Giles Stevens is the evangelism pastor for a huge network of churches in Brazil. His goal as an evangelist is to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry. You will be amazed as you listen to his story about how the church grew from 70 people to tens of thousands.
Learn more about Giles Stevens: https://gilesstevens.com/
Learn more about the church GIles Stevens is part of: https://www.igrejavideira.com.br/
Buy the book about “The Eleventh Question”
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today I have a very special guest with me, Giles Stevens from Great Britain now in the great nation of Brazil. Thank you for joining me today,
Giles Stevens (00:15):
Daniel, a joy to be with you. Thanks for having me.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:18):
Alright, you are passionate about evangelism. Tell me a little bit about your testimony and how God has brought you to where you are now.
Giles Stevens (00:27):
Well, I’m the first believer in my family. I like to say I got saved by mistake. I was looking in all the wrong places for life and for adventure. I’d rather thrown out the idea of Christianity as a young teenager because of my rather negative sort of traditional church experiences. And so I went to look for life and adventure outside of the church and that took me down all sorts of wild and paths and so forth. But thank God in his rich mercy, he sent along a couple of nice friends of friends who preached Christ to me and it kind of tricked me up, woke me up, brought me out of my lost state and showed me what life was all about, where told me the truth. And it just radically changed my life. And I think the fact that I’d come from a family where we didn’t know Christ personally and didn’t have that relationship and the fact that I suddenly realized there was an eternal realm and the decisions we make here during our lives affect where we spend our eternity.
(01:29):
I kept thinking to myself, well, how come nobody’s ever told me this before I could have died and if I’d have died, where would I be today? And so in a sense, I became a natural evangelist. I just thought there would be thousands, millions of people out there just like me who had no idea about these eternal consequences and destinations who’ve never heard. And so I just began. Once I was saved and knew the Lord, I just thought, boy, I’ve got to tell everybody else. So I preached at everything that moved. That’s how it started.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:56):
So you definitely have the call to be an evangelist on your life. And now you’re living in the nation of Brazil. How did you end up going to Brazil?
Giles Stevens (02:06):
Well, I married the girl.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:09):
Where’d you meet?
Giles Stevens (02:10):
Well, my wife, who is Brazilian as I’m indicating, she had won a scholarship to go and study in a Bible school in London, a place called the International Bible Institute of London, run by the quite well-known church, Kensington Temple. And so she was there and I was a full-time evangelist traveling around London at the time and other places with a big gospel tent and putting it up in downtown parks and using music and test me and other things to bring people in. And then preaching, there was no tomorrow to the crowds. And her church brought in the whole tent and all the equipment. I noted her in the kind of gang of young people. But being a classic Englishman, we have this slight reserve on us. So you shouldn’t really in decent society introduce yourself. So I saw this girl wanted the local pastor to introduce me and he didn’t. And so in the end, at the end of this mission, I went away having seen her thought, well she looks lovely and she’s full of the spirit and there’s something different about her. But I didn’t get introduced. But interestingly, a year later I was in a Reinhard Bonky fire conference in Birmingham and I saw her again. And thankfully by then I had more kingdom culture than British culture and I thought, I’m not going to miss my chance. Second time round,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:34):
God is the God of a second chance he brought her back.
Giles Stevens (03:37):
So I made a beeline for her.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:39):
Oh well that is a good place to meet your wife at a Reinhardt Bonky fire conference. I know you know that here is someone who loves Jesus.
Giles Stevens (03:47):
Well that’s right. People who go to those fire conferences, they have to have a certain are type of believer. They love the fire, they love evangelism. And so I like to say it’s a good place to find a partner better than the pub.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:01):
Alright, so you met her, you got married, how many years have you been married now? 23. Wow, congratulations. And she’s from Brazil, so you ended up going to Brazil with her?
Giles Stevens (04:14):
Yeah, we married in England. And so it was only really after our marriage that we went down to Brazil to meet the extended family. And we have completely different upbringings. And this is one of the challenges, but also one of the exciting things about our relationship is I was brought up, my father was a general in the British Army. I went to private schools, studied at Oxford, been traveling around the world ever since. My youth,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:43):
A classic British gentleman. Well,
Giles Stevens (04:47):
I trying to be, be gentle. Anyhow, Sylvia, in contrast, she was brought up out on a ranch in the back end of nowhere. I think you Americans, if you can picture in your mind the little house on the prairie, then you’ve pretty much got how Sylvia was raised. She’s the oldest of four girls. Her father and mother had this ranch literally miles and miles away from the big city. And they were brought up without electricity, without a car, without telephones. They would go to town once a week in a horse and cart to go to church and buy a few supplies. And she tells these incredible stories about how sometimes in rainy season to get to town you’d have to cross rivers and if if it had risen through the rain, they would have to sort of camp by the river until it had gone down so that they could cross over in their cart.
(05:39):
And so it was completely different upbringing. But as I’ve often said to young single people who are looking and praying about their married marriage partner, I’ve said, look, it’s not the past that counts. It’s the destination, your future that counts. Scripture says how can two walk unless they are agreed. And so when you’ve got a similar vision, a similar heart, a similar passion, then I believe that partnership can be a success. And thankfully, like we were talking about Sylvia being in a fire conference for evangelists, I knew that’s somebody with a similar vision. So it’s been a great, great marriage.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:16):
And what city are you living in? Brazil?
Giles Stevens (06:20):
Well, it’s a place that nobody knows and nobody can pronounce even if they know it well, certainly us foreigners. It’s called Goya. And it’s actually a large city, 1.5 million. So it’s big, but it’s kind of, it’s cowboy country. So people think when they think of Brazil, they either think Amazon or they think of Rio de Janeiro and the beaches kind of carnival football on the beaches. So we are more than a thousand kilometers inland, if you know where brazilia is, a couple of hours drive from there, right in the heart of Brazil below the Amazon and to the east of the Panol, which is the equivalent of our Everglades or your Everglades. And it’s a lovely region, beautiful countryside, jolly hot, but great place to be. Goana itself has no tourist attractions apart from an old zoo where there’s zebra that’s lost its stripes, there’s a lion who’s forgotten how to roar. And an old bear who strolls around. That’s our only tourist attraction. But Ang is not known for a tourist center. It’s known for something much more superior. And that is the move of God that’s happening there. It’s an extraordinary, it’s a city of revival.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:29):
Wow. Tell me about the revival.
Giles Stevens (07:32):
Well, I mean my experience mean in general. I can tell you about Brazil. I mean, it’s just extraordinary really what’s happened over the last 20, 30 years. I mean, Pentecostal, the Pentecostal missionaries came in and we’re here at an evangelist conference. So these sorts of conversations we’ve been having. But Swedish Pentecostals came in 112 years ago to the Amazon and started that sort of whole Holy Ghost move. But it didn’t really take off numerically until the last 20, 30 years. And so we’ve seen multitudes coming to the Lord in a general sense. I mean literally millions and millions, remembering that Brazil is a country of 230 million people. So that’s a big, big country. But I’ll give you more of the context with the network of churches with whom I’m based and principally work for, even though being an evangelist, I’m a kingdom man. So we started that church, which has now grown into a large network. About 24 years ago, I joined up with one of Sylvia’s youth pastors, my wife’s youth pastors, who had started this new church with a group of people, 70 people in a garage or on a veranda. And now that church is over 30,000 people.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:51):
And what’s the name of the church in port in
Giles Stevens (08:53):
Portuguese? It’s called Reja Viera, which translates directly as the Vine Church. The Vine Church. So we’ve now got over a thousand churches. And
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:01):
So there’s many branches all over Brazil.
Giles Stevens (09:03):
Yeah, I mean originally we just, the growth is so organic, the thing just kept growing and growing. And then before we knew it,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:15):
Well, if you name your church the vine, you figure it kind of spreads. We used to have a vine on our house and it would cover the entire thing. And so I think that’s a good name for a growing church. Yeah,
Giles Stevens (09:25):
I agree. I agree. I agree. It’s very biblical John 15. Of course. Yeah. But we did mean we were intentional as well. I mean some of the growth came just because people would get saved, become a member. And we have quite a strong church culture. So the people who sort of like what we teach and the way we do church, we’re a cell church. We have a lot of encounter weekends, and it’s a very busy active church full of young people. And so people who have been in that environment, if they get moved to another city for, I dunno, work or something else, they tend to, because of the culture they carry, they love having church at home as well as in a big building. So they’ll automatically start a group at home, a cell group. And so we just found these new groups growing up in other cities as well. And then we thought, well, we better send a trained pastor or a leader down there to help them. And suddenly we found that we had a network and then we did become a bit more intentional saying, well, let’s get a church into every one of the capitals of each state that 26 states. And then we thought, well, let’s get a church into every city with over 200,000 and so on and so on. And now we’ve become actually a growing international movement as well.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:31):
Wow, that’s amazing. And so tell me your position and what you do.
Giles Stevens (10:37):
Well, I kind of wear two hats really. I’m on the one hand an evangelist, and that’s really my principal.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:46):
The reason I’m asking this question is because a lot of evangelists who listen to the podcast are wondering how do they fit into the local church? Not every church makes a place for the evangelist, but I think an evangelist really needs to be part of a church and plugged in doing evangelism as part of a local church using their gifts. So how has that worked in your life? Well, I
Giles Stevens (11:11):
Think I really agree with you, and it’s not only good for the evangelist, it’s good for the church. It’s a two-way thing and it’s good for the family of the evangelists. You can’t just be out there on your own all the time. You should be in a community of believers. And in a sense, I mean I’ve always operated like this. My call as an evangelist is principally to my local church or to the group of local churches with whom I’m based. But obviously evangelists are kingdom people as we referred to earlier because we’re preaching the gospel to get people saved and to join a church. So we work with other churches as well. But for me, I think every evangelist needs to champion the local church. Christ is coming back for the church, it’s the church that will be raptured, the church is his bride.
(11:57):
And so the idea of having, even if you have a parachurch organization, you’re not building up that organization. You’re actually using your parachurch organization, your charity, your not-for-profit to build the local church. And I think pastors, they’ve had an uneasy relationship with evangelists over the years. They perhaps felt threatened by them or they feel that they might be pulling their flock away. But I think if evangelists express that and show that pastor I’m here to do a campaign so that your church grows so that new families come in, then obviously pastors are going to open up their hearts and their doors to them as well. So yeah, it’s always been a passion of mine. And I think also that coming back to the way we do church is that as Ephesians four says, the primary purpose of a five-fold ministry gift is to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry. So yes, I do campaigns, big campaigns, but actually I spend just as much time, if not more time training all the believers to be evangelists as well, all the believers to share their faith.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:05):
Yeah, that’s so much an important part of what the evangelist is called to do. So you said you wear two hats. One is the evangelist and are you saying the other one is the equipper or you have another hat? Yeah,
Giles Stevens (13:18):
Well yes, we might have a few hats here. We start breaking this down. But what I wanted to say was I do run an evangelistic association. It’s called the Great Mission, and that is to serve the body of Christ and the local churches at large. So I am an evangelist doing that within the Vine Church itself, I’m part of a presbytery or an apostolic team. I kind of serve as the director of evangelism. And so I train all the members of those churches. I prioritize that multiplying my own gifting and giving them tools and strategies so that they can be fruitful as well.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:58):
And so what does that training look like? Often in church, people want to do something for God and they have a heart to share their faith with others, but they don’t really know what to say or what to do. So in the Brazilian context of where you are, how do you equip believers to share their faith?
Giles Stevens (14:19):
Well, it’s great question. I really like that it’s right at the heart of what I feel like I’m called to do. I think firstly, local churches need to have a structure which allows them members to be sharing their faith and encourages them. It’s one of the reasons I really believe in cell groups where it’s not just now the pastor who’s doing the preaching because in cell groups, all the members of the church and that cell group can get involved in preaching and starting their own groups and so forth. So you are sharing what you’ve received, you are teaching what you’ve learned. And I think that produces healthy growth in the individual believer as well. If the believer is just receiving, then in a sense he grows lazy. If he’s just giving, then he’ll dry out. But you’ve got to be having both sides receiving and giving learning and teaching.
(15:08):
So we need to have church structures where that can happen. But as you rightly say, often people have a heart to win. Others, they just dunno how to start the conversation. They dunno what to say, they dunno how to do it. And so I think one of the things that the Lord has anointed me or gifted me to do is to create tools and strategies that help ’em to do that. And Daniel, you know how it is the evangelist as a character, one of the characteristics, the traits of an evangelist normally is that he’s quite extroverted. He preaches with ease. He burns all the time to share the gospel. And that’s great, but not all believers are like that. Like I say, a genuine believer, somebody who’s born again has a new nature, they’re going to have a heart to see others saved. Of course we are, but they perhaps just dunno how to take that step.
(16:02):
And so one of the things I’ve done is produce tools or materials that help people to share. Back in 2008 now I launched, or 2007 I launched a strategy called the 11th Question, a little booklet I’d spent some time with Reinhard, actually this is an interesting story. And he’d been down to us, he’d come and visited and preached in our conference and he was talking about in those days, I think his vision was to win 50 million people for Christ. Now we were really, really growing. We were really growing. I mean our churches were exploding, but when he started talking about the millions, it kind of makes you feel like you’re doing nothing in comparison. And I remember just lying on my bed after he’d been there and I’m just wrestling it out with the Lord. I’m thinking, Lord, I’m excited about winning 5,000 and he’s winning 50 million.
(16:53):
I said, I’ve got the same Bible as him, the same spirit as him. There’s something wrong here. And I felt like the Lord said to me, Giles, it’s one thing to have a vision, it’s another thing to have a strategy. I think we all tend to have a vision of winning our generation for Christ or something like that. But you’ve got to go beyond the vision and actually have a strategy in place that then fulfills the vision. And it was clear that Reinhard had his strategy of big crusades and all this kind of stuff. So I prayed that through and I felt like the Lord said to me to do two things, write a book for believers to equip them to share their faith, but also write a little booklet for unbelievers so that they can hear about Christ in a dynamic way. And I mean, if you think about it as well, you go to a Christian book shop, there’s pretty much nothing written for the unbeliever.
(17:44):
It’s all for the believer. And that’s got to be wrong because we are the salt and the light of this earth. So anyhow, I wrote this booklet called The 11th Question, A Spiritual Self-Evaluation Test. There are 11 questions, you have to answer those questions. The 11th is the most important, and the way you answer the 11th will determine your future. And what I did, it’s a little booklet with these 11th questions in, and we equip believers to share those 11 questions with friends. Now what happened was, this is back in 2007, I equipped 10,000 believers to do this test with seven people over the course of one month. So we evangelized 70,000 people in one month and we baptized at the end of it, 3000 on a day. So that was the beginning of this.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:29):
That’s like the day of Pentecost, 3000 people getting saved in one day.
Giles Stevens (18:33):
Well, we’ve gone beyond that. I then launched more recently another little booklet called Seven Good Things that maybe you Don’t know, same kind of idea. Because remember what I’m doing is I’m helping believers witness to their friends, to their neighbors, to their colleagues. So it’s not me doing the big preach. I mean, I do do the crusades and things, but this is getting the body to do it.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:55):
So let’s talk about the 11th question. What are some of those questions that people are trained to ask?
Giles Stevens (19:00):
You have to buy the
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:00):
Book to find out now is it on Amazon? Yeah, it’s on Amazon. We’ll put a link on the podcast so people can find the book The 11th question. But tell me some of the questions. No, I won’t.
Giles Stevens (19:12):
I
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:13):
Really won’t. The thing is,
Giles Stevens (19:15):
Like I say,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:15):
Because otherwise it
Giles Stevens (19:16):
Takes the kind of thunder out of it.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:18):
I mean, I’ve got a book, but I only got three questions in my book. You’re much more complex money. I just get them there much quicker. I’ll tell you some
Giles Stevens (19:25):
About my last one called The Seven Good Things. And that’s been really effective, which we launched just before the pandemic. And interestingly, when the quarantine came for us evangelists, most of us turned like tigers in a cage. We didn’t know what to do with ourselves. We love being out there doing crusades. You can’t have big gatherings. And I just was praying about, I just thought, Lord, what do we do? I just refuse to let not just kind of regulations shut me down, but also that kind of spirit of fear that was in the air, that everybody
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:56):
Was afraid
Giles Stevens (19:57):
That they were going to die and so forth. And I felt that classic story of David and Goliath. Saul ran from the Giant, but David ran at The Giant and I just thought, I’ve got to run at this thing. I’ve got to do something sort of bold and courageous at a time like this. And so I created a network on WhatsApp and for a hundred days I challenged this big network, thousands of young people to share their faith with one person every day for a hundred days. And I gave them different things to do. But one of the things was this booklet called Seven Good Things that Maybe You don’t know. And they would share these messages. And so some of those things, I’ll tell you those no matter who you are, you are much loved another one. No matter what you’ve done, there’s forgiveness available. I’m a real good news preach. I believe that Jesus Christ came as a friend of sinners to tell them the good news that their sins had been forgiven through his blood and by the
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:56):
Cross. And so over the course of those a hundred days, what were some of the miracles that you saw? Well,
Giles Stevens (21:01):
I mean the biggest miracle as we evangelists will say, is the miracle of salvation. And so actually at the end, it was in October, beginning of October during the pandemic, we baptized 10,000 people in a day.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:12):
Wow, that’s amazing.
Giles Stevens (21:14):
And that was in swimming pools and lakes and rivers and seas. Anywhere there was water because we couldn’t gather them together. We had this online meeting through YouTube and so forth, and all the different churches and places, the cities that were holding these events were baptizing. So we ran at the Giant.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:32):
Wow, what a miracle. Let’s talk about the spiritual atmosphere in Brazil. What do you see God doing in the nation of Brazil?
Giles Stevens (21:41):
Yeah, I mean we really have to talk about that because again, the tendency when we think about church growth and winning souls is to immediately go to strategy. But I think it was moody or one of these guys said, it’s not so much how you present the gospel, just make sure you present it hot. It’s got to be anointed, it’s got to be full of fire and life. And really, if you’re full of fire and life, it doesn’t really matter what sort of strategy you use. I mean, I teach young people these days. I say, look, be filled with the Holy Spirit and then do whatever you like because if you’re filled with the Holy Spirit, life is going to flow through you. So we work, how can I say? We’re very conscious, I suppose, as church leaders of creating spiritual atmosphere, culture, a revival culture.
(22:30):
And so I almost want to talk in tongues. So difficult to put into words this, but you’ve got to have that atmosphere where people are just going after God, where the presence of God is liberated and manifesting the whole time, and a fire will naturally go out unless it’s fed. And so we see that as well. It’s very easy for a move of God to stop very easy unless you make a personal decision. I think this is one of the roles of a church leader. You make a decision that your meetings, your church, whatever you do is you don’t accept anything but a manifestation of the presence of God. Whether it’s in a prayer meeting, a Sunday church, a crusade, an encounter weekend. We are going to pray to have that presence. We’re going to preach. Until we get that presence, it just becomes our life source. We need the living water. Because of that, there’s life manifesting. And of course growth comes because of life. Most people go after growth. I always say, no, no, go after the spiritual atmosphere and growth will be the result.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:37):
Wow. I know you’re a very proud father. Your son is at Oral Roberts University right now. My friend Rubens Konya took him over to Ethiopia for a crusade. And so God doesn’t just call individuals, he calls families. Talk to me about balancing family life and ministry life.
Giles Stevens (24:00):
Well, yeah, I mean that’s really interesting. Again, I’m really enjoying your questions, Daniel. We are a missionary family. I’ve got four children. Titus is the oldest, so 21, 19, 18, and 15 little girl at 15. And so let me say it like this. Sometimes you hear Christians say, God, first, family second, ministry third or those kinds of things. But I’ve never seen it like that. For me, it’s all one thing. So it’s not just about Daddy Giles being the minister and everybody else following me. No, we’re a ministry family, we’re a family of priests. We are all in this together. And so also for us, church isn’t a building, church is a body of Christ. And so we’re just as much in church at home as a family as we are if we’re in a pulpit somewhere. And I think that atmosphere and that way of life has just meant that what the gift and the call of God on my life has just been naturally spontaneously shared with the children.
(25:03):
And so they are all involved in the ministry with me. I mean, I was listening to a message that Titus preached the other day, and I had to post it on a pastor’s group. I just had to, on a WhatsApp group that I’m part of, I said, just listen to this coming from a 20 year old boy. Because what he preaches in this message, I think is wiser and more anointed than most ministers I’m hearing who’ve been in the ministry for years. And I don’t say that as a proud father. I’m just trying to say that when you’re brought up in revival and it’s just in you from the get-go, then it just sort of gushes out, doesn’t it? And so it’s just been a joy. Obviously, they’ve all got slightly different and giftings and so forth, but all of them are just full of the Holy Ghost. That’s great.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:52):
That’s awesome. What advice would you give to a young evangelist who really wants to be used by God?
Giles Stevens (26:00):
Well, yeah, really good question. Again, boy, you’ve done this before, haven’t you?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:06):
You’re my 290th interview on evangelism. Fine. Yeah. Have I got anything new to say? No, it’s good. I mean, it’s so neat seeing how God uses different people, different personalities. There’s so many different methods of evangelism, but God is so wonderful. He uses all of us. Yeah, yeah. I mean
Giles Stevens (26:25):
Advice to a young evangelist is if it burns in your heart, preach it. I started out pretty shortly after I got saved. I remember reading the scripture that Saul, who became the Apostle Paul, he preached Christ immediately. The scripture says in the synagogues immediately after his conversion. So he didn’t hang around to start sharing about Christ. And I think when you’re faithful with the little, God will give you much. And so you can see how Paul’s revelation just grows and grows and grows. He was constantly giving out what he’d received. So I think there’s a principle there. If you’ve been anointed, to be honest, if you’ve got saved, start talking about it, start testifying. At least that’s what we’re empowered to do by the Holy Spirit. But I think really, if you’ve got a call to the full-time ministry and you dream of the multitude, so to speak, I think probably the best thing you can do is something rather like Elijah did with Elijah, serve a man of God, a more experienced evangelist.
(27:25):
Because there’s a certain amount you’re going to learn in the classroom, and obviously you’re going to learn through your own relationship with the Lord principally and the study of the scripture. But so much is transferred in that discipleship process when you’re actually under the authority and you’re serving a man of God who’s already doing it. There’s just lessons there that you wouldn’t get anywhere else. And I again like to teach on that particular story in the Old Testament that scripture gives detail and it says that Elisha, he poured water on the hands of Elijah. And I read that and I thought, that’s really strange that it would say that, but it’s clear that the detail is in the scripture, I think, to show us that if he was doing the menial tasks of just even helping Elijah Elijah wash his hands before dinner, that really meant that he was disposed to serve his master in any possible way that he could be helpful.
(28:21):
Remembering that, of course, Elisha was a rich young farmer, and so he was the rich young ruler, let’s say, who gave up everything unlike the rich young ruler who Christ called and went away. So he served this rather strange prophet. He saw the anointing of God upon him. So if you’re a young guy, then you kind of need to let go of sometimes of your natural world and your natural relationships and get around somebody who’s really anointed, but serve them in practical and menial ways. And you see, this is the glory of this revelation is that as Elijah poured water on the hands of Elijah, what he didn’t realize perhaps at the time was that Elijah was pouring spiritual water upon the head of
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:08):
Elijah. I love that story. And then one of the most tragic stories in the Bible is the next one of Gaze who was called by God, I think, to be the next prophet of Israel, but failed his test, and he was serving Elisha, but then for a little bit of money in a few sets of clothes, he gave up his anointing in his bad trade dollars because he didn’t know that being a servant is just a stepping to the destiny that God has for you.
Giles Stevens (29:43):
Yeah. Sold himself out. Oh, dear.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:46):
Tragic. I’m going to put a link to your book on the podcast, but do you have a website, a way that people can connect with you?
Giles Stevens (29:59):
Yeah. The ministry that I run, the evangelistic ministry I run is called The Great Mission. Put a.org on the end of that, and you’ll find us or Giles Stevens, old English name, G i l e s, Giles Stevens with a v.com. You can find me there and you’ll find materials. Like I said, my heart is very much to equip and empower others. I’ve often said, what’s best? One guy speaking to a thousand or a thousand preachers speaking to their multitude. So I’m very much about helping not just teach, but giving other young evangelists and teachers and preachers and pastors sermons to preach and strategies to use so that you can be fruitful in your own life.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:42):
My passion. Well, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast. I appreciate
Giles Stevens (30:46):
It. Daniel, it’s a joy. Thank you for receiving Titus when he’s been to help you as well and your crusades, and I
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:52):
Hope we can, he’s a blessing. Hope
Giles Stevens (30:53):
We can do more together.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:54):
Thank
Giles Stevens (30:54):
You. Bless you.
Do you want to be an influencer for Jesus? Frankie Cortez is a graduate of the Christ for All Nations Evangelism Bootcamp. God has given him a vision to raise up social media influencers who can share the Gospel with a sight and sound generation. On today’s podcast we talk about why it is important to evangelize online and give you some tips for maximizing the impact of your social media.
Website: https://www.promisesinternational.org/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Do you wanna be an influencer for Jesus? Frankie Cortez is a graduate of Christ for All Nations evangelism. Bootcamp. God has given him a vision to raise up social media influencers who can share the gospel with a sight and sound generation. On today’s podcast, we talk about why it’s important to evangelize online, and we give you some tips for maximizing the impact of your social media. Plus, Frankie is going to share some stories from the different countries that he’s been working on, and you’ll hear about what God is doing in Egypt, in Pakistan, in Brazil, and in Ukraine. Let’s listen.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:54):
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 (01:19):
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, Frankie Cortez. Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Frankie Cortez (01:30):
Thank you for having me.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:32):
So let’s talk about how we first met you were a student at the Christ for All Nations Evangelism Bootcamp in Orlando, Florida. And tell me, what did you learn going through the Evangelism Bootcamp?
Frankie Cortez (01:48):
Yeah, so I had the amazing opportunity to be part of the Evangelism Bootcamp at Christ for All Nations. Danielle King was actually one of my teachers. I learned how to organize crusades, how to plan them, how to preach at them, and then ultimately how to roll that out.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:02):
Well, I love pouring into other evangelists and helping people who have a passion for the great commission and going to nations all over the world. And so, do you remember some of what I taught in, in the sessions that we were together?
Frankie Cortez (02:18):
I yes. I remember you had systematic plans on how we can actually do this. I remember you had 300, I think it was 316 steps to be an effective evangelist. And I specifically remem I think it was number 17, is Find a Wife. I still haven’t found that one yet. <laugh>,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:33):
Absolutely. Well, when I found my wife, it really helped me out as an evangelist. Just gave me more credibility. But, uh, that, that plan that you’re, you’re talking about, I have, uh, a list of how to start a ministry and it’s because people kept coming to me and asking me questions like, well, how do I start a ministry? What do I do in, in order to start taking donations from, you know, how do I share my vision? And, and I kept getting the same questions over and over again. And especially like, like, how do I write a book, Daniel, you’ve written like 25 different books. How do I write my first book and how do I raise money for my ministry and how do I book speaking engagements at churches? And, and I kept getting all of these questions and, and so finally I decided I’m just gonna put one spreadsheet, all the answers to every question I get.
(03:23):
And so now if people ask me a question, I just send them a link to their spreadsheet and I have resources there. And I love coaching people that gives me a place to, to start coaching them in evangelism and helping them to become more effective in the ministry that God has called them to. And so if you’re listening and you’re interested in being coached in evangelism or being coached in how to start a ministry, uh, reach out to me and, and we’ll talk about doing that. All right. So Frankie, since you graduated from the the Evangelism Bootcamp, you’ve gone to a bunch of different places around the world and you’ve seen God do some amazing things. Kind of walk me through that journey and what you’ve seen God do.
Frankie Cortez (04:04):
Yeah, so it was amazing. The Evangelism Bootcamp showed me how practical it is to just duke Mass Gospel campaigns for right after our, our bootcamp, we had the opportunity to go to Tanzania. We were able to kind of apply what we learned by going to gospel outreaches on trucks where basically we would preach on trailers of semi trucks and we would go to different places around. I was in Moto Godo in Tanzania, and we would share the gospel and we would in marketplaces and on the streets, and we would see many people come to Jesus. We would go into schools and we would share the gospel to many thousands of children. We would give her that to Jesus. I also, within the last year, had the opportunity to travel to many different countries, um, like Pakistan and Brazil and Poland, uh, Mexico, Egypt, where I was able to have these big giant campaigns and bring in just the harvest of thousands of souls.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:55):
Yeah. Tell me about the details of, of some of these events. You went to Egypt, what did you do in Egypt?
Frankie Cortez (05:02):
Yeah, so in Egypt, Egypt was very special in history. They’ve never actually had a mass gospel campaign in, in the Egypt history. I can’t say the C word cuz that one’s actually a bad word over there. But it was amazing. Two weeks before, um, our crusades started, we’ve been planning for an entire year and the biggest church in the city is actually set on fire. 40 people dying over 50 people are injured. And it was like, what do we do? God, is this something that we move forward or is it something that you want to maybe push ahead or something like that? God said, we want you to push forward, I want you to go and I want you to do this crusade. So we had to find a brand new location in a different part of the city in Cairo. And we found actually a Muslim military base in the middle of the hood in Cairo, Egypt.
(05:41):
And God poured out his spirit. So Daniel, you know, the marketing budgets for some of these, sometimes the marketing budgets are 10, 20, 30, $50,000, depending, you know, where you are. I remember in Cairo, Egypt, an event like that has never been done. So we put in about a thousand dollars of marketing. Day one, we had 5,000 people on the field, and by day five we had over 50,000 people on the field because God’s glory showed up, miracles, signs and wonders happened. People were literally coming up to us saying that they had dreams of Jesus and they were leading ’em to our event.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:11):
Wow. Well, when you have the Holy Spirit working with you, you don’t need much of a budget. And so that’s amazing. Did, did you know the, the first evangelist to ever go to Egypt was Mark who wrote the Gospel of Mark. And the story is that he went to Alexandria, which was founded by Alexandria the Great. And when Mark went into Alexandria, um, his shoe was, uh, it, it was a leather sandal and it had fallen apart as he traveled. So he went and found a shoemaker, and the shoemaker was, was fixing his shoe. And as he was working on it, the owl that he was working on, the leather slipped and went right through his hand. And right then Mark laid hands on him, prayed for him, and the shoemaker was healed. And so the mark became the first bishop of Alexandria. And then when he was martyred, they tied him some to some chariots and dragged him through the streets. And that’s how he died for Jesus. Uh, the, the shoemaker who got saved that day, when he was healed, he became the second bi bishop of Alexandria. And to this day, the Coptic Christians in al in Egypt, they traced their spiritual heritage back to Mark the writer of the Gospel of Mark. And so what a great thing that you got to go and be an evangelist in the footsteps of Mark. Yeah. And then you also went to Brazil. What’d you do in Brazil?
Frankie Cortez (07:43):
Yeah, so in Brazil we, we taught and trained on evangelism. We had a fire con a fire camp. So basically what that is, it’s a week long evangelistic training where we take a small group of 50 to 60 young people or old people, but they’re very interested in going forward in evangelism within their local country. So we trained about 50 evangelists there and we, and then we sent them out to the streets to apply what they learned. And we were raising people up out there.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:05):
And you also went to Pakistan. What’d you do in Pakistan?
Frankie Cortez (08:08):
Yep. I, um, total in Pakistan, I’ve done four gospel campaigns where we saw tens of thousands of people come to Jesus crowds of 20 to 30,000 people, uh, miracles, signs and wonders happen. And we’re really seeing just God descend on some of these countries that people are like, is not possible. We’re, we’re still gonna go.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:25):
That’s absolutely amazing. Now how old are you?
Frankie Cortez (08:28):
I’m 25 years
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:29):
Old. So 25 years old. You’ve already been to a bunch of different countries. You’ve been seeing God to amazing miracles. And then, uh, you also recently worked in Ukraine. The, the, the war that’s been going on in Ukraine is absolutely horrible. Uh, what were you doing when you went there?
Frankie Cortez (08:47):
Yeah, so I went with my friends, uh, Slavik down, he has a ministry in Ukraine. So what basically what we were doing is we have, we, we had teams that were coming in from the United States, from Seattle, Florida, different parts of the United States. And they were going into Ukraine from both Poland and Romania. And they were going in and they were sharing the gospel, providing humanitarian aid help for the people cuz it’s just a very sad situation that’s happening. So what we were doing, we were actually raising teams up and teaching them how to evangelize in these places, how are we gonna roll out the humanitarian aid work? So we’re we’re also, we went to go shoot a documentary to kind of document what’s actually happening and what God is doing within the country. And that’s coming out pretty soon as well.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:26):
Wow, that’s amazing. Alright, just a few days ago I was on a Zoom call with you, with a bunch of other evangelists who had graduated from the Evangelism Bootcamp and they were all coming together to talk about how to be kingdom influencers on social media. So we’re talking about Instagram, we’re talking about TikTok, we’re talking about Facebook, YouTube, and any other social media platform that people are on. And your vision was to activate these evangelists to go and share the gospel on these different platforms. So, so talk to me a little bit about what God has put on your heart in this area of raising up kingdom influencers for social media.
Frankie Cortez (10:21):
Yeah, it’s amazing. So the Lord kind of put this, um, desire on my heart to see people reached online. So there’s 8 billion people on the earth and 5.8 billion of those are internet users. About four, a little over 4.5 billion of those are social media users. So the biggest people group in the world are internet users. So it’s now how are we gonna actually use the internet to reach people for the kingdom of God, because that’s where the people are. Many times we want to reach people in, in the way that we’ve always done things and now we’re living in a generation and a time where maybe those things are, are not as effective as what as when, how it was long time ago or some of those things we can keep doing. But we can also add social media to that. So the Lord gave me a vision about going on social media and really sharing the gospel, but not just sharing the gospel, but raising up a team to share the gospel online as a unit and creating some type of alliance or some type of collaboration of a group of us to make our own individualistic channels, but then kind of come together, collaborate, give each other feedback so that we can be effective in reaching people on social media.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:26):
So God’s given you this vision to reach out on social media and, and I think this really is a, a vision that that comes from God because like you said, we need to go to where the people are. And so sometimes people think about missions as going on a missionary trip. You, you go over to Africa, people are in Africa, you go to Asia. But nowadays, so many people are spending so much time on social media. I have two kids, they love spending time on the screen. And so we have to limit how much screen time they have cuz they’ll just sit and scroll through different things and watch YouTube videos. And, and so as a parent, it’s kind of, it is kind of scary because who knows what they’re watching, but I think that Christians need to be a voice in those places where, where people are.
(12:13):
And, and so frequently you see people there spending time just watching videos on their pH their phone, and they’re, they’re listening to content and we have to go to where they are and then we have to present the, the gospel message. Now something that you said earlier really stood out to me. We were talking about how there are a lot of Christian influencers that talk about good Christian topics, but there’s very few people that preach the gospel. So talk to me about the difference between an influencer and someone who is intentionally trying to lead people to Jesus.
Frankie Cortez (12:51):
Yeah, so there, there’s many amazing Christian influencers out there. Um, um, many with very good doc and many with amazing heart. They’re reaching out to the church, they’re building up the saints, which is amazing. Keep doing that. But what I don’t, I don’t see many, um, influencers that are Christian that are actually going out to reach the loss. Specifically, I’m going to do social media because I want people to know Jesus. I want people to come to the place of repentance. I want people to come into I don’t know Christ, who I know Jesus now.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:22):
And so one of the things that the Christ for All nations Evangelism Bootcamp really does well is teaching people how to present the gospel. And so just give me a nutshell, what is the gospel, Frankie?
Frankie Cortez (13:37):
Yeah, so this is the gospel. Many times we, we, we know the gospel mentally, but we leave out some parts. So this is the gospel. Sin separates us from God. There’s no way we can get to God because of our sin. That’s the problem. But this is the answer. Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, came down to this earth lived life, look every single one of us, but was without sin. And you know, the, the religious people at the time, they hated him. They killed him, they mocked him, and they hung him on a cross. And Jesus died. But the story doesn’t end there. The Bible says that Jesus rose from the dead and now he’s alive and he’s living and he’s wanting to give us eternal life. Jesus prayed an ultimate price for us that we couldn’t pay ourselves. There’s nothing we can do to earn our salvation. But Jesus came, died, rose again to give us eternal life. And the Bible says, if we repent and believe the gospel, we can have eternal life today.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:27):
Amen. Well, I hope if you’re listening, you don’t know Jesus right now, you’d cry out to Jesus and ask him to save you. And if you will call on Jesus, he will save you from every sin and give you a brand new start. All right, Frankie, let’s talk about some of the, the different platforms that are available for, for social media influencers and just kind of talk me through some of how people be effective on these different platforms. Cuz every platform has a slightly different nuance, different things that they’re looking for, different algorithms. And so let’s start with Instagram. How do you think someone could use Instagram to share the gospel?
Frankie Cortez (15:04):
Yeah, so Instagram seems to really want to be competing against TikTok right now with reels. Reels is what they’re pushing in the past, um, they pushed a lot of graphics, a lot of photos and stuff like that, but it seems like we’re in a place where they’re really pushing Instagram reels. And for those of you that don’t know what Instagram reels is, their short form videos just like TikTok, where you basically have 60 seconds or less to get your messes across. And if it’s anything longer than that, you lost them. And you have about five to 10 seconds in the beginning to grab their attention. And if you don’t grab their attention within five to 10 seconds, you’re pretty much gone. So it’s how do we effectively grab someone’s attention, the five to 10 seconds, and then keep their attention for the rest of the, the remaining time, which is 50 seconds longer.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:44):
All right, so now let’s, you mentioned TikTok. Talk to me about TikTok. How can we reach people on TikTok?
Frankie Cortez (15:48):
So I think TikTok is honestly the greatest vi uh, social media. It’s just so as far as virality, it’s just so easy to go viral. What I, what I’ve seen when I’ve talked to major influencers, they, they tell me that if I post three times a day every single day for a month, you pretty much blow up. And TikTok is short form content just like Instagram reel. So everything needs to be under 60 seconds. You need to grab people’s attention within the first five to 10 seconds, and then you need to keep them for the rest of the 50 seconds.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:17):
Alright, give me a hook for a a TikTok video. If you want to tell someone about Jesus on TikTok, what is the first sentence that you’re gonna use to hook them? Gi Give me two or three hooks.
Frankie Cortez (16:29):
Just say something super crazy. Did you know that Jesus is not the Savior of the world? And you’d be like, what? That doesn’t make sense. And then you hooked him and then you kind of say, he’s not the savior of the world. If you don’t, if you don’t receive it, it’s like I give you a check. And if, and if you don’t actually cash the check, you don’t actually have salvation.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:45):
Yeah, that sounded like heresy there for a second. It did. It did. Oh, and, but it definitely got my attention. Okay. <laugh>, I was about ready. Kick you off the, the Evangelism podcast for heresy. Alright, so, so TikTok and then YouTube. Talk to me a little bit about who YouTube.
Frankie Cortez (17:01):
So YouTube is very interesting because they’re both long, there’s long form content, and they’re short form content. So YouTube actually started shorts, which they’re competing against Instagram reels and TikTok, but then they have the long form content and what they’re known for, which is amazing. So long form content is maybe 10 minutes of video. Short form content again is like 60 seconds. Now,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:22):
Who would you say is the most famous YouTuber right now,
Frankie Cortez (17:26):
Mr. Beast.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:28):
And what did Mr. Beast do in order to become famous on YouTube?
Frankie Cortez (17:34):
Yeah, so what Mr. Beast did is he looked up the algorithms. He, he really studied what worked, what didn’t work. He looked up what the people wanted, and as he looked up what the people wanted, he began to do trial and error. Okay, if I try this, let’s see if this works, because like statistically it should, but if it doesn’t, let’s kind of tweak, tweak, tweak, tweak. And then he just found his niche, he found his, his kind of vein, and he moved forward with it. And now he’s the greatest YouTuber out there right now.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:02):
And so you’re thinking about this from a, a gospel standpoint or an evangelistic standpoint. And what I really like about your idea of bringing together kingdom influencers is that by working together, we could replicate some of the success that Mr. Beast has had by doing the same thing in the, the kingdom realm. And so what he did, he had a group of friends, a mastermind group, and every day they would talk together, they would critique one another’s videos, they would see what was working, what wasn’t working, what was good at getting views. And he was obsessive about it, tweaking every single little video until it was perfect and looking for creative ideas, creative ways. He loves giving away money. And, and so what Mr. Beast saw is that his early videos didn’t get many views, but as he got better and better, they got more and more views. And so I think if we had a Christian Mastermind group, we could achieve amazing success and, and really catch the attention of people that need Jesus.
Frankie Cortez (19:12):
100%. And this is the point of the group that we created, is that we are creating a group where we can build each other up. We can kind of talk to each other, what worked, what didn’t work. We can kind of give constructive criticism for one another. We can say, this is what we think would reach the most amount of people. And it’s really thinking outside the box. It’s like, let’s do something that we haven’t done before. Let’s try to, you know, look outside of the box and maybe do some of the Mr. Beast type content, but bring it into the gospel and see people saved.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:38):
Hey. Amen. Well, if you’re interested in being part of a group of Christian influencers who are sharing the gospel, uh, reach out to us. Let me know, or, or you can contact, uh, Frankie, uh, what is your website if someone wants to donate to your ministry or find out more about you? Frankie, what, what’s your website?
Frankie Cortez (19:58):
Yeah, if you want to contact me, you can go to promises international.org. Again, promises international.org.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:05):
So I’d encourage you go support Frankie, help him go and preach the gospel around the world. And if you want to communicate the gospel on social media, I encourage you to start making videos. Start using your voice to reach out. Today’s generation is a sight and sound generation. They’re on all the social media, media platforms. So if we wanna reach them, we need to start thinking strategically about how to use social media to present the gospel. God bless you. And thank you so much, Frankie, for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Frankie Cortez (20:42):
Thank you for having me. Are
Evangelism Podcast Host (20:43):
You called by God to be an evangelist? Do you wanna lead millions of 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 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 given ultra 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 Coach Daniel King (21:44):
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. 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 Host (23:05):
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.
Caicó, Brazil is located in Northeast Brazil in the state of Rio Grande do Norte. According to a census in 2013 a total of 66,246 people live in the city. The city has the highest rate of suicide in the state and the third highest rate of suicide in the country of Brazil. Caicó is known as a stronghold of idolatry and the people fight mental depression and spiritual oppression. The city is considered to be a stronghold of Catholicism. The patron saint of Caicó is St. Anne and every year a festival is held by the Roman Catholic Church to honor her memory. Caicó is also known for hosting the largest carnival in the state of Rio Grande do Norte.
The planning for the crusade began six months in advance. A crusade director visited the city of Caicó and met with the local pastors. They indicated their eagerness to participate in the crusade. All nine of the evangelical churches in the city participated in our crusade. The total membership of these nine churches equals 1,357 which is about 2% of the population of the city of Caicó.
Three months prior to the crusade, prayer cards were given to all the church members. Each believer was encouraged to write down the names of ten unsaved people on their prayer card and to begin to pray for them to be saved. When the event drew closer, the church members reached out to the ten people and invited each of them to attend the crusade. Permission was secured from local authorities to hold the event. One month prior to the crusade, one thousand posters were distributed throughout the city. The local churches distributed seventy thousand crusade pamphlets and fifty thousand youth crusade invitations. In the eight days prior to the crusade, seven sound cars were used to announce the crusade for six hours each day for a total of two hundred and fifty-six hours of sound car announcements. Seven hundred and fifty radio spots were run on three different radio stations over a fifteen-day period. WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook were also used to advertise the event.
Our international team of ministers included six Americans, one Canadian, one Paraguayan, one German, and at least five Brazilians. When the team arrived in the city, we immediately began ministering in local schools and neighborhoods. We also gave away food to hungry families.
We held a three-day training event for local believers. Then we did a youth event and used music and a strength team to attract the young people. When the crusade began, the city was ready. On Friday night, three deaf people were healed and began to speak. This miracle caused attendance on Saturday night to greatly increase. We also did a children’s festival and a pastoral leadership seminar.
A total of 641 people filled out decision cards at the crusade indicating they decided to follow Jesus. This harvest of souls represents an increase of 43% in the number of Christians in Caicó, On the Sunday after the crusade, all nine churches in the city reported that new people attended their churches.
Evangelist Daniel King is on a mission to lead people to Jesus. But he cannot do it without your help. Can you give a financial gift today to help us “plunder hell to populate heaven?” To support King Ministries in our quest for souls, click here!