Lance Alves, his wife, and their five kids are called to be missionary evangelists in Central Africa. God has given him the mechanical ability to turn a normal truck into a tool that can be used for evangelism. His trucks are transformers for Jesus. In less than five minutes, a normal truck can turn into a platform with a sound system for preaching the Gospel in a marketplace or village. Today on the Evangelism Podcast he shares about his plans to reach Africa using Gospel Trucks.
Website: https://alvesministries.org/
Summary:
Lance Alves, a missionary evangelist, and his family are called to reach Africa with the gospel. They have developed specialized gospel trucks that can be set up in just 5 minutes to preach the gospel and perform baptisms in marketplaces and villages. The trucks are equipped with sound systems, power, and other necessary equipment to effectively reach large crowds of up to 100,000 people. Alves and his family, including his 5 children, are planning an upcoming 7-day mission trip to Central Africa during which they will conduct 35 outreaches in schools, prisons, and unreached villages. Their goal is to efficiently reach as many unreached people as possible with the gospel.
Transcript:
Evangelist Daniel King (00:00):
Lance Alves, his wife and their five kids are called to be missionary evangelists. In Central Africa, God has given Lance the mechanical ability to turn a normal truck into a tool that can be used for evangelism. His trucks are transformers for Jesus. In less than five minutes, a normal truck can turn into a platform with a sound system for preaching the gospel in a marketplace or village. Today on the Evangelism podcast, he shares about his plans to reach Africa using gospel trucks.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:50):
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
Evangelist Daniel King (01:12):
Daniel King. 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, Lance Alves, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast,
Lance Alves (01:26):
An honor to be with you today.
Evangelist Daniel King (01:28):
Alright, so Lance, you and your wife Heather, you were missionaries in Central Africa and now God is sending you back. You’re called to be an evangelist and you are building trucks. I’m so excited about the trucks that you’re building. Tell me a little bit about them.
Lance Alves (01:47):
Sure. So the trucks that we’re building are made for to do volume. So the five minutes set up and tear down, it’s very simple, very easy, and we can show the gospel many times in a day. It’s very simple. So everything’s prebuilt in and simple, but everything’s in it.
Evangelist Daniel King (02:11):
Now, where I met you was the Tulsa State Fair here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and you had your truck parked at the state fair. And as people were going by, you were ministering to them and even had a baptismal baptism like pool
Lance Alves (02:30):
Where
Evangelist Daniel King (02:31):
People who got saved. You gave them an opportunity right there at the Tulsa State Fair to be baptized. And one of the things I really loved about you is you have five kids and all five of your kids are involved with you in the ministry. So tell me a little bit about your kids, how old they are and what they do in the ministry.
Lance Alves (02:51):
Sure. So I have five kids ranging from 11 years old to three. And every one of them since being born in some way has been part of it. And so even from when we were on the streets of San Francisco, they were all on stage, even as we were rocking the baby carrier. And we just made a place for them in our ministry as a family. We felt that God had wanted us to do that. And so we never left them out. We always found a way that they could get involved. And some things that we would try to do is make it fun for them, so find their interest, but also make it fun. And at the end, we all really had a great time.
Evangelist Daniel King (03:35):
I recently saw a picture on your Facebook page where your kids were doing a puppet show. And it really brought me back to when I was a kid because when I was 10 years old, my parents became missionaries to the country of Mexico. And to be part of our family was to be part of the ministry. And so I did thousands of puppet shows on the streets of Mexico. I used to dress up like a clown, run through the streets and invite people to come to the service. And then we would do dramas and my dad would preach and I would pretend to be Jesus. And my sister would pretend to be a crippled lady and Jesus would touch her. And suddenly she was healed. And then my dad wanted to crucify Jesus. And so it was a great way to grow up. I’m a big believer that God does not just call individuals, he calls families to the ministry. And so talk to me a little bit about what you feel the call of God is upon you, but then how that it extends down to your whole family.
Lance Alves (04:32):
Sure. The calling that God has put is all of Africa. And so it’s not one particular region but the entire continent. And also there was other places that Lord had showed me that he would one day open up. And so we’ve never been one place only, but utilizing equipment, specialized equipment and people and be able to, for our family, that they could share the gospel, be part of it in almost a sense of multiplication. That was very important to us as a family. And so the kids have been able to be involved in music and puppet shows as you mentioned. And also they’ve been able to, if we had any food involved, they were part of that sharing what’s next, praying for the sick. And really it is just been an honor.
Evangelist Daniel King (05:35):
One of the things I really like is your focus on building these trucks for evangelism. And God’s given you a very mechanical mind, an innovative mind for taking a truck and turning it into a tool that can be used for evangelism. And the reason I think this is so important, what you’re doing is because we need to develop the infrastructure of evangelism. Think about it. When a church is wanting to minister to people, they do a capital campaign to raise money to build a church building. And the reason that people give to build a church building is because for a church, that’s where the ministry takes place. But it’s different for an evangelist. An evangelist doesn’t do his ministry inside a church building because the evangelist is going after people who are lost and who need Jesus. And so the evangelist is out on the dusty fields of Africa.
(06:39):
It could be a marketplace, it could be just a soccer field, it could be out in the jungle somewhere. That’s where the ministry takes place. And the evangelist needs to amplify his voice so that hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of people can hear. So the ministry for an evangelist takes place not in a church building, but on a platform. And one of the things about doing crusades that I’ve learned is it is really expensive sometimes to rent platforms, to rent sound systems. And so I think the church needs to make some investment in the infrastructure of evangelism to build trucks, to build sound systems that can go from place to place and do evangelism in brand new places. And God’s given you a really innovative mind for developing this. So tell me a little bit, you’ve got your first truck, your second truck, and then you’ve got some plans for bigger systems. Walk me through what you’ve already built and what God has put on your heart to build in the months and years to come.
Lance Alves (07:46):
Sure. A long time ago, my mom had noticed that when I was playing the guitar, that I would listen to how other people were playing their styles. And I would really focus in and she noticed that I was always trying to make it better. I would come home, I would take that same song. I would work on how different things could be a little bit more efficient and make the sounds a little bit better. So when I look at equipment, I look at how can I make it more efficient? How can I reach more people, how can I do it cheaper and stronger and be able to do even more? So there’s a lot of variables in my mind that I pray through and really analyze. So the first truck, I call it state truck number two, or that’s our oldest daughter, Isla. We named it after each one of our kids just at home. But our first stage truck takes five minutes to set up and tear down. Everything is pre-built. So I pay attention to the sounds of the speakers, what it’s giving off of. I pay attention to every little detail from the,
Evangelist Daniel King (09:00):
So tell me a little bit about the stage truck. Sure. It actually has a stage built into it.
Lance Alves (09:06):
Yes. It’s like a box truck and it opens up on the passenger side, and there’s speakers that are connected. It’s all run by iPad. There’s a generator on board, and so there’s outlets, there’s lighting, light switches, fire extinguishers, and it’s built to San Francisco code, which is the top code for building and
Evangelist Daniel King (09:30):
Stuff. So you bought a truck and then you started innovating and building the different aspects of what it would take to turn it into an evangelistic tool?
Lance Alves (09:41):
Correct.
Evangelist Daniel King (09:42):
Okay. So you got your first truck, now you’re working on a second truck.
Lance Alves (09:46):
Yes.
Evangelist Daniel King (09:47):
Alright, tell me about that.
Lance Alves (09:48):
Okay. The second truck I looked at how I wanted to do something different. So the first truck opens up kind of, I don’t know how to explain
Evangelist Daniel King (09:59):
Audio. The side kind of opens up.
Lance Alves (10:01):
Yes, from left to right on each side. The second truck, I wanted to do something different. Each truck, I get bored after a while. So second truck, I was noticing that some trucks were folding down on one side. Well, I wanted to do something different. So I wanted both sides to fold down the driver’s side and the passenger side still have five minutes set up. I wanted sound system running all the every open space. So we’re running 180 degrees of sound. I visualized that there would be people and I wanted them to hear the gospel clearly, even in the very back. And so that was something that was a challenge, a creative challenge, and that was really exciting for me.
Evangelist Daniel King (10:44):
And so what size crowd can these
Lance Alves (10:46):
Trucks reach? Sure. So the first truck can easily do 1000. Second truck can easily do 5,000
Evangelist Daniel King (10:55):
In the years to come. You have plans to build systems that can reach the tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands. So tell me what comes next.
Lance Alves (11:05):
Sure. I run across different sound technicians and they give me graphs and all that kind of stuff and explain how it can’t work. Then I look at it and I pray and really check it out. And I say, okay, what are they seeing and what are they not seeing? I try to say, well, why can’t it work? And that’s how I approach it, why can’t it work? And so then we do that. So the second, or not the second, but the next equipment includes shipping containers. It’s very important for me to know that I could ship it to any country in the world via ship. And so everything is connected. So imagine three shipping containers and from one plug, that’s it. One plug the side sound towers plug into each side of the center stage shipping container. And so everything is running through that one plug. And again, that will take one hour sediment tear down with a minimum easy if not more, but 100,000 people.
Evangelist Daniel King (12:11):
Wow. And God’s already given you the blueprints, the plan to make that happen. I think that will be such a valuable tool to use to evangelize. And so let’s talk about your plans to evangelize. Tell me, it sounds like you want to do not just one crusade a month, but you want to have this equipment once it’s ready to just be going full time.
Lance Alves (12:37):
That’s right. In my mind, it is about efficiency being effective. And I really truly believe that the roughly 3 billion or so unreached people can be reached a lot faster than people actually realize. When you look at it on paper, put everything on numbers, and then you break it down how it is to reach those people and really come up with different steps to reach those people, it can really be done a lot faster. And so what we need specialized equipment, we need teams of people that are willing to do that. So the equipment takes a big load off of people. But here’s the thing, we can do multiple outreaches per day and then we could lead up into a bigger crusade and we’ve got to have all specialized equipment to do that. We could do training for evangelism as well and make it take equipment. And I want it to be fun for people. So imagine a missions trip that blows your socks off. You’re able to take rides in bush planes land right in the middle of the jungle where there’s no runway. You’re able to utilize different types of equipment that people would never have thought about in use of advantage of them, and you’re able to reach people.
Evangelist Daniel King (13:52):
That’s exciting. Now, coming up really soon in August, you’re going to be doing a mission trip to Central Africa and you’re taking your entire family, so all your kids are going with you. Tell me about what you plan to do on that trip.
Lance Alves (14:06):
Sure. So we’ll have, over the course of seven days, we’ll do 35 outreaches, five outreaches a day, and be back.
Evangelist Daniel King (14:13):
What are you going to do in your free time when you’re not? No five outreaches a day. That’s that’s a very aggressive schedule. No sitting around the hotel.
Lance Alves (14:25):
Well, actually that’s right after breakfast
Evangelist Daniel King (14:27):
And
Lance Alves (14:27):
Then being back, leaving the last outreach by 5:00 PM and being back at the hotel for dinner. So that’s our thing. And we have an hour in one powerful one hour event, and we allow for travel time in between. And so that’s how we’re able to really analyze things, how we could be efficient. Everything’s very simple, easy, and everything is just compiled into that one hour.
Evangelist Daniel King (14:55):
And so that’s going from village to village? From marketplace to marketplace.
Lance Alves (14:59):
That’s right.
Evangelist Daniel King (14:59):
And doing 35 outreaches in just one week.
Lance Alves (15:03):
Every school, prison and village. So we pick out, we map in unreached particular area and we look at every village, school, prison along the way. And we want to make sure that nobody’s left out.
Evangelist Daniel King (15:18):
And so you’re not just going to easy places, you’re specifically targeting places where there’s unreached people groups.
Lance Alves (15:25):
That’s right. Going into difficult areas. It doesn’t bother us. So in fact, even in different parts of the states, we take people with us and they’re very nervous, but we say there’s nothing to be afraid of. So
Evangelist Daniel King (15:42):
That’s right. Well, if someone wants to participate in your ministry, pray for you guys, maybe give to help you with what you’re called to do. What is your website? What’s the best way for people to find out more information about you?
Lance Alves (15:58):
Sure. They could go to alves ministries.org. That’s A-L-V-E-S ministries.org.
Evangelist Daniel King (16:04):
And tell me a little bit about the long-term passion that God has put in your heart for evangelism. Just talk to me about how you knew you were called to be an evangelist. What’s your story? How did you develop this in your life?
Lance Alves (16:21):
Sure. The Lord had called a absolute nobody, a zero, somebody who was stuffed in the lockers, picked on, beat up on, and God had a plan. And I laid everything before the Lord. They said I was convulsing for two hours, but the Lord was showing me what he wanted and if I would just trust him and believe him. And so we’ve seen a lot of powerful things. What we believe that God has is to reach again, every unreached people and that they’ll hear the gospel in a way that they can understand very simply, and that God would accompany with signs, wonders, and miracles and be able to connect them to churches for discipleship. And so we wanted to see both our family involved and other people and just multiply that. It can become in time, really a powerful evangelism movement. And so that’s certainly within our heart.
Evangelist Daniel King (17:30):
Amen. Well, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism podcast. Let’s finish with your favorite scripture about evangelism. What scripture do you like to preach about to inspire people to get involved in God’s plan for humanity?
Lance Alves (17:51):
Yeah, I think first of all, it’s an honor to be with you. It is actually a portion that comes from the story of Samson. And where Sams hint had tied Fox’s, their tells together, he had sent them out and there was nothing ordinary or special, rather about the foxes. They were just foxes. But the thing is that they were sent out two by two. They were accompanied with this flame and they were sent out into the harvest field. And I believe that that was almost that moment where Samson had done that. It was really resembling what Jesus does today.
Evangelist Daniel King (18:35):
Amen. Well, brother Lance, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast. It’s
Lance Alves (18:40):
An honor. Nice to be with you. Thank you.
Evangelism Podcast Host (18:43):
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 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 an altar 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.
Evangelist Daniel King (19:44):
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. 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. 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 (21:05):
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