King (26:20):
Amen.
Evangelist TIm Hall (26:20):
And that book is geared to giving people something that’ll answer the questions that people ask. So I’ll send you some.
Evangelist Daniel King (26:28):
Thank you. Well, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Evangelist TIm Hall (26:32):
Absolute pleasure. I hope it was okay. God bless you, everybody.
Gola Tiruneh shares his journey from being born in Ethiopia to becoming a Canadian citizen and eventually settling in Indonesia. He discusses how he felt called to do missions work in Indonesia, despite initial hesitation from his family. Gola and his wife Esther have been involved in various ministries in Indonesia, including conducting crusades and reaching out to unreached tribes. They focus on preaching the simple gospel and praying for miracles to happen, in order to bring awareness of the gospel to different areas. Gola also expresses his desire to train local missionaries and encourage local believers to be evangelists. He mentions the challenges of working with Indonesian believers, who may have fear or hesitation when it comes to evangelism.
Learn more about Gola Tiruneh: https://ggni.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, Gola Tiruneh from Indonesia.
(00:13):
Now, you were actually born in Ethiopia.
(00:16):
That’s right.
(00:17):
And then you came to Canada, became a Canadian citizen at a young age, and now you are living in Indonesia. Tell me about that journey. How’d you end up here?
Gola Tiruneh (00:29):
Well, yes. I was born in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. I left there at a young age. My family has always traveled mainly for my father’s work. And so we ended up in India for a couple of years. It was about 10 years old at the time, and soon after, two years after that, my family decided to move to Canada mainly for education. And I just completed grade eight at the time. And I arrived in Montreal, Canada and had to learn French so I can continue with my grade nine. So I did grade nine in French and grade 10, 11, 12 finished in Ontario. So my family is in Ottawa, the capital of Canada. That’s where I spent most of my time. And
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:32):
Let’s talk about Indonesia. How did you end up coming here to the nation of Indonesia?
Gola Tiruneh (01:39):
Well, it started during my high school years. The Lord started speaking to me through many different ways, through people would point me out of a crowd and start to prophesy over me going to these places, preaching to thousands of people. And that used to scare me actually, when I used to get those kind of words. And then the Lord would speak to me through dreams and visions and I would see myself in front of Asians, people doing ministry. And so it was a process for the Lord to kind of help me along. I did have a desire for missions, but at the same time I also had this fear in me of going so far from family. Indonesia is quite far from Canada. It’s literally the other side of the world. So I remember when I made the decision to go to Indonesia, my family was not for it, majority of my family. And even I was a little bit not sure what was going to happen. I wanted to go to Ethiopia to do missions, but I ended up to Indonesia in 2004 through a Bible school that I went to in Canada, in St. Catherine’s area near Niagara Falls. And ended up here in October, 2004, about 20 years ago now. And within a few months I loved Indonesia. It’s just everything turned out to be totally different than what it was in my mind and ended up staying here and doing.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:27):
Now you met your wife Esther, here in Indonesia. She’s Indonesia. And how long have you been married now? We’ve
Gola Tiruneh (03:34):
Been married for 14 years.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:36):
And your son Benjamin? Yes. Is 10 years old. Is 10
Gola Tiruneh (03:40):
Years old.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:40):
And so how did God bring you and your wife Esther together?
Gola Tiruneh (03:44):
Well, we met in a church, the church that my team was working with when we first came to Indonesia. And she was also involved in her church. She was a full-time ministry in the church. And so we always bumped to each other. And she was also one of the translators for guests that come to speak. So she translated for me a couple of times and that’s how we met. And six years later we got married.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:17):
And tell me a little bit about your wife’s journey. How did she become a believer?
Gola Tiruneh (04:21):
Well, my wife Esther is from a Buddhist background, and she was saved during the Christmas service in her church. Somebody invited her and it was a long process for her also, but she made a decision to be a believer in her teams also during her teams. And then she joined the church. She’s been working in our church since, and that’s what we ended up meeting.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:54):
Indonesia is a very unique nation, 270 million people. It’s the fourth largest nation in the world by population, and it’s the largest Muslim majority nation on earth, even bigger than Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. When people think of Muslim nations, they often think of that part of the world, but Indonesia actually has more Muslims than any other nation. And it’s a nation of islands over 17,000 different islands. That’s right. And so your ministry here, you’ve gone to many different islands to talk about
Gola Tiruneh (05:34):
Jesus. Yes. So we do a few things here in Indonesia. We do crusades, we call ’em festivals, festival of love. And we’ve done those different parts of Indonesia. They’re set up to reach people outside the church in a very friendly way. And we just focus on preaching the gospel very simple and pray for the sick, expect miracles to happen in these events. We have seen wonderful things that God has done, miracles such as deaf ears opening and people that couldn’t walk and being able to walk. And that brings a great awareness of the gospel in an area. And we have had Christians and non-Christians come into our events and to hear the gospel and to experience miracles. So a lot of what I’ve been doing is sowing seeds into areas, unreached areas. I love to go to unreached tribes. That’s another thing that we are doing in Indonesia currently, actually, we’re in the process of researching about 40 unreached tribes. And we are also formulating a strategy through partners to friends here and also overseas to reach these tribes. And so I spend a lot of my time in doing these crusades in villages at small towns and also working with these tribes. We also have a discipleship ministry that we are doing on a weekly basis in our hometown in Sumatra. And also through our pastor seminars, we encourage local believers to go out and evangelize.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:40):
And so this is real cutting edge ministry because you’re going into tribes that may have zero believers in the entire tribe. Exactly. And you are getting to know them, asking questions. It’s actually very valuable research so that people can know where the most need is. Right.
Gola Tiruneh (08:05):
So that’s my hope, number one, to create an awareness about these tribes. Most of them are very small, maybe like a couple of thousand people in a few villages. So they’re kind of hard to reach. Sometimes it takes days and you have to get on a boat and then get on a motorcycle, go trek into the jungle. But it’s the work that needs to be done. And my heart is eventually to train a local missionaries that will go there and be a witness to them in some form. And we are in the process of doing that. And also we hope it will create an awareness so that maybe there will be other people that will send missionaries there eventually, and so that the gospel can reach to each and every person.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:09):
Now in the Bible it says that every tribe and language, every ethnic group will be represented before the throne room in heaven. And so that’s why this type of ministry is so important because if they’re going to be in heaven, they need to hear the gospel. And if we don’t know who has heard the gospel, who hasn’t heard the gospel, we need to ask questions to find out who are the people that we’re missing that we want to take to heaven with us.
Gola Tiruneh (09:44):
That’s true, that’s true. And sometimes you got to go there to see what’s happening, especially these areas where there’s no believers, there’s no churches. Somebody needs to be there and live among the people and have some kind of a gospel representation. You may not be able to preach the gospel right away, but just having someone there will create opportunities for the gospel to be heard of. And my heart is, especially these tribes that are completely a hundred percent nonbelievers, at least we’ll get one or two families and then it will start to kind of snowball from there. And the best thing I have found in my experiences, Indonesians, reaching Indonesians is way more effective than us coming, for example, me coming from Canada. And they know the culture and they also know how to talk to these people. And that’s my heart right now is to raise local people and to motivate local believers to be missionaries.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:09):
And so one of your desires is even to start a training school That’s right. For people that would from Indonesia come to be trained in how to reach different people groups.
Gola Tiruneh (11:20):
Exactly. Yeah. Well, in Indonesia, the work of the evangelist and the missionaries kind of always the last thing on people’s thoughts. Many believers that want to go into ministry want to be pastors, which is great, but it’s mostly done in Christian areas. So there’s a lot of church planting happening, but in Christian areas, and it’s kind of hard for missionaries to go to these places because number one, they don’t know what to do
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:58):
And they stick out.
Gola Tiruneh (11:59):
They stick out. There’s also, of course, the financial thing. So we are trying encourage and motivate people to work in these kind of remote areas. And by God’s grace, we are finding people that have a heart for that. And we are already starting to partner with local people to reach some of these tribes. I’m visiting now.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:25):
Yeah, last night we were eating dinner with a local evangelists, and there was one woman there who said she just came back from a village. She lived there for three days and 35 people. She was having Bible studies with them and very primitive. Then she’s sleeping on the floor and no electricity, no plumbing. So it’s difficult ministry, but it’s extremely valuable
Gola Tiruneh (12:51):
Very much.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:52):
Now, several times you’ve mentioned the gospel preaching the simple gospel, and you’ve seen God work through that. Give me the gospel in a nutshell. What is the gospel that you preach?
Gola Tiruneh (13:07):
Well, the gospel is the good news of what God has done for us through the Lord Jesus Christ. And it’s actually the finished work of what Jesus has accomplished through his death, through his life is death, resurrection. And it is the story of how God redeemed mankind. So it is a simple but powerful story and we just focus in our events to, we don’t so much talk about religious stuff, we don’t compare religions, we don’t do any of that. We just simply speak about what Jesus has done for all people. And we encourage people also to experience this gospel. It’s not gospel of just words, but it’s an action. It’s in power. So I love the book of Acts and some of the things that the disciples did. And so what we try to do is in our events for we help people to experience how good God is through miracles.
(14:21):
And so there’s a scripture that says, come taste and see how good the Lord is. So let people have a taste of how good our God is and what he has done for us and how powerful it is. And especially, we always have miracle testimonies that we try to bring up interview people during our events and so that people will see that God is actually doing something. This is not just a story from 2000 years back, but this is happening now. And that brings an impact to the village or a small town or even the churches in that area. It would encourage them to believe and to continue to do the work that way.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:12):
So right now we are in the city of Kupong, and tonight the gospel festival begins. We went by to look at it last night, and it’s this beautiful plaza area right next to the ocean. And there were lots of vendors out there selling food even before the festival begins. There’s lots of people there, lots of kids running around. They had games and toys for the kids. And so what are you expecting to see God do here in Kupong this week?
Gola Tiruneh (15:44):
Well, I believe there is going to be through what is going to happen. People are going to have a clear representation of what the gospel is. And I’m believing for miracles. I’m believing for people to experience miracles that will lead to ’em opening their hearts to the gospel. So we’ve had events where deaf ears have opened people deaf from birth and things like that. And that causes people to attention, to put their attention to the gospel. It is kind of like the story of when Philip went to Samaria and preached the gospel and says, when people saw the miracles, they put attention to his words. And that’s what I’m expecting, that they will be a moment where people will realize, okay, this is real. Jesus is real, and what is my response to this? And so by the end of those three nights, my prayer is that people will realize, okay, this is not just religion. This is actually happening now and I need to respond to this.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:06):
Now, one of the things as an evangelist I think we’re called to do is to challenge the church as a whole to focus on evangelism. What response have you seen from the churches here in Indonesia? Do they have a heart to reach out to the loss? How are you encouraging them to focus on people who are
Gola Tiruneh (17:33):
Lost? Well, it is mixed response, right? So it is a challenge sometimes working with believers because of some history of maybe things that have happened in the past. And there’s a little bit of fear, hesitation to do evangelism. So most believers tend to just stick to their group or to their churches or their communities. There’s a few tribes in Indonesia that were reached by missionaries like 150 years ago. So they’re mainly Christian. So most of the believers in Indonesia are from this few tribes that are
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:23):
Been, but there’s many tribes here.
Gola Tiruneh (18:24):
There’s many tribes, and it’s from the 217 million, maybe 15 to 20% is Christian, so the rest of them are still yet to be reached. So it’s hard for believers at times because of may be fear or they don’t know what to do or how to approach other nonbelievers. So our festivals actually in a way help that to show them, okay, this is how you do it, or let’s do it together, and kind of helps build confidence in them to go out and do more outreaches. So really, our festivals are always been done in partnership with local churches, and that helps also to bring in enthusiasm, especially when they see, when the Christians see the miracles. Also there’s something that happens and say, wait, we can do this too. We can also preach the gospel. So that’s what we hope will happen also through these events, that it will revive the church and inspire the church to do evangelism in that area.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:39):
Well, it’s absolutely amazing the work that you and your wife Esther are doing here in Indonesia. If you’re listening and you have a heart for Indonesia, I’d encourage you to get connected with Gola. If someone would like to support you or their church would like to adopt you as one of their missionaries, what’s your website? How can they find out more information about you?
Gola Tiruneh (20:03):
We do have a website. Our ministry is a registered charity in Canada. It’s called Global Good News Initiative. The website is gg.org, gg ni.org, and you can go there and you find all the information you need, and you can be a partner through our charity in Canada. Yeah,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:29):
And are there opportunities for people to come to Indonesia to do evangelism or to work with you?
Gola Tiruneh (20:36):
Yes. Yeah. We always welcome people that have a heart for Indonesia, and we can do what we can and what is possible for us to do so that we can open doors also for people. So I’ve worked with different ministries in the past and we’ve had, yeah, we had a good experience also partnering with people.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:05):
That’s awesome. Well, let’s finish by praying for Indonesia, but instead of praying in English, you’ll pray in Indonesia, and let’s just pray for God to bless this nation.
Gola Tiruneh (21:21):
Okay, let’s do that. Alright. Hallelujah. Han Sadia, Indonesia, then Indonesia, they are. And Jesus sai. Amen.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:44):
Amen. Well, thank you Gola so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast. Yes,
Gola Tiruneh (22:49):
Thank you for having me. God bless you. Thank you.
Christine Morgan is called by God to have a worldwide evangelistic ministry. She has been doing zoom crusades in Pakistan and recently traveled there to preach her first big crusade in person. On today’s episode we ask the question: Can God use woman to impact the world?” You will be inspired as you hear Christine’s testimony of how Jesus saved her and made her an evangelist.
Learn More About Christine Morgan: https://www.worldwideevangelist.org/
Christine Morgan, a woman called by God to be an evangelist, shares her testimony and experiences in spreading the gospel. She has been conducting Zoom crusades in Pakistan and recently traveled there to preach her first in-person crusade. She discusses the impact of her ministry and the challenges she has faced. She emphasizes the importance of women in evangelism and shares her belief that God can use women to reach and minister to people. Christine also talks about her training at Oral Roberts University and the gospel message she shares with audiences, particularly in Muslim-majority countries. She encourages listeners to support her ministry and shares her confidence in God’s presence and power in her evangelistic work. The podcast host, Daniel King, invites listeners to leave positive reviews for the Evangelism Podcast and to consider becoming financial partners with King Ministries to support their evangelistic efforts.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Christine Morgan is called by God to have a worldwide evangelistic ministry. She’s been doing zoom crusades in the nation of Pakistan, and recently traveled there to preach her first big crusade in person. On today’s episode, we asked the question, can God use women to impact the world? You’ll be inspired as you hear Christine’s testimony of how Jesus saved her and made her an evangelist.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:41):
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 (01:05):
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, Christine Morgan. Thank you for joining me on the Evangelism Podcast.
Christine Morgan (01:18):
Thank you for having me here today.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:20):
Alright, so you are called by God to be an evangelist. Tell me a little bit about the opportunities that God has been giving you for evangelism.
Christine Morgan (01:30):
Well, for almost the past two years we’ve been doing a lot of work exclusively in Pakistan as God has opened doors for us to do monthly zoom outreaches in rural areas to Muslims and Hindus. And we’ve been seeing about 80% of the people attending these meetings receiving Christ and over 50% being healed. And so we’re having great opportunities to go into unreached areas and preach the gospel.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:59):
So Pakistan is the second largest Muslim nation in the world by population, and so it’s a huge harvest field. How did you get started doing these Zoom crusades?
Christine Morgan (02:12):
Well, an opportunity came about during CID when we weren’t able to travel into the nations. And I had a friend on Facebook and he was looking for people to preach zoom crusades and zoom meetings. And so I just started doing that faithfully on a monthly basis.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:33):
Well, you have seen great results there. And then just recently you actually went to Pakistan. How was that different actually being there in person than doing a Zoom event?
Christine Morgan (02:46):
When you’re there in person, it’s more exciting of course, because the crowd and the people, you could see their reaction, you can see their engagement, and you get to really see the whole picture when you’re doing it on Zoom, you might just see a crowd or a few specific faces in the crowd, but when you’re there you can see the whole crowd of people. You could see the response, you can see them crying or lifting their hands. So it’s really amazing to see God touching lives.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:15):
And so you were there working with my friend John Javid and his wife Rachel. I’ve been to their church compound there in Lahore and they have King television, which I think is a great name for a TV station since my last name is King, I wish I had that name. But tell me a little bit about their ministry and what your impression has been working with them.
Christine Morgan (03:44):
Their ministry in their heart is to reach the unreached. Of course, they have a great work in Lahore King television. John and Rachel are doing a great job just reaching people on a weekly and daily basis. They have several television programs that go out throughout different countries and nations. And so it’s not just to the people they’re trying to reach in the who they are also going out into other countries doing crusades, preaching in churches, but they do a lot of work in Lahore, but also they work freeing people that have been, they’re working as slaves in brick kilns. They work to help the poor and the disadvantaged, but they really have a heart for the unreached and that’s why I like working with them.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:34):
And so your ministry is focused on evangelism. What’s the name of your ministry?
Christine Morgan (04:41):
The name of the ministry is Worldwide Evangelistic Ministry.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:44):
I think that covers about everything Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And so you figured you’d just cover everything, do a worldwide evangelistic ministry. And what was it that made you know that you were called to evangelism?
Christine Morgan (05:01):
Well, so growing up we didn’t attend church a lot. We went kind of like on Easter and on Christmas and we knew about God, but I was really confused about how God could love someone who was a sinner or unworthy and I didn’t have a good representation of the love of Christ and that Christ receives us as we are. So I really struggled with purpose and identity in my younger years and people would come up to me and tell me that God loved me. And I was like, okay, but what does that really mean? How could God love someone like me? And then I came to a point where I had been through cycles of depression and suicide and I really didn’t understand purpose in my life. And I came to a point where I just surrendered to the Lord. Nobody prayed for me. I was at a church service and I just knelt down in the row and I said, God, people tell me that you’re love, that your joy, that you’re peace, and I don’t have any of that, so obviously I don’t have you.
(06:06):
So the Lord just came into my life and just set me on fire. And really it was just like a joy and excitement and just life opened up to me and I had hope. And for the first time I really felt like that I had some kind of purpose in life. And just from the moment I got saved, I started doing street evangelism, prison ministry, homeless outreach. I mean, I would do it at my church. I’d go to another church that did homeless outreach or prison outreach. And so I was just involved in just going out. It’s like when you find that joy and you experience salvation, you just want to go out and tell everybody like, Hey, you can receive this too. And so really for the first few years, that’s all I really did. I mean, I went to church, but I did a lot of evangelism and just whether it was using tracks, just I used to put packs of food in my car and if I see someone homeless, I’d pull over and tell ’em Jesus loved him. And I think it kind of freaked my family out because it’s like I pulled over on the side of the road and I get out and I start talking to homeless people and they’re just like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe you did that in Houston. You could have disappeared and we never see you again, but God just put that passion to relate to people and to reach people. And so I started just by doing that within the church.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:37):
And so how old were you when you had that encounter with Jesus?
Christine Morgan (07:39):
I was 24.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:41):
So you were already an adult, but you immediately jumped into telling everyone you could about Jesus. Someone said that evangelism is like one starving man who found bread going and telling all the other starving men where they can find bread. And so then later you came to Oral Roberts University to get some training. What was that experience like? What did you get from your time at Oral Roberts University?
Christine Morgan (08:07):
So I came into Oral Roberts University knowing that God had put a call on my life for ministry and to preach the gospel. I think I was saved about two months when the Lord just told me he had called me to go around to the nations and preach the gospel. And I really couldn’t comprehend that or how to do that. And so when I went to ORU, I signed up, I majored in evangelism and minored in missions. And so it really gave me a foundation and a focus to learn how to take my passion and direct it to reach people with a greater capacity.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:44):
Now, what were some of the things you learned in the evangelism major at ORU? Who were some of your favorite professors or what lecture stands out to you as something that really inspired you?
Christine Morgan (08:58):
Yeah, I had an underground undergrad professor named Carrie er. She lives here in the Tulsa area and she used to be a youth pastor, but she was over the youth, the evangelism, some of the missions programs. And she was creative and she really inspired me and she encouraged us to use our individuality and our personality to share with people the gospel. And so that made me think outside of the box of regular religion or regular denomination and really to be like, okay, God gave us personalities and he gave us certain giftings, and we can use that in such a way that we can reach a wide variety of people and that we’re all not called to reach the same person, but we all have unique giftings and that we can tailor that and use our passion to serve the Lord and reach the lost.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:53):
Now, I was on Twitter now called XA few days ago, and there was a debate among some churches saying that women should not be allowed to preach, but when you look worldwide, over 50% of the body of Christ is female. Actually in many countries it’s a much higher percentage. You’ll go to a church and a huge percentage of the audience is female. And so how do you think God wants to use women to reach out and minister to people? Can God use a woman evangelist?
Christine Morgan (10:30):
Absolutely. And this is a great question because what most people don’t realize is in China, 90% of the pastors are women. And so while the men go to work, and some are wives and mothers, but the driving force to pastors in China and the underground church movement is women. And so I’ve been going into other nations and other countries and I see women with a heart and a passion to serve the Lord and to see people one to Christ. And so there’s a global movement of women that are ready to rise up and take their place. They want to serve the Lord. They have the passion. They might not have the education or the experience, but they’re willing to do what the Lord is asking them to. And so I see a great fire, especially in the young people, but in women, men are being used as well, but it’s time for the women to rise up globally and there’s a whole movement coming forth where God is going to begin to use women in a powerful way.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:33):
Now you have launched your worldwide evangelistic ministry and it’s not easy to start a ministry. What have been some of the challenges that you’ve had to overcome as you’ve started to launch out into the evangelistic call that God has on your life?
Christine Morgan (11:51):
I think one of the hardest things sometimes we don’t know how to do all the administration. And so launching out into a 5 0 1 C3 in 2014 was a way that we could get people tax receipts without running the money through my local church. And so stepping out and learning how to just file for a 5 0 1 C3, it took a lot of prayer. I said, okay, holy Spirit, we’re going to do this together. And I had to research what different terms meant, what they were asking and what the Lord taught. We were able to do it. And then just navigating even fundraising, how do you go from people realizing this isn’t just like, Hey, you’re going on a missions trip, but this is a calling, this is a ministry. It’s something that is full-time. It is like your career. And so I’ve had to educate people that we’re not just doing puppets and skits, we’re actually out there preaching the gospel and that we could be killed, we could be jailed, we could lose our life. And so what we’re doing is going out there and doing the full gospel and we’re preaching, we’re seeing miracles, we’re casting out demons. And so one of the challenges has been to get the body of Christ, to see that gospel work goes beyond ditch, digging, doing skits and drama, which are all great in evangelism, but that it’s a ministry in, it’s a calling. It’s not just a hobby.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:25):
Now you say you’re preaching the gospel. Can you give me the gospel in a nutshell? What is the gospel when you go and you’re in front of an audience full of Muslims and you’re trying to communicate the gospel to them, what do you say?
Christine Morgan (13:42):
Well, I start out with that God created men and women in his own image because he wanted to have a relationship with us. He wanted to be able to fellowship with us, and that sin broke our relationship with him. And so basically, I tell them how sin keeps us from God because he is holy and he is pure, but sin separates us. And then I talk about how he had a plan to bring us back to himself and to right relationship and restore our identity and our fellowship through Jesus Christ. And so I use it as a way to say, you were created to be in relationship and fellowship with God, and he loves you and he wants to be in right relationship with you again. And so it’s not condemning, it’s not saying you’re so sinful. It’s saying we all have a broken relationship with God, but we can be restored back to the Father. And so I think that is something that opens people’s hearts and minds to the gospel.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:49):
Christine, it’s really wonderful, have the opportunity to interview you. We have a lot of people who listen to the podcast, who have a great heart for supporting missions and supporting evangelists. And so if someone wants to help you with your evangelism, how can they find out more about you? What’s your website?
Christine Morgan (15:10):
The website is worldwide evangelist.org.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:15):
Alright, so I encourage you, if you’re listening, go find out more about Christine Morgan. She is bringing a living message to a dying world, and she is passionate about evangelism. What’s one last story or thought you’d like to share with our listeners?
Christine Morgan (15:36):
I get people all the time that tell me, you must be so brave that you go to the nations. And I really don’t think of it like that. God has taught me that I’m never alone when I go to the nations that he’s always with me. And so sometimes I’m a little nervous because I’ve never been to a country or I don’t know the people, but I go knowing that God has called me to go, and so therefore I’m not scared because I know that I’m doing the will of God. I’m in the will of God and he’s with me. And so I have so many people that they’re just amazed that I can go to these nations, whether I go by myself or with a team, and I just go, even if I’m nervous, I just do it. And God is always faithful to show up and show out and be with me every step of the way.
(16:24):
And so I am confident in that I’ve grown in my faith and in my confidence to say, Hey, it doesn’t matter where I go. I’m not alone. And then another thing is that when I pray for the sick, I can be bold and pray for the blind to see and the deaf to hear, because I have nothing to prove. All I do is I’m the vessel and he’s the healer. And so the great thing is I tell people, you can pray for all kinds of miracles because we don’t have anything to prove. Jesus said he would back up his word. He said he would move through us and that he’s the healer. And so that we see miracles in salvations and so many amazing things, but it’s all because we choose to be vessels that he can use.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:08):
That’s awesome. Well, thank you Christine, so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast. All
Christine Morgan (17:12):
Right, thank you. Are
Evangelism Podcast Host (17:14):
You called by God to be an evangelist? Do you want to lead millions of people to Jesus? Do you desire to be trained in the practical side of building a ministry? Then check out the Daniel King School of Evangelism. Learn how to be an effective evangelist from Dr. Daniel King’s 20 plus years of experience. Daniel King has done crusades all over the world in over 70 nations and is seen over 2 million people give their lives to Jesus. But it wasn’t easy. There was no crusade school. So Daniel traveled the world learning from and observing top evangelists, noticing how they successfully won souls for Christ. Now he wants to share decades of knowledge, experience with you. Topics of the Daniel King School of Evangelism include what is an evangelist, how to be a master soul winner, how to give antar call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry, and much more. If you want to be an evangelist, but don’t know where to start, the Daniel King School of Evangelism is for you. Enroll today in the School of Evangelism by going to Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:14):
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 (19:35):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
In this podcast episode, Evangelist Daniel King interviews Pastor Paul Daugherty from Victory Church. They discuss the importance of missions and reaching out to communities. Pastor Paul shares how Victory Church has a long history of being involved in missions and sending young people on mission trips. They talk about the impact these trips have on teenagers, as they are stretched to share the gospel and experience the needs of others. Pastor Paul also emphasizes the importance of starting small and mobilizing the resources and people available to reach out to the lost. He shares some of the outreach activities Victory Church does, such as passing out groceries, ministering at nursing homes, and hosting productions to reach the unchurched.
Join Victory Church for an online church service: https://victory.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, my pastor, pastor Paul Daugherty. Thank you for joining me on the Evangelism Podcast.
Pastor Paul Daugherty – Victory Church (00:12):
Yes, sir. Honored to be with you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:13):
Now we are here in El Salvador. Yes, sir. Santa Anna. And tonight is the first night of a big gospel crusade and we are so honored that Victory is down here helping us and partner with us for this crusade. Thank you for being here.
Pastor Paul Daugherty – Victory Church (00:30):
Come on. It’s who we are. It’s what we’re excited about. And I’m sitting here with my hat on my T-shirt, shorts. It’s 96 degrees in El Salvador, back home in Tulsa. It’s probably 40 degrees, but we’re excited for tonight. We’ll be dressed up in our suits. We’ll be out there ministering to the people, and our team is excited. We got 138 teenagers. We brought from Tulsa from our church just to El Salvador. We have another almost a hundred plus that are out in other places. So altogether 253 teenagers, we brought from our church on missions to Greece, parts of Florida, and then big majority of them right here in El Salvador to partner with you and to be a part of Vista Evangelistic Outreach.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:15):
And we are so excited about what God has been doing through these young people from Victory Christian School from eighth grade all the way up to 11th grade is here with us. Yes sir. And my son Caleb, he’s in eighth grade at Victory. He’s been there ever since kindergarten, and he came on this trip and so he’s been out ministering in the schools, helping to deliver boxes of food to some poor people. I heard a testimony about him yesterday. He knocked on one door and gave them a box of food. It was his turn to pray for the family. And there was one woman, an older grandma in the house that wasn’t able to walk very well. And so my son, 14 years old, he said, can I pray for you? And he prayed for her and she lifted her crutch up in the air and started walking back and forth. And the team leaders were actually really excited and gave me the testimony. Then I asked him, he was like, yeah, she was healed.
Pastor Paul Daugherty – Victory Church (02:11):
Oh my goodness. How cool is it though, that you get to go on, you get to do your normal crusades because you do this all the time, every year you do multiple evangelistic crusades. But I think it’s cool that you get to be with your son, with his school teamed up with your evangelistic ministry and your church. Is this the first time that’s happened or has it happened before?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:32):
I think for seeing someone get healed when he prayed for them, this might be the first time. That’s
Pastor Paul Daugherty – Victory Church (02:38):
Amazing.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:39):
I mean, we’ve always encouraged him to pray for the sick, but just it changes a young person’s life when they see God work through them. And Victory has actually had a long history of being involved in missions. My parents, Robert and Susan King, they graduated from Victory’s Mission School back in 1988, and they went to Mexico, come on and started hosting groups that came from Victory Christian Center in Juarez in Juarez, Mexico. I went, yeah, they hosted it for like 13 years in a row. I remember there used to be these big groups of young people that would come down. We’d take them running through the streets of Juarez. And Victory has always believed in missions and especially in sending young people out on these mission trips. Why is this so important to victory, to be so involved in missions?
Pastor Paul Daugherty – Victory Church (03:31):
Even as I’m looking at the teenagers right now around us, and if you’re listening to this podcast, you can’t see it, but we’re surrounded by teenagers that are all around the hotel area, and I love seeing their joy. I love seeing them come alive. They come on these trips and they forget about trying to look cool in front of their friends. They forget about all the drama back home that happens in middle school and high school, just boyfriends, girlfriends, even just academics. The focus is totally about sharing the gospel and something happens when they are stretched and pushed to go and pray for someone who’s sick, pass out food, share their testimony, lead someone to Christ. It challenges them to think beyond themselves in such a supernatural way. And they come alive. It’s like they wake up, their eyes are open to life being so much more fulfilling when they are a part of the Great commission. And our church has been doing this, like you said, my parents started Victory in 1981, Billy Joe and Sharon Darty and your parents were a part of one of those first years of missions training ministry that my parents began many years ago and we still do today. We
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:41):
Trained. It’s neat. There’s a second generation now and even a third generation. Third generation. Because you brought your son on this mission trip
Pastor Paul Daugherty – Victory Church (04:47):
Too. Yeah, my parents trained your parents who trained you, who’s trained your son, and now I’m training my kids. And it’s amazing to see the generational impact. The church has been around for 43 years. The school started the same year as the church. And when the school began, my dad said, Hey, we’re going to train students up, not just to know math and English and science, and not just to play sports, but also to go on mission trips. And so we have chapels every week at our school, but then we have mission strip opportunities and we really start sending kids on missions in sixth grade and all the way up to 12th grade every spring break. They’ve been doing that since the eighties, the nineties, the two thousands. And now here we are in the 2020s. And so I think over the last 40 years, we’ve probably sent, not exaggerating any numbers, we’ve probably sent 5,000 teenagers on spring break mission trips over the last 40 plus years.
(05:45):
And then from those 5,000 hundreds of thousands, if not millions, impacted by their obedience to share the gospel all over the world in countries like Greece and El Salvador, Republic, Haiti, Ireland, England, China, Singapore, and as teenagers go out, my life was changed. I went to Juarez in sixth grade and I worked with your parents, sharing the gospel, going with my grade. We had probably 50 kids from our class that went, and our lives were forever impacted because we got to share the hope of Jesus. We passed out beans and rice, we did dramas. And your parents showed us what it looks like to really give our lives to the people with the gospel that lived in Mexico. We went to a place, I’ll never forget, called Garbage City in Juarez, an area where all the people lived in garbage.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:38):
They would go through the garbage just to find food to
Pastor Paul Daugherty – Victory Church (06:40):
Eat, and they didn’t have shirts. A lot of these kids didn’t have shoes. They were running around in their underwear. And I remember just my heart broke and I was like, if this is the only reason I come on missions, it’s just to be reminded of how blessed I am to live where I live and to have a heart of gratitude and to break off any feelings of complaining or entitlement. I think that’s another big huge win for parents who send their kids on missions trips with victory is of course the kids are going to be stretched to share the gospel, the boldness of Jesus Christ. That’s a forever game changer. But the other part is their eyes are going to be open that 95% of the world lives on less than $2 a day, and so much of the world is impoverished. And when these American teenagers who have five pairs of shoes in their closet, they have have a good pillow, they have a good bed, air conditioning, a heater.
(07:33):
When they come to places where there is so much poverty and these kids don’t have a bed and they don’t have even a pair of shoes, it breaks their heart in a healthy way. And it reminds them the world is bigger than Oklahoma. The world’s bigger than America, and they need Jesus. And we need to live with generosity. We’re blessed to be a blessing. So I think there’s so many benefits of getting our teenagers on mission trips. I mean, it just is endless. And we’re now rotating our kids. We have five kids, a 10-year-old, 8-year-old, 5-year-old, 4-year-old, and a 2-year-old. And we’re rotating which one gets to go on missions each time I go out. So I’ve taken my oldest, I’ve taken my now 8-year-old, I’ve taken my 5-year-old, and eventually I’ll take our 4-year-old, 2-year-old as they get older. But it’s awesome getting to take them on missions.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:18):
Well, I’m so thankful for the heart that you have permissions and the heart that victory has had permissions for so many years, and I just want to personally say thank you because victory, when my parents went out as missionaries, victory started supporting them on a monthly basis and they helped to support them every single month for over 30 years. And in this day and age of so many churches, I think sometimes have lost the vision for missions. Victory is really special because you’ve kept this vision for missions, this vision for helping support missionaries. And so victory to this day continues to support missionaries all over the world. You’ve planted over 2000 Bible schools that are ongoing in different nations around the world and continuing to have impact. I mean, I remember I was in Ethiopia a couple of years ago and I was sitting and drinking coffee.
(09:15):
I heard someone talking about a Bible school and I talked to them and it was a victory Bible school that they had started after your father had visited Ethiopia in the middle of Ethiopia. And I just found him in the middle of nowhere, and I went and preached for them that day. It was really cool. That’s amazing. And so your father, pastor Billy Joe Dougherty was a great pastor, but he was also a great evangelist. Yes, sir. And he had a great heart for evangelism. I remember when I was 14 years old, I got to go to the Olympic Stadium in Russia at that time. He was doing a series of 18 months of crusades in Russia in St. Petersburg. And so when I was 14, I remember seeing thousands of people running to the altar call. And that had a big impact on my life, and it really gave me a vision to believe God, to bring people to Jesus. And to this day, that time that I saw the people rushing to the stadium in St. Petersburg, it makes me tear up when I think about it and say, oh God, do it again. Come on Jesus. I want to see people hungry for Jesus that come running up for altar calls.
Pastor Paul Daugherty – Victory Church (10:26):
Come on Jesus.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:27):
And so victory has, you have a great heart for evangelism, and it’s not just foreign missions, but you also have a great heart for reaching people in Tulsa. And so we have a lot of pastors that listen to this podcast. What would you say to encourage pastors who want to reach out to their communities and then reach out to the world?
Pastor Paul Daugherty – Victory Church (10:48):
Well, I think one, just the importance of doing one thing at a time, starting one day at a time with what you have. If you’re a pastor of 20 people in a rural town, and you may not have all the resources that a large church like victory might have, but you still have resources, you still have 20 people that could be mobilized to be evangelistic minded. And so mobilizing who you have and what you have to use for the gospel and for the advancement of bringing hope and compassion, people need Jesus. And so whether your town is a thousand people or 10,000 people or a hundred thousand people, there’s a percentage of those people that have not yet given their hearts to Christ and need hope. There’s a percentage of those people that are dealing with loneliness, depression, suicidal thoughts, addictions, and they’ve drifted from God.
(11:39):
And so how do we go after them? I think what I would encourage pastors with is be consumed with that lost sheep. Be thinking about that. Lost sheep. Of course, we want to disciple the 99. We want to give our hearts and lives to the people that are in the church and equip them, but we don’t want to forget about the people who aren’t here yet, the people who haven’t accepted Christ and the people who are not inside church yet. And so I would just encourage pastors, think about what you could do every week to mobilize your people to go and share the gospel telling them like, Hey, let’s use our social media. Let’s use our platforms on YouTube. Let’s use our voice at work. Let’s share the gospel. Let’s get some invite cards to our church. Let’s get some witnessing tracks, and then let’s pass out groceries for our church.
(12:25):
We’re always passing out groceries. We’re doing all types of different physical outreaches to our city, cleaning up parks, showing up and ministering at nursing homes, showing up to apartment complexes where there’s tons of boys and girls. And we will set up a sound system and we’ll just do a pop-up children’s church service, pass out candy, pass out, invite cards to church, and then pray with families. And through those outreaches, it brings in that lost sheep, that person who’s not yet right with God, not in church. A couple of big things we do every year is an Easter production and at Christmas production. And then we do some different carnivals that we do for our city. And we use these as tools to evangelize, to witness to people who are not really following Jesus, don’t know Jesus, haven’t given their hearts to Jesus, and whatever we can do to get them in the doors.
(13:17):
And so we’ve got a big one coming up next week for Easter, and I don’t know when this will be aired, but on the week of Easter this year, 2024, we’re going to be doing six really big half film, half live production like services with 300 cast members. And what we’ve said to people in our church is this isn’t for church people, this is for unchurched people. Now, if you’re a church person, come but come with somebody who’s not in church. Bring somebody with you. Invite your family members. If you don’t know anyone who doesn’t know Jesus, go find someone. Use your social media. Tell people to tune in online. And our goal is not to entertain Christians. Our goal is to reach the lost. So we try to tell the story of Jesus in a creative way. We use all kinds of dance and music and Broadway like production and then film these days.
(14:07):
So many people are reached through movies and through shows. That’s why I’m thankful for some of the great Christian movies and shows out there that are trying to tell the story of Jesus. And no one’s going to be able to do it perfect in the eyes of a religious person. And I think we have to let go of that. I think at the end of the day, we need to go. Are we talking about the cross? Are we talking about resurrection? Are we giving people a opportunity to accept Jesus in their heart and repent of their sins? If we’re doing that, then all the other stuff, the way it’s done, the music the day and all that stuff, we just need to not make a big deal out of. Because if we’re getting people saved, that’s what counts. And giving them really an invitation to know Jesus died for you.
(14:47):
Jesus rose from the grave for you. Jesus cares about you. And so our church does that. And last year we had probably a thousand people get saved in Tulsa through those outreaches. And then we had tens of thousands of people who weren’t in church who came back for the first time and attended a service. And whether they got saved or not, a seed was planted. And so that seed grows in the water and what Paul and Apollo say, but our prayer as a church is we’re going to do anything and everything to reach the lost and disciple the found to go and reach the lost.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:20):
Amen. Well, thank you so much for your heart for missions. We’re so grateful that you are here in El Salvador with us. Thank you for bringing over 130 teenagers down here. What a blessing they are. And it is really changed some of their lives. I was thinking about last night, there was a baptism service and some of the team members that came said, I want to rededicate my life, or I want to dedicate my life to Jesus. And right in the pool, right behind us over here, you started to baptize them. And so it is changing their lives forever. And they will remember that for many years to come. And I believe these teenagers will, some of them will become missionaries, some of them will be pastors evangel. They’ll have a heart for evangelism, they’ll support evangelists, they’ll support missions. And so it’s really significant what Victory Church is doing. So Pastor Paul, thank you so much. Appreciate you. Appreciate and thank you for being on The Evangelism Podcast.
Pastor Paul Daugherty – Victory Church (16:18):
Hey, thank you so much.
Josef Maxson, a representative of the Pentecostal movement in Sweden, discusses the history and growth of the movement in the country. He explains that the Pentecostal movement began in Sweden in 1907 and spread through Baptist churches. The movement grew rapidly under the leadership of Lewi Pethrus, with over 55,000 members after 20 years. Currently, there are around 440 Pentecostal churches in Sweden with 18,700 members. Maxson also highlights the missionary legacy of the Pentecostal movement, with Sweden having sent out more missionaries per capita than any other country. He mentions the impact of Swedish missionaries in countries like Liberia and Bangladesh. Maxson emphasizes that missions are still a key focus for the Pentecostal movement in Sweden, especially among young people. He shares his personal experiences of witnessing the power of the Holy Spirit in missions and the inspiration it brings to his work. The interview concludes with a prayer in Swedish for a new move of the Holy Spirit in the Pentecostal churches of Sweden.
Learn more about the Pentecostal Movement in Sweden: https://www.pingst.se/english/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me, Josef Maxson from Sweden. Thank you for joining me today.
Josef Maxson (00:12):
Thank you. So nice to be in your podcast.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:15):
Well, we are here in Guinea, and we have been having a wonderful gospel campaign, and you came with one of the evangelists who’s here, and it’s been absolutely wonderful to get to know you. And you are actually working right now with the Pentecostal movement of Sweden. And so over the years, God has done really amazing things through the Pentecostal movement in Sweden. Let’s just start at the beginning. How did Pentecost come to Sweden?
Josef Maxson (00:54):
Yes, so I mean, the Pentecostal movement have been in Sweden since around 1907. So I mean, it started on Ausa Street and some years later it went first to Norway with a man called Barat. And in Norway it was a man called Ros. And he went there for a Bible school and to hear this Norwegian preacher preach about what’s happening over on Asa Street, and I mean the movement started to spread in the Scandinavian and mostly in the Baptist churches. So Lewi Pethrus, I mean, he gets to this teaching and he starts to preach it, and more and more people are listening to him and he starts ministering in a church in Stockholm, I think around this time also in the Baptist Church. And in this new Pentecostal movement, you don’t, meaning at that time you needed to be a member in the church. You took the holy communion.
(02:20):
And this was, I mean, they didn’t like this fault anymore. They wanted to, I mean, everybody could take the holy communion if you are a believer. So then this congregation that Levi Pets was pastoring, they decided to break up from the Baptist movement in Sweden, and they started their own church, so to say. And in that time, you can say the Pentecostal movement started in Sweden when they broke laws and they choose to be on their own. And then it continue in many different Baptist churches, but also people started new churches. So I think the first 10 years, it was around 50 churches that started that connected to the Pentecostal movements, so to say. And the founder in Sweden is Lewi Pethrus. So he was pastoring this church for nearly 50 years, and he was, the Pentecostal movement in Sweden shouldn’t exist without him. He was a real apostle and entrepreneur.
(03:40):
And his church grown a lot the coming year during the twenties and the thirties. And I mean, he was a road model for a lot of pastors. And what he said, they listened to him, so to say. And I think after 20 years there was over 55,000 members. And then they decided around between the wars like 1,930 to build a new church. And they built a church for, I think it was four, 4,000 attendance. And this was the biggest, not stadium, but city hall or church building, church building, or the biggest building to gather people in at that time in the northern part of Europe. So it was really big
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:49):
Building. They had big faith
Josef Maxson (04:53):
And I think it was the biggest for nearly 30 years or something.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:58):
So the Pentecostal movement has continued to grow and is now very mature. And you serve on the staff with the Pentecostal movement. What’s your position?
Josef Maxson (05:09):
So my position is head of communication. So I work with the marketing with the social media, our webpage, but also a lot connected to our events, leader events, pastors network, summer conference and youth conference, and different kind of campaigns during the year. We do a lot of advertisement around Christmas and during the Easter in the secular media to tell about Jesus and so on. So it’s a lot of different parts. We have a magazine coming out fourth time every year.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:54):
And so approximately how many churches and how many members would be considered Pentecostal now
Josef Maxson (06:03):
In the Pentecostal movement in Sweden, it’s around 440 churches right now, and the member is 18,700.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:14):
Wow. And so for a country the size of Sweden, that’s quite good.
Josef Maxson (06:20):
Yeah, it’s the biggest. In Sweden, we have had a church for over a thousand years, the state church, but the other churches called Free Church Free Churches. So this is the biggest dominations among the free churches, of course. I mean when it was as big as it was over 100,000 members, but it’s still the biggest dominations.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:47):
And so what is the spiritual atmosphere like in Sweden? As you mentioned, Christianity goes back a thousand years, but in that type of atmosphere, sometimes people’s love for Christ grow cold. And so what are the opportunities that the Pentecostal church sees and what are some of the challenges that you feel you’re facing right now?
Josef Maxson (07:12):
I mean, the Pentecostal movement was growing on until 1980s or something, and then this slowly started to getting down in numbers. But the last 10 years we have seen that the Baptist number have been going up, and we’ve seen a lot of new churches planting, I mean, to Sweden. We have a lot of refugee have been coming in the last 50 years, but especially the last 20 years. And they start new Pentecostal churches only in Stockholm, the capital. It had been started over a hundred new Pentecostal churches the last 10 years.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:57):
Wow. And do they come under the umbrella of the Pentecostal movement?
Josef Maxson (08:00):
Some
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:01):
Of them or some of them stay independent.
Josef Maxson (08:02):
Some of them stay independent, and some of them come into the umbrella. And we are working quite hard to get them in. I mean, some of them don’t know for many years that it exists a Pentecostal movement or domination to be part of. So we work to them to get them in, and we see a lot of growth during that process.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:28):
Let’s talk about the missionary legacy of the Pentecostal movement, because I’ve been all over the world and I have seen the impact that missionaries from Sweden have had in different parts of the world. And so this last week I was in Foya, Liberia, right across the border from where we are. And there is a hospital, a school, a beautiful church building and a radio station and some other buildings that were built by Swedish Pentecostal missionaries that came back in the late 1940s, early 1950s and stayed there all the way up until the war. The big war happened in Liberia. And it is just amazing. The Pentecostal legacy continues today we’re working with my friend Billy Bimba, and his father was led to Jesus by one of the Swedish Pentecostal missionaries and pastored there for many years. And now his children and his grandchildren continued to minister in Liberia. And I’ve seen that in different places. I was just not too long ago in Bangladesh. And there’s a church there that has been supported by the Pentecostal movement, and it’s growing by leaps and bounds in a very unreached area. What are some of the other stories of impact that the Pentecostal Church of Sweden has had through the missionaries you’ve sent out?
Josef Maxson (10:01):
I mean before or when many of the churches started in the early 19 hundreds, before you built a church building, you send out missionaries or before you had your own pastor, you send out missionaries. So it’s really in the Pentecostal congregation in Sweden’s DNA to send out missionaries. And I mean, the impact is enormous. It’s hundreds of millions of Christians who have been coming through Swedish missionaries. And I
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:39):
Heard that at one time per capita, Sweden sent out more missionaries than any other country on earth.
Josef Maxson (10:45):
Yeah, that’s true. So I mean, I think we had started churches, the Pentecostal movement in Sweden has started churches in over a hundred countries all over the world. And I mean, most of them we have good relationships with today. And even if the work has been changed a bit, we still do a lot of work through our humanitarian organization. And we have a mission organization works with the media like radio and tv, and also a lot of congregation, they have their own relationships with different congregations and dominations and countries. And so to say, so I mean, a lot is in the history, but we still works a lot around the globe
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:37):
Today. And would you say that missions is still part of something that the churches want to support and want to be a part of?
Josef Maxson (11:44):
Yeah, I should say that’s one of the keytones in the Pentecostal movement. It have been, and it’s in the future also, but of course I should say it have been the last 30 years. They have been going down a little bit. But the last 10 years, it’s growing quite a lot. And especially among the young people, they got new burning heart for missions in all different ways and to build relationships, and you want to reach out with the gospel. I mean,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:17):
Let’s talk about your burning heart for missions because you’re from the Pentecostal movement of Sweden, but this week you are here in Giga, do Guinea. And this morning, of course, we were at the fire conference with all the leaders from the city, and we were preaching on the Holy Spirit, laid hands on them. Many of them spoke in tongues for the first time. Many of them were filled with the Holy Spirit. Several even had demon manifestations that demons came out and the bad spirits came out, and then the Holy Spirit came in. And so it is really beautiful to see, but what is it that drives you as a young Swedish Pentecostal to go out on the mission field?
Josef Maxson (13:01):
I mean, the experience for myself is one important part of it to learn, to get a sense of the history of mission send out from Sweden, but also to see, I mean, unreached people getting to know Christ today. I mean, I’m growing up in a old church where you tell a lot of stories how it was back as many years ago. Sure, yeah. But it’s so interesting to go out now
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:37):
You have a fresh story just from this morning a few hours ago.
Josef Maxson (13:40):
Exactly. Exactly.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:42):
And even last night, we saw miracles. You were taking pictures of the people that were healed. There was one deaf woman and her ear was opened. One woman who was blind in one eye, her eye was open and you were taking pictures of them. And so now you have fresh stories that Jesus is still working today.
Josef Maxson (13:58):
And my normal work is a lot about how do we do missions in Sweden and to sometimes every year go out and to learn and to see how other do and what’s happened around the world. It’s getting me very inspiring. And to see that unreached people get to know Christ, even today, it gives a lot of hope when you work with Swedish teenager. And also to see how we can learn from different cultures and so on. And also to go out to meet people who have been infected about them. The earlier missionaries from Sweden, I mean, I went to Bible school in China, and we was out on the countryside, and then a man come in front of us, me and my friend who was there, and he thanked us, and he was crying like, thank you that you bring the gospel to me and my family over a hundred years ago.
(15:01):
And I mean the missionary who sent to China, I mean, this was in the late 18 hundreds. This was one way ticket to go to China from Sweden. You packed everything. You leave everything behind because you had some burning heart to tell the gospel. And I mean, to hear that and to understand that and to see that with my eyes, it’s getting me a lot of inspiring to continue my work. And then how can I both be helping in the mission doing around the world, but also how can we do a better work in Sweden? And I mean, it’s the next generation growing up. They have a hunger for something. In many years, it was hard to preach the gospel in Sweden because a lot of the youth said, I don’t want to hear. I don’t believe in God. I’m an ageist. But today you belong or belong for something and you want to hear and you want to experience spiritually chi and so on. That’s quite interesting to see what’s happening in the coming years. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:13):
Amen. Well, I believe that every Pentecostal church is always praying for revival. And so let’s finish the interview today by praying together that God would pour out his spirit upon the Pentecostal churches of Sweden. That new fire would come, that new growth would come, and a new heart and passion for missions would come. And so can you finish? But instead of praying in English, can you pray in Swedish, pray for the Swedish Pentecostal Church to experience a new move of the Holy Spirit in this modern time?
Josef Maxson (16:47):
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes…
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:24):
Amen. Well, thank you Joseph for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Josef Maxson (17:29):
Thank you. Thanks Having me.
Samuel Ouedraogo, a pastor from Burkina Faso, discusses his background and the work he is doing in his country. He explains that his father, also a pastor, raised him to serve those in need, and he now leads a social work organization called Word of Hope. The organization focuses on healthcare, education, and farming, with the goal of helping people have a relationship with Jesus Christ. Ouedraogo shares testimonies of lives impacted by their work and discusses the challenges of reaching people in a country with a large Muslim population and ongoing terrorist attacks. He invites listeners to get involved in helping to reach West Africa for Jesus.
Learn More About the Ministry of Sameul Ouedraogo: https://www.paroledespoir.org/
Transcript:
Evangelist 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 friend with me, Samuel Ouedraogo from Burkina Faso. Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Samuel Ouedraogo (00:12):
Thank you for having me,
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (00:13):
Brother Samuel, you are from the nation of Burkina Faso. That’s right. And you are reaching many people in the nation of Burkina Faso. Tell me a little bit about your background and how God brought you to the point where you are now.
Samuel Ouedraogo (00:30):
So thank you, Dr. King for having me here. It’s a joy for me to do this broadcasting with you. So my name is Samuel Ouedraogo and I am from Burkin Faso and I live in a capital called Ouagadougou. So background, I was born in a Christian family. My dad is a pastor, but he has a unique childhood. So while he was a child, my grandfather passed away and at that time he was in the primary school. So a few days later, the death of my grandfather, they chase him out from school. So he didn’t get any chance of finishing his primary school. So during those difficult time, the Lord called him into the ministry. So he raised us up with some tools into serving the needed one because he was one of them. So that’s how we grew up as a
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (01:37):
Family. Your father pastors a church in Burkina Faso, and it’s an Assembly of God church. And he has influence in the Assemblies of God throughout all of West Africa here. And so what do you see God doing during this time in Burkina Faso?
Samuel Ouedraogo (01:54):
So the Lord hasn’t done with Burkina Faso and he is doing great things. It’s true that my country is going through difficult time because we are under terrorist attack. So the current president usually say that we are at war against the terrorist, but that doesn’t stop us preaching the word of God. So in my country right now, we have three different ways of showing the love of Christ, of preaching the word of God. The first one is door to door evangelism. The second is crusades in those cities where there is not some issues. And the third one is through social work. And this is what we’re doing. So we have, of course, my dad is a pastor of the Assembly of God, and while he was pastoring the Lord gave him the vision of studying a social work called Para Depo. And within Para Depo, we are able to reach thousands of children, thousand of people for the Kingdom of God.
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (03:03):
And so you are helping to lead this social work and you work in several different areas. Tell me about the work that you do.
Samuel Ouedraogo (03:14):
Yeah, so after my studies in the United States, while I was there, I wanted to finish quick my studies so I can go back and help my dad with the ministry because he was very busy with the Assembly of God because at that time he was the superintendent of the Assembly of God, of Burkina Faso and the President of the West African Assembly of God and the Vice President of the entire continent of the Assembly of God. So when I finished my studies, I went back home. So the three areas we
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (03:45):
Work. Now, your studies, you were at Oral Roberts University.
Samuel Ouedraogo (03:48):
Of course, I went to Oral Roberts University.
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (03:50):
That’s the same university that I’m a graduate of. That’s, and so you came and got your learning and kept your burning as we like to say at ORU. But what were some of the things you learned during your time at ORU?
Samuel Ouedraogo (04:04):
Oh, I learned so many things. I did like Chapelle, it has brought to my spiritual life to a certain level. And also I took one class called Spirit and Empower Living, and the teacher was President Billy Wilson. And I have learned a lot about the Holy Spirit, which has helped me grow my intimacy with the Lord and also having friends, Christian friends around me. It has also helped me have a solid foundation.
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (04:45):
So you went to ORU, then you came back to Kinno Faso, and you started working in the area of social work. Yes. And there’s several different areas that you’re working in. Tell me about those different areas of social work.
Samuel Ouedraogo (05:03):
Our ministry is called Word of Hope in English. And within Word of Hope, we have three different areas. So the first one is healthcare. When it comes to the healthcare, we have a big hospital in the city in the capital of Ouagadougou where we have about 100,000 a year. So the vision over there is to provide medical healthcare to the community while showing the love of Christ to the community. And within the medical center, we have a chaplain every day from 7:00 AM to seven 15, we start the day with a little of devotion and we pray for the patient. So everybody gather the doctors, the patients, and then we pray. And after that, the chaplain will go to the hospitalization rooms and pray for the patient. So we have a lot of testimonies about people who have been healed through the prayers. So that’s what we do.
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (06:00):
That’s very interesting coming from Oral Roberts University, that you have that paradigm of ministry because Oral Roberts was one of the first to teach the theology that prayer in medicine should be combined. That we believe in medicine, that all healing comes from God. And God can use doctors, God can use medicine to heal people. But along with medicine, we also bring the healing power of God. And when you combine the power of medicine with the power of prayer to together, it brings healing to people. And so I think this is a very appropriate ministry for a graduate of or university to lead, to go into the hospitals, to pray for people to show the love of Christ. Yes. Okay. What’s the second?
Samuel Ouedraogo (06:45):
So the second is education. So at the education level, we have a primary school, high school and college. So at the primary school and high school, the vision is to make leaders who have the fear of God into their heart for the entire continent of Africa. So we recruit unfortunate kids, orphans kids, displaced children, all over high country. And we take them to our boarding school in where we feed them three times a day. We educate them the word of God, and we also teach them general education. So from age of six, seven years old, by the time they leave, they have a high school degree in their hand ready to go to college.
(07:36):
And at the university level, the college level, the vision of the funder is to give the opportunity of those surrounding countries, Muslim countries, to have a place to pursue their university education within Wago. So that’s what we do when it come to the education level. And then we have farming and agriculture. But before I talk to that, I come to the farming and education. We also have a vocational training center where we teach young girls who don’t want to pursue their general studies. We give them the opportunity to be trained into sewing, hairdressing, and also cooking. And so we train them and then we send them back to their areas so they can be helpful. And while the kids are in the compound with us at the boarding school, we also teach them how to raise pigs, how to raise cows, how to feed them, how to milk the cows, and also how to do gardening. So we teach them how to do vegetables so that when they go back, they can be helpful to their communities.
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (08:49):
And so you are working in the hospitals, you’re working in education, and then you’re working in farming and training people in how to raise different kinds of food. And ultimately your goal is to help people to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. And so what do you feel are ways to reach out to people in Burkin Faso? There’s a lot of challenges. Like you mentioned, there have been recent terrorist attacks in Burkin Faso. And so because of that, there’s potential danger. But in the midst of great darkness, Jesus still shines bright. So tell me a little bit, how does Jesus shine in the hearts of people? You have some testimonies of people’s lives who have been impacted.
Samuel Ouedraogo (09:42):
Yeah. Burkina Faso is a country I that I love, and it’s a special country. So as you mentioned, in the midst of darkness, we should shine because we represent Christ in the nation of Burkina Faso. Right now, we have approximately 1 million of people displaced families. So reaching those people through social work will be a good way of sharing the love of Christ and making them disciples because we have those displaced camps that we can go to and help those people don’t lose hope and let them know that Christ can be their helper and that he hasn’t done with them. And also, Burkina Faso is a Muslim country in the sense that more than half of the population is Muslim. So one of the strategy we have is door-to-door evangelism. We will go sometimes to a neighborhood and just knock the door and tell them we are here to shed the word of God.
(10:58):
If they accept, we’ll, shed the word of God. If they don’t, we ask them if they have any sick person in the house, we will pray for them. If they allow us, we pray and we leave. If they don’t, we close the door and we move to the next door. And we have major cities in Castle where crusades, high skilled crusades can be done, where we can have thousands of people gathering of people to share the word of God. So this can be a way of reaching more people in those measure cities. And as you said, we have testimonies. So the founder of Word of Hope has been putting pressure on me to recruit displaced children. And when those kids comes to the compound at the boarding school, they’re terrorized. When they hear a noise, they get panicked. So the work we have been doing is to a lot of prayer counseling and letting them know that this is a safe community. So at the end of the day, we’ll see that they have their confidence back, and that even becoming prayer warriors, praying for their parents, and also doing good at school. So we have a lot of testimonies.
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (12:19):
Wow. So as people are listening and maybe they have a heart to help per Keno Faso, maybe they want to help with your hospital ministry or some of the education or social work that you’re doing, what is a good website where they can find out information about you and maybe even get involved, pray for you, even give some funds to help out the people of Burkina Faso?
Samuel Ouedraogo (12:43):
Yeah, we would love to have some help. We would love to have people, Tim, come to Kin AFA and to help us reach the unreached and make disciples for the Lord. So a good website to get to know us will be www do ppo, P-A-R-O-L-E-D-E-R-P-O-I-R mean.org.
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (13:15):
Here. Spell that again.
Samuel Ouedraogo (13:16):
So www.paroledespoir.org. And I also have my email address that you can send me an email, which is O ns dot s@gmail.com.
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (13:44):
Wonderful. And so I encourage you, if God puts it on your heart to be a part of the ministry in Burkina Faso, I encourage you to reach out, be a part, and get involved in what God is doing in this nation. It’s landlocked in the middle of Africa, really, the heart of West Africa. That’s
Samuel Ouedraogo (14:02):
Right.
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (14:02):
But I believe that God is doing great things in Kinno
Samuel Ouedraogo (14:06):
Faa. Yes, yes, yes. So we are looking forward to having Dr. King with a team to help us reach the unreached.
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (14:14):
Yeah. Thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Daniel King interviews missionary James Obeng from Ghana, who is currently serving in Guinea. James shares how he became a missionary after receiving a prophecy about serving in a French-speaking country. Despite not knowing French, he learned the language and started doing evangelism and ministry work. James faced challenges in communicating with the locals but found ways to overcome them, such as using translation tools and working with a young boy who could translate for him. He also established a church in Guinea. James credits his spiritual father, Evangelist Dag Heward-Mills, for inspiring him in his missionary and evangelistic endeavors. He learned from Dag Heward-Mills’ teachings about patience and perseverance in ministry. James also shares how he supports his ministry through various entrepreneurial activities, such as selling perfumes, farming, and baking bread. Additionally, he talks about his journey to finding a wife and how God led him to a Guinean woman named Fatima. Despite initial resistance, James followed God’s leading and proposed to her. The episode concludes with Daniel expressing his admiration for James’ faith and the impact he believes James will make as a missionary.
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, James Obeng. Yes. Did I say that right? Correct. From the nation of Ghana. Exactly. And we are actually in Guinea right now. And you have come from Ghana to Guinea as a missionary, and it’s a big mission field. I mean, Ghana, you go from an English speaking country to a French speaking country. Exactly. From a country that is majority Christian, to a country that is majority Muslim. Muslim, yes. And very different culture here. Yes. And so how did you become a missionary?
Missionary James Obeng (00:46):
Wow, thank you. First of all, I became a missionary. By one day I was in school. That was when I completed junior high school. In the year 2006. We were youth and we used to go for prayers. So one day we went for prayer and the leader who was leading, he was a prophet and he gave me a prophecy that he sees me in a French speaking country. By then, I received the prophecy bets. I didn’t take it.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:21):
And at that time you didn’t speak any French?
Missionary James Obeng (01:23):
I didn’t speak throughout my life. I didn’t go to any French school. So by then I never knew any French. And even when I got here, it was in Guinea here, I started learning French by the grace of God. Wow. So when I received the prophecy, it kept on three times. So we finished secondary by the grace of God. And when I finished secondary, I used to move in the church. I was by the grace of, I was the leader for the youth. So I did the little that I could in the church. And when I completed the secondary school, I got the chance to go to university. So in university too, we used to go to every Christmas we used to go to the villages to go and preach and stay there whilst our parents would be calling us, oh, come home, let us celebrate the Christmas together.
(02:12):
But we stayed in the villages and we used to win soul for Christ. So from there I was a member of Church of Pentecost. Since my childhood, that was where my mother sent me. So I grew up in the Church of Pentecost by James McKeon. So when I completed university and I came to the capital city, that’s Accra. I didn’t know which church to attend the area where I was staying. There were a lot of churches there. So I prayed to God one morning that, oh God, I want to go to church, but I don’t know where to attend. Lead me to where you want me to be. And lo and behold, I attended one of evangelist Dag Heward-Mills church, which is Morning Star Cathedral headed by Bishop Ka Bidden. So when I entered the first day, they had a meeting after church service to teach people how to go out and win souls and how to do something for God.
(03:10):
And it was something that always motivated me to do something for the Lord. So after the meeting the following week, I went back to the church and prophet called out for people who have completed university and who feel that there’s the call of God upon their lives. And I was someone who used to be shy. Anytime I see crowd, I didn’t want to push or go there. But I don’t know what happened. I found myself in front of the church and we were about 30 something people, if I 30 something people who went forward. And among all these people, prophet asked me whether I’m interested to come and work at the church as a receptionist. And I said, Hey. And we just finished university and we were posted to different places to go and do our national service. And it wasn’t possible. There were, it wasn’t possible to get transfer from where you were posted to come back to Accra, the capacity to come and do the service.
(04:13):
So when he told me, I said, oh, this one is very difficult. And he said, well, pray about it and start doing something because I felt that I want you to work with us here. So when I went back to the my station, I went to see the director for the health service, and the director to lo and behold, was a member of this same church, Morningstar. So went after explaining everything to her, she said, okay, if that’s the case, I’ll help you with a letter for release. And with that letter go to the National Service Headquarters and present that letter to them and they will see what they can do and by the great. So when I went there, everything went on smoothly and I was transferred from the town where I was doing my service back to Accra. So a month later, prophet told me that I should prepare.
(05:00):
I’ll be going for missions. And I said, if missions I love do evangelism, and when I see people coming to Christ, there’s this joy that comes to my heart. And Bishop Dag Heward-Mills has been some, anytime I see his crusade, the way people are crying, lifting up their hands, coming to Christ, there’s this burning, I don’t know how to explain it in ways, but I feel this desire and this hunger to also win. So for the Lord. So when he asked me to prepare, I said, okay, I will. So I started praying six months later, he said, it’s time. But initially he didn’t tell me the place where I’ll be going. He said, James, prepare. I think you’ll have to go to Guinea. I said, Guinea, I never knew the language that Guinea speaks, whether it’s a French or so. I went online and I checked, I said it French, and I’m someone who likes French. I’ve never studied French in my life. And that’s
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:53):
What the prophecy came earlier, that you would go to a
Missionary James Obeng (05:55):
French nation. Exactly. And it was exactly 10 years. When the professor came in the year 2006, and I completed university in the year 2017, and it was in 2017 that the professor started manifesting the grace of God. When he told me that, I started remembering, I say, oh, if that’s the case, I was afraid initially I say, I don’t have any French background, so how am I going to do this machine work? But I believed in that prophecy and I kept it in my heart and I wrote it in my diary. So I remember the prophecy and I said, oh God, if you are the one me working here, because the church had over 5,000 Sundays, over 5,000 people go to the church. So out of this 5,000, I was new. I was new in the church. The prophet didn’t know. My parents didn’t know me from anywhere, and he called me to work at the reception.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:52):
So how long have you been here in Guinea now?
Missionary James Obeng (06:55):
I’ve been here for five years now by the grace of God.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:58):
And what were some of the challenges that you faced initially, and what have you seen God do while you’ve been here?
Missionary James Obeng (07:06):
Initially when I came because of the French barrier, I had my phone. So when I want to talk to people, I pick up my phone, I go to translate Google, I’ll see the thing, the words in English, and the Google will translate it into French. Then I couldn’t read the French, so I gave it to the people around those who can read. Or sometimes I click on it, then the audio will play. So there was a name they called me, the pastor who uses his food to translate. That was in Wow. And it was a little challenging for me to communicate with people, but lo and behold, I got this. God brought this young guy who was 11 years old, he used to attend English school. So the mother went to see the mother through evangelism, and the mother said, oh, I can take the boy.
(07:54):
So wherever I used to go to the evangelism, I was with this boy, this boy will translate it in their local dilate. That was gey. So he was the one I used to move with and go told me that whatever he wants me to do, I should continue to do. I shouldn’t look at the barrier, which is the language. That’s the reason why the boy and everything, the thing is I have to have the desire and I have to do what he asked me to do. And through that, by the grace, I started picking it, picking it small, small. And there was this thing to that helped me. My senior pastor, who is Reverend Wanda, asked me to do something, not just come in without working on anything. So I brought some things from Ghana, and when I go out, I used to force to speak the French, communicate with them in the French language. So that was what helped me initially to start forcing with the French language, one by one, one by one, and also with the aid of the Google translator. So that’s where I started picking the French.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:51):
And so now you’ve established a church here? Yes. You planted a church? Yes. About how many people would come on a typical Sunday morning?
Missionary James Obeng (09:01):
By the grace of God, our largest attendant has been 96.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:06):
Okay.
Missionary James Obeng (09:07):
We had a program called SW Sunday. It’s a program that my spiritual father, Bishop Dag Heward-Mills has been organizing, and we followed one day. So all the members, we told them, I try and invite someone to church because I realized that most of the people come with the mindsets of coming to receive their healing, the miracles and breakthrough. And after that, they go back to the world. Initially, that was the challenge that I encountered. Here, we’ll go out after preaching. Oh, God has been healing a lot of people. So when they heard that, oh, God is healing people in this church, they will come.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:46):
Wow.
Missionary James Obeng (09:48):
A day on that
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:49):
Sunday, you’ve seen lots of miracles.
Missionary James Obeng (09:50):
Exactly. So when they receive the miracles and they go home, and by the grace of God has been healing, a lot of people, God has been so after that, they refuse to come back to church. When you encounter, oh, I came to receive my healing, or I came to receive a miracle. So I’m a Catholic, I’m a Protestant, so I’ve gone back to my church. Meanwhile, they’ll be in the house, not going to church. So that was the challenge. And also for now, we are in our forties by the grace of God, and there’s a challenge here. Most of the people, those who are committed, they try to move from this city, go to a different place, look for money. They have a mining place called Sigrid, and also manna. So the youth who used to help committed a time will come and they be moving. So those are, the attendance have been fluctuating that by the grace of God for now we are in our forties.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:45):
So let’s talk about your spiritual father, Dag Heward-Mills. Exactly. He is an evangelist. He’s a great evangelist from Africa, from the country of Ghana, and he’s very well known all over Africa. He’s been having huge meetings, just as big a meetings as any American evangelist who would come. And people in Africa love Bishop Dag Heward-Mills. And so tell me some of what you have learned being under his ministry about being a missionary, about being an evangelist.
Missionary James Obeng (11:20):
Okay, thank you. Evangelist Dag Heward-Mills has been someone who has been inspiring me a lot. I came into contact with the evangelist. That was in the year 2011. One of my colleagues in secondary school came to visit, and when he came, I was in the process praying and studying, and he told me that there is one man of God called evangelist that you were nurse. And he was in a university by then. I was in my first year in the university. And he said, oh, I would like to share some of his messages and his books with you. And I said, okay. So he shared some of his audios, preaches, and some books with me. And the message that touched me a lot was a message title, the word of my patience. And the evangelist thought on how God called people and how he, after speaking or giving them the prophecy, how it takes the duration, the way for us, it seems that it has delayed.
(12:29):
So the long time it takes before the prophecy come to pass. So I listened to how he spoke about Abraham and the promise God gave to Abraham. He said, you are the father of all nations, many nations. And it took 25 years for this promise to come to pass. He spoke about Jacob when Jacob was leaving his father’s house, when he had an issue with his brother and was going to his uncle. And the way it took long time over 20 years before he saw the prophecies and the promise of Welcom coming to pass, he spoke about David, how God told David that I have anointed you to be a king, and still he has to fight with soul. So the challenges that they went through. And he said, when God calls you, you have to be patient, to be frank. I dunno how to explain, but this message touched me.
(13:18):
And I used to always listen to that message. When I’m going wherever I’m going, I used to have a e piece and I had a Nokia phone, so the Nokia phone will be in my pocket when I’m sleeping, I listen to that message and it has been a message that I cannot forget. And I always encourage those that I meet. And by the grace of God, I’m trained that anytime God speaks to you or you receive a prophecy, be patient with God, do not rush. When you rush, you’ll be making a mistake and always believe in the way that God has spoken over your life. And also, I saw some of his crusades. It was my first time swinging some of his crusades. I used to see the crusades of evangelists, Han Bonky and bein and other men who got bes. It was my first time I saw the crusade by evangelist dark gold mills and how people were crying the way he has the zeal, the hunger.
(14:17):
He said he, no matter nowhere is far for the gospel to reach. So that because of that, no matter what it takes, he try to sacrifice, make sure the gospel go. And also he wants all the villages. He said, the men of God go to the big, big cities, but there are towns and villages where people cannot afford to go or to hear the gospel. So no matter where you are, the gospel must reach you. And it was, we have to go to those places, we have to go to them. He said, those people, every town and village, every town and villages, we have to be there. And they said, Jesus went to the towns and villages so we don’t have to be in the towns only, but in the villages to reach the poor. Because he came to preach the gospel to the needy and the needy people, most of them are the poor people. So as we preach to them and they come to Christ, there’s this joy. I watch one video and I realized how they were Muslims and how it was in Covo, how the people were crying, weeping, and in fact, I couldn’t stand. I also started crying and I said, God, give me this grace. I want to reach out no matter where they are, to go and preach to them. And that’s how I started.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:31):
It takes great faith to be a missionary. Yes. Did anyone support you when you were starting to be a missionary? Were there churches or individuals that helped to support you? How do you support your ministry? At least in the beginning?
Missionary James Obeng (15:47):
Okay. When I came initially, it was a bishop, Bishop, prophet Rabin. He’s the bishop for the address of Kadesh Kosh. So he used to send us support and other thing. But when I came, he told us that to be a missionary and to survive, you must try and do something on your own.
(16:12):
So whatever you can do, try and do it on your own to survive. And that’s something that the evangelist has been encouraging us with. That wherever you go, do not put it at the back of your mind that, oh, people have to support me. And when it happens that you try and rely on the people instead of putting your faith in God in order. God is the one who has sent you there. So whatever that we can do. And he used the way he said Abraham was a missionary. Abraham moved to different nations, and as he went, he was working to survive.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:48):
And so what have you done to work to survive?
Missionary James Obeng (16:51):
Okay, thank you. I used to, initially I was selling perfumes and other things from Ghana. I realized that Guinea loves things from Ghana. So I started with perfumes and some mosquito repellent cream, some clothes, long sleeves. So I used to sell them in farm. And when I came here to, I realized it was not working here. So I started by farming. And also I started, what’s the name? Baking bread, doing some juice. Wow. So for now
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:25):
It And are you still doing that now?
Missionary James Obeng (17:26):
Yeah, the bread. I still doing the bread that
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:29):
Wow. Yes. Now God has given you a great blessing while you’ve been here. Yes. You met a girl and you asked her to marry you. And so now God has brought you together and she’s beside you. Tell me, what is her name?
Missionary James Obeng (17:46):
Her name is Fatima ob.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:49):
Okay. And she’s a beautiful young lady. Yes. And tell me about how you met her and how you asked her to marry you. Okay.
Missionary James Obeng (17:59):
When I was coming, initially I was single. So it was in 2020, I went back to Ghana and my senior pastor James, it’s not good for you to be single on a mission field. And I was someone who was afraid to propose to a lady why? I didn’t want to give my word a promise and fill the person. So it was very challenging for me to propose to a lady. So when they told me, I said, okay, I’ll pray about it. And there was this lady when I was in Ghana, she used to come and help me at the reception. When I’m busy, I’ll ask her to sit at the reception and help me. So when I came, when I went back to Ghana, I proposed to her and she had said, I said, let’s pray to go so that the will of God will come to pass. So when I came back in 2020 and we were still doing courtship and doing marry school, but it got to a time, I realized the lady was afraid deep in her heart, he was afraid to come for missions because she used to hear about,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:02):
This was a girl from Ghana?
Missionary James Obeng (19:03):
Yes. This was a girl from Ghana. And she used to hear about how missionaries suffer the way their wives still suffer, the challenges. And sometimes when I’m
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:12):
Talking, and she didn’t want to suffer,
Missionary James Obeng (19:14):
She didn’t want to suffer. Sometimes when I’m talking with her and I tell her about the challenges that I’m going through, she becomes discouraged in terms of finances and other things. So when it happened, I told our bishop that, oh, to be frank, the lady is trying to pull back. And she said, okay, if that’s the case, we should separate. And when we separated, to be frank, it was very difficult for me because I wanted to get married. And also I realized being a missionary and single wasn’t easy. So I prayed to God and my mind was always in Ghana that I wanted to get a Ghanaian woman. My senior pastor in Zel, Corey told me that, James, I think you have to get a woman here. I said, rev, no Guinea. I don’t want marry in Guinea. Our bishop in Corner Creek also mentioned, I said, my mind was fixed and I wanted a Ghanaian woman.
(20:07):
So one day our bishop came to Guinea for mission to come and visit us. And when he came, he called me one day and he said, James, do you mind marrying a Guinean woman? I said, Bishop, as a Guinean, it has been a fight. I don’t want to marry here. I want to marry from Ghana. He said, well, you have to pray about it. So as I was praying, it’s like God made me go blind the same way I dam slipped. My mind was fixed. And I realized that was my challenge. My mind was fixed to marry a Ghanaian woman. So one day I prayed a certain prayer. There was this friend of mine who asked me. He said, God told him to inform that I should first and pray for three days, drive first. And then it was my first time and my prayer was, father, let your will be done in my life and everything that I do.
(20:56):
And after that prayers, three days later, a bishop called me and told me about this marriage stuff. And I said, oh God, I don’t want to marry from Guinea, but if it’s your world, that job will be done. I want to hear your word, and I want a word from, because I don’t want to make a mistake. I’ve had challenges of marriages because of that, I have trusted you and I have put my faith in you that I don’t want to make a mistake. So one day I was praying and I received a from God. And I said, okay. I wrote a Rima, what both told me concerning my marriage, concerning this lady. I receive an assurance. And there was these friends that I pray with, Rima, took him from their prophecy, came from them, James, you’re going to get married, but you have to be flexible.
(21:40):
I said, Hey, flexible. Okay. So one day I had a dream. After that four days, the fourth day I had a dream and I realized that’s my bishop who came from Ghana, one of my spiritual fellow. He gave me a gift. And that gift, I didn’t see the gift, but I was very excited. And I went back to him. I said, oh, Bishop, thank you very much for this gift. To be frank, I’m blessed. This gift has transformed my life. So after that, in the morning when I woke up and I was praying, I received within my heart, the gift that you need is the suggestion that the bishop has given you, has given you, if you will take it, it’ll become a blessing. That’s the marriage. So I said, wow, three. The first one was the assurance from me. The second one was from the prophet that I pray with, and the third one was the dream. And I said, okay, if that’s the case, father later will be done. I don’t want to fix or be rigid and refuse to flow with you, that here will be done. So that was where I got in touch with the lady. We started chatting and I realized that the chemicals, the connections started,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:50):
The chemistry was good. The
Missionary James Obeng (22:51):
Chemistry. The chemistry was good. So I took a risk and I went to Corner Creek to go and visit her. And it was my longest journey ever in my life, moving from here to Corner Creek. And the car goes forward on the road, and I said, this risk that I’m taking to go and see a woman, that the prophecy came back, that oh, become and be patient. And when I go there, to be frank, I was very excited to meet her. I felt this peace and this joy and meeting this lady, I chatted with her. And that was where I proposed Wow, the grace of God.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:30):
And so God brought you together. And I believe that God’s hand is on the two of you together. Exactly. And you’re going to make a big impact. I’m so impressed with your faith coming as a missionary and what God is doing through you. And I think God has many more amazing miracles to do in your life. Amen, brother James, thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast. I appreciate it. Thank you
Missionary James Obeng (23:55):
Very much. I’m so honored to be here and to be with you. God bless you so much. Bless you. Amen.
In this episode of The Evangelism Podcast, Daniel King interviews Evangelist Oury Saw from Guinea. They discuss a recent gospel campaign in Guinea where many miracles took place, including the healing of a blind eye and a deaf ear. Oury Saw shares his testimony of how he came to believe in Jesus Christ, despite being from a Muslim background. He talks about his experiences of persecution and rejection from both his family and the Christian community. Oury Saw also discusses his passion for reaching Muslims with the love of Jesus and shares some strategies for effective evangelism. He emphasizes the importance of prayer and listening to the Holy Spirit’s guidance when reaching out to Muslims. He also shares stories of village campaigns where Bibles were distributed and miracles occurred, leading to the acceptance of the Bibles. The episode concludes with a prayer for Guinea and a hope for the nation to be saved.
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, Mr. Oury Saw, from the Nation of Guinea. Thank you for joining me on the Evangelism Podcast. Thank you, sir.
Oury Saw (00:14):
Yes, it’s a pleasure.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:16):
Well, we are here in Guinea, in Guéckédou, and we have had a wonderful gospel campaign this week, right in the soccer stadium in the middle of the city, and last night thousands of people came. We had so many wonderful miracles. There was a woman who had a blind eye who was healed, a deaf ear that was healed. So many other miracle testimonies. So God is really working here in Guinea and you have been helping to organize this event. So tell me a little bit about this city and the process of organizing.
Oury Saw (00:58):
Well, here is, this is the city is called, well, first of all, I thank you for the interview and everything. Yeah, thank you. The city calls Guéckédou and this is like the Kissi and the Mandingo. There’s so many in this place, those two tribes. So they are mostly unreached people and the Lord put into my heart to come and to have a campaign in this city because now we find out like some churches are here, pastors, the church aliens. So we collaborate together to work to make this thing possible with their own collaboration. Even though I am a leader of this campaign and preparing this with them, and I appreciate what the Lord is doing here and now we see the result of coming together with all the leaders, with all the pastor, with all the churches and what the Lord is doing in front of us with in front of our eyes. So we see it with our own eyes. So praise God for that.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:13):
Praise God. Well, you are a Muslim background believer and you have a tremendous testimony of how Jesus rescued you. Can you please tell some of your testimony in how you came to believe in Jesus Christ?
Oury Saw (02:31):
Well, this is something that I could not even imagine in my life. One day a Fulani can become a Christian. I have never imagined this, but
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:44):
It became, tell me the tribe that you’re from.
Oury Saw (02:46):
I’m from the Fulani background
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:49):
And most of them are Muslim. Is that
Oury Saw (02:51):
Yes, my father, mother and all my family, we are Fulani. So in fact we the Fulani, the adult who brought Islam into the whole West Africa. So in Guinea, the majority, we are majorities and our parents fathers bring Islam in this country. So one day I was in Liberia, but it became a time I was thirsty about God. Really I was looking because I has been trained to be a mom because I study, I memorize the Koran and all this because we as a Fulani age, as seven, 10 years, you have to memorize the Koran mostly in the Fulani tribe because we believe that we are so proud like that. So the ordination or the tribe will be boast upon them to say that we know the current modern you and all this. So you see, I went to Liberia once and something that come into my heart.
(03:52):
I was really thirsty for God and I was saying to myself, God is greater than the religion. But to be honest, I was not satisfied with religion. Something I can do more you more you do more. You think you never do something more you want to do and all. I was tired with that because it is less the religion. What I do is not what God do. So I was very tired of this and I tell the “Lord,” I said, “please, I want to know you. I know you are greater than religion and I want to encounter with you, so maybe you can give me peace because I don’t have peace with no religion and all this.” So every time, that’s my five prayer, I always do it every day. And I was really looking for God. I was thirsty for God. Really. I was not even satisfied.
(04:42):
I tell you, I was not satisfied with this religion. So one day I come, I was passing by a place and I made this people, Christian was standing there and I asked them, I just passing my greet, the people as newsworthy, greeting people normal. And I said, oh, what you doing here? I said, no, we come to pray. Are you a Christian? Yes. Oh, okay. So we just come to pray here. What you are invited if you want to. Then I said, okay, but don’t ask me why did I say, okay, I don’t know why this. I say, okay. And I just say, okay. Then I jump in it. So they started worshiping beating drums, which is not the case in the mos. It was so strange for me and what all they were doing. I was looking at them, oh, this is the way to worship.
(05:31):
This is the way to worship and all this. It’s like I was judging them in everything they do. But after the service, the missionary, the pastor told me, the missionary asked me, how did you feel? How did you, I said, oh, it’s okay. In reality, no, really. I was not happy with that. I was not. But he then told me next week I’ll be here. I said, okay, next week I will come because I always keep my promise when I say this. I will do that. My father teach me. So everything you say, do it. So I said, okay. Next week I will come. You promise? Yes, I will come. I will come. Surely I will come and I continue to come. The next week I was sitting there. Then they started beating all this on the same thing. But my attention started going a little with when he speak about Jesus, that’s why it’s good. It’s good to preach Jesus. It’s good to talk about Jesus. It’s good to really. Then he was talking about Jesus. I started listening because we have Issa in Koha. So I was listening to what he’s saying, the love of God through Jesus and all this and all that. Then I started interesting because I hear love forgiveness and all this and all that.
(06:41):
But the missionary thing, because I came from Guinea and I study French because he’s a French speaking country. So he brought me one carton of Bibles. He said, this is for you. Then I opened. I find 12 Bibles inside. He said, okay, thank you very much, but not knowing I have never studied French and I only studied Arabic. That’s what I studied and I, I opened the book. I could not read because I don’t know nothing about this. When I went home, there’s something that happened and the voice, I just hear the voice, did you want to read? Then I look up, I look down and I come and open my window. I go out. I look and I never see nobody, and I went in the room. Then he said, did you really want to read? I said, I look under the bed and everywhere.
(07:36):
I just say, but the voice is clear. Then I said, but when the voice is talking, then I always have peace. It’s give me peace. Every time he speak, he give me more peace. Then I said, yes, I want to read. He said, okay, follow me, repeat after me. Then I opened the Bible in John one one. That’s the first passage I read in the Bible. In the beginning was the word and the word was God, and the word was God in French. So we read the first chapter. When you read, I repeat the chapter. When we finish, we finished the first chapter. Then he said, you can go. You continue to the second chapter, you alone. Then I was like, my spirit was fixing in French. All the French was given to me. The writing was there. I cannot explain it, but you see something miraculous when God want to do things, he did it.
(08:23):
So I started reading the Bible. Then I started reading the Bible. I started reading the Bible, chapter two. Then I finished the whole Testament. When I read, I understand when I read, I understand when I read, I understand. So I finished the whole New Testament. So I continue to read it seven times in the two days. I finished that seven times. In the two days I could not reading the book of John, leaving the book of no, the whole New Testament seven. In two days I read seven times. I could not even sleep because something grabbed me. I have the grace to open my eyes 24. By 24, I don’t even want to sleep because I find out something that is above my own knowledge that I have never knew in my life. So I was there eating the Bible, eating the word of God.
(09:10):
So when the persecution started that the full brothers became a Christian, this was the problem for me. So the Holy Spirit speak to the missionary into the mission, telling them one morning they were praying, go and pick Oury. Bring him here. So they went and find me. Then pick me, me into the mission, and they give me a room whereby I can stay. Then I have to say, finally I am escaped from my environment, whereby people are starting. But I stay there. There’s one brother that called Matthew Canton, and that was my room mate, and he was on that side. I was on the side. Then one day I asked him, I said, Matthew, will you tell me who is Jesus? Really? Who is Jesus? Then look at my eyes. He see that I was sincere, really. I really wanted to know who is Jesus.
(10:05):
Then he said to me, “He is the God Almighty.” I said, “What?” Yes. Then I turned my face to the wall like Ezekiel did. So afterwards I said this prayer, Jesus, if you are God the creator of the universe, I want to see you full stop. So that night I saw a vision. I saw nobody told me this a real vision. Then I saw heaven open, and when I see this heaven open, then I saw a man was coming out. When he was coming out, I saw people in his back and he was wearing this red robe red one, and these people was waiting the white garment behind it. So he come and he come until he reached down, he was walking in the cloud, coming down. So he come in front of me, side in front of me, like five meter. He just stood up.
(10:57):
Then he look at me. He just gave me a little smile then, and he went with the cloud. I saw him. The heaven was closed. But one thing that I understand, he never speak to me because I have never asked him to speak to me. I said, I want to see you. He respect that He honor my word. Wow, what a God. So really, I wake up at night and I say, Matthew, I have see Jesus today. He come to visit me. I saw you with my own face. So something happened again, and the Holy Spirit had to teach me about God is all knowing God and the Holy Spirit take me first into my body. He take me to cca, and he saw me the whole process, deal that they’re doing there. And he told me, I’m not here. He take me to the Buddhist temple. He said, I’m not here. He take me to the voodoo place. I said, I’m not here. He just make me travel. Yes, in the spirit, he’s told me I am not here. And he bring me back into my body again. And I wake up and I say to Matthew, Matthew, wake up. I have travel all night. You are sleeping there. You see something like that. And it was really something that I, but one of the thing that has broke me, put me down is when the Lord share with me his omniscience
(12:22):
Brother, the Lord has with my brain, little brain that you see, he share with me his omniscience, knowing everything at the same time, not one after the other. He knows the situation. He know what you think. He knows. He share with me what people think, what people say and everything together. Not one after the other. He knows everything. At the same time. He shared with me, wow, that day. And I stood up and I just wake up and I said, I just stand into my room. I was not sleeping. It was real. And I take my two hands. I put on my head and I shout. I said, Lord, stop. Then all of a sudden he stop. Then I come to myself. I realize I touch my body and I notice that I’m here. Really, I am here, and I understand this thing, this God that we are serving. He knows everything. He shared with me for just maybe 60 seconds, 55. Second. I was afraid. I just say, stop. And he stop. That was the final to tell me that I am the God that knows everything you see. And since that time, I will argue no more. Everything was clear for me,
(13:45):
And I have to stand again, study, pray, and get baptized. And I said, I want to go to my country. This is how God bring me here. So praise God. And now the Lord is doing his work to his body. That’s my body. So really, I’m so grateful of what he’s doing right now.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:08):
So tell us about the work that you’re doing. You have a real heart to lead Muslims to Jesus, to introduce them to this same experience that you’ve had, and what does that look like?
Oury Saw (14:23):
It’s sometimes when my only goal with them, when I, because I know how to approach them. God give me the grace, approach them to talk with them, the Imams and all this, but I don’t, I see something that touches my heart is like they’re tested individually. Really. They have a problem. They know it. Today, God is bringing the Muslim. Yes, we have some imams. We have some people that get saved. There’s some rabba and all this thing. They’re coming. And the challenge that I have today is like I am, to be honest with you, when Samuel preach the good news to David and he tell him, you will be a king and you will be all this that good news for David. But afterwards, persecutions come. When this persecution come and he run. He went to the one that tell him about the good news that Samuel Samuel have to let him in for the wild.
(15:31):
And I know if you preach, I know there’s so many Muslims right now that I’m hosting to my place because they’re there and they have been cast out. And right now I’m praying for God to give us, to be honest, a place, a hosting place whereby they can stay. And it’s possible even having some learning to do some work like mechanic, like Cary and all this so that they may continue their life later and something like that. But it’s sometimes very hard. And one night I remember three person come together and knock at my door ba. I said, what happened? When I opened my door? I see with the mattress some people which have cast us out and something like that. I was like, wow, come on. You can come in.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:19):
So you were very welcoming to them. Yes, yes. And it’s because when you first became a believer, you didn’t feel like you were welcomed anywhere.
Oury Saw (16:29):
Yeah, yeah. They have. Yeah. I know when I come back to Guinea, the churches, I went to the churches, they only, I was having the zeal to evangelize. I go out and preach to gospel and people was getting saved. But for me, they have never welcomed me. My parents kicked me out and the Christian never let me in, and I was just in between. It was very, very catastrophic for me. I sleep outside sometime, brother. I was sleeping on the table just in the bench. My cover clothes is mosquitoes when I wake up in the night and just find out sometimes I spend three days without eating. And I was there. It was so complicated. It was so complicated for my life. But yeah, I was like, people were so busy about auditing and no one was looking. Really, when I think about that, I don’t want those week get converted now for them to pass through that procedure. No, I don’t want it.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:24):
Tell me the testimony of evangelist Billy Bimba. He was here this week. We were actually using his platform, his sound system. And when you were a young believer, you heard him preach.
Oury Saw (17:37):
Yes. When I was a young believer, when I come newly freshly to Liberia, to Guinea, and anyway, Liberia is my spirit hometown anyway, because I get saved in Liberia. Anyway, so I met with him during the war, Liberian war, and we meet with him at, and I was desperate, sitting without no help and nothing, spend three days without eating nothing. And one of the funny thing, I evangelize Fuller brother like me, he gets safe and afterwards the parents kick him out. So he come to his Samuel. So he come to me and he tell me, they kick me out. I said, oh, I have no place to stay, but we can stay here. We sleep on the bench here. Something like that. So it’s during that period that I met with Brother Bimba. He just encouraged us and he gave us word of encouragement. He pray for us. He tell me always to look upon the one that called me and something like that. And that build me up that I will because I was having someone that we take his hand and put on my soldiers, something like that. And yes, and it has been a very big encourage for me.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:50):
And so then you lost contact with him for many years, for more than years. And now God has brought you back together after 20 years. And it was so beautiful to see both of you rejoicing
Oury Saw (19:02):
And
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:02):
Encouraging one another. It’s so wonderful to see how God directs our steps through the
Oury Saw (19:08):
Years. And I was praying for that. And when I was praying, I said, God, I want to see that man keep my alive. I don’t want him to go to heaven without saying no once. And I pray that for God now I’m so happy to, because God has exhausted my prayer. I just want to tell people it’s not when you pray sometimes that you want to see result, but every good prayer, every good prayer that you pray, God will answer that. I tell you, I don’t care the time that we take, but it’ll come to realize. So I
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:36):
Take that I love Muslims and I know that God loves Muslims very much. And even in my hometown in the United States, we have many Muslims. Just in the last couple of years, over 800 families from Afghanistan have come. And so at Christmas time, we invited many of the Muslims over to our house and we celebrated Christmas together. But if someone wants to reach Muslims for Jesus, what’s the secret? How can they do it?
Oury Saw (20:08):
Well, I think this is just a direction from the Holy Spirit and you just need to be a man of prayer that listen to the Holy Spirit. Because sometimes when you, you’re coming to them. For instance, for me, I usually wear my Muslim tradition cloth. So they may understand sometimes with the Muslims, you should be very, very pure exterior, exterior, something like that. And you have to be very, very someone that is so quite not much poop, boom. When there are people that listen in their heart. They know how to observe. They always observe your way of living the way observed it. And the way, for instance, for me in my hometown, I don’t eat pork. I don’t go at night. No, I stay at home because I have some neighbors that always watch what we do and observing. When you become a Christian, how you behave because we are here to reflect Jesus anyway.
(21:22):
Yeah, because they really don’t know what is Christianity, but God want them to know them through us. It’s love, brother. When you go to them, pray with them, just ask them always. Maybe you can pray for me, but did you have any situation that you think that we can handle it to God? Yes. This is the first thing that you always, I ask people. Some people told me I’m sick or I have this problem and have this situation, and I know God will always intervene. I know it is his will, so I just check their own situation. They are problem. That’s what I focus on. I don’t focus for them for salvation first, but what is? Because I know when those problems are settled, then they will listen for salvation. But as long they have this thing on their mind and tell you we talk until tomorrow, they’ll always focus on this, their own mind.
(22:24):
So I take my time to pray for them. And when they ask me, when they say right now, when I was coming to my eyes, saw two brothers get safe because they were having some situation, dramatic problem complication. So I lay hands, I pray for them. After two days, problem was resettles and then told me, your God has settled my problem. I said, this is the physical. The biggest one is inside. He can settle that one too. Your relationship with God. You see, it’s just the wisdom with the direction of the Holy Spirit. I think the direction in everything we do, we have to be humble in front of God and ask him, what can I do? Even though you will know what to do, but always ask the Holy Spirit. He will give you more wisdom. He will give you more love for the people.
(23:15):
Some people need deeper love. Yes, to the extent that love is there to support all the make, yeah. You will always support this because the love is there to not for you to feel what they do in repost and all this. I would just want to share this one brother. One day I was doing a campaign. Somebody take a stone and he come and stone my head. Pow. He just come and beat me, and he just beat me. I could not respond even to say a word, never. He was a Muslim. He was not like what I say about Jesus and all this. He just come and stick a stick, started beating me and started putting everything on my. Then the blood started coming out on my face. Then when he finished everything he said down there, then people was gathering. Then my team, I tell my one, so my team, the strongest one in the spirit. I said, come, thank come. Let’s say, let’s go for that now. And we went. We meet the man. Then I said, brother, you know my friend, and why did I have never take a stone or a stick to return to you? What he have did to me. You know why he said no. I said, well, you see, I’m serving the love in God.
(24:42):
Teach me in his life, he has beaten. He never respond because of if I do the same that you did to me, you will feel the same pain that I feel. But for me, I want to receive and endure that pain for you not to have it. You see? Then he wake, he look at me. He said, what? I said, yes, what you did to me, I will handle it. I will take it. I’m suffering. Yes, but if I did it to you, you’ll suffer us. I suffer. But for me, I don’t want you to suffer. Then the guy started crying and he started crying and he hold my feet. He said, forgive me and all this, and he started telling me, who is that person teach you all this? I says, Jesus Christ, and he give his life to Jesus. That’s why I said the Holy Spirit have a way of direction to reach people. Not only one way, but he knows.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:52):
Tell me about the village campaigns that you do.
Oury Saw (25:57):
Yes. We do a lot of village campaign with God mission like submissions with some people that help. We go to the, sometimes we have to work three, four hours, go and four hours come into the mountains and going and claiming doing campaign, and people respond. So many people respond, and we even share Bibles, hundreds of them Bibles and
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:22):
People accept the Bibles,
Oury Saw (26:26):
Which they’re very, very enthusiasm. Oh, yes, they are happy to have, they’re fighting to have it. Yes, they are. So I tell you, it was some places we go to, we say, please help me to have one. Please, please, and one day I have to heal two brothers that we are going. Two fuller brother, they put their Bible onto there. Then the war one said, he said, it’s not easy to have this one. We praise God to have them. I have to go and keep it somewhere,
(26:55):
And I was very happy to hear that from this. Wow. That’s how God do things here. And I remember we went in the village, we share the Bibles and this muah came. Imams came and they said, and Greece said, give them back, give them back, give them back. They started shouting, and people bring back the Bibles. People can bring the Bibles and my friend son, they were holding her like this, and it was above him. He was there, what can I do? I say, hold them there. You have to hold them. Be strong. Then I said, Anderson, hold the spirit. Tell me what to do now. Please tell me what to do. Hold the spirit. Tell me what to do. I don’t want to do no funny thing here. Then the Holy Spirit say, okay, ask for someone that is, they know he’s not well, he’s sick.
(27:45):
Then I said, did you have any death here or blind or whatsoever here? They said, yes, we have. Madu is here. Madu is, he’s a deaf and dump. Yes, the same. Yeah. I said, okay, will you bring ou here? They said, okay. They bring mama. They said, if you Jesus can heal this mama Madu, then we’ll take your bibles said. I said, okay. Then I lay hands up on Mama Madu. I say, Jesus, now you say it and you know about it. Thank you for the miracle. Then I said to Mamadou, and I said to Mamadou, I have to go one step. If I make like this, you hate your hands. He said, you don’t need to go. I have heard in you. The people said, he said, I hear everything what you’re saying, no need for you to go. Then he started talking. Then his ear was open. Then they started jumping into the second that follow. They have picked everything. Wow. They take all the
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:42):
Bibles because of the miracle. They took the
Oury Saw (28:43):
Battle of They take the Bibles and they carry it. So you see, this is some of the challenge that we face, but we will never stop. We never stop. We still own it. Yeah. Yeah, brother.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:56):
Well, I believe that Jesus wants to save all of Guinea, and so let’s finish today by praying together for Guinea. Amen. And would you pray? Pray in French. Pray for God to pour out his spirit upon this nation. Pray for Guinea to be saved.
Oury Saw (29:14):
Hallelujah. Let’s pray. Amen.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:13):
Amen. Amen. Well, brother, or it’s such a wonderful privilege to meet you. It’s a great honor to be here in your country with you, and I hope that in the future we can see God do many great things as we work together. Amen. It’s exciting to see, so thank you.
Oury Saw (30:33):
Pleasure. Thank you very much. I’m so happy for that, really, and thank you, really, God bless
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:39):
You. Thank you for being on the Evangelism podcast.
Oury Saw (30:42):
Amen. Amen. Amen.
You may not be able to save everyone, but there is someone that you are able to save. There are thousands of people that need Jesus. Sometimes people look at all the lost people in the world and they get discouraged and say, I could never make a difference. But I want to tell you today that you can make the difference in the life of someone. You may not be able to reach everyone, but there is someone that you can reach for Jesus.
Transcript:
One time there was a little boy and a grandpa who were visiting the beach, and overnight the water had washed in thousands of starfish, and this little boy knew that if the starfish stayed on the beach, they would dry out and die.
So this little boy went running up and down the beach. He was picking up starfish and throwing them back into the water. Then he’d run and pick up another starfish and throw it back in into the water. Meanwhile, the grandpa was up on the porch. He was in his rocking chair and he was rocking back and forth, rocking back and forth watching the little boy.
Finally the grandpa got up and told the little boy, he says, “Son, there are thousands of starfish out here on the beach, and I’ve been watching you. You’ve been working really hard, but you’re never going to make a difference. Thousands of these starfish are going to die.” The little boy looked into his grandpa’s eyes, then he looked down, saw a starfish, picked up one little starfish. He said, “Grandpa, I can make a difference in the life of this one.” And he threw it back out into the water.
You may not be able to save everyone, but there is someone that you are able to save. There are thousands of people that need Jesus. Sometimes people look at all the lost people in the world and they get discouraged and say, I could never make a difference. But I want to tell you today that you can make the difference in the life of someone. You may not be able to reach everyone, but there is someone that you can reach for Jesus.
Do you ever feel like you are way too small to make a difference for God in such a big world? In this episode, Daniel King talks about how you can shift your perspective to realize that with Jesus, you can shake the world for the kingdom of God.
Transcript:
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:00):
Do you ever feel like you are way too small to make a difference for God in such a big world? In this episode, we’ll talk about how you can shift your perspective to realize that with Jesus, you can shake the world for the kingdom of God.
Evangelism Podcast Announcer (00:25):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary, and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:49):
Once upon a time there was an elephant and a mouse who were best friends. And everywhere the elephant went, the mouse would sit right on his head and they would go on an adventure together. Well, one day they’re walking through the jungle and they see a wooden bridge that’s crossing a creek. And the elephant said, I’m not sure if that bridge is strong enough to hold my weight. And the mouse says, we can do it. Let’s go for it. So the elephant goes out on this shaky wooden bridge, and as they’re crossing the bridge, the the bridge is shaken. It’s going all over the place, and the elephant very gingerly, makes it over to the other side of the bank. And then the mouse said to the elephant, wow, we sure did make that bridge shake, didn’t we? Well, the truth is that the mouse didn’t really do very much to make the bridge shake. And that’s how it is when we go out witnessing, sometimes we’re like the mouse, but Jesus is like the elephant. And together us working with God, we can really make the world shake for the kingdom of God. And so you may have a very small part to play, but remember that Jesus is like a big elephant. He is strong and he is powerful, and he can make the world shake. And so you and Jesus together can change the world for eternity.
Evangelism Podcast Announcer (02:27):
Are you called by God to be an evangelist? Do you wanna lead millions of people to Jesus? Do you desire to be trained in the practical side of building a ministry? Then check out the Daniel King School of Evangelism. Learn how to be an effective evangelist from Dr. Daniel King’s 20 plus years of experience. Daniel King has done crusades all over the world in over 70 nations and has seen over 2 million people give their lives to Jesus. But it wasn’t easy. There was no crusade school. So Daniel traveled the world learning from and observing top evangelists, noticing how they successfully won souls for Christ. Now he wants to share decades of knowledge and experience with you. Topics of the Daniel King School of Evangelism include what is an evangelist, how to be a master soul winner, how to give an altar call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry, and much more. If you wanna be an evangelist, but don’t know where to start, the Daniel King School of Evangelism is for you. Enroll today in the School of Evangelism by going to Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism.
Daniel King (03:29):
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 Announcer (04:49):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
During his time on Earth, Jesus made it very clear what he wants his followers to do before he returns. In this episode, Daniel King talks about the Great Commission and how important it is to fulfill it in light of Jesus’ words in the gospels.
Transcript:
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:00):
During his time on Earth, Jesus made it very clear what he wants his followers to do before he returns. In this episode, Daniel King talks about the Great Commission and how important it is to fulfill it in light of Jesus’ words in the gospels.
Evangelism Podcast Announcer (00:25):
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.
Daniel King – Evangelism Coach (00:49):
Recently my wife woke up and the first thing she remembered was that we didn’t have any bread in the house. So she turned to me and said, Daniel, could you please go to the store and bring home some bread? I was still waking up, and so I was yelling. I said, oh, yes, dear, I’ll do that. So then we go to the kitchen table, we’re eating our breakfast together, and again, she wants toast. She remembers there’s no bread. She tells me again, could you please go to the store and get some bread? And I said, yes, dear, I will buy you some bread at the store. So then, uh, I’m putting the kids in the car and I’m backing the car out of the garage when suddenly the garage door opens and my wife shouts out, Hey, don’t forget the bread. And so I blew her a kiss.
(01:38):
So then I dropped my kids off at school and uh, suddenly my phone rings. It’s my wife. Hello honey. Yes, I love you too. Yep. I just dropped the kids off at school. I’m headed to the store right now. Don’t worry, I won’t forget. I will bring you the bread. So then I go to the store, I get my shopping cart, I’m going down the aisle. I get some milk, I get some cereal, and then suddenly beep, beep. It’s a text message. It’s from my wife, Jessica, one word. Do you know what that word was? Bread. Now, what would happen if I came all the way back home and I forgot to bring the bread? My wife told me five times, she reminded me to bring the bread. What would happen if I forgot to do the one thing she told me to do? Well, what happens if Jesus returns and we’ve forgotten the one thing he told us to do?
(02:39):
Now between the time of Jesus’s resurrection and the time of his ascension, Jesus had one thought on his mind and he repeated this thought several different times and in several different ways. And so we have it recorded multiple times in scripture. Let’s go ahead and read it right now. It’s known one as the Great Commission. It’s not just a good suggestion. This is a command for every believer. Matthew 28, verse 19, it says, then Jesus came and said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. And so these words are unread. They are spoken by Jesus to every disciple.
(03:42):
So if you’re a disciple of Jesus right now, just lift up your hand to heaven and say these words of Jesus say, go and make disciples of all nations. Alright, mark chapter 16, verse 15. Jesus said to them, go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, and whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe in my name. They will drive out demons, they will speak in new tongues. They will pick up snakes with their hands, and they will drink deadly poison. It will not hurt them at all. They will place their hands on sick people and they will get well. All right? So if you’re a disciple of Jesus, just lift up your hand and say, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
(04:40):
All right, now turn with me to Luke chapter 24 verse 47. It says, repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem. You are all witnesses of these things. So just lift up your hand to heaven and say, forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations. All right, now let’s look at John chapter 20, verse 21. Again, Jesus said, notice Jesus says again, he’s been saying this over and over again so the disciples would not forget it again, Jesus said, peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. So just lift up your hand to heaven and say, as the Father sent Jesus, Jesus is sending me. Now turn with me. One page over to Acts chapter one, verse eight. Jesus says, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.
(05:50):
And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and two the ends of the earth. So five times we have this instruction from Jesus. In Matthew 28, Jesus says, go and make disciples of all nations. Mark 16, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Luke 24, forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations. John 20, as the father of sent me, I am sending you. And then Acts one, eight, you will receive power after the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses to the uttermost ins of the earth. And so we are called to obey these words of Jesus and go and tell everyone about Jesus. When Jesus returns, he’s gonna ask us, did we obey the instruction that he gave us?
Evangelism Podcast Ad (06:49):
Are you called by God to be an evangelist? Do you wanna lead millions of people to Jesus? Do you desire to be trained in the practical side of building a ministry? Then check out the Daniel King School of Evangelism. Learn how to be an effective evangelist from Dr. Daniel King’s 20 plus years of experience. Daniel King has done crusades all over the world in over 70 nations and has seen over 2 million people give their lives to Jesus. But it wasn’t easy. There was no crusade school. So Daniel traveled the world learning from and observing top evangelists, noticing how they successfully won souls for Christ. Now he wants to share decades of knowledge and experience with you. Topics of the Daniel King School of Evangelism include what is an evangelist, how to be a master soul winner, how to give an altar call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry, and much more. If you wanna be an evangelist, but don’t know where to start, the Daniel King School of Evangelism is for you. Enroll today in the School of Evangelism by going to Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism.
Evangelism Podcast Host (07:51):
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 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 Announcer (09:11):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
Have you ever set a goal for how many souls you would like to win for Jesus? In this episode, Daniel King shares his own personal story of his soul winning goal and shares how no goal is too big for God to reach.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:00):
Have you ever set a goal for how many souls you would like to win for Jesus? In this episode, Daniel shares his own personal story of his soul winning goal and shares how no goal is too big for God to reach.
Evangelism Podcast Announcer (00:24):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary, and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:48):
When I was 15 years old, I was reading a book about how to be a success in life. And one of the things that this book said is that young people, if they wanna be a success, they should write down their goals. And one of the goals that they said would be good for young people is to try to become a millionaire by the age of 30 to make a million dollars. So would you like to be a millionaire by the age of 30? Or maybe you’re over 30, maybe by the age of 60, maybe by the age of 90. Well, I realized that because of my upbringing as a missionary in the country of Mexico, that money was not what was important to me. What was important was souls. And so at the age of 15, I wrote down on a sheet of paper, I, Daniel King want to lead 1 million people to Jesus before I turned 30 years of age.
(01:36):
Instead of trying to become a millionaire, I wanted to lead a million heirs into the kingdom of God to become a soul millionaire. And so I set that goal and then God started to open up doors for me. I was still a student at the university. When I got to do my first international crusade, it was in the nation of Honduras. In one week, we ministered to over 43,000 people. And then the next year, God opened the door for me to do two crusades and then more crusades. And I’m excited to tell you that by the time I was 30 years old, we had completed the goal of leading a million people to Jesus. And so now we have seen over 2 million people come to Jesus in our ministry. And just recently I was praying, I was asking God and saying, what comes next? And I felt like God gave me a goal.
(02:28):
He said, go for a million souls every single year. Now, in the natural, reaching a million people in a single year is impossible. But when things are impossible with man, they are possible with God. And with God, all things are possible. And so I tell you that story not to impress you, but to make you start to think what is your soul winning goal? How many people do you want to lead to Jesus? I have one friend and he set a goal to talk to at least one person about Jesus every single day of his life. And so every single day he looks for that person that he can share the gospel with. He travels a lot. And so he’s always on planes. He’s always going, uh, into new stores and new places. And he says, God, give me at least one person every single day that I can share the gospel with. And so what is your goal right now? I want you to take out a pen and a paper and ask the Holy Spirit to give you a goal that you can do. How many people do you wanna reach this week, this month, this year, in your lifetime? Set a goal for how many souls you want to bring to Jesus. And I believe that as you set that goal, God will give you the desires of your heart and you will begin to see opportunities to share your faith.
Daniel King (03:59):
Are you called by God to be an evangelist? Do you wanna lead millions of people to Jesus? Do you desire to be trained in the practical side of building a ministry? Then check out the Daniel King School of Evangelism. Learn how to be an effective evangelist from Dr. Daniel King’s 20 plus years of experience. Daniel King has done crusades all over the world in over 70 nations and has seen over 2 million people give their lives to Jesus. But it wasn’t easy. There was no crusade school. So Daniel traveled the world learning from and observing top evangelists, noticing how they successfully won souls for Christ. Now he wants to share decades of knowledge and experience with you. Topics of the Daniel King School of Evangelism include what is an evangelist, how to be a master soul winner, how to give an altar call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry, and much more. If you wanna be an evangelist but don’t know where to start, the Daniel King School of Evangelism is for you. Enroll today in the School of Evangelism by going to Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism.
Evangelism Podcast Ad (05:00):
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 Announcer (06:21):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
Do you ever struggle to share the gospel in a simple way that is easy for people to understand? In this episode, Daniel King talks about the three circles method of sharing the gospel that is easy, effective, and can even be carried around on the back of your phone.
Transcript:
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:00):
Do you ever struggle to share the gospel in a simple way that is easy for people to understand? In this episode, we’ll talk about the three circles method of sharing the gospel that is easy, effective, and can even be carried around on the back of your phone.
Evangelism Podcast Announcer (00:26):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary, and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:50):
One way I like to share the gospel is by using the three circles method of evangelism. So I made up these little stickers and I printed them out. And often when I do a workshop, I’ll ask people to put the sticker on the back of their cell phone so that everywhere they go, they can have this little illustration of how to be saved right there on the back of their phone. And they can share the gospel with people when they’re standing in line at the coffee shop. Well, let me tell you how to share the gospel using this simple illustration. The heart means that God loves you and he has a wonderful plan for your life. But many people have run away from God’s plan. And when we run away from God’s plan, this is called sin. And sin leads to a life that is broken.
(01:41):
This little squiggly line here represents a life that is broken by sin. And when people’s lives are broken, they begin to look for a way to bring change to their lives. And some people think, if I can have a relationship with a cute guy or cute girl, then I’ll be happy. But the problem is when two broken people are in a relationship, the relationship is also broken. Other people think that if I study lots of books and I get lots of degrees, then I’ll be happy. But even people that have gone to the university and and they’re really smart, often they are still miserable. Other people think, if I can make lots of money, I can buy happiness. But the problem is that even rich people often have lives that are very broken. And these people, they’re looking for change. The Bible has a word for change.
(02:30):
The Bible word for change is repent. And you’ll notice here, there’s a a person kneeling down and crying out to God in repentance. They are asking God to help them change their life. And then this third circle is what I call the gospel circle. The word gospel is a simple Bible word that simply means good news. And so this is the good news of how Jesus can save you from your brokenness. Jesus, the Son of God came from heaven to earth. He died on the cross to pay the price for our sins, but he didn’t stay dead. After three days, Jesus rose from the dead, and now he’s the king of the universe and he wants to be the king of your heart. And the Bible says that everyone who calls on Jesus will be saved. And so this person has their arms up in the air and they’re calling out and saying, Jesus, save me. If you’ll call on Jesus right now, he will bring you back to God’s perfect plan for your life.
Evangelism Podcast Host (03:30):
Are
Evangelist Daniel King (03:30):
You called by God to be an evangelist? Do you wanna lead millions of people to Jesus? Do you desire to be trained in the practical side of building a ministry? Then check out the Daniel King School of Evangelism. Learn how to be an effective evangelist from Dr. Daniel King’s 20 plus years of experience, Daniel King has done crusades all over the world in over 70 nations and is seen over 2 million people give their lives to Jesus. But it wasn’t easy. There was no crusade school. So Daniel traveled the world learning from and observing top evangelists, noticing how they successfully won souls for Christ. Now he wants to share decades of knowledge and experience with you. Topics of the Daniel King School of Evangelism include what is an evangelist, how to be a master soul winner, how to give antar call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry, and much more. If you wanna be an evangelist, but don’t know where to start, the Daniel King School of Evangelism is for you. Enroll today in the School of Evangelism by going to Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism.
Evangelism Podcast Host (04:31):
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 Announcer (05:52):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide outreaches, visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
Th
The Romans Road is an amazing tool for evangelism that uses verses from the book of Romans to walk through the various aspects of the gospel. In this episode, we’ll talk about how to use this method of evangelism to share the gospel with someone effectively.
Transcript:
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:00):
The Romans road is an amazing tool for evangelism that uses verses from the book of Romans to walk through the various aspects of the gospel. In this episode, we’ll talk about how to use this method of evangelism to share the gospel with someone. Effectively.
Evangelism Podcast Announcer (00:26):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:50):
If someone called you and said, what do I need to do to be saved? What would you say to them? Well, if I had the opportunity to answer that question, I would invite that person to come to a coffee shop and I would take them through the Romans road. The Romans road is a pathway of several different scriptures in the book of Romans that can tell us how we can be saved. And so what I’ve done is I’ve taken my Bible and I’ve highlighted each of these verses in my Bible. And then in the margin next to the highlighted verse, I wrote the reference of the next step on the Romans road. And so right now, I’d encourage you to get out your Bible and as I go through this, highlight the verses, and then each step you can write the verse that goes to the next step.
(01:46):
All right, so the first step on the Romans road is talking about the reality of sin. And that is found in Romans three, verse 23, which says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. This tells us that every single person on earth has done so that is wrong. Sin means to miss the mark. It means to fall short of perfection. And so none of us have lived a perfect life. All of us have made mistakes. And because of this, all of us need a savior. That brings us to the second step on the Romans road, which is the cost of sin that’s found in Romans 6 23. And so right here in the margin I, on Romans 3 23, I put the little verse, Romans 6 23, I turn over here and in Romans 6 23, it says, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord, because of the sin and the mistakes we’ve made.
(02:56):
We deserve to be eternally separated from God, but Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for our sins. We deserve to be punished for our sins, but Jesus died to pay the price for us. And that brings us to the next step on the Romans road, which is the payment for sin, which is found in Romans chapter five, verse eight. And so I flip backwards one chapter and Romans five, eight says, but God demonstrates his own love towards us in that wow, we were still sinners. Christ died for us. And so while we were still sitting, while we were living in the midst of our rebellion towards God, Christ died on our behalf so that we could be saved. That brings us to the fourth stop on the Romans road, which is the way to salvation. And this is found in Romans 10, verses nine and 10, which say that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised in from the dead, you will be saved.
(04:13):
For it is with your heart that you believe in are justified and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. And then I take them right down to Romans 10, verse 13, which is the favorite verse of every evangelist. It says that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. So the way to be saved is to confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and to believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. And so often people will lead someone in a salvation prayer and give them some words to say, to call out on the name of Jesus. And some people have said that they don’t really like salvation prayers, that it’s not biblical. But I wanna tell you, it is biblical right here. It says that everyone who calls in the name of Jesus will be saved.
(05:05):
I think salvation is very simple and it’s easy. If you were driving along a cliff and you fell off the cliff, if you called out Jesus before you hit the bottom, you could be saved just by calling on Jesus. That brings us to the fifth step on the Romans road, which is the results of salvation. And that’s found in Romans five verse one which says, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And so when we get saved, suddenly we are at peace with God. We have been justified by our faith. That means that we have been made right with God, which brings us to the sixth stop on the Romans road, which gives us the benefit of salvation. In Romans eight verse one, it says, therefore, there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
(06:12):
And then the seventh stop on the Romans road is the assurance of salvation that you can know for sure, for sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt that you really are saved. Romans 8 38 and 39 says, but I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. And so do you want to follow the Romans road to salvation? You can do it right now. Just say, Jesus, I believe that I am a sinner and I repent of my sins Right now, I believe that Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for my sins. And I believe Jesus rose from the dead. And today I ask Jesus to be the Lord of my life. Jesus give me an assurance of salvation so that I know for sure that I am going to heaven. Amen.
Evangelism Podcast Host (07:25):
Are you called by God to be an evangelist? Do you wanna lead millions of people to Jesus? Do you desire to be trained in the practical side of building a ministry? Then check out the Daniel King School of Evangelism. Learn how to be an effective evangelist from Dr. Daniel King’s 20 plus years of experience. Daniel King has done crusades all over the world in over 70 nations and has seen over 2 million people give their lives to Jesus. But it wasn’t easy. There was no crusade school. So Daniel traveled the world learning from and observing top evangelists, noticing how they successfully won souls for Christ. Now he wants to share decades of knowledge and experience with you. Topics of the Daniel King School of Evangelism include what is an evangelist, how to be a master soul winner, how to give an alter call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry, and much more. If you wanna be an evangelist, but don’t know where to start, the Daniel King School of Evangelism is for you. Enroll today in the School of Evangelism by going to Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism.
Daniel King (08:26):
The 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 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 Announcer (09:47):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:00):
As followers of Christ, we are called to take up our crosses and follow Jesus even in the little things in our lives. In this episode, Daniel shares a bit about how that has looked in his own life and talks about the importance of taking up your cross daily in your life as a follower of Jesus.
Evangelism Podcast Announcer (00:28):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary, and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:52):
My parents became missionaries in the country of Mexico when I was only 10 years old. And since they were my legal guardians, I had to go with them In Mexico. We did a bunch of children’s ministry. And one day my dad said, let’s do a drama about the life of Jesus. He said, Daniel, I want you to play the part of Jesus. And I thought that was a good idea because Jesus was perfect and I was almost perfect. And so my sister Esther, she pretended to be crippled and she would drag her foot up and then Jesus would lay hands on her and suddenly she could dance. And then my other sister, melody, she pretended to be blind and she’d come up and she would go like this and, and Jesus would spit on the ground, make some mud. But before I could even touch her eyes, she was already healed.
(01:41):
And then my father said, now we’re going to crucify Jesus. And suddenly I didn’t wanna be Jesus any longer, but my younger brother, Steven, he loved this drama because as the older brother, I’d always beat up on Stephen. But in this drama, he was the Roman soldier and he got to beat up on Jesus. And so he’d bring a big long leather whip, he’d grab me by the arm, he’d dragged me right up the center aisle of the church, and he’d beat me with that whip. And I gotta be honest with you, I think he overact a little bit. And then one day my brother went to my father and said, dad, I don’t think this drama is realistic enough. We need some blood. And my dad thought that was a good idea. So Steven brought a big bottle of ketchup and he put ketchup all over the whip.
(02:33):
And then when he whipped me with it, it looked like blood covered my back. It was worse than the movie, the passion of the Christ. And then he would crucify me to the cross. And I remember hanging there on the cross with all the sticky ketchup on my back. And every fly in Mexico was attracted to the ketchup on my back. And I’d always tell my dad, I’d say, dad, it’s very difficult to hang on the cross. Could you please preach quickly? But my father, like many preachers did not know how to preach quickly. And so he’d start in the first book of the Bible, Genesis and preach all the way through the last book of the Bible appendix. He’d preach the entire thing, and I’d be hanging there on the cross, the ketchup up on my back, flies crawling up and down. And I would begin to pray.
(03:25):
I would say, God, forgive my father for he knows not what he does. And then I would die. And one time there was a little kid, he wanted to see if Jesus was really dead or not. So he came up and he started tickling the bottom of my feet. I’m telling you, I suffered for the sake of the cross. Jesus said, take up your cross and follow me. Well, I did that literally. But the amazing thing is, is that the same messages we used to preach to 10, 20, 30 children at a time in Mexico today, God allows me to preach to 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 people at a time. You see, if you’re faithful with the small things, God will place you in charge of many things. And so if you want to be effective in witnessing to people, just start small. Find one person, one child that you can share the gospel with. And then as you are faithful to communicate the good news about Jesus, God will use you and you will be able to bring many people to Jesus.
Evangelism Podcast Host (04:33):
Are you called by God to be an evangelist? Do you wanna lead millions of people to Jesus? Do you desire to be trained in the practical side of building a ministry? Then check out the Daniel King School of Evangelism. Learn how to be an effective evangelist from Dr. Daniel King’s 20 plus years of experience. Daniel King has done crusades all over the world in over 70 nations and has seen over 2 million people give their lives to Jesus. But it wasn’t easy. There was no crusade school. So Daniel traveled the world learning from and observing top evangelists, noticing how they successfully won souls for Christ. Now he wants to share decades of knowledge and experience with you. Topics of the Daniel King School of Evangelism include what is an evangelist, how to be a master soul winner, how to give an alter call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry, and much more. If you wanna be an evangelist, but don’t know where to start, the Daniel King School of Evangelism is for you. Enroll today in the School of Evangelism by going to Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism.
Daniel King (05:34):
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 Announcer (06:55):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
Although we may share the gospel here and there, many of us struggle to grasp how urgent the message of Jesus truly is. In this episode, Evangelist Daniel King talks about how followers of Christ should have a fiery passion for saving souls that encourages them to urgently share the gospel with the world.
Transcript:
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:00):
Although we may share the gospel here and there, many of us struggle to grasp how urgent the message of Jesus truly is. In this episode, we’ll talk about how followers of Christ should have a fiery passion for saving souls that encourages them to urgently share the gospel with the world.
Evangelism Podcast Announcer (00:29):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now, here’s your host, missionary, and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:53):
I was 14 years old when I had the opportunity to go on a mission trip to the nation of Jamaica. And so we went running through the neighborhoods of Montego Bay, passing out fliers and inviting people to come to our mini crusade that we were having that night. Well, Jamaica is very hot and humid, so by the end of the service, we were hot, we were tired, we, we were exhausted. All we wanted to do was to go back to the hotel, take a shower and fall into bed. But when we arrived at the hotel, there was a big problem. For some reason, all the water in the hotel had been shut off. But someone in the group was a smart missionary, and they said, well, let’s just go down to the swimming pool and we’ll wash in the swimming pool. And so that’s what we do.
(01:40):
We took our shampoo, our soap, we went down to the swimming pool, and we were washing off in the swimming pool. And as we were playing around, I noticed that off on the edge of the pool, there was a panel that was smoking, and there were some sparks coming out to of it. And I thought to myself, panels are not supposed to smoke. And so very foolishly, I swam over to investigate this smoking panel. And as I’m looking at it, suddenly the light that was under the water, it shocked my leg and it scared me because you can die from electricity. And so immediately this whole side of my body went numb. I managed to pull myself up out of the pool and I, I walked away dragging my leg, and I immediately began thinking God, saying, thank you God, so much for saving me.
(02:34):
And I was six steps away from the pool. Suddenly I remembered that all of my friends were still in the swimming pool, and immediately I became very concerned for their safety. I rushed back over to the swimming pool and I started yelling at them and said, guys, guys, get outta the pool. Get outta the pool. And of course, they were all teenagers. They said, Daniel’s just playing a practical joke. But I was serious. I said, guys, get outta the pool. If you stay in the pool, you’re going to die. It shocked me. You can die if you stay in the pool. And so finally, some of them were convinced they, they got outta the pool. And then I started grabbing people by the hair and physically trying to pull them out of the pool. And finally they realized how serious I was. And everyone got out of the pool.
(03:22):
And thank God no one died that day in the swimming pool. And right then God spoke to me and said, Daniel, you need to have the same passion saving people from hell as you showed saving your friends from the swimming pool, you see a lot of people, they get saved and they walk away saying, thank you, God for saving me. But they forget that there is a world full of people who are dying and going to hell. And so thank God that you are saved, but let’s not forget about all the other people that need Jesus. Someone said one time that Christianity is like one starving man who found bread going and telling all the other starving men where they can find bread. And so thank God that you have found the bread of life. Now take the bread of life and go give it to other people who are hungry. God bless you.
Evangelism Podcast Host (04:28):
Are you called by God to be an evangelist? Do you wanna lead millions of people to Jesus? Do you desire to be trained in the practical side of building a ministry? Then check out the Daniel King School of Evangelism. Learn how to be an effective evangelist from Dr. Daniel King’s 20 plus years of experience. Daniel King has done crusades all over the world in over 70 nations and has seen over 2 million people give their lives to Jesus. But it wasn’t easy. There was no crusade school. So Daniel traveled the world learning from and observing top evangelists, noticing how they successfully won souls for Christ. Now he wants to share decades of knowledge and experience with you. Topics of the Daniel King School of Evangelism include what is an evangelist, how to be a master soul winner, how to give an altar call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry, and much more. If you wanna be an evangelist, but don’t know where to start, the Daniel King School of Evangelism is for you. Enroll today in the School of Evangelism by going to Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism.
Evangelist Daniel King (05:29):
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 Announcer (06:50):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
As a follower of Jesus, you are not only called to preach the gospel, but also to be a bright light in a very dark world. In this episode, Evangelist Daniel King will share a story that illustrates just how important it is for followers of Christ to let their light shine brightly for all to see.
Transcript:
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:00):
As a follower of Jesus, you are not only called to preach the gospel, but also to be a bright light in a very dark world. In this episode, Daniel will share a story that illustrates just how important it is for followers of Christ to let their light shine brightly For all. To see
Evangelism Podcast Announcer (00:29):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary, and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:53):
Several years ago, my family had the opportunity to visit Carlsbad Caverns. It’s one of the greatest natural wonders in the world. It’s a huge cave system in the American state of New Mexico. And so Carlsbad Caverns has this massive cave mouth where lots of bats fly out at nighttime and you can walk down into the cave. And as we began to walk down into the cave, the guide told us stories about the original explorers of this cave. They were extremely brave men and women who would explore using nothing but a tiny candlelight. And when we got to the bottom of the cave, it was over one mile underground. The guide told us that she wanted to show us the conditions that the original explorers exper experience. And so she had us all sit down on some benches and then she walked over to the light switch and she turned out the lights.
(01:54):
And suddenly it was dark. It was so dark I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. It was so dark I couldn’t see the person next to me, total incomplete darkness. And she let us sit that way for a few minutes so that our eyes could adjust to the darkness. And then she reached her pocket and she pulled out a simple cigarette lighter. Now, when she said that she was gonna light the cigarette lighter, I thought to myself, this darkness is so thick that that tiny cigarette lighter is not going to make much of a difference. But when she lit the cigarette lighter, suddenly we could see the entire cave. We could see the stites, we could see the stalagmites. I could see all the people in that group. The cave was a very dark cave, but all it took was one light to light up the dark cave.
(02:51):
The world is a very dark place, but all it takes is one light to light up a dark world. In Matthew five, verse 16, Jesus said, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. You are called by God to be a shining light in the midst of great darkness. As you look around the world today, you can see a lot of darkness. There’s a lot of problems with crime, with racism, with drugs, with parents and and kids that are having trouble with one another, with marriages that are going through all kinds of problems where people are angry, one with with another. There is a lot of darkness in the world, but all it takes is one light to light up a dark world. One proverbs said one time, don’t curse the darkness when you can light a candle. A lot of people spend a lot of time complaining about all the problems that exist in the world today, but instead of complaining, I think we should go find someone who’s living in darkness and be the light of Jesus in their lives. Jesus says, I am the light of the world. And when Jesus is living inside of you, his light will shine out through your eyes into the lives of others. And so I encourage you to be a shining light in the midst of great darkness.
Evangelism Podcast Announcer (04:30):
Are you called by God to be an evangelist? Do you wanna lead millions of people to Jesus? Do you desire to be trained in the practical side of building a ministry? Then check out the Daniel King School of Evangelism. Learn how to be an effective evangelist from Dr. Daniel King’s 20 plus years of experience. Daniel King has done crusades all over the world in over 70 nations and has seen over 2 million people give their lives to Jesus. But it wasn’t easy. There was no crusade school. So Daniel traveled the world learning from and observing top evangelists, noticing how they successfully won souls for Christ. Now he wants to share decades of knowledge and experience with you. Topics of the Daniel King School of Evangelism include what is an evangelist, how to be a master soul winner, how to give an altar call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry, and much more. If you wanna be an evangelist, but don’t know where to start, the Daniel King School of Evangelism is for you. Enroll today in the School of Evangelism by going to Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism.
Evangelist Daniel King (05:31):
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 Announcer (06:52):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
Many great evangelists have lived and ministered on this earth. But the best model that we have for evangelism is of course, Jesus Himself. In this episode, we’ll talk about the five steps for leading people to Jesus that are shown in how Jesus shared his message with the woman at the well in John 4.
Transcript:
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:00):
Many great evangelists have lived and ministered on this earth. But the best model that we have for evangelism is of course, Jesus himself. In this episode, we’ll talk about the five steps for leading people to Jesus that are shown in how Jesus shared his message with the woman at the well.
Evangelism Podcast Announcer (00:28):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now, here’s your host, missionary and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:52):
Do you wanna be a master soul winner? You know, the greatest soul winner who ever lived is Jesus Christ. And so I think we should can learn some important lessons from his life that will help us to become effective at sharing the gospel with others. So if you have your Bible, go ahead and open it up to John chapter four. And let’s look at Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman. And by looking at her story, I think we can pull some principles out of this story that will help us to be better at sharing our faith with others. And so John chapter four, verse four, it says, now Jesus had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar. Near the plot of ground, Jacob had given to his son Joseph Jacob’s well was there and Jesus tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the, well, it was about the sixth hour.
(01:54):
And so in, uh, Bible times they started at sunrise and counted the first hour from sunrise, like 6:00 AM to 7:00 AM That’d be the first hour, 7:00 AM to 8:00 AM that’d be the second hour. So the sixth hour means that it was noontime. The sun was high in the sky. Jesus was tired from the journey. He sat down by the, well, he sends his disciples into the town to buy some food. And then this woman comes, verse seven, it says, when a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, will you give me a drink? His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. All right. So this is the first step to leading someone to God is to start a conversation. Jesus started a conversation with this woman. He was a man, she was a woman. Back in those days, men did not speak to strange women.
(02:57):
He was a teacher, he was somebody important. Uh, this woman was a, a sinner woman, but yet Jesus was willing to start a conversation with her. And I think that we need to be willing to start conversations with the people around us. Now, I, I find it difficult sometimes to start conversations. I I’m introverted, uh, in my personality, uh, but my wife, Jessica, she can start conversations very easily. We’ll go to the store and there’ll be a, a woman there who’s a, a clerk at the store, and she’ll just strike up a conversation and say, does this dress look good on me? And, and after five minutes, they’re talking like they have known each other for 20 years. But I find it difficult. So I find that I have to step outside my circle of comfort and step into the lives of people around me who, who need Jesus.
(03:55):
All right? So the first thing you need to do is to start a conversation. And then verse uh, nine, the Samaritan woman said to Jesus, you are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink for Jews? Do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus answered her. If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asked you for a drink, you would’ve asked him and he would’ve given you living water. So now Jesus turns the conversation towards spiritual things. And this is the second step to leading someone to Jesus, is to turn the conversation towards God. And so you start the conversation by talking about the weather, talking about sports, talking about something that you have going on, but then in every conversation, you look for a way to turn the conversation towards God. One time I was, uh, out on the street and someone says, Hey man, can you gimme a light?
(04:53):
I said, no, I can’t give you a light, but I’ll tell you about Jesus. He’s the light of the world. What, what did I do? I turned the conversation towards God. Or one time I was on an airplane and a guy came down the aisle and he said, excuse me, sir, is this seat next to you saved? I said, no, that seat’s not saved, but I can tell you how you can be saved. And so what was I doing? I was turning the conversation towards God. So in every conversation you have an opportunity to talk about Jesus. You know, one time I sat down next to a, a grandma and she pulled out her wallet and started showing me the pictures of her 14 grandkids. And she had stories talking about her grandkids. Why was grandma talking about her grandkids? Because her grandkids were important to her.
(05:36):
Another time I was talking to a guy who was he, he was into cars, and he had some old cars that he was restoring and, and he was telling me all about his cars. Why was that guy talking about the cars? It’s because cars are what was important to you. And so if Jesus is important to you, then you’re going to talk about Jesus. If you can imagine a water balloon filled with water and you prick the water balloon, what’s gonna come out of the water balloon? Well, water’s gonna come pouring out. And so if you’re full of Jesus and you start talking to someone, Jesus should come out of you. And so first you start a conversation, then you look for a way to turn the conversation towards God. Then the woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.
(06:26):
Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come back. And she says, I have no husband. Then Jesus said to her, you’re right when you said that you have no husband. The fact is you had five husbands, and the man you are with now is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true, sir. The woman said, I can see that you are a prophet. So Jesus had never met this woman before. He didn’t know anything about her, but he used a gift of the Holy Spirit in order to minister to her. And he received the, the word of knowledge for this woman. He had never met her, but suddenly the Holy Spirit told him this, this woman has had five husbands. The man she’s living with is not her husband. And so this is the third step to leading someone to Jesus, is to listen to the Holy Spirit.
(07:20):
You may not know what to say to the person you’re witnessing to, but if you’ll listen to the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will put words in your mouth and he will help you to minister to the person that you are talking to. And so I always try to take a step back from the horizontal conversation, and I I go vertical and I start listening to the Holy Spirit and say, holy Spirit, what do you want me to say to this person? Because every person is different. Now look what happens next. The woman says, our father’s worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. She tries to start a spiritual argument with Jesus. Has that ever happened to you? Has anyone ever tried to start a spiritual argument with you? You start witnessing to them and, and they want to start talking a a and and arguing about something.
(08:20):
One time I was in California and we are going door to door talking to people about Jesus, and we knocked on on one door, and this woman came to the door and she says, she immediately started cussing at us when she heard that we were from a church. She says, I’m, I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in any of that God stuff. And so we started talking and I asked the Holy Spirit, I said, holy Spirit, you’re gonna have to help me in ministering to this woman. She has these barriers and walls that have been built up against the things of God. And, uh, I, I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to ask her about her children. And she had a picture on the wall there of a son and daughter. And, and I just a asked her a question about her, her kids, and she started telling me about them.
(09:06):
And it turned out that her son was in major trouble at school. He was being rebellious, and her daughter was a little bit younger and, and she was starting to have problems. And, and she says, man, my kids, they need prayer. And so right there, I said, well, let’s pray right now. And so this atheist woman, she asked me to pray for her kids. And it was because I listened to the Holy Spirit and asked her a question about her kids. And so we prayed together. And while I had her by the hand, I said, Hey, could we pray to ask Jesus to be the Lord of your life? And so I was able to minister to that woman. Well, when people try to start a spiritual argument, notice that Jesus doesn’t really start a spiritual argument with his lady. He doesn’t tell her she’s wrong.
(09:51):
He just says that God is spirit in his worshipers, must worship in spirit and in truth. And so he doesn’t condemn the lady. He doesn’t say that she’s wrong. He just loves her. And so this is the fourth step to leading people to Jesus is to love people. Someone said that people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. And now when it comes to spiritual arguments, I’m the type of guy I like to argue. I’m intellectual. I’ve studied a lot of apologetics books and, and, and so sometimes I, I like to start throwing out facts and get into an argument. But I’ve discovered that you can win an argument and lose a soul. And so our goal is not to win arguments. Our goal is to win souls. And I discovered this when I got married to my wife, Jessica.
(10:44):
We’ve been married 16 years now in, in the early years of our marriage, we would have a discussion and she would say something that I thought was wrong, and I’d immediately start pointing out where she was wrong in the discussion. And, and I found that I could win the argument and prove to her that I was right, but it would end up hurting our marriage. And so my goal in the marriage is not to win arguments. My goal is to show love to my wife. And the same is true when we’re ministering to people. We’re not trying to win an argument. We’re trying to show them the love of Jesus. And so even when they cuss you out, even when they say something that, that you can’t stand, you don’t need to argue with them. You just keep being kind to them, being loving to them and keep pointing them back to the truth of God’s word.
(11:35):
All right? The woman said, I know that Messiah called Christ is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us. Then Jesus declared, I who speak to you am He. Jesus revealed himself to this woman. And this is the last step to leading people to God, is to reveal Jesus. Jesus said, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men onto me. And so when I go and preach in other nations, I don’t say anything negative about their local religion or their local prophet or holy man. I just point people to Jesus. I tell people, this is what Jesus did in Bible times. Then I’ll share some stories of what Jesus has done in the lives of other people. I’ll share some stories of what Jesus has done in my life, and then I’ll say, and this is what Jesus can do for you.
(12:24):
And my goal is to make Jesus look irresistible. When we lift up Jesus, it draws people to God. As Christians, you might not be perfect, but you serve a perfect savior. And so sometimes people get in a fight trying to defend Christianity. Well, Christians have made lots of mistakes, but Jesus never made a mistake. And so then the disciples of Jesus, they came back and they were surprised to find that he was talking to this woman. And what’s sad is that these 12 disciples had met this woman on the way into this city. None of them brought the woman back to Jesus. But here she is, she’s talking to Jesus, and her life is changed. Look what happens. It says, then leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, come see a man who told me everything I ever did.
(13:23):
Could this be the Christ? And they came out of the town and made their way towards him. And it says, many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony. He told me everything I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with him. And he stayed two days. And because of his words, many more became believers. And so these 12 disciples, these 12 professional preachers, they had gone into the city, they’d passed the woman on the way when they were in this city, they saw a blind man. They knew that Jesus healed the blind, but they didn’t bring the blind man back to Jesus. They saw a crippled guy over sitting against the wall. They knew Jesus healed the cripples, but they didn’t bring the crippled man back to Jesus. And so Jesus gets a little bit upset at them and says, guys, don’t you say four more months.
(14:11):
And then the harvest, I tell you, open your eyes and look at the harvest field. This woman, she was a sinner woman. She’d had five husbands. The man she was living with was not her husband. She was in the at the well in the middle of the day all by herself. And back then, all the women would go to the well early in the morning when it was cool, and they would all go to the well together. Just like today, all the women go to the bathroom together. Back then, they’d all go to the well together. Well, here, this woman, she’s been rejected by so many people. She’s stolen half the husband’s in the village, and she’s at the well all by herself. But Jesus changes her life and she goes, and she’s able to lead the entire village back to Jesus. And so this tells me that if we can reach just one person for Jesus, potentially we could reach their entire group of friends, their whole family, maybe even their entire city for Jesus. And so if you’ll follow these five steps, you will be better at sharing your faith with others. Number one,
(15:13):
Start a conversation. Number two, turn the conversation towards God. Number three, listen to the Holy Spirit. Number four, love people. And number five, reveal Jesus. If you’ll follow those five steps, then God will use you to reach many people for his glory.
Evangelism Podcast Host (15:34):
Are you called by God to be an evangelist? Do you wanna lead millions of people to Jesus? Do you desire to be trained in the practical side of building a ministry? Then check out the Daniel King School of Evangelism. Learn how to be an effective evangelist from Dr. Daniel King’s 20 plus years of experience. Daniel King has done crusades all over the world in over 70 nations and has seen over 2 million people give their lives to Jesus. But it wasn’t easy. There was no crusade school. So Daniel traveled the world learning from and observing top evangelists, noticing how they successfully won souls for Christ. Now he wants to share decades of knowledge and experience with you. Topics of the Daniel King School of Evangelism include what is an evangelist, how to be a master soul winner, how to give an altar call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry, and much more. If you wanna be an evangelist, but don’t know where to start, the Daniel King School of Evangelism is for you. Enroll today in the School of Evangelism by going to Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism.
Evangelist Daniel King (16:35):
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 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 Announcer (17:56):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
These days, it seems that there is a lot of fighting within the people of God, but not so much fishing for souls. In this episode, we’ll talk about how important it is to keep the main thing, the main thing, and how we should focus much more on fishing for souls than fighting among ourselves.
Transcript:
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:00):
These days, it seems that there is a lot of fighting within the people of God, but not so much fishing. In this episode, we’ll talk about how important it is to keep the main thing, the main thing, and how we should focus much more on fishing than fighting.
Evangelism Podcast Announcer (00:26):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary, and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:50):
Once upon a time, there were four fishermen, and they heard about a lake in Northern Canada that had great fishing. And so they chartered a little plane. It took them up there and landed on the lake, dropped ’em off at a little fishing cabin. And these four fishermen were so excited that they were going to be fishing. But right as they were about to go out on the lake, suddenly it started to rain. The rain was pouring down and they said, don’t worry about it. We’ll just hang out here inside the cabin until the rain stops. So they go inside the cabin and they’re playing cards with one another, and they’re chatting and they’re talking, and it was great. Well then the second day that they were there, it was still raining. And so they’re still in there having a good time. But the cabin was small and everything was wet.
(01:41):
And so they, they started to get on one, one another’s nerves a little bit. And uh, then the third day, guess what happened? It rained again. And by this time they couldn’t stand one another. They were yelling at each other. They were irritated. They were even about ready to have a fist fight. Do you know why those fishermen were fighting? They were fighting because they weren’t fishing. Do you know why sometimes churches fight with one another? They’re fighting because they’re not fishing. Sometimes people come to church and they start to complain, oh, I don’t like the music. I don’t like the carpet. I don’t like what the pastor said this week. It’s just not feeding me. The problem is not in the church or the carpet or the music or the pastor. The problem is that they are not out fishing telling people about Jesus. Jesus said, come follow me and I will make you a fisher of men. And as long as you keep the main thing, the main thing, and stay focused on what is important to God going after souls, then you won’t have time for one church to fight with another church or one believer to fight with another believer. I believe that the solution to all the different problems that churches have with one another is soul winning. If they will go after souls, there’s not time to be bickering with one another.
Evangelism Podcast Host (03:17):
Are you called by God to be an evangelist? Do you wanna lead millions of people to Jesus? Do you desire to be trained in the practical side of building a ministry? Then check out the Daniel King School of Evangelism. Learn how to be an effective evangelist from Dr. Daniel King’s 20 plus years of experience. Daniel King has done crusades all over the world in over 70 nations and has seen over 2 million people give their lives to Jesus. But it wasn’t easy. There was no crusade school. So Daniel traveled the world learning from and observing top evangelists, noticing how they successfully won souls for Christ. Now he wants to share decades of knowledge and experience with you. Topics of the Daniel King School of Evangelism include what is an evangelist, how to be a master soul winner, how to give an altar call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry, and much more. If you wanna be an evangelist, but don’t know where to start, the Daniel King School of Evangelism is for you. Enroll today in the School of Evangelism by going to Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism.
Daniel King (04:18):
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 in 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 Announcer (05:39):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
Tina Waldrom is the host of the Win Win Evangelism Podcast and the director of Evangelism in Australia. She loves to equip believers and churches for evangelism. On today’s podcast we talk about how Aussies do not want anyone to shove religion down their throat but they are open to having spiritual conversations. You will be blessed as you learn about what God is doing on the continent “down under.”
Learn more about Tina Waldrom: https://evangelisminaustralia.com/
Transcript:
Evangelist 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 from Australia, all the way from down under Dr. Tina Waldrom. Thank you for being on the Evangelism podcast.
Tina Waldrom (00:18):
Thanks Daniel. It’s a great pleasure to be on your show.
Evangelist Daniel King (00:22):
Alright, we have just finished recording an interview for your podcast, which is called the Win-Win Evangelism Podcast. Tell me about how you got started doing an evangelism podcast.
Tina Waldrom (00:39):
Evangel. That is a great question. Well, before the Evangelism podcast was almost three decades of evangelism ministry. So I’ve worked with local churches and evangelistic organizations and then I kind of had stepped out to start my own organization as such evangelism in Australia. And one of the things that I felt the Lord speaking to us about was a podcast. And I’ve got to say, Daniel, I’ve never been a person that listened to podcasts up until that stage. And I was like, what on earth is this and how do I go about communicating through that medium? So that’s how it came about with the attempt to do the same as I’ve always done, try to equip the everyday believer to share their faith with the world around them. So yeah, had to learn the whole craft. And now we’re three years in weekly podcast. Absolutely love it.
Evangelist Daniel King (01:39):
Now, if you listen to my Evangelism podcast, I encourage you to go and subscribe to Dr. Tina’s Evangelism podcast because if you like mine, I know you’re going to like hers. We have the same heart for evangelism now you are in Australia and your focus is on training the body of Christ on how to share their faith. And so talk to me a little bit about the spiritual atmosphere in Australia and why you feel it’s so important to equip the church in Australia in evangelism.
Tina Waldrom (02:22):
Yeah, that’s a great question. I think like most Western worlds, a lot of people, the majority of people statistics show us in Australia are not interested in attending church. It’s pretty hard trying to get your regular secular Aussie into church, Daniel. And so my question is always, well, how do we move the church into the community? It’s a very biblical illiterate society that we live in now. How do we get the church there and how do we win the most people to Jesus? How do we get the most people to hear about Jesus? The answer for me is to equip every person that follows Jesus and to give them ways that are natural. And could I say easy? Because if Jesus said go and make disciples, he must have thought that everybody could do that. So trying to uncomplicated it, trying to make it a way that people can see this is doable.
(03:35):
Jesus thought this was doable, and so give them the skills to do that. So yeah, that’s the climate. And pretty much in Australia also Daniel, we have what’s called the tall poppy syndrome, whereas if someone’s really good at something, the Australian culture wants to pull those people down. We want everybody on the same level and we want everyone to feel like you are my mate, you’re my mate, my friend. So talk to me like that. Don’t talk down to me. Don’t come across superior in any way. So we like to have those discussions about how we can do that, how we can land it best in the Australian culture.
Evangelist Daniel King (04:13):
Now, I was looking at your website, it’s found@evangelisminaustralia.com, and you have a variety of resources there. Tell me a little bit about what people can find on your website and how you train people in evangelism and how you coach people who have a heart for evangelism.
Tina Waldrom (04:38):
Yeah, so basically our podcast is a fantastic free gift for people weekly. They can hear amazing interviews exactly like your podcast, and we are trying to ground it to the everyday believer all the time of how they can share their faith. But also we have online courses. So our most, well-known course on mission with god.com is a course that has four modules that people can go through basically to share their faith. And there’s a free sample for that course. In fact, you can go to on mission with god.com/free sample and you can see how it looks, the platform that the learning is on, so to speak. So yeah, brilliant stuff. And it’s all outlined there for you about what you can learn, but we certainly can make it easier for you. We can make it doable. We can give you tips that you go, oh yeah, absolutely, I can do that. So very relational, very personable in the approach. Yeah, thank you for asking.
Evangelist Daniel King (05:41):
Now, you have been involved in evangelism for many years now, but how did you first get started? How did you first develop this passion for evangelism?
Tina Waldrom (05:56):
Another great question. I met Jesus in the United States of all places. I’m actually call myself a missionary to Australia. I met Jesus in California in San Diego in 1992, and I went to church as much as I could go. It was such a game changer for me to realize that God was real, such an incredible blessing. And on a Sunday night, I would go to this church in Mira Mesa and the pastor did this series on evangelism, and he started talking about this thing in the Bible called an evangelist, which was all new to me. And as he was talking about that for a number of weeks, I just knew that I knew Daniel, that God had called me to be this thing, like share Jesus with other people and equip people to do that. I just knew that I wanted to do it in a certain way. So that’s really how it all came about. And in hindsight, you see that as the calling of God. I didn’t really know that then, but then I just walked that out and I’m just passionate. Every day I’ll wake up just thinking, oh, how can I equip someone to share their faith? How can I share my faith? So yeah, just love it. I’ve been arrested by the Holy Spirit.
Evangelist Daniel King (07:24):
Now, I noticed that you completed your doctorate of ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary, which is a great seminary there in California. Tell me a little bit about your dissertation or the project you did to graduate, and what did you learn about evangelism through that process?
Tina Waldrom (07:49):
Yeah, so that was a hard one. I really had to work through what specifically could I write about, it needed to be practical. I ended up doing a lot of research around my area of the church that I attend and how we can best engage with society. But then I articulated that into how do we reach people that are spiritual, but not so much wanting to know about Christianity but wanting a spiritual conversation. And so I love interior design and interior decorating. So I came up with a course so to speak, that people would go to over five or six weeks, they travel around to beautifully styled homes. It was really pitched at women. Not to say that guys aren’t into this, but women, some of us just love it. And you would go to different homes and you would go to a space in the home.
(08:42):
Let’s take the kitchen. And you’d talk about, I would have a stylist there talking about how you style a kitchen, how do you design a kitchen? But then I would talk about the angle of the kitchen is the heart of the home. And so I would have a spiritual teaching on the heart and heart issues to engage with these pre believes, let’s call them that would be there. And so I just loved every bit of it because so many people are interested in a spiritual conversation, not so much the Christian conversation. So putting the tools there for that space of the journey that they’re into. Then there was other areas of the home also. So yeah, that’s what I wrote on. I loved it. Love fuller, love it, love it, love it.
Evangelist Daniel King (09:28):
Now let’s say that a pastor heard about you and called you and said, Dr. Tina, I want my congregation to be better at sharing their faith and to have a heart for evangelism. What would you go and offer that church and tell that congregation that would help them to reach people for Jesus?
Tina Waldrom (09:53):
Yeah. Well, I don’t think it’s not information that you wouldn’t share or I wouldn’t share. And over the years I’ve learned that sometimes we can go in to congregations or you can say to a pastor years they’ll come and do something for a weekend. Actually, the real life change is when it’s consistent. So it’s more like, let’s not do an evangelism seminar, but let’s plan out maybe a six month or yearly plan where people are consistently getting resource and encouragement to share their faith. I think it was Bill Hybels years ago that said, every church has a high value of evangelism, but it’s actually, it’s not actualized, it’s not outworked. Of course, we all want to have encouraged people to evangelism, but we don’t get them to do that because they lose heart or they’re not receiving that consistent encouragement. So it’s more about putting weekly things in throughout a year or over the years that keeps that value outworked highly all the time rather than a, so that’s the conversation. That’s the conversation really. That’s the baseline, I would say. Yeah.
Evangelist Daniel King (11:17):
Talk to me a little bit more about Australia. What are some of the unique challenges and opportunities for reaching people in Australia?
Tina Waldrom (11:31):
Yeah, great question. So what are the challenges? Well, one of them, what I said to you, Aussies, just don’t give a rip about church, to be quite honest. And so the challenge is like never before, how do we get the church into the community? I actually think that Covid gave us some great insight to what God is doing in our nation. We saw the church become highly engaged with the community and pastors everywhere that I was talking to were so excited. They were saying, oh, our people are totally engaged in the community all the time, months and months ago on Melbourne, where I live was the most locked down city in the world. So we were locked down forever and couldn’t do anything. I saw it as a blessing and was praising Jesus in the right way. Of course, it was tragic, but the church continued to, because they couldn’t go into the four walls of the church, they stayed outside in their communities and they reached people for Jesus.
(12:29):
So the challenge is now, I believe Daniel, is that our churches are back open, that we can slip back into that about I love churches, but we’ve got to continue to keep the focus into the community. We’ve got to encourage that going forward. So that’s the challenge and the opportunity to be quite frank, is that there are great opportunities out there. If people are up for a conversation, people are up for a spiritual conversation. It’s not that people don’t want to talk about spiritual things anymore. It’s wide open in my country. So it’s more the upskilling of the everyday person to be able to share their faith in ways that can connect with the Australian society or ways that connect with the United States culture there or wherever you are. But in Western society, there’s definitely an openness never before.
Evangelist Daniel King (13:27):
So how do you start a conversation with someone who says, I don’t care about church. I’m not religious, but I want to be a spiritual person. How would you start that conversation?
Tina Waldrom (13:41):
Yeah, so I love sharing my experience, but I love sharing it in a way that provokes a question. So I don’t want to impose my experience. I want to share my experience and ask people to engage with it. So I’ll share an experience that, oh my gosh, I had all these coincidences happen in my life and my worldview actually is a Christian worldview, and I’m convinced that this is God moving. I’m convinced that he is real and really alive. And then I would just ask the question, what’s your own thoughts about God doesn’t need to be the Christian God, in my mind, I’m just asking the question, what’s your own thoughts about God or spiritual things? I’m always trying to gather information from people so that I know them more so that I know what’s going on in their head so that I can keep engaging. I’m big on trying to keep people on a journey with people. I’m big on discipleship. I want to actually go on a journey with people in the world that Jesus has placed me and I want to walk with them. And over time, they see Christ revealed in my life. I mean, I’m discipling people now. They just don’t know they’re being discipled, but they’re seeing Jesus all the time. So yeah, hope that answers your question.
Evangelist Daniel King (15:05):
And what would you say to encourage a believer who maybe has a heart for evangelism but has never been bold enough to start one of these conversations? What would you say to encourage them to look for ways to start a conversation?
Tina Waldrom (15:24):
Yeah, what I would say is every person, every person is not the person for the conversation. I would say that God is at work. God is at work in people’s lives, and we need to perceive where he’s at work and then engage. For example, sometimes you can have a conversation and you can sense, oh, there’s an ease and it’s natural. Now for me to ask this question and it feels natural, but there’s times where you go, oh, it just feels like this is a brick wall here. And it would be totally awkward if I mentioned something about Jesus. And I would say at that moment, for myself, I actually don’t say anything in that conversation. I’m looking for those places where God is already at work in people’s lives where I’m coming along and building on something that’s gone on their life in the past, and that’s where I engage.
(16:25):
So in my mind, there’s people in my world that I’m engaging with and we’re just building a friendship, me and them or Jesus and them and me. And then there’s people where there’s already work. That’s the holy Spirit’s done in their life, and that’s more open. And so I’ll add a few more seeds, and then there’s next people that are ready for me to say, oh gosh, a lot. Have you ever thought about asking Jesus into your life? So it’s perceiving where God is at work. It’s assuming that he’s the great evangelist, and I’m really just coming along and working with him or partnering with him. It makes it a lot easy for all of us, I think.
Evangelist Daniel King (17:05):
Amen. We’re not doing it alone. God is on our side. Well, Tina Waldrom, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast with me. It’s such a great blessing to meet you and to hear about what God is doing in Australia. He’s working here in the United States and down under as well. And so if you have an interest in evangelism, particularly if you’re from Australia, I encourage you to go to the website evangelism and australia.com and you can learn more about evangelism from Dr. Tina Waldrom there. Thank you so much for being on the Evangelism podcast.
Tina Waldrom (17:50):
Thanks, Daniel. It’s been a great pleasure. Thank you.