Church Planting

Church Planting in North America | Gary Smith

Gary Smith is a church planter in one of the most difficult mission fields in the world, the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. He is church planting and raising up other church planters. He is the author of From Dying to Dangerous. Today we talk about the secrets of effective church planting.

Buy Gary Smith’s Book: From Dying to Dangerous: https://amzn.to/3N7uZM0

Learn more about Gary Smith and his ministry: http://churchplantingpathway.com/

Summary:

Pastor Gary Smith is the church planting director with Alliance New England, and he is working to plant 100 new churches in New England by 2033.
Smith is using a five-step church planting pathway to multiply disciples: (1) Follow, (2) Multiply, (3) Team, (4) Scale, and (5) Health.
A key part of Smith’s strategy is to “listen, listen, listen” to the Holy Spirit and to the person they are speaking with, rather than just focusing on what to say. This allows them to tailor their message and approach.
Smith has seen churches transformed from stagnant to soul-winning by helping them shift to a focus on making disciples and multiplying, rather than just on launching new services.

Transcript:

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:20):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today, I have Pastor Gary Smith with me. He is a church planter and he has recently published a brand new book called From Dying to Dangerous. Pastor Gary, thank you for being on the Evangelism podcast.

Pastor Gary Smith (00:43):
Daniel, so great to be with you today and just thanks for this opportunity.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:48):
Well, tell me a little bit about yourself and what you’re doing for Jesus.

Pastor Gary Smith (00:55):
Thank you, Daniel. I currently serve as the church planting director with Alliance New England, which is with the Christian Missionary Alliance. And the territory that God has given to me are the six states of New England, typically listed as some of the most lost, most unreached states in the United States. And that’s exactly why we ask God to bring us here.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:18):
You’re right in the middle of the mission field here in the United States. Absolutely. And it’s amazing going and ministering on the East Coast. It is in many ways a post-Christian area, very secular. And so what response have you been seeing as you minister in that part of the United States?

Pastor Gary Smith (01:39):
So we have been seeing a great response. When I came here, we had seen the district here, Alliance New England dropped from 80 some churches down to 50. And the district superintendent that was new said, “We believe that the Holy Spirit is guiding us into a new vision.” And so he cast a vision that the Alliance of England would double its amount of churches in New England in the next 10 years. And people were like, “That’s kind of crazy.” But I said, “I want to take that on. I believe that the Holy Spirit can do that. He can give us power to witness for him and about Christ.” And so we took this role on and we have seen God’s spirit work. The Lord of the harvest is faithful. And the thing is, Daniel, when people look at New England, they’ll say it’s hard. The people are hard, but God has been working here.

(02:30):
And so the great news is, is the Holy Spirit, when he is powerfully giving you power to witness and share about Christ, you can be anywhere, just anywhere. And so here we are, we’re seeing a harvest. We lead all of our church planters to be in the harvest. And now we have many, many planters here now.

(02:52):
We are going to more than double the amount of our churches here in less than five years, not just 10 years, but five years. And so Lord, the harvest is granting us leaders right and left here.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:01):
Yeah. I saw on your website that one of the goals is to plant a hundred new churches before 2033. And so there’s a variety of different ministries around the world that are really focusing on that date, 2033, because it is the 2000 year anniversary of when Jesus rose from the dead, ascended up into heaven, and then the birth of the original church. And so I think it’s really cool that you’ve picked that as one of the dates you’re aiming towards. And tell me what is the strategy that you’re using to plant a hundred new churches?

Pastor Gary Smith (03:43):
So we’re trying to follow Jesus and his strategies because he has the best ones. And so the way we began, Daniel, is we watched Jesus meeting those fishermen and he saw something in their life, of course. And he said, “Follow me and I’ll make you fisher admit.” And so we designed our church planting system here to meet people the way that Jesus met them and to call them out. And what’s so interesting, Daniel, is that the church planting systems across North America for the most part have used these assessment systems that look for qualities and characteristics of church planters, nine to 11 of them typically. And I said, it seemed like Jesus way is that he called people out, he recognized characteristics in these leaders, and then he told them what he wanted them to be about, and then he invested in them. And so in our church planning pathway, what we do here in New England, that’s the only district in the Christian Missionary Alliance that’s doing it this way, by the way, is that we … I’ll meet a guy in a coffee shop and the Holy Spirit will say to me, “You need to call him out.

(04:59):
” And I’ve never met him before. And I’ll call him out and say, “Look, tell me about what you think about Jesus or about you thinking about sharing Jesus.” And they’ll be like, “What?” I’m like, “Yeah, tell me. ” And I had a guy say at a concert the other day, he said, “Well, I’ve led several people to the Lord at my recovery house that I’m now in. ” I said, “Perfect. You have the perfect characteristic of what I’m looking for. ” And so anyway, this is kind of the strategy that we’re walking here in New England and we are seeing God so at work. It’s just myself and my wife part-time. And we are now walking with … By this summer, we’ll have 35 church planners that are going to be in the harvest. We only have 50 churches. And so we are really seeing the move and we’re actually having to slow down our process just a little bit because we’re so advancing.

(05:47):
But it’s pretty exciting what God is doing here with us.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:49):
Wow. I saw in your bio that you’re originally from Canada. My wife is actually Canadian, so we love ministering in Canada and you are working to plant churches in Canada. What are the similarities or differences between what you’ve done in Canada and then New England?

Pastor Gary Smith (06:12):
What’s so interesting is that the United States and Canada are very much alike when you come north to south. So here we are in New England and the northern part of Canada that’s north of us is Quebec. I mean, people don’t realize that one of the most unreached people groups in the world are the Kibekua people. When we went there as a church planter, 0.3% of them were evangelical Christian. Now that number jumped up a bit because there’s been some great harvesting going on there, but Canada is different just like the US is different. When you go with prairie people, you find people that have spiritual backgrounds, religious backgrounds like Mennonites, this kind of groups. When they immigrated and came out, they brought something with them. But the people on the East and West Coast of Canada, just like the people on the East and West Coast of the United States are much greater, there’s a much greater need for the gospel and for harvesting in these places because there’s so few followers of Christ.

(07:06):
Even in the state of Vermont, there are nearly 50 communities still today that have no evangelical church at all in that state. And there’s not that big of a state, not that

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:15):
Many people. My wife is from Alberta, which is very similar to where I live in Tulsa, Oklahohoma. There’s a lot of Christians there, a lot of great churches. And I really, I feel like what God wants to have happen, both in Canada and the United States, is that the middle of the country where you have these great churches, if they could get a missionary vision to send people and to pray for the church planning efforts on both coasts, we could really see a revival in our nations.

Pastor Gary Smith (07:50):
I mean, I fully agree with you. When I was in Canada, if I were going to recruit, I wanted to recruit from the Midwestern states because I find that Midwesterners for the most part are the most flexible. And you have to be flexible when you’re on the mission field. First of all, to follow the Holy Spirit and his lead in what he’s doing, because he wants to do fresh things. He wants to do new things, but you are right. If these churches where their strength would say, “Let’s shift our resources.” I was so encouraged when I was writing my book, I found a church that, hey, they’ve shifted and now 50% of their resources are all going into the harvest now. And for an existing church, that’s a tough call for them to make. That’s going to really change the paradigm in what they’re doing.

(08:35):
But if we have more churches think that way, man, we could see a much greater harvest with the resources flowing in the harvest field.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:41):
Amen. Well, tell me a little bit about your book. It’s called From Dying to Dangerous: A Radical New Pathway for Churches to Reignite Kingdom Culture. And you talk in the book about how 1135 churches close their doors every single week, which is a horrible tragedy. I go down the street sometimes and you’ll see a beautiful building that used to be a church and now it has closed, it’s dead, it’s dying. And that’s not what God wants. God wants the kingdom of God to keep evangelizing and to keep growing and to never step back, but to always be going forward. So tell me a little bit about what revelation God has given you in this book from Dying to Dangerous.

Pastor Gary Smith (09:30):
Yeah. So just like you said, I start out trying to ring a clarion bell and say, “Look, everyone, we have got to realize how fast the church is going away in North America.” Daniels, I talk with people, I talk with pastors, they have no idea how dire it is. And in a sense, we know that God can turn this around. He totally can turn it around. But when I tell people 135 a week and we’re only planting at best, maybe 70 a week, I mean, I think that number’s a little high, but we are not coming close to matching the death that’s happening. Now, there are some great churches, by the way. Canada and the United States, there just are, but there’s very few that are really, really multiplying and advancing. And so in the book, I talk about that at first and then I say, okay, we’ve got to change the way that we go about this.

(10:26):
Organizations that are planting have got to change their strategy and their structure. And so in the book, I call churches, I call organizations, I call church plants to say, “Let me connect with you to help you to rethink how to truly see the United States as a mission field and to be shifting the way we’re going at it because with so many Americans and Canadians dying annually, and the amount of evangelism we’re doing is not even touching half of the death rate.” And so we have got to really rethink and people have got to get pretty uncomfortable, Daniel. So the book, I call people to that, to a level of discomfort to say, “Let’s listen to God together and do something different.” If our little organization of 50 churches is going to double the amount of works that we have here in just a few years, what would happen if other organizations, other denominations, other groups that love the gospel, that love the scripture would say, “What would it look like and what would it take for us to double the amount of churches we have, the amount of gospel sharing we have, the amount of souls we’re seeing saved, the number of people being baptized?” And it is not impossible.

(11:38):
Mark 9:23, Jesus said, “If you can believe all things are possible to him that believeth.” Our Lord can do greater things than we even ask our thought according to the book of Ephesians. And so in the book, I say, let’s connect, let me help you, let me walk with you, or just you walk with the spirit and let him tell you, you don’t need me necessarily, but let’s change the way we’re going about it.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:59):
Let’s get down into real life details. Share with us some testimonies of how you have seen churches transformed from being stagnant into soul-winning churches.

Pastor Gary Smith (12:16):
Yeah. So one of the stories that I share in the book is I was pastoring a church in Alberta, you were talking about Alberta in a community that was growing so fast, the fastest growing community in Canada, Cochran and Alberta. And our children’s minister, she asked us this question in a staff meeting. She said, “Would anyone miss our church if it were not here tomorrow?” And we were so gripped by that. And so out of that, I’m going to make a long story short, out of that, we came up with a ministry called Love Cochran. And in that love Cochran ministry, we said, “We want to be the hands and feet of Jesus in this community.” And it was incredible what God did with that. It actually turned in such a way, Daniel, that the community actually started calling our church asking how we were going to help the community.

(13:08):
And so now our church was being seen, but it was also in that time, Daniel, that the church … There was a time when the church first started where it was seeing a pretty good amount of evangelism. There was a great pastor named Mel Blackaby, who was the pastor, and it was some great … But since then, it hadn’t seen the kind of evangelistic efforts that we were seeing, but we were starting to see … There was a year where we had 50 people baptized in that church and they hadn’t seen anything like that in a long time in that year. And we were seeing lots of people come to Christ almost every week. Someone was coming to Christ and it was pretty exciting. And so I’m just saying that was one story. Another story I’d love to take you to is a guy named JJ.

(13:48):
He’s a guy that’s a church planner with us here in New England. I got connected with him and he would not pass the church planning assessment. He sent me a text yesterday and he said, Gary, can you send me some materials? I want to start my first Discovery Bible group. It’s one of the greatest ways we’re doing evangelism, Daniel, is through these DBGs, Discovery Bible groups. And this guy, he said, “Gary, this guy was just sold out everything against God and now he’s so hungry, Gary. Show me what I could do.

(14:16):
” Excuse me. “How can I begin walking with him?” And so he’s so excited to start this Discovery Bible group with him. Man, this guy is going to reach so many people for Christ. It’s just incredible. So we just call people in our first step in our church planning pathway. We say, “Follow Jesus and fish for men.” Amen.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:32):
And

Pastor Gary Smith (14:32):
That’s where we begin. Yeah.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:34):
And so in your book From Dying to Dangerous, you have a church planting pathway, which is a proven five-step method to multiply disciples. Can you walk us through some of those steps that you go through in order to multiply disciples?

Pastor Gary Smith (14:51):
Absolutely. And so we’ve actually made it our assessment system, just so you know, so the people that know church planting, they know that church planters do assessment. We do it step by step. And so I’m going to lead you through the steps of what the qualifiers were looking for for us to take the planter to the next step. And as we advance them, we resource them even more. And so he was faithful with little will receive more. That’s a big part of our church playing pathway concept. Here’s what we do. We say, all right, I want to make sure that you want to follow Jesus sincerely, that you are saying, I want to be about what he’s asked it to be about. And I test that out by watching them fish, fish for people. And I give them all kinds of tools. I train them in the three Ls of evangelism.

(15:34):
I can tell you about that if you want to hear about that in a minute. And we say, “But I want to make sure they’re willing to follow Jesus and fish.” When they show me that, and there’s a few other things we do with them in that step, but that is the main thing. And every one of these steps is one word and it’s made it easy for us to translate because we now translate it into multiple languages as well. So it fits our North American multicultural context super well. The second thing is we say, okay, now that you are following Jesus and you’re starting to fish for people, you’ve seen some people come to Christ, you baptized someone in the ocean last week, how awesome is that? Now here’s what we want to see. Now we want to see you multiplying disciples. So take them to the great commission.

(16:09):
Jesus said, “Go into all the world and make disciples.” So I’ve asked them to take the people that they’ve led to Christ and invite them, show them how to share the gospel and how to be starting discovery Bible groups. And so we now multiply.That is our next step is multiply. And I’ll tell you, it is exciting to see these new believers sharing their faith, starting Discovery Bible groups, seeing other people come to Christ, and this is how we’re planning churches. So then we move from multiply and we say, okay, in our church planning training day that we use, it’s called Church Planning Essentials from Dynamic Church Planning International, we ask them to begin getting a vision from God. We ask them to take multiple prayer retreats to go away and hear from God. It’s a core thing that’s missing in church planting and pastoring, prayer retreats, hearing from God, what’s his vision?

(17:00):
And in our next step, we help them to build a team to match the vision. So we haven’t even talked about church service yet. Have you noticed that? Most church planting focuses on launch Sunday. Jesus didn’t ask us to focus on launch Sunday. He asked us to focus on multiplying on making disciples.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:18):
Jesus always had launched the boats.

Pastor Gary Smith (17:21):
That’s right. And so, but in this step, we help them build out the team for the vision God has given them, whether it’s to reach multiple apartment complexes in a city, whatever it is. So we help them build out that team. My wife is the best coach for that. And then we say, all right, how do we help you scale this out? Because we’re supposed to be like a city on a hill. You notice I didn’t use the word launch. I’ve actually taken that out of my vocabulary because again, people have thrown so many resources at that, that they’ve forgotten that we are to be making disciples. This is where supposed to be in the harvest. Now, it’s not that I don’t like launch Sundays in church planning. I love worship services. I love preaching. I love worship, but let’s focus on what Christ has for us.

(18:00):
So we scale it out for them. And then the last one is health. We describe health as Acts one: eight. That’s how we see a healthy church. So we’re not talking about large numbers, small numbers. We’re talking about multiplying disciples being made. How do we get more of the gospel into the city? And then how do we start multiplying that beyond? In this process, I’m asking our church planters to be raising up their next church planters that’s either going to take over their church, they’re going to go out and do it again, or they’re going to send them out. I’m asking them to raise up pastors, but I ask them to do it the same way I did it with them. Is I meet you in Panera Bread. I meet you in Dunking Donuts. I meet you wherever you are and I call you out and I say, “You want to follow Jesus and fish for people.

(18:39):
” And sometimes I start into the gospel conversation because sometimes people have no idea what I’m talking about. It’s perfect intro because they’re like, “What are you talking about? ”

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:46):
That’s awesome.

Pastor Gary Smith (18:47):
Anyway, but that’s our step-by-step strategy.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:49):
All right. So give me the five words.

Pastor Gary Smith (18:52):
Follow. Follow. Multiply.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:54):
Multiply.

Pastor Gary Smith (18:56):
Team. Aim. Team. Oh, team. Yeah. Team. And then scale. Scale. And health.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:04):
Health. Health. Wonderful. And you mentioned you have three Ls of evangelism. What are the three Ls of evangelism?

Pastor Gary Smith (19:12):
So I go about it two different ways in the book, but the one I’ll tell you about today was taught to me by a First Nations, a Canadian Indian man. Actually, he didn’t teach him, but the Spirit taught it to me because of him. So I was going up to his village as the white man to go into an Indian village and to meet this gentleman for the very first time. He was the mayor in his town. He was a pastor in his town and he was a government leader in his town amongst First Nation people. So as I’m driving up to this village, the Spirit of God whispers to me Daniel, he says, Gary, don’t talk when you get there. I’m like, “What do you mean don’t talk when I get there?” I’m a preacher, pastor. All I know how to do is talk.

(19:54):
And I said, “Lord, did you just tell me that? ” And I really sensed that the spirit was telling me not to talk. So I got to his community, I found his house and I introduced myself, of course. I mean, I had to say something, and then I just went quiet. I didn’t know about First Nation culture, Daniel, and how that was such an honoring thing to listen rather than speak all the time. But for about two and a half days, I hardly said a word. And I was at his house and he told me, he said, Gary, he said, “I’m going to work with you. ” I’m like, “Well, I’m sorry, what do you mean? We haven’t even hardly talked about working or ministry.” He said, “You’re the first white man who’s ever listened to me. ” And so the spirit put that word in my spirit about listening.

(20:40):
And I realized that in most evangelism training, we teach people what to say, but we don’t teach them how to listen, how to listen to the spirit, how to listen to the heart of the person, how to listen to the culture that they’re in. Those three Ls and listen, listen, listen to the spirit of God. You see, the Lord Jesus had around 60 plus conversations in the gospels, but they’re all unique. Some people addressed hymns, he addressed some other people. They’re all unique, all these conversations. And so I say, “If you don’t listen, how do you know what to say?” And so I love the Romans row, by the way. I love all kinds of evangelism. I love what you talked about on one of your podcasts about using the chosen for introductions to the gospel. I think that’s awesome, Daniel. But I’m just saying, if you can listen, the spirit will give you cues as to where to enter in with the gospel, as to what to share with the person, as to what they need in this moment that’ll be the door that opens their heart.

(21:39):
And so I’ve trained a lot of people in the three hours of evangelism now how to listen. And it gets you so much farther with so many more people down the road when you’re just doing cold evangelism.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:52):
I actually agree with you a lot. I think one of the most powerful tools of an evangelist is listening. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. And so by listening to someone, hearing about their problems, hearing about what they’re going through, hearing about their life, you show that you care. And then once you’ve earned the right to speak into their lives, then they’re much more open to hear what you have to say. So yeah, that’s really powerful. Absolutely. Awesome. Well, if you are listening and you would like to order Gary Smith’s book from Dying to Dangerous, you can find it on amazon.com and just type in from Dying to Dangerous, Gary Smith, and you can find the book. And I think it’s a great book. You should definitely go and get it. And then if someone wants to connect with you or find out more about your ministry, is there a good website that they could go to?

Pastor Gary Smith (22:49):
Yes. It’s thechurchplantingpathway.com.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:53):
The churchplantingpathwayway.com. And so I encourage you to connect with Pastor Gary and learn all you can from him. And just to finish up here, Pastor Gary, what word of encouragement would you give to other people who have a desire to plant a church, they want to be church planters, maybe here in the United States, maybe internationally. What would you say to those who are called to plant churches?

Pastor Gary Smith (23:24):
I would say to you, the spirit of God can empower you to be his witness and you can be his witness anywhere because it’s about what he is doing. And so he can empower you to do it and say, I would say go forth boldly and share the gospel. And I just want to say, Daniel, that I think this means to be one of the main things that we do in church planting today is sharing the gospel because there’s a harvest ready. There’s ripe fruit ready everywhere. I really believe it. And so I would say to you, go forth boldly sharing the gospel. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be timid. And the Lord will show you how to speak. The spirit said, I will give you the words. Open your mouth. I will give you the words to say. So trust him to do that. Let’s plant many, many evangelistically harvest centric churches.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:15):
Let’s just take a moment right now to pray for church planters across North America and around the world. I believe God wants us to plant hundreds and thousands and even millions of churches around the world. God is raising up his church. Dear Heavenly Father, we lift up everyone who is called to be a church planter. Lord, I pray that they would have boldness to go out and to share the gospel, to call people to you, and then to disciple people and begin to help them to get closer and closer to Jesus. Lord, I pray that you would raise up an army of church planters in New England, in North America, up in Quebec, all over the world. Lord, we pray for mighty church planters to be raised up that would have a massive impact for your kingdom in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Pastor Gary Smith (25:18):
Amen.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:18):
One final word, Pastor Gary.

Pastor Gary Smith (25:21):
Well, Daniel, just thank you. Thanks for what you’re doing in the Ministry of Evangelism. And I just pray God will bless your work and your ministry so much, brother. And thanks for letting me be on with you. And again, if someone would like to connect with me, please do. I look forward to helping you in the harvest.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:36):
Awesome. Thank you, Pastor Gary, for being on the evangelism podcast.

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Church Planting in Medan, Indonesia | Antonius

Today, I talk to Pastor Antonius from Madan, Indonesia to discuss the incredible growth of Christianity in this diverse, predominantly Muslim nation. Hear how Pastor Antonius has planted multiple churches through relentless evangelism, and learn how the Indonesian church is uniquely positioned to reach the rest of Asia for Christ. This is an episode you won’t want to miss!

Summary:

Pastor Antonius has been a pastor in Indonesia for 25 years, starting as a local missionary and then becoming a church planter, planting three churches before becoming a pastor at the request of his congregation.
Indonesia is a diverse country with over 17,000 islands, 200 local languages, and a population of over 300 million, with Christianity making up about 12% of the population according to the government, though the actual percentage is believed to be higher.
Indonesia has seen a significant movement of conversions from Islam to Christianity, with many people finding Christ through social media and digital technology.
Pastor Antonius planted churches through evangelism, going house-to-house and to public places to share the gospel, and then forming cell groups to disciple new believers.
The church in Indonesia faces persecution as a minority, but this has led to greater dependence on God and a forgiving spirit that has attracted new believers.
While some churches in Indonesia are wealthy, there are also many poor Christian communities, and the church is working to reach both the rich and the poor with the gospel.
There is a great hunger and passion for God among the younger generation in Indonesia, who are heavily engaged with social media and digital technology, providing new opportunities for evangelism .

Transcript:

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me, Pastor Antonius from Madan Indonesia. Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.

Pastor Antonius – Indonesia (00:13):
Thank you so much.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:14):
Alright, so tell me a little bit about your ministry. What do you do?

Pastor Antonius – Indonesia (00:18):
Well, I’ve been a pastor for 25 years, and first of all, at the time I was a local missionary since I had a personal encounter with God and then become a church planter after I planted three churches. And then the last one that the member say that if you are leaving us, then don’t plant a church. So we want you to become a pastor. So that’s the story that I can become a pastor.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:47):
Okay. So tell us a little bit about Madan and about Indonesia. I’ve been to Indonesia several times, and I know it’s a land of many islands and a majority Muslim. But kind of give us a picture of Indonesia and what God is doing there.

Pastor Antonius – Indonesia (01:06):
Yes. Indonesia consists of 17,000 islands,

(01:11):
And then we have more than 200 local languages and dialect, and we are so diverse. And now probably we have about 300 million peoples in Indonesia. And according to the governments, the Christianity is not modern 12%, although we believe that should be more than that. Why? Because you’ve seen that God has been moving so greatly in Indonesia. We are so grateful having the social medias and also digital technology now where people can hear the gospel without any limitations. And as the result now you can easily find Indonesians people who used to be Muslims now become a Christians and they’re now become the Apollo

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:12):
Wow.

Pastor Antonius – Indonesia (02:13):
Reaching out their communities, their original communities. So you can easily find that in social media.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:22):
And so you were a church planter? Yes. What was the process that you used to plant a church?

Pastor Antonius – Indonesia (02:29):
Evangelism. So evangelize people, I come to house to house, I come to the people, wherever peoples gather together, the coffee shops. I come even to the petty field just to share about the gospel, to share about Jesus. That’s how I find the lost soul. And then after that, I formed the cell groups, so I disciple them. Those that disciple then feel that they need a church, and that’s become the church that we have planted.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:06):
And so you did that in three different places. Were they all on the same island of Sumatra or did you go

Pastor Antonius – Indonesia (03:13):
To Yeah, they’re all in Sumatra.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:14):
All in Sumatra?

Pastor Antonius – Indonesia (03:15):
Yeah.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:15):
Okay. And tell me what the feeling is among the church in Indonesia for evangelism. Are you praying for the loss to be saved? Is the church of Indonesia concerned about evangelism? Is there persecution with evangelism? What’s happening in the church in the area of

Pastor Antonius – Indonesia (03:39):
Evangelism? Being minority in Indonesia is not easy.

(03:45):
So that’s also makes you become totally surrender to God. You really depend on God. And that’s why we pray a lot. We pray for our salvations and we also, we pray for those who persecute us. And as a result, we see God moving mightly and even sometimes really out of our mind, people just asking for Jesus. And last time, what I heard from one of my colleagues who converted to become a Christian, I asked him, why are you converted to become a Christian? I never asked you to become a Christian. And he says, well, you know what? I’ve seen a lot of persecution, a lot of bad things that has been happened to Christianity, but you guys never rev revenges. You guys never saying even bad things. You always say, just let them do it. Just forgive them. And it’s really make me think about it again, this guy is kind of come from the other planet. They have a different perspective on seeing this, and that’s why I want to know more about Jesus. And I found out that’s exactly what Jesus taught you guys. So that’s why I would like to follow Jesus.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:08):
Wow, that’s a great testimony.

Pastor Antonius – Indonesia (05:12):
Exactly. My friend become a Christians, not because someone came to him, but because his college from his previous religions treat us badly and we don’t fight back for that.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:31):
I find the church of Indonesia to be very unique because many of the Christians come from a Chinese background,

(05:40):
And the Chinese traditionally are very good at business. And so because of that, the church is in Indonesia, not all the churches, but a big portion of the church. It is a wealthy church compared to some of people, which is a very different situation than in Pakistan. Like in Pakistan, all the Christians are very poor and they have been kept from being successful in business because of oppression and that type of thing. And so they find it very hard. But the neat thing about the church at Indonesia is that you have a lot of resources, and I believe that with the right prayer and the right training, the Church of Indonesia could reach many people for Jesus, not just in Indonesia, but to have reach throughout all of Asia. What do you think of that analysis?

Pastor Antonius – Indonesia (06:38):
Yes and no. Why do I say yes? I agree with you. There are a lot of rich church in Indonesia, especially in the big cities. It’s like Jakarta, Suraya, Madan, Bandon. But there is a research that has been done by the Christians organizations. Indonesia consists of 38 provinces. Out of those 38 provinces, 12, the most poor provinces are predominantly Christians. So that’s another story of that. Yes, we are very rich, but in some area and yes, we have capacity even to reach out to beyond our nations. That’s why now we start sending the missionary to many countries, even in Africa. We have the missionaries there now,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:31):
But

Pastor Antonius – Indonesia (07:33):
On the other hand, we still have to look after those 12 provinces that are so poor.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:42):
Of course, there’s people everywhere that live in poverty. Last year I was at the Empowered 21 conference in Jakarta, and it was so beautiful because there was an auditorium filled, I think it was about 17,000 young people who were passionately following

Pastor Antonius – Indonesia (08:03):
God.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:04):
And I said, wow, this is amazing that there are so many young people in Indonesia that are excited about serving God. Yes. Are you seeing that also in Meen?

Pastor Antonius – Indonesia (08:15):
Yes. We are really enjoying God moving throughout the young generation now. They are really awaken. I see the hunger for Jesus, for the young peoples. I see that because of three reasons. First of all, it’s also because of the Holy Spirit. Secondly, there are a lot of worry, uncertainty, and they just need to look up for someone that can assure them a brighter future. And thirdly, because of the technology, it’s really helpful because in Indonesia there was a research saying that almost 80% of Indonesians has two cell phones. And if I’m not mistaken, each person in Indonesia spend at least four hours a day scrolling in social

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:16):
Media. Wow.

Pastor Antonius – Indonesia (09:18):
Yeah.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:18):
So if we’re going to reach them, everyone has their cell phone in front of their face, we’re going to have to use our cell phones.

Pastor Antonius – Indonesia (09:23):
Correct. Yeah.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:24):
Wow. Well, the good thing about a cell phone is when you lead them to Jesus, you can have a salvation service right there on their cell phone.

Pastor Antonius – Indonesia (09:32):
Exactly.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:33):
Yeah. Alright, well it’s so nice to talk to you and we pray for Indonesia to be saved in Jesus

Pastor Antonius – Indonesia (09:39):
Name.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:40):
Thank you so much. Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.

Pastor Antonius – Indonesia (09:42):
Thank you. God bless you. Bless you.

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Church Planting and Evangelism in Finland | Anniina Halonen

Pastor Anniina is the outreach pastor at the oldest Free Church in Finland, which was established back in 1884. She is passionate about church planting and evangelism, and on today’s episode of The Evangelism Podcast, she shares some of the ways they reach people for Jesus in Finland. One of her favorite methods is an Evangelism Explosion course, where they teach people how to have spiritual conversations with their friends and family. Anniina is also in the process of planting a new church. They started with just 7 people two and a half years ago, and now they have around 30 adults and 10 kids. Today you will be blessed as you hear about what God is doing in Europe!

Transcript:

Evangelist Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me, pastor Anina here in Tampere, Finland. Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.

Anniina Halonen (00:14):
Yeah, such a privilege.

Evangelist Daniel King (00:16):
First, I want to say thank you so much for hosting our team here. We have been at your church each day this week, and you have fed us such delicious meals and opened up the church, and thank you so much for your hospitality.

Anniina Halonen (00:32):
You’re welcome. And we really enjoyed having you guys.

Evangelist Daniel King (00:36):
So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do at the church.

Anniina Halonen (00:43):
Yeah, well, first of all, I’m a mom, three kids and I have a husband and we live here in ra and I work for the Evangelical Free Church here. And I’m the outreach pastor. So my responsibilities are church planting and evangelism, which both are things I love so much.

Evangelist Daniel King (01:04):
What a great job to have. That’s wonderful. Now tell me a little bit about the history of the free church, because it is here right in the center of the city and it has been here for many years. When was it first begun?

Anniina Halonen (01:18):
Yeah, it’s actually the oldest free church in Finland and it was established 1884.

Evangelist Daniel King (01:25):
So it’s very historic.

Anniina Halonen (01:26):
Yeah, it was a really long history.

Evangelist Daniel King (01:29):
So as an outreach pastor, you want to reach people for Jesus.

Anniina Halonen (01:34):
Yes.

Evangelist Daniel King (01:35):
How do you do that? What are some of the ways that you reach out to people here in Finland?

Anniina Halonen (01:40):
Yeah, great question. Well, one of my favorites is an EE course. I get to teach people how to have evangelize and every week we meet someone like our friends or relatives and we have spiritual conversations. We get to share the gospel and we see a lot of people come to Christ through that. So that’s really special because things don’t like that much to talk to strangers, so that’s really easy to talk to someone they already know. So things are sometimes shy and they don’t like to talk to strangers. So we found out that it’s a very easy way to talk to the people they actually know and invite them into spiritual conversations. So that’s wonderful and it’s a great way to reach people.

Evangelist Daniel King (02:24):
That’s wonderful. And so you are currently planting a church nearby here. Talk to me about that process of planting a church.

Anniina Halonen (02:33):
Yeah. Yes. We are planting a church. It’s my first church plant.

Evangelist Daniel King (02:38):
Congratulations.

Anniina Halonen (02:39):
Third church plant of our church. So we are being a mother church and planting many churches. And now we’ve been like, our church plant is two and a half years old and we started with seven people and now we’re about 30. So we have 30 adults and about 10 kids. Most of them have been already believers, but we have few that have come to know Christ and we’re dreaming that we’re going to reach a lot of new people because when we started God said that the harvest is ripe and we should take courage. So we’re hoping to reach limb palace for Christ. That’s where I’m planted.

Evangelist Daniel King (03:15):
The other day, my wife Jessica went out witnessing with you and she told me that she was even learning from you about some of how you were approaching people. And one of the things she said is that people would say, no, I don’t want to talk about it. And you would ask them, where are you on your journey with God and are you at the beginning? Are you at the middle? And people would begin to respond to that and answer. And my wife says, oh, that is such a good way to reach people for Jesus because then they could open a conversation and start to

Anniina Halonen (03:50):
Talk. Yeah. And we do street evangelism also. Once a month we have a tent here at the Center Square and we offer coffee and tea for people. And that’s also a great way to interact with people. But once you’re offering something to eat or drink and people, they are actually interested in spiritual things though many times we have this feeling that they’re not, but they actually are.

Evangelist Daniel King (04:14):
What do you feel is the spiritual atmosphere here in Finland? And for the people who are listening, how can they pray for the Church of Finland?

Anniina Halonen (04:24):
Yes, we need prayer. I think things are open. We’re open nowadays since because of the wars that are going on in the world and the pandemic and everything. But one thing we are lacking is a great discipleship culture. The things are pretty lonely and pretty. You have to survive on your own. So at my church plan, I’m trying to create this culture where the church is like a family. They actually get to know other people and invite them into your lives. And you want to share your life and learn together how to follow Christ. So I think you can pray for spiritual mothers and fathers and mother and fatherhood would rise up and the Church of Finland. And also that we would have more courage and boldness to share the gospel. And I’ve love to have you guys here to support us and go together to the streets. That has been so amazing and such a big blessing. That’s been also our prayers.

Evangelist Daniel King (05:26):
It’s been really wonderful to see that the team of Americans and the team of Fins going out together and really seeing God do great things.

Anniina Halonen (05:34):
That’s true. I’ll be so excited about that too.

Evangelist Daniel King (05:37):
Well, thank you so much for your hospitality and again, thank you so much for inviting us here and it’s beautiful to see what God is doing in Tamara.

Anniina Halonen (05:47):
Yeah, thank you so much.

Mark Clements | The Joys and Challenges of Church Planting

On today’s episode of The Evangelism Podcast Pastor Mark Clements and Evangelist Daniel King talk about the challenges and joys of church planting. This episode covers how to to hear God’s voice and how to encounter Him as you reach out to your community.

Read The Poet and the King by Mark Clements: https://amzn.to/4fFIjja

Continue reading →

How to Plant a Church

Planting a church can be a rewarding but challenging process. Here are some steps you can follow to plant a church:

Pray for guidance: Before you begin the process of planting a church, it’s important to seek God’s guidance and direction. Spend time in prayer, asking God to lead you and give you wisdom as you consider planting a church.
Gather a team: As you begin the process of planting a church, it’s important to gather a team of people who can support and assist you. This might include other church leaders, members of your community, or people who have a passion for evangelism and outreach.
Identify a target audience: Consider who you want to reach with your church. Are you looking to reach young families? Seniors? Singles? Knowing your target audience will help you tailor your message and approach to the needs and interests of the people you are trying to reach.
Develop a plan: Once you have a sense of your target audience and the resources you have available, begin developing a plan for planting your church. This might include identifying a location, developing a budget, and creating a timeline for key milestones.
Launch your church: Once you have a solid plan in place, it’s time to launch your church. This might involve hosting a launch service, inviting people to attend, and building relationships with members of your community.
Stay focused on your mission: As you plant and grow your church, it’s important to stay focused on your mission and the people you are trying to reach. This might involve adapting and adjusting your approach as you learn more about the needs of your community, and being open to new opportunities for outreach and evangelism.

Planting a church requires patience, persistence, and a willingness to adapt and learn as you go. By following these steps and seeking God’s guidance, you can be a part of starting a new church that has the potential to make a positive impact in your community.

ABOUT DANIEL KING

Evangelist Daniel King, D.Min is on a mission to lead people to Jesus. He has visited over seventy nations preaching good news and he has led over two million people in a salvation prayer. He is often called “The Evangelism Coach.” To support King Ministries in our quest for souls, click here!

How to Grow a Small Church

Here are some tips for growing a small church:

Focus on outreach: Make a concerted effort to reach out to the community and invite people to your church. This could include hosting events, participating in local service projects, and being intentional about inviting people to attend your church.
Offer engaging and relevant programming: Make sure to offer programming that is relevant and engaging to your target audience. This could include worship services, Bible studies, youth groups, and other activities.
Create a welcoming atmosphere: Make sure your church is a welcoming place for visitors. This includes having a friendly and helpful greeting team, providing a welcoming environment, and making sure to include newcomers in the life of the church.
Provide excellent customer service: Make sure to provide excellent customer service to all members and visitors. This includes responding promptly to inquiries and concerns, and being proactive in addressing any issues that may arise.
Use social media and other digital tools: Utilize social media and other digital tools to reach out to potential members and keep current members informed about church events and activities.
Partner with other organizations: Consider partnering with other organizations, such as local schools or community groups, to reach out to new people and collaborate on projects and events.
Focus on member retention: Make sure to focus on retaining current members by providing opportunities for them to get involved in the life of the church and by addressing any concerns or issues they may have.

ABOUT DANIEL KING

Jared Buswell | Transformed Hearts Transform Nations

Jared Buswell is on the board of Favor International, a ministry founded by Carole Ward. The ministry was birthed in South Sudan and Uganda during a time of war when the rebel Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army were killing and kidnapping. The ministry started as a prayer movement and has grown into a Book of Acts turning the world upside down movement. They send out teams to host portable Bible schools and thousands of people in Africa have been impacted.

Check out the Favor International Website: https://www.favorintl.org/

Transcript:

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Jared Buswell is on the Board of Favor International, a ministry founded by Carol Ward. The ministry is birthed in South Sudan and Uganda during a time of war when the rebel Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army were killing and kidnapping, the ministry started out as a prayer movement and has grown into a book of acts turning the world upside down movement. They send out teams to host portable Bible schools and thousands of people in East Africa have been impacted.

Evangelism Podcast Host (00:31):
Jesus said, Go into all the world and preach the gospel. Everyone who calls in the name of the Lord shall be safe.

(00:42):
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 (01:06):
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, Jared Buswell, and he is with a great ministry called Favor International. Thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast.

Jared Buswell (01:24):
Thank you, Daniel. It’s an honor to be

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:25):
Here. Now, our friendship goes back to when both of us were at Oral Roberts University. I graduated about 20 years ago, and we just recently reconnected at the U Homecoming. Yes. And I was hearing about all the amazing things that you are involved in ministry in Africa, and I’m so delighted to get to hear more about what you’re doing.

Jared Buswell (01:53):
Yes. Well, I’m excited to share. The Real stars and heroes are African missionaries, the indigenous missionaries who are led by God and compelled by the love of Christ to share the gospel with their neighbors and the far off places of the

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:07):
Earth. Let’s talk about Favor International. It’s actually a ministry that was founded by Carol Ward. Yes. And you are on the board of that ministry, and you’ve been very involved over the years in raising funding for the ministry and also helping to implement best practices for the ministry in Africa that takes place in Uganda and in South Sudan and other parts of Africa, which we’ll talk about. But kind of give me the quick synopsis of how the ministry got started with Carol Ward.

Jared Buswell (02:44):
Okay, yes. So we have the 32nd version, and we could do the 30 minute version as well. So in 30 seconds, there is a brutal demonic war in Northern Uganda. Started by, not started by, but continued, made famous by Joseph Coney and the Lord’s Resistance Army. The lra, as a lot of people know, up to or around 50,000 child soldiers were abducted, trained, and brutally traumatized to traumatize others. And this is a demonically motivated and inspired war, just a trolley on a choli. There’s no political sense to it whatsoever. There’s no political solution. The Uganda government can’t solve it. God solved that war a prayer, an organic prayer movement ended that war and favor of God ministries as it’s known locally, formed out of a house of prayer and a public prayer movement. During that time, from around 2002 is when they first started gathering at the House of Prayer.

(03:44):
By 2006, the war was over. A lot of events transpired in between. Then during that time also, a lot of people were moved by the spirit to bring the gospel into the prisons or into let’s start a school, or we need to care for these orphans who have no parents anymore. And so all these little different ministries just started out of a house of prayer. And without funds and without supplies. God divinely provided the ability for this small organic group of leaders to see the book of Acts open up and an organization was started. The Ugandans themselves said, Carol, you need to go back to the states and tell what God has done. And Carol had gone to sow her whole life and to stay permanently in Uganda. She did not want to go back, but God led her to go back and continue telling these stories that people in America wanted to start an organization. She said, Great, You do what you do here. I’ll go do what I do there, and we’re gonna see God’s kingdom come in as we’ll be done. So things got rolling and I came into the mix in about 2011.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:54):
Let’s talk a little bit about the importance of prayer, because this whole ministry really started as just a prayer meeting in a house, and now it is impacting that entire region of East Africa. So talk to me about the importance of laying a foundation and prayer and missions. Yes.

Jared Buswell (05:17):
So prayer and missions are absolutely essential together. I personally know this is, I personally know a many American missionaries who are well trained, called by God, equipped, financially supported, committed, who go with their whole families to live full time in a foreign context. And within two to three years, they’re back in the States having been beaten up by spiritual warfare and other things going on. And besides the lack of training in some of the spiritual warfare aspects of things, and this is all denominations, this is not a particular denomination I’m talking about, but prayer is laying our whole lives down before God and his will and seeing what he does through us. And when we’re entering into what God’s already doing, there’s a whole level of success there. Unless the Lord builds the house, we labor in vain and we really have to watch him build it. And so as we pray, we pray for his purposes, we pray for the people around us, we pray for situations, then we see God open those doors and unlock things that he wants to open up. And so it’s absolutely imperative for the Lord to be moving first before we go into the territory he’s already bought and purchased, and then we just go in and claim what he’s already won.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:43):
Now favor International has a variety of strategies for vo, both evangelism and for discipleship. You’re working in Uganda, you’re working in South Sudan, you’re sending out teams to other parts of Africa. So talk to me about some of the strategies that you’re using to both evangelize and disciple.

Jared Buswell (07:08):
Yes. So the main bread and butter Ministry of Favor is something called the Portable Bible School. And this comes from the inherent need in Africa for strong theological training for access to the word of God, but also knowledge as to how to use and apply the word of God to everyday situations such as raising your kids, maintaining a healthy marriage in addition to being a pastor, reaching the lost and training the next generation. So we bring in at least a minimum of two indigenous missionaries who live in a village full-time for two months and full-time Monday through Friday, nine to five. The students, the enrolled students are being trained in the Word and the ways of God. They’re all trained to be pastors. They’re all trained to be leaders. There’s no difference between the professionals and everybody else. We train everybody. And these villagers who would’ve had no access to a school, much less a theological education, maybe have never even seen a Bible in person graduate with their own Bible or an oral Bible if that’s required in their language.

(08:21):
And a healthy church is either revitalized or newly planted in that context, oftentimes multiple, if it’s near city, there may be multiple denominations coming together for this training. Our guys are intentionally nondenominational so that we can serve the local population in any language and in any denominational background that they’ve been exposed to in the past. But the kingdom of God comes in and there’s just revival in the city and the whole city life, the village life now centers around that healthy congregational planting. Now for the next several years, we follow up with longer term unique development. So our portable Bible schools are underneath a larger department ministry that we call Reap, R E E P, which stands for the Rural Evangelism and Empowerment Project. And so that REAP program encompasses the portable Bible schools, which are linked to other ministries such as women’s empowerment or church building, construction or adult literacy centered on the word of God.

(09:30):
So there’s many, many different ministries that have been moved by the spirit of God that are linked in strategic way in a long term transformation of a village. So we’re looking at changing a nation through transformed hearts, not just doing social aid. Everything is gospel centered. First and foremost, there has to be heart transformation, but heart transformation occurs best when the whole village transforms at the same time, when whole families enter the kingdom at the same time and pass on that heritage to their children and their children grow up knowing the kingdom of God from a young age.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:05):
And last year, how many of these portable Bible schools did you send out?

Jared Buswell (10:11):
Last year? We completed close to 150 portable Bible schools,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:18):
And each one would have two people going and living in a village for at least two months.

Jared Buswell (10:23):
Two full-time missionary staff,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:24):
Full two. But these are missionaries from Sudan or from Uganda? Yes, yes. And so you’re sending them out indigenous missionaries, they’re going into a village, two months living there and teaching every day?

Jared Buswell (10:36):
Yes, they are. In addition to additional teachers with specialty skills, whether in health or in marital counseling or other skills. So we have traveling teachers, and we do this all in strategic waves. So we have, it’s very complicated getting missionaries out to areas where there’s very little roads. We have to fly missionaries, different places. They’ve got to foot it walking, but the term they use is footing it over through the bush into a village, and we drop them off. So we might have a truck go, Okay, we’re made relationships with these four villages, we’re gonna drop you off, boom, boom, boom, boom. All your schools are gonna start at the same time and end at the same time. And we transport food, Bibles, diplomas, everything in a strategic and efficient way.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:21):
And talk to me about the evangelism component of what you’re doing. How are you evangelizing people who maybe from an animus background or up in Sudan, Muslims? Of course, yes. You have Sudan, <affirmative>, which is mm-hmm. <affirmative>, mostly Muslim, and then South Sudan, which has a higher percentage of Christians. How are you actually evangelizing?

Jared Buswell (11:45):
Yes. So the Africans themselves are bringing the gospel, and it happens in a multitude of ways. So a lot of times, sometimes our men go again based on prayer, based on the direction of the spirit. We need to go now to this specific village or tribe. So there’s that call from the Holy Spirit. Oftentimes we’re invited by the government, so we’re going into areas where there’s tribal warfare or there’s been Civil War or other kinds of strife. And the government has heard the reputation of this organization. And so they say, Hey, we’ve got this problem between this tribe and this tribe. Can your team come in and do something about it? Or it happens with the schools. The schools have to shut down because of a demonic manifestation of some disease or something. But it’s really demonic oppression, just really shutting down. The teachers can’t teach, so the government or businesses or schools call us to come in.

(12:45):
And so our missionary teams will bring in, just like Jesus, bring in healing the sick, restoring people to their right mind, and then proclaiming the gospel and teaching everywhere he went. And so our men and women, mostly men, are going around doing what Jesus did evangelizing first. And this just creates opportunities in open doors. Then we tell them that we have portable Bible schools that are free of cost. There’s no charge that can be followed up on, but that always follows up after an evangelistic event. We do crusades. There’s very successful and popular. We’ve got equipment to do that. We do smaller events, and so there’s different sizes of evangelistic events, but there is always some kind of evangelistic outreach. Or we’ll work with another ministry. If another ministry or another evangelist is coming through, we will partner up and provide the logistical support. And our men will provide a lot of that hands on and prayer support for God to have a successful event. The Gospels proclaimed people come to Christ, and it has to be immediately followed up with discipleship and training.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:04):
I’m Act actually very amazed at everything that favor International is doing. On the website, it talks about how you’re doing community development. You’ve got portable bible schools, trauma counseling, which because this area has gone through wars and a lot of attacks over the years, I I’m sure that’s very important. Yes, you’ve got the woman empowerment, church planning, church construction, and then in prayer of evangelism, you’ve got houses of prayer. You’re doing outreaches and crusades and then prayer mobilization. And then in education and discipleship, you have a primary school, you have a God’s Institute for Transformation Leadership Training Institute, then you’ve got radio ministries and Bible distributions, and then also economic empowerment where you’re doing agricultural business projects and retail and service business projects. So this is a multi-pronged ministry that’s doing and accomplishing a lot, and it takes a lot of resources to do something like that. So talk to me about the importance of sharing the vision with people and getting people involved financially in what is happening in Africa.

Jared Buswell (15:19):
Yes. So none of this happens without the power of God and without prayer and without practical fuel. Money is the fuel that went combined with the spirit and when combined with lives that are already laid down in love and in prayer to serve their fellow man, once you bring that whole combination together, then it’s explosive and great things happen and money is multiplied. So we see God take a hundred dollars, a thousand dollars, $10,000 and multiply it so many times over into so many lives changed and doors open, reputation protection. We have never lost a missionary due to violence in any of these spheres where we’re working. And so it’s just incredible to see that financial support. When I first started with favor, at one point I made a mind map, but I just was listening to all the things the team was doing. I hadn’t been to Africa yet, and I was talking with some of the African team virtually, and I was talking with Carol and I said to Carol one day, I said, Carol, there are at least 48 distinct ministries that Favor is doing. And we can’t, can’t talk to Americans about 48 different ministries

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:33):
Like pick one or two.

Jared Buswell (16:34):
We gotta pick a just one or two because for each, every time you talk to in honoring financial supporters and givers, it’s really important to have a clear business plan in place, written down a knowledge of if you were to fund this whole vision, what would happen? How long would it take, who would do it? Why does it work? Who’s accountable? And it’s just necessary to have a lot of pieces in place before you go talk to somebody and ask for financial support. So I said, Kara, we can’t ask for financial support for youth sports programs and for the medical clinics and for the radio station. And so after a lot of prayer and a lot of discussion for a long time, the team settled on let’s group everything into four broad categories. And so the REAP program that I described falls under the whole category of community development.

(17:34):
And our website reflects this. It’ll show what we do. We do four things. So we do community development, which is the whole outward push with holistic transformations. That includes evangelism, discipleship, and practical help. Again, that follows the transformation of the heart already. So this developing whole, transforming whole villages at a time is a community development. And that’s the outward push. Then what we call education discipleship are all the ministries that train and build up leaders from our home base. And what that looks like is we have schools, we have two home bases, one in Gulu, Northern Uganda where we started, and in Juba, South Sudan, which is the capital of South Sudan. So from those two headquarters, we have a school at each location, and we’re building a secondary school at each location. This was originally done to educate the orphans who were coming into our cares.

(18:32):
So other ministries that were either leaving the area because of the bullets or for a variety of reasons, were dropping kids off at our doorstep. And we didn’t have the financial support to just pay the tuition dollars at first to pay for these kids to get educated at other schools. So we quickly put our own schools together. And those are now, they’ve got 10, 15 years of history of great academic success and tons of stories. So we’ve got a school at each place. We’ve got a radio station at each, And this again came from the people, the heart of the people. So we’ve got Christian programming coming out of both Gulu, Uganda and South Sudan. The South Sudan station has boosters that are broadcasting and gospel even further out. And we’re hoping to get that daily programming all the way into Sudan proper, but through the airwaves.

(19:25):
So that’s been a long and powerful story to see God move in those areas. So that’s the education that education discipleship is the leadership development at home. We also have a leadership training institute, which is a university education that all our staff are required to go through. And now that’s open to the community as well for tuition to get professional kingdom based leadership training. So this is creating the next generation of leaders who then serve on the mission field and serve in the places of influence, whether in business or government or wherever God is gonna have them go. So that’s that. Another department, whole area is the prayer in evangelism. This is the fuel, this is the foundation of the whole ministry. So we have a house of prayer at each headquarters, but we have houses of prayer at most of the main hubs where our teams serve.

(20:13):
And this is what really blesses and protects all the work that God is doing. Our evangelism teams are housed within the prayer teams. So as far as the way the organization is structured, if you were to come onto favor i ntl.org and give a donation, and if you were to devote it to prayer and evangelism, that’s supporting that specific, those departments that work together on both the whole evangelism side and the prayer side. Our prayer teams are full-time prayer warriors who not only man the House of Prayer, which is always open, 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM every day to the whole community and is a non-denominational community focal point for everybody of all walks of life to come and hear the word of God, pray, worship, experience, healing, miracles, revival breaks out every once in a while and they have to expand into evening services. And again, that’s totally a gift to the community.

(21:10):
And the community uses it, and it does not compete with the local churches. So it’s a very beautiful thing that God’s doing. So it’s prayer and evangelism. And then the newest area of focus is the economic empowerment programs, which has been on our heart for a lot of years, but we’ve had to seek out the capital funding and those kind of things to get agricultural projects started and other businesses sewing and training. And that also provides vocational opportunities for all the young students who are our family, who are growing up under our care. So it all works together in an efficient system.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:41):
Let’s talk about the role that you play. I’ve been reading a lot of business books lately, and one book that’s really good is called Traction. It talks about how there’s visionaries and then there’s implementers. Absolutely. And visionaries tend to be all over the place. They’re just really good at communicating vision. And usually a ministry is founded by a visionary, somebody who’s got big vision. We’re gonna go, we’re gonna impact lives, we’re gonna change people’s lives. But then there needs to be an implementer to come in behind the visionary, to really put flesh on the bones and kind of show what it’s going to look like, and then developing the systems that maintain it over the long term. And just listening to you, I feel like you probably are more of the implementer type in helping to build the business plan. And so talk me through what you do and what that process has looked like for this ministry. This is

Jared Buswell (22:43):
A very important principle for ministry, business and families. And it’s very important for people to watch how God has designed us to serve, in particular capac particular roles and capacities. And this observation that the eos Executive Operating System traction system, author noticed that in business, in successful business, there’s often a case where you have a strong, strong visionary who finds an implementer, a strong, strong implementer, they find each other. An implementer without a visionary is very useless and vice versa. But when the pair of them are together, big things happen. So I have been an implementer to Carol’s visionary. I’ve used the term before. I learned this language. I’ve always seen myself as an anointing, amplification. So there’s this anointing on our founder

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:39):
That could be the spiritual lingo for what’s a business term? Anointing. Anointing, amplification. That’s

Jared Buswell (23:45):
What we’re doing. And so that’s the language I’ve used internally. But I wanna share this. This is important. When I, I think I was about 19 years old, I was attending church regularly under a very strong visionary pastor. And I remember the Lord talking to me. I am a visionary actually by nature and design. I am full of visions. I’ve had to at many times just kind of quell and put down that part of myself. But I’m getting ideas all the time and just brilliant, creative things. So I see all this visionary capacity. But I remember when I was young, the Lord told me strongly, He said, Jared, you need to learn to serve me in what I’m doing now. Yes, I’ve given you ideas. Yes, I’ve given you a calling, but I’m moving right now through this man, and I need you to serve this man’s vision.

(24:36):
And Carol is out there, and she’s devoted her life to serving. She has beautiful messages on serving another man’s vision. She’s out there serving the Africans visions, the African missionaries are on fire and supported in doing what God’s called them to do. So it’s really their vision that we’re all supporting, and we strongly communicate to the whole US team the importance of our hearts being genuinely devoted to serving the visions of our African brothers and sisters, many of whom we might not have the opportunity to meet, but we’re here to serve them. So I’ve been for the last 11 years, serving our founder, serving the people she’s serving, and I’m serving another man’s vision, and I love it. And I know I’m a visionary, but that’s for a later time where God is moving now. I need to serve there now. And I think we all need to do that. When we all get all hands on deck, then God will move mountains.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:33):
Well, I really admire you finding a place to serve. Jesus said, the greatest in the kingdom is the servant of all. And I think sometimes in ministries, everyone wants to be the figurehead, but some people are gifted by God to do what you’re doing, <affirmative> and to help implement the vision. And I think if we had more people willing to do that, we could accomplish a lot more for God. All right. So favor international. You mentioned the website once, but let’s just mention a gift someone wants to help to support what you’re doing or see more about what you’re doing in Africa. What is the website where they can find out more information?

Jared Buswell (26:18):
Yes, the website is www.favorinternational.org. And it’s shortened, F A V O R I N T l.org. If you type in the whole name, you’ll also, it’ll forward you to favor i ntl.org, but that’s our website.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:35):
Awesome. Well, Jared, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast. It was great having you here.

Jared Buswell (26:41):
Thank you very much, Daniel. It’s

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:42):
A pleasure, pleasure to see what God’s doing through you. Thanks so much for listening today. I am excited about telling people about Jesus, and I want to invite you to be a part of helping us to rescue people from Hell and take them with us to heaven. There’s two things you can do to help. First of all, can you go find the Evangelism podcast on Apple iTunes and leave us a positive review by giving a review. You will help other people find these valuable resources about sharing our faith. And second, would you become a financial partner with King Ministries. Every single dollar that people give us enables us to lead at least one person to Jesus. And so that means for only $1, you can help start a party in heaven. And so today, I want to invite you to become a monthly partner. You can start out for just a dollar, but if God puts it on your heart to do more, of course you can do more. But please go to king ministries.com and become a monthly partner with us today to help us to lead more people to Jesus. Thank you so much, and God bless you.

Evangelism Podcast Host (28:05):
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.

Subscribe to The Evangelism Podcast on Apple iTunes

Listen to The Evangelism Podcast on Spotify

Subscribe to The Evangelism Podcast on Google Podcasts

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The Evangelism Podcast is also available on iHeartRadio

John Kingma | Church Planting that Works

John Kingma spent time as a missionary in Indonesia. Now he is taking the lessons and techniques he learned on the foreign mission field and using them to plant a church in St. Albert, Alberta. On today’s episode, he will share a church planting method that actually works.

Connect with John Kingma: https://www.facebook.com/john.kingma

Connect with Life Church in St. Albert: https://www.facebook.com/Life-Church-St-Albert-105181072061422

Transcript:

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
John Kingma spent time as a missionary in Indonesia. Now he’s taking the lessons and technique he learned on the foreign mission field and using them to plant a church in St. Albert, Alberta. On today’s episode, he will share a church planting method that actually works.

Evangelism Podcast Host (00:28):
Welcome to The Evangelism Podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews, full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies, and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary and evangelist Daniel King.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:51):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast and I’m Daniel King. And I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me, John Kema in St. Albert Canada. Thank you for being on the evangelism podcast.

Pastor John Kingma (01:05):
Well, thanks for having me, man.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:07):
Now we first met in Indonesia. That’s right. You were living there at the time and we came and we got to do a gospel festival with you and we had tremendous results and you actually went there as a missionary, right. And you married a beautiful girl. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> tell me about how that all happened.

Pastor John Kingma (01:29):
Wow. That’s a long story, but make it a little bit shorter. I always said to the Lord, you know, I’m just gonna follow you with all my heart and soul, and I’m not gonna be distracted by looking for a mate in life. And if you have someone for me, you know, my address and you know how to get ahold of me. And so a friend of mine in Indonesia asked me to come and do a series of meetings in his church. And after the service, people were just filing out the church and just shaking hands and saying hi. And when my wife passed by and shook hands with me, I felt the hand of God go in, literally go inside of me and pull me towards her. And so prayed about it and felt this is something of the Lord. And then that’s what started it all. And yeah, within a few months we had made the decision to get married. So

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:22):
Now tell me a little bit about the, the type of ministry that you did when you were in Indonesia.

Pastor John Kingma (02:28):
Wow. That was very varied as well. We would do large crusades. We did that probably some of the largest ones. We had crowds of around 10,000 people in some of the largest events. But we also about once a month, we go into a village somewhere like remote, many of which had no electricity. And so it was a real missionary experience, but I love villages. I grew up on a farm. My wife is from a village. And so we would go into those places be in a church, set up some sort of small crusade type event. And then during the day we would go and knock on people’s doors and just pop in and visit them and pray with them and whatever, and do that. And then later on, my wife had a word from the Lord about feeding the poor, and we started to feed people on the streets, the street, people that were living on the streets. And eventually that led to her starting a home for homeless women that had mental difficulties. So yeah, that kind of, that’s kind of what we did mostly.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:38):
And so now you’ve come back here to Canada and you are currently living in St. Albert and you are planting a church right here in Canada, but you’re really approaching your church planting with a missionary type mindset because you are reaching out to people that that may not be Christians. So talk to me about how you’re doing this church plant.

Pastor John Kingma (04:07):
Yeah, well, it was very important for us to do it that way because I believe God wants to start a church planning movement. And I saw a lot of churches being planted where they would either send a large, you know, group of people from one church to start another, or they would do something over the internet, try to attract as many Christians as possible. And we wanted to be very organic and, and really reach local people. So when we came here we just started with people we had met and and gotten to know. And then a lot of what we do is just go out in the community, try to meet people. We go to things like farmer’s markets, car shows anywhere where people get together and try to make a friend or two. I also have a business card done up with dream interpretation and divine healing.

Pastor John Kingma (05:01):
And we’ve had a lot of people respond to that, you know, wanting to know what their dreams mean. And then we are able to show them how this relates to what the Bible says, cuz God’s very consistent with what he tells people. And so translate it for them out of scripture and show them how God is actually inviting them into a conversation. And that’s born good fruit as well. And just believe in God, words of knowledge, sometimes whatever, you know, you just go out on the street and meet people and make friends and, and let the Lord move in that.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:35):
And so you’re not trying to reach other Christians or send people from one church out to start another church. You’re actually going into the community, looking for people who maybe don’t know anything about God and you’re trying to reach them.

Pastor John Kingma (05:50):
Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. I mean, the thing is, is, you know, if you get a transfer growth comes with its own set of problems, cuz usually disgruntled people stayed disgruntled, no matter who’s in front of them. But the purpose of planting churches is to reach people. I, I personally believe that God wants to do something in this city. That’s gonna result in growth in all churches. And rather than, you know, you always think about as a business person, I’m a business person. You look at where your greatest potential is for growth in your market. And if I’m competing in this space for Christian people, well there’s churches with big budgets, there’s churches with all kinds of stuff, you know? I don’t want to compete in that space, but if I go after people that don’t know Jesus, there’s a lot of less competition and a lot more opportunity. So, and so it’s about identifying who you are, what God’s purpose for you in your community is and connecting with people in that community. And it’s amazing how often God matches you with people that are exactly with what you’re dealing with. It’s just interesting.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:09):
Let’s talk about being by vocational. So you are in ministry, you always have a heart for ministry. You’re always ministering to people. You’re, you’re planting the church. But you also have a business, a carpet cleaning business, which my father ran a carpet cleaning business for, for several years. And so you’re cleaning carpets, but you’re also looking to, to clean hearts. How does that work out? Doing both business and ministry?

Pastor John Kingma (07:37):
Well, it’s hard. I’ll just be honest. It takes a lot of hours. I read a verse the other day in Corinthians where Paul was talking about how the churches were growing because they worked <laugh>. You have to work to get people to come to Jesus. It’s work to get out of the community and meet new people. You know, there’s nights. You don’t feel like it. You feel like sitting at home and watching a movie, but you get off your butt and you go out and you meet someone and you wind up having a great time doing it. And the joy of the Lord shows up in the middle of that thing. But when it comes to work too, you, you know, you need to switch your mindset. I I’m about my father’s business. Now I’m about my father’s business. See, I’m a son of the king.

Pastor John Kingma (08:19):
And so I’m about the kingdom business. So when I come into a home and clean carpets, Jesus wrapped a towel around his waist and he washes disciples feet. And he says, as I’ve served, you, you serve others. So when I’m there, I’m all about serving that person. Cuz that’s what Jesus told me to do. I’m about my father’s business. So the way I do business and the character that I do business with and, and how I’m accountable for what I do and how I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make it right for people and other things that we do in, in the business realm, we’re actually bringing God’s kingdom there. And when the opportunity comes we teach our people in our church. The one question that every Christian needs to be an expert at asking is can I pray for you? And you would be surprised how many times we’re in a home or we’re in a restaurant or we’re in some situation. And there’s an opportunity to say, Hey, can I pray for you? And people respond to that. It’s it’s really amazing. Yeah.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:17):
So let’s talk about the power of that phrase. Can I pray for you? It’s a very simple phrase, but it really opens up people’s hearts. Do you have any testimonies of what people have asked for prayer for when you’ve been asking them this? Oh

Pastor John Kingma (09:32):
Wow. I have a lot of testimonies. I remember being on at a bus stop in Edmonton guy, sat down with beside me and I just turned to him and said, Hey, you know, I’m a Christian and I’m out here. Can I pray for you? Weirdest response I ever had, he just grabbed my shirt with his two hands and put his head right here and just started a ball. And I found out that he was a backslidden Christian <laugh> and he was on his way and he was gonna go have a bender. And he was just like, you know, God just convicted him. Right there, turned his life around. I remember just the other day we were cleaning a carpet for a guy who owns a restaurant. He was complaining about his back and everything like that. And I just turned to my wife and said, we need to pray for him. So <laugh> we went and we prayed for him and it just he’s like, yeah. Okay. I guess, you know, and he, and then you’re able to pray in those situations. It’s it’s really amazing. Really amazing, you know?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:30):
Yeah. We just did a great outreach in broken arrow, Oklahoma down in the United States at a street fair where we put up a booth and just put up a big sign that said free prayer. And then as people walked by, we gave them a, a drink of water. We had bottles of water and we said, Hey, we, we’re also praying for people it’s free. What do you need prayer for? And we found so many people to be open and it’s over a three day period. We prayed with over 300 people. We had 56 give their lives to Jesus and pray with us for salvation. And so we’re gonna take that same idea to the Tulsa state fair, awesome this year. And they’ve given us permission to have a booth. We’re actually gonna have a little platform with a sound system and then a, a, a prayer tent. And as people come through, we’re going to pray with them last year. 1.1 million people came through the Tulsa state fair. And so I think one of the challenges of evangelism in the church is, is people think people are well, if they want to get saved, they’ll come into the church. But really I think the church needs to go to where the people are. Talk to me about that.

Pastor John Kingma (11:43):
Okay. Well the Lord challenged me in this cuz a lot of churches talk about, you know, how do we get outside the four walls of the church? And the phrase the Lord said to me is forget the walls, just have church outside. And the thing is, is people are not coming to a church unless they have a meaningful relationship with someone. Who’s a believer. I remember doing an evangelistic campaign one summer. I worked in a church as a on staff evangelist. We did an evangelistic campaign. We did follow up, we did all that stuff and I collected data. And what we found out was that 100% of the people that followed through with their decision to follow Jesus and wound up in a church, had a significant relationship with the Christian before they accepted Jesus a savior. So your friendship is everything.

Pastor John Kingma (12:36):
And our, you know, in our church, when we build our church, coffee, pot is one of the most important things. We want to have time for fellowship. We want the, for us, that’s just as important as the service cuz it was in the, in the, in the new Testament. They continued in, in the apostles doctrine and in fellowship in breaking of bread and in prayer. And so those were just as important as prayer. And so that’s vital. That relationship is what brings about discipleship. You think about it. Are you going to go to a complete stranger and say, Hey, what about this in my life? No, but will you go to your friend? Absolutely. So natural discipleship flows along relationship. So we don’t just go out on the street and just randomly talk to people, pray for ’em. Okay. See you later. We always have a point of contact.

Pastor John Kingma (13:30):
So we are continually running an alpha program in our house because we find that’s a very safe place for people from non-church backgrounds to come and discover Jesus. And so we have that constantly running because we can plug people in as we’re meeting them. You know, we’re meeting people, we wanna follow up at Tim Hortons with a coffee, you know, or Starbucks or wherever they like to hang out. And we want to have that relationship beyond going because if you don’t, you’re gonna lose him. You absolutely hard. The relationship is everything. Look what Jesus did. He walked with people for years. He didn’t just randomly call disciples and then take off. He walked with 12 guys for three years and that was a real relationship because they slept in the same place. They went and ate in the same place. You know, they followed him everywhere. That was very important. Concept is the relationship aspect. And to miss that means that you’re not gonna get quality discipleship.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:28):
I really like what you’re saying. That discipleship requires relationship. I think one of the, the challenges of many discipleship programs, a lot of people are, are moving online and they think if I can just put videos together and training materials, then I can disciple thousands and thousands of people. But it’s really hard to disciple someone without that, that face to face connection. It is. So not only are you planning a church, but you also want to train church planters. Yep. Both in the Canadian context and also in the international context you have lots of experience in Africa and Indonesia and other parts of the world. And so we have lots of listeners that have a heart for evangelism. I’m sure many of them would like to plan a church. What advice would you give to someone who has a heart to plan a church?

Pastor John Kingma (15:22):
Just do it, just do it. So in our church and with people that we’re discipling, we always talk about let’s redefine church. Okay. So we’re always talking about it. You know, most modern churches is a building central location. But Jesus said where two or three are gathered in my name I’m right in their midst. And so that means that you have to have people gathering together, not just for the sake of gathering together, but Jesus has to be involved. So just getting together and sharing food is not church, but when you get together share food and talk about Jesus. Now you’re having church. So when you redefine church that way, then it’s about, and the other thing that’s exciting is Jesus never said all three of the people had to be Christians. So if you’re sitting there with two, your unsaved buddies and you’re talking about what Jesus is doing in your life that’s church, Jesus is gonna show up and so go and have church as much as possible.

Pastor John Kingma (16:26):
I mean, use the local coffee shop, use a local restaurant you know, your breaks at work. You’re, you know, wherever it is that God opens a door for you, you can just go and have church and then start to take that and take the relationships that come out of that and start to put it together into a regular ongoing thing where it could be in your home could be a small location. You rent. Usually it’s really good to start in the home because that is what church is about. So our goal is to raise up people that will think like entrepreneurs, because everywhere you go, you’re gonna have different things. Even you go in the same country to a different city, you’re gonna have different things to overcome in that city. There’s gonna be a different mentality in the people. There’s gonna be different strengths and weaknesses as you go in and you’re just gonna have to figure it out.

Pastor John Kingma (17:21):
So as an entrepreneur in the business world, what you do is you try an idea. If it fails, you learn from it. Try another idea until you find an idea that works and you can build a business that makes money well in the Christian world as a church planter, I go and I try something. If it fails, I learn from it and I try something else. And I keep going until I find something that works and that’s gonna work in that community that people are attracted to, or that people connect with. And that we start getting traction and start making disciples of Jesus. So that’s kind of, if you’re a new church planner, just go try it, just try something. How can I have church here? Help me. Holy spirit. Talk to me, show me the opportunities. Ask that little question. Can I pray for you that opens so many doors and yeah, just go for it.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:12):
Well, let’s finish with a word of prayer. Would you pray for people who are called by God to be church planners and to build relationships that lead to discipleship?

Pastor John Kingma (18:23):
Awesome. We’ll do so father, we just lift up those who are either watching or listening. And Lord, we just pray for them. Father there’s many people that the fire of evangelism burns strong and in their heart, but they don’t know how to connect that to a local church. And I know Lord Jesus, that church planning is a great way to do that. And for many people who have this thing, they want to see the kingdom advanced. They want to see God’s kingdom move forward. And they’re not sure where to go, father. I just pray for them. Lord Jesus, that you would just somehow through this conversation, that there would be just an idea, a spark in their life that would just take hold and that they would just be able to go for it. I just pray for boldness like you, like it was prayed for an acts of boldness and that when they pray for people, people would be healed. That demons would be cast out when they prayed for people that you give them authority and Jesus’ name and that you would give them wisdom as they talk. And they share about you in Jesus’ name.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:28):
Amen. Amen. Well, thank you for being on the evangelism podcast.

Pastor John Kingma (19:32):
Well, thanks for having me. That’s a lot of fun.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:33):
Thanks so much for listening today. I am excited about telling people about Jesus and I want to invite you to be a part of helping us to rescue people from hell and take them with us to heaven. There’s two things you can do to help. First of all, can you go find the evangelism podcast on apple iTunes and leave us a positive review by giving a review, you will help other people find these valuable resources about sharing our faith. And second, would you become a financial partner with king ministries? Every single dollar that people give us enables us to lead at least one person to Jesus. And so that means for only $1, you can help start a party in heaven. And so today I want to invite you to become a monthly partner. You can start out for just a dollar, but if God puts it on your heart to do more, of course you can do more. But please go to king ministries.com and become a monthly partner with us today to help us to lead more people to Jesus. Thank you so much. And God bless you

Evangelism Podcast Host (20:53):
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.

Subscribe to The Evangelism Podcast on Apple iTunes

Listen to The Evangelism Podcast on Spotify

Subscribe to The Evangelism Podcast on Google Podcasts

Find The Evangelism Podcast on Stitcher

Listen to The Evangelism Podcast on Amazon Audible

The Evangelism Podcast is also available on iHeartRadio

Mohammed Seid Ali | Muslim Becomes a Church Planter

Mohammed Seid Ali was born into a Muslim family and he was sent for Islamic training to Oman. Today he shares the amazing story of how God saved him. Now, he is a church planter. On today’s episode, we discuss his role in the church planting strategy of the Joshua Campaign. Their goal is to do frontier evangelism in the hardest to reach village areas of Ethiopia.

Connect with Joshua Campaign on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joshucampaignethiopia/

Transcript:

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Mohammed Seid Ali was born into a Muslim family and he was sent for Islamic training Toman today. He shares the amazing story of how God saved him. Now. He is a Christian Church planner. On today’s episode, we discuss his role in the church planting STR of the Joshua campaign. Their goal is to do frontier evangelism in the hardest to reach village areas of Ethiopia.

Evangelism Podcast Host (00:41):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews, full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary and evangelist Daniel King.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:05):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today. I am in the nation of Ethiopia in the city of ambo and I have brother Mohamed with me. He is a church planter working with Joshua campaign brother Mohamed. Thank you so much for being with me today.

Mohammed Seid Ali (01:28):
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:33):
So Joshua campaign is led by Per Akvist. He is from the nation of Sweden, but he’s married to an Ethiopia and it was originally founded by Karl Hargestam, who is another missionary from Sweden and they have done massive gospel crusades all over the nation of Ethiopia, but a very important part of following up on new believers is planting churches because in many places there are not churches. And so brother Mohamed is leading the church planting effort. Can you tell me a little bit about the strategy that Joshua campaign is using to plant churches here in the nation of Ethiopia?

Mohammed Seid Ali (02:23):
Thank you so much for asking me this. As, as you know, that, as you said, that Joshua campaign church planting department, as one of the department in Joshua campaign we have strategy and roadmap to reach the unre people nowaday. We are planting a church in third part of Ethiopia. It’s a region that’s totally UN rich area. The nation that’s Muslims nation. So Joshua campaign together, working partner with God love covenant church together. And

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:06):
So God’s love covenant church is a denomination. It’s a group of churches about how many churches are, are in God’s love covenant church

Mohammed Seid Ali (03:15):
Nowadays about 70 churches,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:19):
70 churches working, and you’re actively working to plant more. Yeah.

Mohammed Seid Ali (03:23):
So now just we are focusing in Eastern part of Ethiopia, just we are planning to plant 120 churches Eastern, just, we are focusing like 30 churches in five years. Next year, maybe we’ll, we’ll have 120 churches.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:44):
Wow. That’s wonderful vision. And so talk to me about how you are planting churches. I know that recently Joshua campaign has purchased some motorcycles. Originally. They wanted to purchase one motorcycle for a church planter and miraculously God provided enough funds to be able to purchase four motorcycles. So what are you doing with those motorcycles?

Mohammed Seid Ali (04:08):
Yeah just we are, we are doing with those motorcycles. We are going to visit the unreached area that not go or reach the car, the vehicles, you know, that’s why we use those bikes to go there and to visit and to serve the people group, especially in a remote area. So those full motor bikes still, they are not enough just we need more motor bike and car because as you know, that CHOP’s very wide country. So especially in Eastern part of Ethiopia, we need more motorbikes and car.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:53):
So you’re using the motorbikes to go into remote regions where a car cannot go. Yeah. Where there’s no other way to get there and you’re going, I’m sure it’s very bumpy. You’re going very far. Yeah. And there are no churches in these areas. Yeah,

Mohammed Seid Ali (05:13):
No churches no can car cannot reach the place. So we use those motorbike like valley. Sometimes it can be valley. It can be like, you know, mountains like that. So we use those bikes to resource people group.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:31):
So how many motor bikes in vehicles do you think are needed for the, the church planters in your vision? What would you like to see?

Mohammed Seid Ali (05:40):
Okay, now we like you, like, as you, as you know that we are, we have only four motorbike for the next five, six years. Maybe we need around 50 motorbike,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:54):
50 motorbikes. Yeah. And, and do you have church planters that are ready to take the motorbikes out and plant churches?

Mohammed Seid Ali (06:01):
Yeah, we already, we are now we have some around maybe 60 or 70 people that ready to train, guess we are, we gonna train them? We just focusing on them to send them out for the mission. So we need those motorbike for those guys for those missionaries.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:23):
And so these are truly unreached areas that they’re going to, how are you training these church planters? I, I know Joshua campaign has a Bible school. And then do you give them specialized training to know how to plant a church in an unreached area?

Mohammed Seid Ali (06:40):
Yes. Yes, we have. We, we just have training center and also we have Bible institution also. We are just building and focusing on that. Just, we also have like based in, adema called the city Adama. Yes. We have training centers there. So we gather them and we train them how to reach a people group, how to, you know, reach the unrich area. Then we will train them how to preach the gospel one to one and how to train and give follow up for the disciples for those who served. That’s our strategy. Sorry.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:27):
I know that Joshua campaign has a beautiful piece of land right next to a lake. And the goal is to turn that land into a training training center for church planters and for missionaries, for people who are going out to the nation of Ethiopia. Right now they are putting together a plan to build dormitories and meeting rooms there. And it actually has a hanger for a helicopter. The goal is to have a helicopter there, to even get to the places where the motorcycles I cannot go. And so you’re truly on the front edge of evangelism. This is true frontier evangelism that you are doing now. Your name is Mohamed. What’s your full name?

Mohammed Seid Ali (08:13):
Okay. My name is Mohammed Seid Ali,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:18):
It’s. Now when people hear Mohammed, they immediately, they don’t think of Christian Church planter. They think of someone who is Muslim. Yeah. And, and, and so were you born in a Muslim background?

Mohammed Seid Ali (08:31):
Yeah, my, my family, they’re from Muslim background, my mother, my father they’re Muslim background. I also grew up from a Muslim in background and I started grow and I grew up with my family. Then suddenly I went to Yemen and I start, I had started growing school there in Yemen. So one day, you know, I met a guy and he told me that my friend do you know Moham? There is Christians missionary here. They are working here. So they are preaching gospel here. So I was very jealous. How can be like that? I don’t believe I’m shock. And so I told my IAM, the leader of the mosque and he also, he became more nervous and how it could be like this. Then he told me to go and check and survey if they, so when I go there, the place where the Christians living the place, they were missionary, they were missionary, but they are giving like volunteers, they have a hospital and they give free volunteers service for the people.

Mohammed Seid Ali (09:45):
So, but underground, they preach gospel. That was their mission. So I, then I went there and I met the guy. So the guy I asked him, who are you? Yeah. He also told me that, who are you? Then? I told him that my, my name is Mohamed, but I heard that there is some Christians working here. So he said, he asking me that, do you want any help that, yes, I’m Christian. Do you want any help? I say, I, when I saw him, he’s just young. He looks very good, handsome. So I don’t believe you are a Christian. I felt that Christians are like, you know, demon or something like that. You know, finally he touched my shoulder and something is shocked. My body, maybe demon or some spirit. So I felt deliverers, you know? So he took me somewhere and we said together, invite me coffee, some other things.

Mohammed Seid Ali (10:43):
And he said to tell me about Jesus. So he’s the best missionary he’s trained missionary. He told me about Quran. He took some verse from Quran. He build that word according to the grand. So it was excited. He, he told me that he taught me, oh, I create heaven and earth. You believe that? Yeah. I believe that that’s also written on the ground and create element Ave. How in Adam? Yeah. Yeah. I believe that. Yeah. And finally, he, he, he mentioned a lot of Bibles qu and Bibles, you know, together. Then finally he took something from the Bible about Abraham and his son. God told him to kill his son. So do you know that? Yeah, but he’s not his it’s, like I said, that it’s a smell. Okay, come on. No problem. He said, he told me that. Okay. But you know why, what the purpose that God, you know, told Braham to kill his son.

Mohammed Seid Ali (11:47):
I don’t know that. Then he revealed that the main, the court things, you know, so he said, God also loves us. You know? So he, he send his son, Jesus Christ and he die for us, you know, finally. Oh, that’s why he, God, he send Jesus to die for us. Whoa is excited. Oh, that’s why I regard saying ISA. He told me a lot of things. Also, he, he mentioned from the Quran also about Mary, about mayor Maria, you know? So, so he told me about him also. And also, you know, God, he, the world by his, the world by his word, do you believe that? I say, yeah. Also in the ground, that reason Jesus, he, the word of God Killah, he said, yeah. So God, he create a world by his word. That was, is, that was Jesus. Oh, that’s another revelation I get.

Mohammed Seid Ali (12:53):
Okay. Finally, he took me a lot of things. Then I went to the mosque, but I can to tell that what I, what I heard, what I finally, I decide to fly away from that mosque. Then I went somewhere. Then I got house rent. Then I, I got one, God, he provide another woman that she’s a Christian. Then she’s sure my neighbor one night, you know, I was sleeping. That was the amazing thing. God changed my life. I was sleeping in my room. I felt, I saw the, the dream. You know, that dream was, you know, I was sleeping. Then I, I was going to fish a fish. Then I went to the lake. Then I tried to cut a fish, but it’s not a fish. It’s the Lake’s totally dark. Then I saw a man, a white guy. He’s very nice gentle guy. I say how, how it could be like that. This is, this is, you know, dark leg. It’s not, it’s not, it looks not looks good. So why it happened like that? Then I took that person to somewhere. Then I back again, I got a lot of people there from that dark leg. Then I wake up

Mohammed Seid Ali (14:22):
The next day that woman, the Christian woman she’s fixing coffee. And she invited me to drink there. Some Christians fellowship, they have there. So there was talking about their dreams immediately. The dream that I saw yesterday night, it came in my mind and oh please, can you hear me? I got some dream in my it’s yesterday. Oh, everybody’s quiet because I’m a Muslim. Then they start to hear were my dream. I start to talk to them. Then the woman, she said, hallelujah, that I heard that voice. The first time hallelujah said, she start to pro in my life. Mohammed, I’m telling you now from this day, I’m telling you you’ll be the disciple of Jesus Christ. I’m telling you, like she took some Bible verse, you know about Peter. And he was like fisherman. He told, you know, he start to fish. He went to fish.

Mohammed Seid Ali (15:22):
But God told him that yo, you will be a fisherman. A man. You will then, oh, is there in the Bible? Yes. She took the Bible and she, she, she showed me that. Then I say the dream that I saw and it’s completely the same. Then I say, what can I do? She told me, okay, now you have to bow down. Then stretch your hand and say like this pray. Okay. I saw her and she told me everything. She told me then, okay. I will come back waiting me. Then I went to my room. I bow down there and I stretched my hand. I start to pray. Thank you, Jesus. Now I believe you. Yes, you are. Lord. You are my savior from this. I decide to receive, you take all my life. Then I decided, I don’t know the same nights. I got peace in my life.

Mohammed Seid Ali (16:22):
Then I went back to Ethiopia immediately. So I had a lot of suffering. Of course, after I decided and received, Jesus just rejected me from the fellowship and the Muslim fellowship. They rejected me from the community. And finally they deport me to Ethiopia and I made some friends here and they took, they took me to the church and I, they baptized me. Finally. I made per west, I, her to drive by. And he, he came to my by judge. And he told me about Jesus. Yeah, I’m believer. I said, but he start to, he invite me to in his house. Then he invite me, my wife and me together and his house lunch. Then he start to pro my, you have a calling in your life just, oh, it was, it changed my life. You know? Then I decide. Then he said, now you, you have to work with me. You have to, what, what can I, what, what can I work with you? He, he told me that, okay, now you’ll be my interpreter, my translator. I don’t speak English. I said, okay, no problem. I give you dictionary and Bible that encouraged me. Then I start work with him. And finally just, I became,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:48):
Oh wow. And now God has made you a church planter. Yeah. And because you come from a Muslim background, yeah. You have a great heart for reaching Muslims here in Ethiopia. Are, are there many Muslims in these community where you are planting the churches?

Mohammed Seid Ali (18:04):
Yeah. A lot of, a lot of, a lot of people’s there are Muslim in, in the community. Just, we are now focusing on because we now train a lot of from like, as I told you that we have so churches in west Western part of Ethiopia. So we took some leaders from there and will train them and we will send, send them the Muslim community because the Muslims they need practical and life and love, you know? So just, I, my, my vision and my strategy is to teach them how to reach the Muslims. You know, just, you have, God has a strategy for the Muslim different strategy for the Muslims to reach, you know, so that’s my goal to train and send my, a lot of missionary in the Muslim area.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:55):
Wow. That’s amazing. Well, if you have a heart to help reach unreached areas in Ethiopia, frontier evangelism, if you have a heart for planting churches among Muslim areas in Ethiopia, then I want to encourage you to start to support Joshua campaign on my webpage. I’m going to post a link to where you can get in touch with pair office and with Joshua campaign Ethiopia, and you can help to support the ministry. We need help by buying motorcycles for church planters. We need somebody to give us a car yeah. To help with the church planters. Yeah. We need help to build dormitories for the Bible school and for the, the church planting Institute that is being planted. And, and so if, if you feel like God is speaking to you and you want to help to reach people who need Jesus in the most remote areas, the very front lines of gospel evangelism that I encourage you to support Joshua campaign and be a part of this amazing miracle of what God is doing here in Ethiopia, brother, Mohamed. It is so wonderful to hear your story. You have such a beautiful testimony of what God has done and, and you are now very well educated. You’ve done your, your master’s degree in Christian leadership, and now you’re working on your, your PhD. And so God is using you in such tremendous ways. And, and God has more for you. I believe that you will see many churches planted and you will see a great harvest of souls here in Ethiopia in Jesus name. Thank you. Thank you for being on the evangelism podcast.

Mohammed Seid Ali (20:40):
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much that inviting me in this Evangeline Broca B thank you that also to support and stand with, with us, with this ministry, as you say that we need car, we need also you now to reach the Muslims like 500, 600 kilometer from Ababa. So we need Madras. We need a lot of dormitory, a lot of things, you know, to go to reach those area. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:13):
Thanks so much for listening to the evangelism podcast. I am excited about telling people about Jesus and we could not preach the gospel without your help. Over our years of ministry, we found that we’re able to reach one person for Jesus, for every dollar that people give us. And so that means that if you would give us $1, we could start a party in heaven. In fact, I’m asking people to join our partnership program and give at least $1 every single month to help us to lead more people to Jesus. This is the greatest investment of your dollar that you can make. It’s the only investment that’s gonna matter 10,000 years from now. So if you would like to help us lead people to Jesus, please visit king ministries.com K I N G king ministries.com and help us lead people to Jesus today. God bless you

Evangelism Podcast Host (22:14):
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.

Come back for more episodes of The Evangelism Podcast with Evangelist Daniel King.