Roman Nechay is an evangelist who has been traveling around the world telling young people about Jesus. Now he has led over half a million people in a salvation prayer. He has experienced great success but at the same time he has learned the importance of avoiding burnout. On today’s episode of The Evangelism Podcast, he shares some secrets that will help evangelists to last long term on the mission field.
Read Roman Nechay’s Blog Post About Avoiding Burnout: https://www.romannechay.com/blog/avoid-burnout
Transcript:
Evangelist Daniel King (00:01):
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, Roman Niche. Thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Evangelist Roman Nechay (00:13):
It’s my pleasure, Daniel.
Evangelist Daniel King (00:15):
You were one of the students of the Evangelism Bootcamp with Christ for All Nations, and I had the privilege of teaching the students, and then you went out to the mission field and you have been driven by one vision to reach a million people for Jesus. So Roman, tell me, how is it going?
Evangelist Roman Nechay (00:38):
Praise the Lord Daniel. I’m so grateful. First of all, I just want to say thank you. I honor you, what you’re doing for Jesus, winning souls for Christ. And I want to say thank you for Christ for all nations for training me and Daniel Colinda to put their trust in me and Jesus, of course, for allowing me to preach the gospel. When I was 18 years old, 19 years old, I was praying to Jesus on my knees. I said, “Lord, use me to bring one million people to you. ” And little did I know that this is how it’s going to turn out through Christ for all nations. By God’s grace, Daniel, we have seen 503,000 decisions for Christ just three weeks ago. We just hit that number.
Evangelist Daniel King (01:17):
What an amazing accomplishment. Now, you have actually been with me on the evangelism podcast before. And what’s really interesting, that was like three or four years ago. And at that time, you were talking about this great desire to go out and to reach a million people for Jesus. And now you have passed the halfway mark. And so I’m so proud of you. I’m so amazed at what God is doing through you. And you have been going to nation after nation, harvesting in the harvest fields, bringing people to Jesus. Tell me some about some of the nations you’ve been to most recently and what you’ve seen God do there.
Evangelist Roman Nechay (02:00):
Yeah. We’ve been to Asia, Africa. We’ve been to 49 nations so far. I was just on a trip to Madagascar, to Mauritius. I was also in Thailand as you are also preaching the gospel there. Well, we’re seeing that God is moving. We’re seeing that God is moving different nations in the poor regions and the better regions just all over. But one testimony that comes to mind, we were preaching the gospel in Madagascar and there was a 12-year-old boy who came up to me afterwards. He says, “I want to change. I’ve been disobedient to teachers, to my parents. I’ve been disruptive in class. I want to change. How do I do it? ” And I said, “Jesus is a solution. Jesus can help you change. He can change your heart.” And so I asked him, “Do you want Jesus to forgive your sins?” He said, “Yes.” We prayed together with him and I saw his countans change there on the spot.
(02:53):
He went from being depressed to smiling to being happy and joyful. And I said, “Did Jesus forgive your sins?” He says, “Yes, Jesus forgave my sins and he ran off playing with his friends. I saw the transforming power of the Holy Spirit in his life, Daniel.”
Evangelist Daniel King (03:07):
And you’re getting ready to lead a team to the island of Mauritius, which is right off of Madagascar. It’s a small island. And the goal is to reach everyone on the island for Jesus. Tell us what you’re planning to do there and what you hope to see God do.
Evangelist Roman Nechay (03:28):
Yes. By God’s grace, we’re leading a team to Mauritius. It’s a small island by Madagascar. It is mostly Hindu and they really truly need the gospel of Jesus Christ. They have shrines, they have these pagan temples all over the place and they don’t know Jesus. And so we’re taking a team of 30 evangelists who are from Christ for all nations. We are doing a Jesus camp training there with 80 individuals who are believers. We’re training them how to preach the gospel. And then we’re going all over the island to preach the gospel of Jesus. We are planning to do 500 outreaches in five days. We are going to be reaching the whole island and we’re going to go after the youth of Jesus Christ. Why the youth? Because 70% of people who make a decision to follow Jesus are under the age of 18. So we want to target the youth.
(04:17):
I was 16 when I came to Jesus. So we’re doing that and then we’re doing a gospel invasion all around the island inside churches and we’re inviting the loss and the unbelievers to the churches to preach the gospel to them. So we’re going to see a revival happen on a small island of Mauritius, but big things that are happening, Daniel.
Evangelist Daniel King (04:37):
Now I was looking at your website, romaneche.com. And I saw that you have a blog on there that I think is very important for people who are in ministry, who are doing evangelism, a subject that they really need to think about. And this is the title, it’s 10 Proven Ways to Avoid Burnout on the Mission Field. And my understanding is that this came really out of your first year of evangelism where you went really, really hard for an entire year and you were dedicated, you’re focused, but then you came to a point where you said, “I need rest.” Why is it important in ministry to have times of rest?
Evangelist Roman Nechay (05:24):
When I was on the mission field in 2022, I was out there for a whole year. I came back and I thought I was done with ministry forever. I didn’t know if God is going to use me. I was doubting my calling. It was very challenging for me. For a whole month, I just crashed. I burned and I didn’t know what was going to happen next. Well, slowly after about three months or so, I recovered and went into more missions and started to preach the gospel. Well, I’ve seen many people burn out on the mission field. Unfortunately, there’s some evangelists even from Christ for All Nations that said, “Hey, I’m not doing missions because I’m done. I cannot do it anymore.” And I don’t want to see that happen to evangelists. God called us to preach the gospel and he called us to run a mararathon, not just to do a short sprint.
(06:12):
So what- Yeah, I
Evangelist Daniel King (06:13):
Think part of the challenge is some people, they get so enthusiastic and they’re like a firework. They go up in the air, big explosion, and then it just dies out. But I like what you said, we’re in a marathon, not a sprint. We want to remain faithful for many years to come. We don’t want to just have a short bit of success and then no one ever hears of us again. We want to continue to run after the things of God five years from now, 10 years, 20 years, all the way until we go to heaven. And in order to do that, you have to pace yourself a little bit. So in this article, you share some secrets of avoiding burnout. Give us some of the keys that really help people.
Evangelist Roman Nechay (07:03):
Yeah. I want to talk about a couple of key things that help me really on the mission field. Number one, I want to talk about being thankful. We oftentimes miss see this while we think, “Oh yeah, we’re just running.” But we don’t actually sit down and just be thankful to God what he has done in our lives. And it could be something small. It could be, “Hey, one person came to Jesus today.” It could be my team members that I’m serving with. It could be just my family back at home just to jot down three to five things every single day of what we are thankful for. That’s one of the things. Another thing I would just encourage people to do is it’s very basic, but it’s essential get enough sleep. On the mission field, I see some people are getting very small amount of sleep, five hours, four hours, and Daniel, some of them are even bragging about, “Oh, I got five hours of sleep last night.” And their eyes are so heavy and it looks like they’re about to fall down on the ground right there and then.
(07:58):
So I want to-
Evangelist Daniel King (08:00):
You can do that for a while, but it’s not good to do it for long periods of time. It will burn you out. Think about God. He created the whole world in six days and then what’d he do? He took a rest. He went and had a Sabbath day and he told us to have Sabbaths in our life. And so we need to get rest, take the time to just relax and recharge our batteries, both physical and spiritual.
Evangelist Roman Nechay (08:29):
Absolutely. So I try to get at least seven to eight hours of sleep and sometimes even that’s not enough to be recharged and fully to go the following day because we’re doing seven to 10 outreaches per day. So we need to be sharp. We need to be healthy, strong mentally and spiritually, and we need to go after those souls. Another thing I wanted to talk about was just keeping a daily journal. See at the things that God has done, the victories from the day, the fears, the worries to the challenges, the breakthroughs, I write those down just to see what’s happening in my mind to let them off my mind and onto the paper or onto the phone and the notes on the phone that helps to just look through the day and just to be stress free. Other things like exercise. I have a jump rope in my backpack.
(09:17):
I keep that just in case. I’m feeling stressed, I’m feeling under pressure. I don’t feel as sharp and I feel foggy. I just go home, I jump rope. I go home and I just sprint for like a minute, then take a 30 second walk and I do it for 20 minutes a day, 20 minutes in that session. And I try to do that at least at least one time a week, sometimes two or three times.
Evangelist Daniel King (09:41):
So last night you and I went for a bike ride around the park, got some good exercise and relaxed a little bit. We went to the sauna and we’re in the sauna talking about good ways to reach people for Jesus. And it’s in those times of exercise and then rest where God can speak to you and give you creativity. What else?
Evangelist Roman Nechay (10:04):
I would say just sit there and just be still. I know this is really hard for evangelists and if you tell, “Hey, you got to sit down and not do anything,” this is going to disrupt their pattern. And so one thing that I started to do myself is just I would hike or I would maybe go and find just a quiet space and I would just sit there. Just either meditate or not even do anything at all and I would just let my head cool off. And that helps me just to reset and just to again feel strong and healthy mentally, just to sit. And sometimes it looks like I’m sitting on a hill, sometimes just outside on the porch, but that helps again to reset. That’s another thing. And one thing, some people that don’t like to hear this, but limit your screen time.
(10:53):
I’m guilty of this, but limit screen time on Facebook, on Instagram. Sometimes I have to delete the apps, even though I want to post everything that’s happening on the mission field, I delete it unless I need to post something urgently and I keep it for two weeks, one week at a time, and then I redownload it and post whatever I need. So that also helps.
Evangelist Daniel King (11:13):
I think screen time is a real danger in this time that we live in. It’s really easy to pick up the phone and start scrolling and suddenly an hour is gone. You’re not rested, you’re emotionally involved in the politics or the different things that people are talking about, even just funny videos and stuff, you get emotionally invested in it and it doesn’t help you to rest. And so my son Caleb, we just gave him a cell phone for Christmas. He just is about to turn 16 and so he’s been asking for one for a long time, but now we have the challenge of teaching him healthy habits around his screen time. And I think that’s something that all of us need is to limit our screen time because when you’re just scrolling, you are not really accomplishing anything.
Evangelist Roman Nechay (12:09):
I agree with you, Daniel. I just want the evangelists to really hear this. Jesus wants us to be healthy. God wants us to run the race that’s set before us and to complete the task ahead of us. And my heart is really to run a race and to go into my old age and preach the gospel to as many people as possible, but also do it in the right way. So I want to encourage these people to just to make sure that you are resting on the mission field. Another thing that helps is just to preplan. Sometimes I like to be spontaneous, but to pre-plan the activities for the weekend. Weekend is a rest day, Saturday, Sunday. For example, going to a museum or going to a zoo or going to a waterpark, whatever it looks like, or maybe just not even doing any of those things and just, again, just sitting there and resting for some period of time, but just to pre-plan those activities so we are fresh and ready to go to preach the gospel powerfully and strongly.
Evangelist Daniel King (13:12):
Well, Roman, you’re doing such an amazing job leading people to Jesus. Congratulations on going over the 500,000 mark of people that you have personally led in a salvation prayer.
Evangelist Roman Nechay (13:24):
And I want to say that those 500,000 people, it’s not a number. It’s an individual that Jesus knows by name that he cares for and he is so, he’s rejoicing for every soul that comes to him. So it’s not this number, but it’s individuals that are going to be in heaven rejoicing with Jesus together. And we’re going to see them there. Though we may never see them again after the gospel crusade, we’re going to see them one day in heaven with Jesus.
Evangelist Daniel King (13:50):
Amen. And I believe that God will continue to give you great harvest. You’ll get your million and then millions more after that in Jesus’ name. And so I’m so excited about what God is doing through your ministry. If you’re listening and you want to help to support the ministry of Romaneche, you can go to his website, Roman, R-O-M-A-N, Nechay, N-E-C-H-A-Y.com and visit his website and you can find out how to be part of the Mauritius outreach, how to be part of the other outreaches that he has upcoming and support his ministry, be a part of what he’s doing to reach people for Jesus. And Roman, thank you so much for being on the evangelism podcast.
Evangelist Roman Nechay (14:35):
It’s a pleasure. Thank you, Daniel.
Evangelist Daniel King (14:37):
Let’s finish with a prayer for all of our evangelist friends that they will be able to avoid burnout and get the rest that they need. Would you go ahead and pray for
Evangelist Roman Nechay (14:48):
Them? Father God, thank you so much for every evangelist and minister and even believer listening to this podcast. Father God, I bless every one of them that they will not burn out, but they will burn for Jesus with fire, with the Holy Spirit passion. Father God, I ask that these evangelists and ministers will lead many people to Christ, but also do it with a good attitude full of joy, full of peace, full of rest, and they will change lives forever through the power of the Holy Spirit. Thank you, Lord, for every person because they’re so precious to you. Thank you, Jesus, for this opportunity to minister to them. Amen.
Evangelist Daniel King (15:26):
Amen. All
