1 877-431-4276Yuriy Boyechko | Hope for Ukraine in a Time of War
Ukraine used to be known as the “breadbasket” of Europe but now, because of the war, many people in Ukraine are going hungry. Who will step into the gap and help feed Ukraine during this time of need? Today, Daniel King interviews Yuriy Boyechko. His organization “Hope for Ukraine” is providing humanitarian aid and spiritual support to the people of Ukraine in the midst of the ongoing war.
Key points:
- Boyechko’s organization distributes 1,500 food kits to families in frontline towns in Ukraine each week, as the country has gone from being the “breadbasket of Europe” to facing severe poverty and famine.
- The organization also runs an internally displaced persons center that provides shelter, meals, and opportunities for spiritual growth, with over 3,000 individuals visiting the center and many coming to faith in Christ.
- Boyechko’s own background as the son of a Pentecostal pastor in Ukraine has shaped his commitment to sharing the gospel while providing practical aid.
- As the war continues, Boyechko sees the long-term need to provide counseling, job training, and other support to help rebuild lives and find spiritual healing in Ukraine.
Learn more about Hope for Ukraine: https://hfu.org/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:19):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus Today. I have a very special guest with me. Yuri, thank you for joining me on the Evangelism Podcast.
Yuriy Boyechko | Hope for Ukraine (00:32):
Thanks for having me. Thank you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:34):
You are working in Ukraine. Ukraine has been in the news a lot lately because of the war. Tell me, what is the situation on the ground in Ukraine and what are you doing to help?
Yuriy Boyechko | Hope for Ukraine (00:47):
Yeah, so I’m founder and CEO of for Ukraine. So we’ve been, it’s a humanitarian aid organization that we’ve been working on the ground in Ukraine since 2016, way before the full scale war and after full scale war that took place in February, 2022. Our main ministry in Ukraine has been distributing food kits to family needs. So on average right now we provide 1500 foot kids to families living in frontline towns where the full scale war is taking place. So right now, I mean we are two and a half years into the full scale war and what we see on the ground is how they say after afterwards, famine comes in and we see a huge number of people that are falling behind poverty lines because all just the regular citizens, the ones who had some kind of savings, they have exhausted that. And also Ukraine before the war was a bread basket of Europe as far as the grain production and everything that’s been cultivated in there.
(02:19):
But right now because of shellings and bombings, a lot of fertile soil that was cultivated before farmers are not able to use. So basically we see the Ukraine as a country going from being a bread basket of the Europe to become a baggers of Europe. And that’s me as a Ukrainian. I came here when I was 16, so I lived in Ukraine 16 years. My life, it’s set to see how evil forces of devil I can use something like war to just rev whole country and destroy mailings of lives. So I mean the situation is bleak. I mean it’s not here in the US and other parts of the world. It’s not on the frontline line on the news, but because other things have come up, but we work on the ground every day and we see that things are not getting better, they’re getting worse, they’re getting worse for regular citizens and families that we serve.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:33):
And so in this time of desperation, how is your organization able to help the people on the ground in Ukraine? Tell me what’s happening on a day-to-day basis.
Yuriy Boyechko | Hope for Ukraine (03:47):
So just to give you an idea that we feed in 15, a hundred families each week. We give them food kit and a foot kit, and the food kit can feed a family of poor people up to 10 days. So the way the process works, we have our hub that’s located in Louis Ukraine, that’s a western Ukraine close to Polish border. And then we work with about a hundred different partners all across Ukraine. Many of them are faith-based organizations. So every day we have two to three volunteering events that come to our big warehouse in Weave. They load up with the food kits and they bring into hard head zones. So most of our areas that we serve are folks in the Nets region, Herson region, McLay region, Haki region, Summa Region. A lot of these territories, for example in Herson region, they used to be occupied by Russians.
(04:56):
So folks live there, the infrastructure has been completely destroyed. Some of the families, they have not had light or running water there for two years. So basically for them, these food kits that our volunteers bring, it’s basically a lifeline because there is no steady supply. There’s not a supermarket where you can go in and buy stuff. And so that’s what we do every day and that’s our main program. The second one will also provide afterschool program for children of war where we give kids opportunity after school to go to arts and craft classes. So we have tutoring opportunities because we understand that right now in Ukraine, most of the kids are raised by single mothers because most of the male population in the army defending the country, a lot of them have been, just to give you an idea, right now in Ukraine there is a 70,000 ties.
(06:12):
And just to give you a comparison, France, which is twice the size of Ukraine as far as population goes, they have about 20,000 altogether. So you’re looking at a lot of folks, a lot of dads who come back home and they not capable of supporting families no more. So a lot of that falls on mother’s shoulders. So we as the organization trying to support them by giving the kids free access to afterschool program. Also we run internal displaced center in review Ukraine, the same place where we have our warehouse, we have a big living quarters where we take in folks who run from the front line, we place them there and then we try to find them permanent place to stay, whether it’s in Ukraine in the western side of Ukraine, some of them they moved to central Europe and stuff.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:21):
What is happening spiritually in Ukraine, often when there is peace, people become complacent spiritually, but then in times of war and displacement, people start turning to God for help. And so what are some of the spiritual needs and what is your organization doing to help people spiritually?
Yuriy Boyechko | Hope for Ukraine (07:47):
So first of all, just to give you an idea, in our refugee center we have a chapel there. So all the folks who come there and stay there, most of them don’t know Christ, dunno about God. So every Sunday we have church service there where we don’t force anybody to go there, but we encourage them to come. And a lot of people who came through the doors of our center eventually dedicated their life to Jesus. So just to give you an idea, since the start of the full scale war, I think we had over 3000 individuals who came through these doors and some of them, so the way our center works is they don’t have a time limit how long they can stay there. It’s not like we give them two weeks and you got to get out. Some of them been living there for a year, year and a half, and some of them, and that’s what I see the best method to preach gospel is through your lifestyle. Some these folks, they come to the center and everybody, all staff that all who work there, they born and believers, and by the way they’ve been treated by the way we taken care of them. They start asking me, can I find out what’s different about you guys? Let me hear about the good news of Jesus Christ. And that’s a lot of them has been become devoted Christians by watching our team and our staff conduct them themself in a Christ manner.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:31):
Are you actively doing events where you are sharing the gospel with people and helping them to come to faith in Christ?
Yuriy Boyechko | Hope for Ukraine (09:41):
So we do food distribution events and humanitarian distribution events almost weekly, whether it’s for displaced folks or the people in the frontline. So before each event we have someone who shared the word and the pray for them and letting them know that the best hope is found in Jesus because some of them come through, they went through hell and back. And a lot of them they question if God exists, why He has allowed me to go through all this horror that I’m going through. And we use each and every opportunity to let them know that no matter how bad the current situation is that Jesus still got their back, but places like her son, her son is, it’s been liberated but still under constant attacks, right by auxiliary drones and stuff like that on Sundays, churches packed there and after every service there, our volunteers there, they cook fresh meals for them folks who come there. So it’s this time of desperation. I think we see a lot of people open to the gospel more and more. And because we have a lot of opportunities because of these constant eight give giveaway events, there’s events that we serve thousand people at a time. It’s like a small crusade. And so to some of our partners, they put Bible verse on the foot bags that they give away to people. So every chance, all our partners are faith-based, they use every opportunity to tell people about God.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:10):
Tell me a little bit about your story. I saw that you graduated from Regent University and how did you get started doing this type of ministry in Ukraine?
Yuriy Boyechko | Hope for Ukraine (12:23):
Yeah, so my story is I come from a family of Protestant bishop. My father is a Pentecostal bishop in Ukraine. He’s still alive, he lives in iv. When I was four years old, he was actually put to prison by communists for preaching gospel for smuggling the Bible into Ukraine during those days. So there was 1986 and he did two years there for that. So basically as far as serving people, serving God, and that’s always been integrated in our family. Then I came here, I did undergrad in Zion Bible college that’s in Rhode Island. And then I went to do film in region university. So after that I spent some time in the media industry. But my whole life, whatever I did as far as a business or my daily life, I was trying to use my talent and my ability to represent Christ right in every marketplace I was in.
(13:45):
So the way hopefully Ukraine started is that there was annexation of Crimea that took place in 2014. And at that time we already saw first wave of refugees and also on the ground we’ve seen a lot of, there was a lot of kids was treatable medical conditions that because the parents didn’t have money to pay for extra medical treatments, these diseases would progress in their lives. So that’s how we started to try to help these families who were poor, who were kids who were sick. And then little but little, I believe this is all been designed by God from the beginning because I never studied, I never plan on studying nonprofits. And nonprofit is really hard grueling kind of work. It’s not like business where you have a goods and you sell it and then you get money back here it’ss a different story. But God used everything to set the platform when 2022 would come because just to give you an idea, since the full scale war, think right now we have served 97 million meals in Ukraine.
(15:15):
So with that amount and 1500 families a week, and that’s basically 1500 opportunities to tell someone about Jesus each week. So I would never be able to do it through a regular means of evangelism like going on a stadium. So I think it’s this tool and this organization, God used greatly to take so many people out of poverty, give people hope and tell them about Christ. We don’t can keep the records of how many selections or whatever, but I know just if the snapshot from the people who come through our doors in the center, those 3000 something individual, I mean I know about 80% of them have found Christ.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:22):
That’s amazing. It’s horribly tragic what is happening in Ukraine. And eventually I pray the war will come to an end and when that happens, there’s going to be so much ministry that needs to be done in Ukraine for many years to come. I mean the scars from this war are going to be long and deep lasting. What role do you see that your organization will have in helping to heal after the war is over?
Yuriy Boyechko | Hope for Ukraine (17:01):
I mean it’s all of the about, because what we see right now is about 80% of kids have some kind of post-traumatic disorders now developed by war, right? We have a lot of people who struggle with insomnia because of the constant air rates that and anxiety, fear and anger. I mean, you got to understand that the healing process after everything’s said and done is going to be the whole generation because some of the questions that we get a lot, God is so good and why this happening to our country? Why this happen to my family? And that’s something that we will have to work with to try to rebuild these lives, to rebuild them spiritually, emotionally, and also on the regular level as far as getting folks at home job education. Because just to give you an idea that most of the folks, they lived okay life before 2022.
(18:35):
And if all of a sudden you lose everything, you have no home to go to, you have no job, your career, everything. And basically all you have is you have one mattress to sleep on now and two meals a day to eat. And you have no way what you’re going to do with your life. This is basically, I mean, it’s very hard for these individuals to process. So us as a organization, I think we are going to get involved a lot into counseling, rebuilding lives. And I think the most important is for these people to find closure. For them to understand that, okay, no matter what happened, the God still has a plan for me. And the way forward is to finding Jesus anchoring my life into him and then he will be that person next to me who will never leave me or forsake me. So no matter what happened to me. So I think that’s where we will go right now. We still in emergency response and we do what we can because I always tell that I feel like I’m a firefighter. I have to this fire one day we plan on doing Christmas gifts for Christmas season and then we are dealing with energy crisis. So we have to divert into providing January this, right? So that’s where we at right now. But I think long run, it’s going to be rebuilding lives and helping these families to get reestablished again.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:19):
Well, thank you so much for what you’re doing to help the people of Ukraine during this very crucial time. God has prepared you for such a time as this. If someone is listening and they have a heart to help Ukraine, maybe they want to help to feed people, what is the website or a way that they can get in touch with you, find out more about your organization?
Yuriy Boyechko | Hope for Ukraine (20:47):
Yeah, they can go to our website, hvu.org and they can find more there. They can contribute over our feeding program. They can learn more how they can help in Ukraine. So it’s hf.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:05):
And that stands for hope for Ukraine, HFU,
Yuriy Boyechko | Hope for Ukraine (21:08):
Correct? Yeah. Hope for Ukraine. Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:11):
Wonderful. Well, let’s finish by praying for Ukraine and would you pray, but instead of praying in English, could you pray in Ukrainian for the people of Ukraine?
Yuriy Boyechko | Hope for Ukraine (21:27):
Sure.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:01):
Amen. Well, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism podcast.
Yuriy Boyechko | Hope for Ukraine (22:06):
Thank you Daniel.
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Niclas Wiktorell | What is God Doing in Sweden?
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell from the Pentecostal Church in Lidköping, Sweden, joins the Evangelism Podcast to discuss the spiritual climate in Sweden. Pastor Niclas shares his testimony of how he became a believer and felt called to be a pastor. He also talks about a unique outreach his church did last Easter, where they filled a local arena for three days. Pastor Niclas also discusses how his church reaches out to immigrants from countries like Syria, Afghanistan, and Iran, teaching them about Swedish society and culture, and offering a Swedish school for them to learn the language. Pastor Niclas emphasizes the importance of Christians opening their eyes to the harvest fields around them and sharing God’s love with people.
Learn more about Pastor Niclas Wiktorell: pingstlidkoping.se
Transcription:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today I have a very special guest, pastor Niclas Wiktorell from the Nation of Sweden. Thank you for joining me
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (00:12):
Today. Thank you, Daniel. So glad to be here.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:15):
We are in Asia together,
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (00:18):
And
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:18):
We have had a wonderful time this week. God has been moving here, and so
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (00:23):
It’s been
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:23):
So wonderful to get to know you and you pastor a church in the nation of Sweden. Can you tell me first, what is the name of your church and then what part of Sweden are you in?
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (00:35):
Yeah, of course. The name of church is the Pentecostal Church in Lead Tripping. And Lead. Tripping is in the southern part, southwest part of Sweden, close to Goberg.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:46):
Okay. And let’s start with your testimony. How did you become a believer and how did you know that you were called to be a pastor?
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (00:55):
Okay. I think it started all, when my uncle came back from Africa, he was a missionary in Liberia in Africa, and he came back and he told about Jesus and what he did, and that really moved me as a little kid. I was maybe six or seven years old or something like that. And then I believe I saw that, okay, this is what I want to do with my life. But then
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:20):
It took a
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (01:20):
Little while, maybe during the teenager, as a teenager, I forgot about it, but I had my faith and I went to a Bible school. And on that Bible school I decided I wanted to do this, and God spoke to me about it. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:35):
Wow. And how long have you been pastoring?
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (01:38):
I’ve been pastoring for about 20 years. Wow.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:42):
And what is the spiritual climate in Sweden? I know historically there’s a strong church there, but now it seems like Sweden is more of a secular society. What would you say people’s understanding
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (01:59):
Of God is? Yeah, it’s very secular, and I think the minority has the idea that there is no God no at all. Maybe 10% has some sort of notion about God, but very few Christians, maybe two, 3% maybe.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:23):
And so in a secular society where people have a historical understanding sometimes of Christianity, but now believe that there is no God, how do you reach those who are lost?
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (02:37):
Wow. That is a tough question for us to do that. But I still believe that, well, it’s the same thing, even though it’s a secular country, I actually believe that now it’s so secular that when we come with the message of Jesus, it’s like, wow, people haven’t heard it before. So when I grew up, everyone about Jesus, but they rejected it. But now the kids and the young people, it’s like they’re hearing it for the first time. So I think you just have to be bold and you just have to try to reach out and tell the good news.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:16):
And so this year at Easter time, you had a very unique outreach. Tell me what that looked like and what God did.
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (03:24):
Yeah, we did it in a local arena. So we had 1500 to 2000 people in that arena for free days. And it was from the region, our city, it’s a small town. I mean, it’s like 40,000, but we could reach people in that area, in our region. And every night we saw people coming to Christ.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:50):
How did you promote it? How did you invite people to come?
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (03:54):
Mostly through social media, actually. Only through social media. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:58):
Okay. So
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (03:59):
Facebook. And Facebook and mostly Facebook.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:03):
And so you asked your church members to share it and to invite people, and then were you also doing advertising on
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (04:10):
Facebook? Yeah, a little bit of advertising too, but that was what we did.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:17):
And so Easter’s a great time
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (04:19):
To
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:19):
Reach
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (04:19):
Out to people.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:20):
That seems very amazing that for three days you were able to fill the place with
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (04:27):
1500,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:28):
2000. I
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (04:29):
Mean, it was such a huge step of faith for us. It was because we maybe do like this in Sweden two or three times a year, and now we thought we would do it in our little town, and it was a big step of faith, but we did it and with God.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:47):
And what type of program did you do? Was it like a typical church service? Were you doing an Easter drama? What
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (04:53):
We did a number of different things. It was music programs and then also of course preaching. A lot of testimonies, a lot of testimonies about people that have been in different kinds of addicts and so on, and also some drama. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:15):
I’ve read in the news that there are lots of immigrants that have come to Sweden, and it’s a little bit controversial because some people want to be very welcoming. Other people say that is difficult to integrate them into the society, but your church is actually reaching out to immigrants that have come from many different parts of the world, and you’re reaching them with the love of Christ. What does that look like?
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (05:43):
Yeah, we reach people from Syria and from Afghanistan and from Iran. And every week we have this program Thursday nights when we invite them and we teach them about Swedish society, our culture and so forth. And also, we have a Swedish school for them, so they learn to speak Swedish.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:09):
And many of them coming from these nations are probably Muslim. The majority, the majority are Muslim. And so I think that’s really wonderful that you’re reaching out to the Muslims. In many times, Christians go on a mission to another nation in order to reach people, but really God is bringing the mission field to you. They’re right on your doorstep now, and I think it’s so wonderful that your church is reaching out to them, loving them, and showing them the love of Christ.
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (06:41):
Yeah, we always say that, but God has brought us the mission feel to us, so it’s much more easier now in that way.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:49):
And how has your church responded to that? Have they been enthusiastic about being a part? I think
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (06:54):
It’s been really, really amazing. A lot of people put in their hearts to this and work with this every week, and you see friendships with the immigrants and so forth. So it’s really, really nice to see what God does in people’s lives.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:11):
I think that’s so wonderful. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, we’ve had many Afghan families that have come there, and my father worked in Afghanistan for 12 years, and so we have been working with a group of the Afghans that have come to our city, and some of them actually had a stopover in Sweden, and so
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (07:31):
They
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:31):
Had some very nice things to say about their time in Sweden, and then they left Sweden and came to America. So we’re happy to have them now,
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (07:39):
But
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:40):
I think this is so important for Christians to open up their eyes. Jesus told the disciples, and John Pour is open your eyes and see the harvest fields. Really, the harvest field is all around us.
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (07:52):
And
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:52):
If we’ll look for opportunities to talk to people about Jesus, to share God’s love with people, then we can see God begin to do miracles in their lives.
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (08:02):
Yeah, that’s amazing.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:03):
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism podcast.
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (08:08):
Thank you, brother.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:09):
Daniel, let me ask you, what is your life message? What is the message that you like sharing with people the most that God has given you?
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (08:21):
Well, I think that God is a good father and he wants to invite you into his family. That is the thing that he’s a good father and he cares for everyone. He loves everyone, and he wants to take care of every person, and he sees everyone individually. Yeah,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:39):
That’s beautiful. Thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Pastor Niclas Wiktorell (08:43):
Thank you, Daniel.
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Samuel Jonsson | Building the Local Church in Sweden
Pastor Samuel Jonsson pastors a local church in the south of Sweden. On today’s episode of the Evangelism Podcast we talk about what God is doing in Sweden, the spiritual atmosphere in Sweden, and how the Pentecostal church of Sweden is reaching out to their communities with the love of Christ.
Learn more about Pastor Samuel Jonsson: www.hovslattpingst.se
Summary:
In this podcast episode, Evangelism Coach Daniel King interviews Pastor Samuel Jonsson from Sweden. Pastor Jonsson discusses the challenges of spreading the gospel in Sweden, a secular and individualistic country. However, he remains hopeful, noting that God is raising up young leaders and churches are starting to reach out and grow. Pastor Jonsson shares his church’s efforts to reach a specific area with a high concentration of broken homes and single parents. They have started a Sunday school and a children’s choir, which has attracted children from non-Christian homes. He also emphasizes the importance of pastors going on mission trips to expand their worldview and gain new perspectives. The episode concludes with a testimony of an 80-year-old man from Pastor Jonsson’s church who returned to a country he had previously worked in and witnessed the growth of the church.
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today I have a very special guest with me, pastor Samuel Jonsson from the nation of Sweden. Thank you for joining me today.
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (00:14):
Thank you so much for joining this podcast. It’s wonderful.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:17):
And so you are pastoring in the nation of Sweden. You have a Pentecostal church. Tell me what is God doing in Sweden right now?
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (00:32):
I think God is doing a lot of things in Sweden. It’s quite, Sweden is quite a tough country in some ways, very individualistic, very secular in some ways. So it’s a quite hard time getting through everything else with the gospel, the message. But I think God is racing up young leaders and I think God is racing up leaders who wants to search the gifts of the Holy Spirit, get more into what God is doing, what God is saying, what God wants to do for the nation of Sweden. So I have hope for the nation of Sweden. I think God will do great things, but maybe we have to go through some tough things also during the way, but we can see some churches starting to reach out more, growing a little bit more. And then some churches of course struggling, especially in the north of Sweden, maybe small churches struggling a lot. And also in the south of Sweden, church is struggling because they’re quite small, some of them. But still I think God is moving in many ways. I can see small, I don’t know how to say it, but small signals of great things to come. I don’t know how to explain it better than that, but a longing for the things of God and a longing for the spirit of God to start to move and talk and speak and direct and heal and so on.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:05):
Now in what part of Sweden is your church located?
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (02:09):
We are located in the south of Sweden, not the furthest down, I dunno how to say
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:15):
It,
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (02:16):
But in the south of Sweden. Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:18):
And I’ve heard that that area is maybe known as the Bible belt of Sweden. You have many believers in that area, but of
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (02:26):
Course there’s, compared to the rest of Sweden, there’s
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:28):
Still many people that need Jesus.
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (02:31):
Yeah,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:31):
Definitely. In the context of your area, what are you doing to reach out to the lost and bring people to Jesus?
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (02:42):
Yeah, if I go to my church, the church where I’m a pastor, we are trying to specifically actually reach out to a specific area where we live. Of course we tried to reach out to all people where we live, but God gave us a heart for a specific, is like a small, I don’t know how to say it in English, but apartment, house area, something like that. Many families live there who have a quite tough situation, single parents and broken homes and so on. And we just received the heart for that area to try to reach out. So the woman who is a child and family pastor in our church, she got the vision together with a couple of other guys to start to have a Sunday school in this area. So on a regular basis they go up there on Sundays first we meet together, all of us in church and we pray together, together with this team and together with the rest of the church, we’ll celebrate.
(03:49):
We have worship in church and then they go up and they have a Sunday school for kids. But the focus is also to reach out to the whole family. So primarily through the kids, but then through the kids to the parents as well. And in this area we also had small, you say small events, gone there, done fun things for the kids, just blessing them, talk to people, get to know people. So we are trying in different ways to reach out to this specific area because we realized that almost none of the churches where we have people coming from this area to their churches. So it’s almost like a small subculture almost in the outskirts of the area. So we are trying to get in there and trying to reach people with the gospel. But then we also actually, I want to tell you about a kid’s choir. That’s also,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:58):
I think this idea is a very unique outreach idea. You were telling me about your children’s pastor and she has started this choir for the children and what is that?
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (05:10):
Yeah, she got the vision for that. Also, I think our kids pastor has some kind of an evangelistic heart and she just got a vision to start kids choir in the area. So first we just had kids from our church maybe in the beginning starting to come and they wanted to sing and learn to sing and so on. But then the kids started to take their friends from school into this choir. So a lot of friends came who came from non-Christian homes into this choir. So I think now they can gather on Tuesday evenings and on Tuesday evenings there can be 70 kids, sometimes 60 to 70 kids and maybe half of it are from non-Christian homes. So then we have added special services Sunday services on a regular basis during the semesters where we try to, we invite everyone, all of these families to come because the kids’ choir will sing and we try to give different kids and the choir specific roles.
(06:24):
So the families really will come because they want to see their kids and then they come and listen to their kids singing. And we just try to incorporate dramas into those services and incorporate a simple gospel message just to present the gospel in Jesus Christ to these families. And we have not yet seen the fruit we are praying for, but we are just trying to continue in that direction because just recently actually we had this kind of a service for, I think it was two weeks ago or three weeks ago. And then a grandma who had followed the family to the church, she told one of our leaders afterwards, I don’t think she was a Christian or had any Christian heritage in that way, but she said that these services means so much to me. It was like something touched her heart, but maybe she could not spell it out what it was. I believe it was the spirit of God of course, but maybe she could not spell it out. So we are trying to reach out also through this choir. And then the church where I’m a pastor is really, I told you in the car, I think it’s a really entrepreneurial church, many entrepreneurial people. So there are more ideas than we can almost do so many ideas, so many visions. But it’s really fun.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:57):
I think that’s really wonderful. I think in the years to come, some of those entrepreneurial ideas will result in grapefruit for the kingdom of
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (08:05):
God. Yeah, I hope. I
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:07):
Sure hope. Let’s talk about your history. How did you become a believer? How did you know that you were called to be a pastor?
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (08:16):
Yeah, I grew up in a Christian home. So I grew up in a Pentecostal church and both of my parents were a part of the church. My father was an elder in the church, but when I was quite young, I think I was nine years old, I remember quite vividly that my sister came home. I don’t know where she had been or maybe she had been to a camp or something. But she came home one day and we sat and we ate dinner. And I remember my sister started to talking about God and saying things about God that touched me in a special way. I had never experienced that because I remember looking into my sister, I was only nine years old, but remember it still, I was looking at my sister and I realized she has something that I don’t have. I had some kind of faith in God.
(09:13):
I remember, I mean we prayed together as a family. We prayed in the evening and so on. We could read the Bible together. And I had a children’s kind of faith maybe, but I saw something in her eyes and I realized she has something. And later on I realized that she had in some way accepted Jesus entire life. And that made me think at an early age think like what is this? And I started to pray. I remember in my own room like Jesus, I also want what she has. But then the specific moment came when I was at a big conference and I remember I had decided in my heart that tonight I want to really spell out a prayer that Jesus, I want you here in my heart. So I said to my mother, we were sitting in the front row seat that the conference, and I remember still that I turned to my mother at the end of the service and I said to her, I want to become a Christian. And then she followed me to what you call it when the
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:20):
Altar, the altar,
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (10:21):
Exactly to the altar. They had an altar called people were coming in front of the preacher or what? It
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:32):
Was for the altar time. Yeah,
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (10:35):
For the altar time, exactly. So I was just following my mother, and then an old man came up to us and he asked, what do you want? And I said, I want to become a Christian. And I remember praying that prayer, not feeling very much. I did not have a specific feeling in my body or anything, but from that moment, I have never looked back. It’s like Jesus has been the biggest part of my life since that moment. And then I got baptized a couple of years later when I was 11 or 12 or something, 11 years old. I think I had to wait a little bit. And then I got baptized. And then when I was in seventh grade, I experienced the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues for the first time at the church service, like a prayer service or something like that in my home church. I was sitting alone and just feeling the spirit, starting to draw me to him and then giving me words, speaking of tongue.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:35):
And then how did you know that you were called to be a pastor? To be in the ministry?
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (11:41):
It’s a quite long process actually. But when I was in seventh, eight, nine grade somewhere, I started to think a lot about what am I going to do with my life? And remember quite early that sometimes when I thought about that, I started to think maybe I should be a preacher or maybe I should do missionary work or maybe I should. I started to have those thoughts in my mind, but I was pushing it away because I thought that pastor is always not for me. It’s like old men in strange clothing and I don’t want to be that. So I pushed it away. But then when I came to, I think in the states, you call it senior high school. In Sweden we call it gymnasium. So when I came to gymnasium when I was like 16, 17, 18 years old, then I started to become really passionate about serving God.
(12:45):
So we started a group in school, me and some friends, we had a group in the school, we were going to a Christian group and we did outreach and gave away books and gave away Bibles and did different events. And the passion to serve God just grew in me during that season. I could not say that I have a calling to become a pastor, but I just knew I want to serve Jesus. Jesus is the best thing I want to serve him. So that grew in my heart really during that period. And then when I came out of high school, I was still quite confused, what am I going to do with my life? But then I had some different events happening that pointed me in this direction. First it was actually, I worked at an industry where my father worked just for a short period of time.
(13:37):
And one day when I was standing there and working, I actually heard a voice. I think this was almost the first time where I can say I heard almost a clear voice. I almost jumped because I heard a voice saying that when you come home from work, your pastor are going to call you and he will offer you a yoga church to be a youth youth leader. And I was like, what is this? I remember going to the toilet and being like, God, was that you? It was so whoop. But then when I came home, I went up to the tv, put on the tv, and then 30 minutes later the phone rang and I just immediately knew my pastor is calling now, my mom picked up the phone and she called me Samuel Michael, our pastor is calling you. And I was like, yep.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
It’s like God calling Samuel in the Bible, Samuel.
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (14:34):
Yeah, it was so specific, I just knew it. Okay, yes, I will take this. I took the phone, hello, Hey, we have been thinking do you want to work as a youth leader here in the church? And I was like, yeah, I’m going to think about it. You had a word from God, you knew he was calling. Let me pray about it a little bit. Yes, let me just pray. But I knew the answer of course. So then I worked at my home church for a short period of time. And then one year later or half year later, I went to Peru actually with a friend. We were on a short mission trip together, me and my friend. And in Peru, I once again heard that clear voice. And that was also very specific. I remember one night when I was laying in my bed, I just suddenly heard a voice say, when you come home, you are going to go to Bible college.
(15:29):
And he also told me what bible college it was. You will know when you get home why you are going to that specific Bible college. And in that bible college you will get what you call it. You will get direction for where and how you will serve me. So then I came to the Bible college. I met my then soon to be wife early on in the Bible college. And we started to date and see that we experienced, we felt that we should be together. And then at that bible college, in the beginning of it, I once again a third time heard the voice talk. And I remember the voice said that in the spring you will get an offer to start to work at the church and I want you to say yes, and then you will continue in that direction. So when the spring came, once again, that situation occurred.
(16:29):
So we got an offer, me and my then soon to be wife. We had an offer from a church in the north part of Sweden, far up north to come and work together with them quite broadly. We worked as some kind of youth workers, youth and kids workers, maybe you could call it, but also very evangelistic and also quite pioneering, but also preaching, teaching and everything. We had to do everything. So it was a great school actually to be there. So we was there for three years and then I felt, okay, this is what God has laid on my heart to work, to be in church, to be in ministry, continue as a pastor in different capacities. So then I went to study theology. So then we went to Stockholm in Sweden, the capital, I studied theology and leadership, and my wife studied to be an OB optician.
(17:25):
I think you can say. She had had that on her heart for a very long time to become that. So we was in Stockholm studying. And then I actually once again heard that voice. I’ve been hearing, of course God speaks all the time, but sometimes you can hear it more specifically, I believe. So I heard the voice when I was studying, say that the church where you are practicing now, they will ask you to become their senior pastor. And also once again, I want you to say yes. And I was like, I can’t be a senior pastor. Of course I can be on staff, I can be in a team, but can I lead the church? I had, it felt too big almost for me. I was only like 27 years old at that time or something. So I was like, oh no, that’s too big.
(18:16):
But then it came later on, a year later from that time because their pastor sadly became quite sick. The one I worked together with him in a small, I had a small percentage. I was paid a small percentage. So I worked at the church together with him, and then it became sick. And then they asked me, and then we just felt, yeah, God has prepared this, so let’s stay. So when I had studied, I continued in that church outside of Stockholm, a suburb of Stockholm. That’s like a long trajectory, but small steps where God has led. It
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:53):
Is beautiful to see how God has spoken to you at several key moments in your life and given you direction. Now, right now you and I are together in Asia, and I don’t want to mention exactly the particular country that we’re in, but we are here telling people about Jesus. Now I have a question for you. Do you think that pastors should regularly go on mission trips to different parts of the world? And what benefit would that be to a pastor?
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (19:31):
First, I just want to say definitely I think you should go if you have the possibility. And the church may have the economy to send you away sometimes once in a while, I think you should do it definitely. Because especially when you come from the West, and maybe if you come from Europe who is quite once again quite individualistic, quite secular, it’s a quite tough place sometimes to be spiritually, I think. But then to also come to other places and see other kinds of soils almost,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:08):
They have a different set of problems. Yeah,
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (20:10):
Yeah. Every part of the world have their problems, but sometimes it can be good to change the
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:16):
Problems
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (20:17):
To see something else and see how other kinds of churches are thinking to see how they are working, to see how they are reaching out to the neighborhood. And when you come to places like this, we are now in Asia or I have traveled to Africa several times and you see, you can see, especially maybe when I was in Africa, you can see their hunger for God and their hunger to pray, their hunger to seek things of the kingdom, their hunger to lay hands on the Sikh and pray for them and believe that something actually can happen that stirs something in your heart that you have to take home. I mean, you can’t leave it there. You have to take it home
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:04):
At the very least. It gives you some good stories to tell next time.
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (21:08):
Yeah, exactly. Definitely good stories to tell in your service. But I think, yeah, I always recommend, I had actually, when I was in Stockholm, I was the pastor of a satellite church and I had senior pastor working, leading me of course, and leading all the satellite church pastors. And he once said that you have to travel as a pastor from your country to other countries because you have to expand your world, otherwise you will become very narrow-minded and just thinking that you have all the answers and you know everything. So you have to, on a regular basis, expand your world. And I have carried that thought with me. If I have the chance to go away for a week or some days and you see something else and experience another culture, another church. And then I take it. And then I also love to travel, so it’s nice to travel, but I like that idea to expand the mind and expand the world and not become too narrow.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:20):
Now, there is a really wonderful testimony that has happened this week in this part of Asia. The Swedish Pentecostal church has actually been working for many years, and you brought with you one older gentleman from your church. He’s 80 years old, and he actually was here in this country working back in 1985.
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (22:46):
Yeah, somewhere
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:47):
Early eighties,
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (22:48):
84, 85 until I think 87 or something like that.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:52):
Yeah. And so at that time, the church in this nation was very small, and now it is growing. They have gone from only a handful of locations to now over 450 different congregations with over 50,000 believers just in this one network of churches. And it was so beautiful to see this 80 year old, great man of God, come back and see some of the fruit of what the seeds that were planted so many years ago.
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (23:32):
It was so beautiful. And he both were a part of the leadership seminar we had. And I mean, his English is not so well right now, but still sitting there and listening to him teach. And you think about how he planted that seed for like 35 years ago or something like that, more than 35 years ago, and he now gets to sit in front of young leaders in the north part of this country and teach them the word of God. I think it was so, it touched my heart, but then also to see him lead in the prayer of salvation yesterday at the campaign, it also touched me so much because you can see the faithfulness of God and you can see how he has walked with Jesus all his life, and he still has a passion for the kingdom of God. I mean, he’s seen a lot. He both have seen the good things and the ugly things in church and in the Christian life, and he’s seen everything of that. But still, he has a passion, a soft heart. A soft heart for God, and a soft heart for
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:43):
People. Now tell me his name. How do you pronounce it?
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (24:49):
Sorry, not the common name in the States.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:52):
Yeah. Well, it was so beautiful to see, and it really encourages me because it means that the seeds that we plant today, imagine what God will do 30, 40 years from now. Can you imagine being 80 years old and coming back to some of the places where you have sowing seed
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (25:11):
And
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:11):
Seeing a great harvest?
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (25:12):
Yeah. That’s a dream. That would be a dream.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:16):
Amen.
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (25:17):
Could be in that place.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:18):
Amen. Well, brother Samuel, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast. I appreciate it.
Pastor Samuel Jonsson (25:23):
Thank you. Thank you, Daniel. Good to meet you.
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Lucian Mustata | Heartbeats Music Festival in Romania
Lucian Mustata leads the Heartbeats Music Festival in Romania. He has a heart to spark a revival that will spread across Europe. He was born an orphan but with God’s help he became a successful business owner. Now he has decided to use his success to fuel a movement to reach people for Jesus.
Learn more about the Heartbeats Music Festival: https://heartbeats.events/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today. I have a very special guest with me, Lucian Mustata. Yes. Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast.
Lucian Mustata (00:15):
Thank you for invite me and I want to send you regards and God bless you. And it’s nice to me also to be here. Thank you for invitation. It’s a very big honor to be with you, Daniel. I, I am like your, my friendship with you and a big honor for me.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:33):
I am so impressed with what you do. You started several years ago, Heartbeats Music Festival in the nation of Romania, and it has now grown, grown to be the largest Christian music festival in all of Eastern Europe. And so it is really impressive what God is doing through you. Tell me what gave you the idea that you wanted to start The Heartbeats Music Festival.
Lucian Mustata (01:06):
Heartbeats Festival starts six years ago. Because of my background of in it field, I was traveling a lot in Europe and serving in a church and how God work in my life. I have a lot of I all, what I have is from God and I ask God what I can do more for to serving the kingdom. And that come in my heart for this young generation who’s coming to, at East and I mean so often in Europe traveling, many young people who’s coming at East agnostic, I’m so shocked.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:49):
And agnostics,
Lucian Mustata (01:50):
Atheist. Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:51):
Yes. Secularism is very strong in your part of Europe.
Lucian Mustata (01:56):
And I was afraid we become minority and I’m making an image in exercise how will be Christian in 10 years where I will be. And they have a bad image about Christian. We are too traditional. We are too conservatory. We are too a block in something. Now that is not true. I want to show them we can be a real cult Christian, we can join Jesus. And I ask God what I can do for this generation, how I, we can speak, and then contemporary languages because generation A non-conservative, non, they, they don’t like traditional stuff. They don’t like, they don’t. Got it. Some of them don’t, haven’t trust anymore. In church, we don’t, I don’t speak specifically for ev Evangelic side Catholic Orthodox. It’s a, a generation who wants a real authentic relation with God. They want a real argue. They don’t like what’s his parents. They, they want to experiment is by serve the relation with God directly.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:08):
Yeah, I I agree. Absolutely. Our generation is looking for an authentic encounter with God. Yes. The traditions of the past don’t impress them anymore. No. But if they can really meet God for themselves, then they can have a good relationship with
Lucian Mustata (03:25):
Jesus. Yeah. And that is coming the idea because it’s a big demands in Europe, people spend bunch of money from festival, from entertainment in the secular side and in Romania, each festival die, four young people because of drugs.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:46):
Wow.
Lucian Mustata (03:48):
And I says, I, I should do something people had demand, they would love to do, to enjoy. And this is a real need. Why we not to have a festival that can, people can feel encouraged, we can together and gathering in Jesus and feeling they can see a big community, nice community, nice music workshops speaker, why not do that? All the domination congregation that’s coming in, my dear God provide me this vision in one of my dreams. And after that, he give me the name and God guide me by day by day open doors, I will show how God help me to that. And now we are in the third edition.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:35):
Wow. I’m so impressed with you. You were a successful business owner. You run an IT company, you do branding, you help develop websites, lots of great business opportunities in your life. And you’re very successful at that. You have 20 employees who, who work with you, but you saw the condition of the young people and you said something needs to be done to reach them for Jesus. And so you started the Heartbeats Festival and you festival is not a small festival. You’ve actually had some of the largest names in Christianity come as, as guests to, to speak and to sing at the festival. So I watched your video. You had John Maxwell, great leadership expert. You had Nick Hall. I also saw that you had Lecrae this year as one of the singers. Who are some of the other musicians that have come?
Lucian Mustata (05:32):
Jeremy Camp? We are messenger unspoken who should come for King and Country. We already was confirmed, but was postponed because of c
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:45):
So you had Evan Craft who I’ve worked with before.
Lucian Mustata (05:48):
Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s unbelievable how people respond. It’s not easy to, to ask people to come in the other side of the world, many people in all the countries as well. Is Romania on the map of the world? I’m afraid to come and it’s not easy. But with God, they’ll great relation and step by step, God will will help me to,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:12):
Let’s talk about some, about how heartbeats music festival has impacted lives in Romania. What testimonies have you seen come out of this event?
Lucian Mustata (06:25):
The first edition we saw over than 800,000, 800 people who decided to follow Jesus. Wow. We have in I think
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:37):
For Rome, for Europe. That that is an amazing number. Yes. Like here in Africa, we’re, we’re in Kenya, Africa right now, you know, we see 800 every day. But, but for Europe to see 800 young people make a commitment to follow Jesus, that is a miracle for the continent of Europe.
Lucian Mustata (06:55):
But also it’s a benefit for the awareness society. Yeah. I heard a benefit after six months or one years after the festival, one church told me, ah, we had 200 people more. Our church was grow because of the festival. And we had other church told me we had 10 people who back in church and there was not anymore coming in our church over than 10 years. And we, what is our how God work, I’m shock and I’m accomplish side of his love. And the secular side start to promote us, the, the one of the most influence of Romania, the Catholic church, the radio in the secular side. I don’t, I don’t understand what happened. I just happened. It is not my credits. It’s just God credit.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:46):
So even the secular radio stations were Yes. Were advertising Yeah. The
Lucian Mustata (07:50):
Event by free.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:52):
Wow. That now that’s a miracle, you know?
Lucian Mustata (07:54):
Yeah. They are four, 4 million people each day. Wow. And this is unbelievable. I think people need Jesus. And they, once our peace inner and anytime all what you try in this world, money, drugs, sex, never be happy. The only one who can really, and you can find your peace. And this is the creation. And I think people, it’s a, it’s starting to be become a revival Europe. And we are one of the most evangelic country in the Europe.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:29):
The, the country of Romania is one of the largest Yes. Evangelical Yes. Populations by percentage.
Lucian Mustata (08:34):
Yes. And I, I’ve, I have a vision and God told me will be a big revive to, for Europe, through Romania, we start a fire fate from, from Romania, from all the Europe.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:48):
So you wanted to start a fire in Romania and spread that revival across all of Europe.
Lucian Mustata (08:52):
Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:53):
That’s amen. Lord, make it be
Lucian Mustata (08:55):
So. Amen. Let’s
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:57):
Talk about your testimony, because when you were growing up, you didn’t have the most ideal circumstances. Tell me about what your life was like when you were a kid and, and you were a actually an orphan.
Lucian Mustata (09:12):
That is true. And I love to share my story because it’s a, it’s a real wonder for my life. And God makes so many he love me and he’ll help me to be where I am. I was growing originally from where I was in the beginning. The, the family leave me alone in the, from beginning when I was born in hospital, they abandoned me. And orphan from the government took me. And there was growing there until 18 18 years old was very tough life. I was not love. I was not, never say mother, father was a, in a, an environment, very violent. And the results, when you have take care of 50 people, you are object. There, you, you’re not a soul. And was, I was trying to work with myself to educate myself from people who I meet. Was
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:22):
You had no father, no mother, no one who loved you?
Lucian Mustata (10:25):
No. And nobody tell who what, what you do. How are you? And I’m trying to find my, my family. My father die and then result results of rape, repent. I’m results of the
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:39):
You, your birth was the result of your father raping your mother. Yes.
Lucian Mustata (10:44):
But is my real father is not in my identity card.
(10:50):
And I still have a, a problem with ab feeling with abandoned and trauma of this when people my friends, it’s not still stuck with me. For me, it’s more hard because it’s activated trigger of abandon from my heart for my life. Mm-Hmm. yes. And when I stay alone on Christmas without family, I have period without to have to eat. Because sometime people steal from me, them food or money. Mm-Hmm. I need to work from when I had eight 14 years old. I need to survive was very tough. But I was an I down and I wake up every time people call me like a fighter. And God, I’m trying to chasing why I live in this heart, this live this, this life, this life. Why God give me this life. I was fairly very, I feel very discouraged, very disappointed. And why I live, I, it made no sense to live this, this life to be alone, to see people who, in my school, I was very stigmatization how I, I dunno how it call in English.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:12):
Stigmatized,
Lucian Mustata (12:13):
Stigmatized people from school even I was very good in in school. They, because I was growing and that’s there, they don’t give me good Mark Transp. And also the, with a vulnerably group, who is that? People told me every time, you are stupid, you are stupid. And can sometimes can make in know heart. I’m real stupid. It was very, very hard. But when I, when I had 18 years old, because I stay alone on Christmas, and it’s very hard because I see everybody’s family. I decided to see in a concert every Christmas, a Christmas, a secular Christmas concert. But this, that period, I didn’t have money. And I saw on a, on a paper in a city, on a Christmas free one, and I was, there was in a church events. I didn’t know it was a church.
(13:21):
And after this Christmas events concert, I preachers speak 15 minutes what meaning of Christmas that make me to, to say, wow, I didn’t know this is means Christmas from my side, my word. It was just Christmas party gift, commercial. And that time make me to, put me to ask who you are, what you do here. And I’m starting my working with God to learning. I’m going this church every Sunday. And I, I, I was very hangry to read to, to see the lesson from Bible because it’s very authentic, even in our day. And the God changed my heart, my mind, and I find a real peace for my heart. And that way I understand my father is directly God and Jesus I find to be, I, I feel I’m love and God has a real plan with my life.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:26):
And he will never abandon you. Yes. How old were you when you heard that Christmas message that made you to start thinking about God?
Lucian Mustata (14:34):
18 years old.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:35):
Wow. Yes. And so you started your pathway towards God, and God began to bless you.
Lucian Mustata (14:43):
Yes. In that moment, I find how I need to live in this world. I find Christian is a lifestyle and I understand how can, can to be in the coordinator of God and God teach me how I can be blessed if I respect the rules and the Bible to live like that, Jesus to be on me, to live with Jesus and God because it’s directly Father, he provide me all that I need every time. I just have faith. And he helped me to finish college cybernetic to finish, to master degree sign political and project management. And I didn’t have money to pay for college and guide God helped me was 20,000 people for this test to enter in a college. I didn’t have money to pay to apply for this college. But because I was orphan, I was by law of allowed to have a free test. But the people from, there was nobody history to come in our college orphan to
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:57):
Receive. They never had an orphan take advantage. Yeah, yeah. Of the opportunity before
Lucian Mustata (16:00):
Our, by our rules in college, this not meant adaptable for that. They were shocked. They received kind of this request, but they make it to have this test and was just 20, was 20,000 people applying just for 600 places in this college. And 300 was scholarship and 300 after we, we need to pay 2003 years Euro. And I was crying when I saw I was 312. I was shocked. I don’t know how the lady from commission make it to have this test, but God help me to, to have a pleasure. But after two weeks, I should pay all the amount for the years.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:53):
And, and you didn’t have the money. No. You were an orphan. You were hoping to get the scholarship. You got into school out of 20,000, you’re one of the 600, but you just fell short of getting the scholarship for the 300. This is
Lucian Mustata (17:07):
So what happened? This was my chance for my future. I, I know it. If I will not, I will, I will show all the people who stole me. I’m a stupid, I can make it and God help me to do that. And I, I need to pay to every day to cook, for me to clean, for me to work every day. And study was so hard to, I didn’t, was too over my power. And I was growing and I was to church. I am praying and I ask, God, please help me. I I have trust in you. I do my, my part. Please God, do your part. And the last day I receive a call. I, I loaned someone, but not enough. I was so scary. I will lose my places, my chance for the future. And then the lady who received me from the commission to, when I applied for, to enter the, the test, she called me and, Hey, you are Lucian. Yes. do you want money from me? From the test applying? Says, no, no, no. Don’t worry about this. This guy was scared. She wants more money from the applying. She says, have a big problem. Then you’re thinking, oh, what happened? She says, Lucian, over the three, three nights, God wake me up three o’clock in the morning, I’m crying. And God told me to pay all the school.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:32):
Wow.
Lucian Mustata (18:33):
And I was over crying. And I don’t understand how God’s working this unbelievable. She meet me just two minutes in all my entire life.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:45):
And God spoke to her. Yes. To pay for your schooling. Yes. What a miracle.
Lucian Mustata (18:49):
Many kind of, this was in my heart, in my life. I can all what I have is because of God. And for that reason, I decided to all what I say with my company to invest in, in a ministry for the next generation from the kingdom. I can be selfish. I can buy parchments, rent people, and I can enjoy my life to be selfish. Like what? Dominican many business people. But no, I decided it’s not, it is not correct. All I have is because of God and I need to, because when God give more people, he’ll request to much overlap for people. And then I, I feel honored to serving the kingdom and God will provide. It was very hard to do this, a big sacrifice to do this festival, the budget. It’s insane. It’s very hard in, even in Europe, it’s more expensive in other country. And this is a tough country that we are in a Baptist of 60, the traditional church. Some people, some of church believe we are too earth.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:50):
And so the, the church in Romania very traditional. Yes. And they don’t necessarily know what to think about having lights and smoke and, and loud music.
Lucian Mustata (20:01):
Yeah. Our heart is to go to the secular side and God was stay on the, on to, to eat with the people out of the church. And our heart is to, to become our dream, dream of God, to save the lost people. And we need to be with them and to encourage them. It’s a fighting of generation now. We need not need to stay in our bubble to make a our world is perfect because in our round in church is perfect. That is not true. The the realities, the young generation, they don’t anymore believe in God. And we need to make something. If fer not do something will be very hard for us. And we have a real, we have a real Jesus. We need to make it something for that.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:51):
Amen. Well, it requires a lot of money and resources in order to pull off a music festival at this level of quality and professionalism and bringing in such amazing guests from all over the world. If someone wants to help you out with reaching Romania for Jesus and really having an impact on all of Eastern Europe, how can they get in touch with you? Can they go to your, your website? It’s heartbeats events.
Lucian Mustata (21:22):
Yes, that is true. They can write us there and they can pray for us. We are, we really need help to be uniting in the kingdom resources. We are looking for ministry partners and we are very open to that. This is not my, this is a project of God and we invite people to celebrate with us what God do in Europe. And if you want to be part of this ministry and celebrate with what, what God do in Europe, it’s amazing. We also, we are serving for free Ukrainian people because now they’re in a big news and this is only one God can offer them the peace in heart.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:03):
You have lots of Ukrainians coming across the border. Yeah. Two into Romania.
Lucian Mustata (22:07):
Wow. 2 million people coming in a we need, we want to serving them. We offer free tickets. We’re consulting, healing, and we want to be a really blessed, they need God now. And I we forget to tell you the vision of the HARs is not in in a crochet, just, it’s a big movement than that. The, we are one of the largest Christian festival, but we are part of the movement. We want to reach 1 million, at least in on the next 10 years. Rich people through the believer. We want all the years to promote through the platform, to keep and disciples, believers, how they going and commit to bring unbelievers and to make to expose to the Bible, to the gospel. And our goal and our vision is to reach 1 million, at least in next 10 years in East Europe.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:06):
Amen. Yeah. Well, I believe you can do it. You know, some people have said that Europe is a post-Christian country. It used to be Christian, but now it’s secular. But I like to say Europe is a pre-Christian continent and they are ready and ripe to come to Jesus. The harvest fields are ripe. And God says, just pray for laborers to be sent out into the harvest fields. And I am so thankful that you have stood up to be one of those laborers. And I’m so impressed with what you’re doing in Romania with a heartbeats festival and this movement to reach a million people over the next 10 years. What a tremendous blessing that is.
Lucian Mustata (23:47):
Thank you, brother. And I feel my friendship with you. I’m so glad I meet you in my life and I feel so encouraged about your ministry and yes. Through an orphan, God can do it. People with nobody can grow people. And the grow generation you sees, God, how’s moving? It’s it’s unbelievable.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:09):
I got one more question for you. Will you invite me to come to Romania? Of
Lucian Mustata (24:13):
Course. We’d love to be our, one of the preacher and to be encouraged to for the next generation. Brother, thank you very much.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:22):
Awesome. I’ve been praying for Europe, and so I believe that the time will come where we will see a great harvest together working in Europe. Thank you Lucian, for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
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Reggie van Dinter | Evangelism in the United Kingdom
Reggie and Angela van Dinter are missionary evangelists to the UK and Europe. They love reaching out to the least, the last, and the lost. Listen today as Reggie talks about the challenges and rewards of training evangelists in the United Kingdom.
Connect with Reggie van Dinter: https://arministries.co.uk/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus Today. I have a very special guest with me, Reggie Van Dinter, thank you so much for joining me on the Evangelism Podcast.
Reggie van Dinter (00:12):
It’s such an honor to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:15):
So you are originally from the Netherlands. Yes. But you’re serving God as a missionary to the United Kingdom. You and your wife Angela are living there. And right now we are in Bogota, Columbia for a collaborative crusade event. 12 different cities are having crusades at the same time. And you’re doing one of the cities and I’m doing one in the cities. So what are you excited about today, Reggie?
Reggie van Dinter (00:41):
So actually we’re on Alejandro’s team. So we, we, we join Alejandro to to Santa Mata. So that’s incredible. What I’m excited about today is, my goodness, this is the first time that I’m actually putting food in a presidential house. And actually with all of the evangelists together going and prayer, walking across the presidential buildings is absolutely amazing. I mean, I see that as a absolutely God divine moment, like a divine God incident. You know, sometimes people speak about, oh yeah, that’s a coincidence. No, I don’t believe in coincidence. I believe in God incidences, and this is very much a God incident. You know, God really orchestrated this. I’m just really excited you know, to just pray a walk, you know, those buildings and just proclaiming the, proclaiming the good news of Jesus over the Presidential House. And at the same time, you know, when we go up to the mountain to go and pray over the city with all of us, it’s gonna be incredible. I’m, I’m just so excited. Yesterday I was in a plane. I was so buzzing at the moment that we arrived in Mexico already. I was like, Angela, I’m so excited. We’re, we’re, I’m actually in Latin America now because Mexico is Latin America as well. And yeah, I’m, I’m just, yeah, I’m just so expecting, you know, so many things that I can share, but then we sit here for a whole day.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:05):
So tell me about your ministry and what you feel called by God to do
Reggie van Dinter (02:10):
So. Our ministry has pretty much various vision. So our heart is evangelism, missions discipleship, unity social action. My wife is, my wife is a real a real activist. She loves to just invest, investing people like one on one you know, feeding the poor, looking after children orphanages and, and yeah. So, so we’ve kind of incorporated that, that in our ministry to kind of like set up kind of like a mercy ministry as part of, you know, preaching the gospel because yeah, that’s, that’s very much what’s part of, of, of what we do. So and also co consultancy, because we both have been in ministry altogether about 30 plus years, me like 10 plus years in evangelistic being involved. I’ve been a youth pastor in an ALG church, so I, I worked as a youth pastor as well full-time.
(03:06):
So we, we’ve combined our experience in ministry and God really gave us a ministry to, to basically help churches to look more outward focused. And and, and I think one of the things that’s very key in our you know, in our ministry is to be kind of like revivalist, I would say, you know, our heart is to revitalize churches that are on the brink of dying. That that may be on the brink of like, kind of like say, well, we don’t know what to do anymore. How do we reach our local community? That’s where we come in. That’s where we like, Hey, come on. You know, we want to come alongside you and we want to strategize and plan a, you know, vision cast of how we can reach a local community for Jesus. So we’ve recently done a mission in Birmingham in the uk.
(03:52):
We’ve come alongside. Yeah, tell me about that. What, what did God do in Birmingham? So so we went in Birmingham. We, we, so at one point we had a friend telling us, why don’t you send emails to churches and introduce your ministry and introduce what you do so that people get to know what you do and stuff. So we, I, so basically I went through all of the, a OG churches in the uk, sent a whole list. <Laugh> sent a, sent, sent an email introducing a ministry to like more than 500 churches in the ALG network in the uk. And and just see what happens. This particular church reached out, was an ALG church in Birmingham, west Bromwich actually, which is an area. And they said, well, we’re, we’re organizing a eastern mission the fifth till the 9th of April. Do you think you will be able to, to do this?
(04:35):
Would you be able to come alongside us and, and, and do a mission with us? So me and my wife talked about it. We did, and we yeah, we, we, we organized this mission with the church. We’ve got a team of people together precious friends of ours, or in each individually run their own ministry, their evangelistic ministry. We’ve got friends who are like like spiritual father and mother sort. They’re very much on identity. So we did a school of evangelism for three days with this church from like the fifth till the seventh April. We trained and equipped them in, in all areas of evangelism. We train and equip them about identity, you know, knowing who we are in Christ, that we have a, you know, an inheritance as sons and daughters. Cuz I, I’m really convinced that it’s so important when we do evangelism schools, that we teach on everything, like all the basics of Christian life, what it means to be a son and a daughter, and to walk in the authority and the power that God has given us.
(05:29):
You know, to, to raise the dad, to heal the sick, to cast out demons. And because in the western world, there’s quite a lot of people that, that find it difficult to like find, okay, well am I called to evangelize? You know, not, yes, you have evangelists that are there to equip the saints, but everybody is called to witness. Everybody is called to share Jesus on a daily basis for people. So this is what we taught in this school. We went out on the street every day. We had some stepping out for the very first time, sharing the gospel with a total stranger.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:02):
And how did people respond on the streets of Birmingham
Reggie van Dinter (06:06):
Very
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:06):
Openly? Did you get cussed at, did you get argued with or were people receptive?
Reggie van Dinter (06:11):
So we have people recept, so West Bromage, the town centers very multicultural. So there’s Hindus, there’s Muslims, there’s Buddhist, there’s atheist. There was even there was even one of the pastor and one of our team members had a chat with a guy who said he was an atheist, but also like followed all sorts of like satanic rituals and all this sort of stuff. And so yeah, a one’s belief, but I don’t anymore. So I think what, what we’ve seen on the streets is people receptive, people not receptive. We’ve seen people literally cursing at us like, what are you doing here? Just get the, be out. You know, when you, you don’t belong here and why don’t you come here preaching the gospel to us, you know, you’re preaching a dead God. No, we’re preaching a God. There’s a life because he does miracles. We’ve seen healings on the streets. We’ve seen people get healed from, from back pains, you know, neck pains, all of that on the street. It was absolutely incredible.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:07):
Wow. What a tremendous testimony to know that God is working not only here in Latin America, but also in Great Britain. Exactly. And in Europe, I I think it’s time for a great awakening come on in Europe and for God to pour out his Holy Spirit Yeah. Upon that continent. Definitely. just in month we’re going to be in Amsterdam and there’s going to be evangelists coming together from all over Europe and, and really all over the world for Amsterdam 2023. Yeah. And I believe that we’re going to, to see a, a spark that’s going to ignite a great revival across Europe. Yeah. And some people say that Europe is post-Christian, but I like to say it is pre-Christian. We’re ready to, it’s ready to see a great move of God in Europe. Yeah. And so tell me some about your, your business. I, I read on your website that you do social media, that you have expertise in the area of digital marketing and that type of thing. How do you integrate that into the ministry that God has called you to?
Reggie van Dinter (08:12):
So well the, the way how I, I integrated in the ministry that God has calling to, because, you know, because I’m an evangelist, I use social media at the shadow gospel. So my Facebook would be full of like, scriptures would be full of like live Facebook stuff over covid. My wife and I started doing worship and intercession evening. So we literally went online on our, on our Facebook page and just worshiped Jesus and give the opportunity for people to message in, to receive prayer. So we’ve did that for like two years in a row during the, the two years of Covid when we were in lockdown. And we’ve seen, we’ve, we’ve heard of testimonies of people getting healed and delivered during, during these worship and intercession stuff. And also we run online evangelism mission school. So we did that via Zoom. So it was absolutely incredible. We graduated 27 students, of which two of them went on to go to the Cfam Bootcamp. So who
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:08):
Was that that went to the bootcamp?
Reggie van Dinter (09:11):
Well, so so there’s a lady called Virginia. Okay. Another lady called Dubbo. Okay. they went to the boot camp, they did our online evangelism school. And they,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:22):
That’s wonderful. I, I get to teach at the Christ for All Nations Evangelism Bootcamp every year and it keeps pushing out evangelists that are on fire and excited about taking Jesus to the world. And so I, I see that across the body of Christ, there are a whole new generation of evangelists which are being raised up. Yeah. That God is calling the church to evangelism. And I think that over the next decade, the goal of the church should be to reach every single person on earth with the gospel. That our generation could be the generation that fulfills the great Commission. And in order to do that, we need more evangelists in the body of Christ. And so, no, definitely. Thank you so much for helping to train and, and raise up evangelists. What are some of those key messages that you are trying to impart to those that you’re, you’re training to be evangelists?
Reggie van Dinter (10:19):
So one of the key messages is that, you know, it’s about knowing who we are in Christ and knowing that we are sons and daughters. And also one of the other key messages would be is, you know, it’s really important that we work on our character. Cuz you know, you can go out on the streets evangelize and stuff like that and, you know, be full on preaching the gospel and, but actually lacking a lot of character and Sally enough, there are people out there in the world that, that, that are great evangelists and very much the younger ones as well. But some, some of the times in some, some areas of their lives, they just lack kind of like mentorship and lack. We need more mentors. We need, we need more fathers and we need more mothers. So I think also one of the most important things that I would say is it’s important to be part of a local church.
(11:23):
You know, we can’t have lone Rangers running around and, and, and, and, and, and not having a base where they belong to. So I think one of the key messages as well is find a place where you belong, where you have people that care about you, that love you, that know what it is about, you know, that have gone through the, you know, through the misery, have gone through the, the tribulations of, you know, being in ministry and and also give it time cuz you know, sometimes God takes a bit of time for you to get ready to eventually be launched into, you know, into a full-time evangelistic ministry. Like, for example, me, I’m still working full-time. I’m not saying I’m there. I’m still learning. I have mentors, I have I, I’ve kind of like spiritual fathers a spiritual father, so my pastor is kind of like spiritual father to me.
(12:19):
Who, who really just gets what he’s a pastor, but he is evangelistic at heart. So he gets the, the, the, the drive to see people saved. And he, he, he very much invests in, in my life. We have, our ministry is part of an apostolic ministry called Freedom Fire Ministries. So the guys who are part of I told you earlier Andy Chairman Goland they run a ministry, they’re part of the apostolic network of global awakening, so they’re ordained on the Ren Clark. So they’ve been kind of like mans to us. They’ve been pass, sort of pastoring us on a, on a, on a regular basis. And they’re coming up to our first vision and implementation brunch that we’re having in July where we’re gonna introduce people to our ministry share you know, what we’ve been doing here over the last few years and all the plants and stuff. We’re not there yet. You know, we’re growing, you know, our ministry is growing. We’ve, we’ve only just come around the corner basically. But what I’ve learned from the years of ministry that I’ve already done is it’s so important to have spiritual fathers and mothers standing around all these young evangelists and raising them up, you know, mothering and fathering them to maturity.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:34):
Amen. Yeah. Well, I think it’s wonderful what you’re, you’re doing to raise up evangelist and God has put it in your heart to be an evangelist and to raise up evangelists. And so I encourage you in that if someone wants to learn more about your ministry or be a part of what God is doing through your ministry, what is your website? What’s a good way for them to get in touch with you?
Reggie van Dinter (13:57):
So a good way to get in touch. So our website is ww dot www dot a r m sorry, ar ministries.co uk. So that’s our ministry website. Obviously you can find us on Facebook, arm International can find us obviously our personal Facebook den or Angela Vanden. And yeah, I mean we’re, we’re open to, to work with anyone that, that is hungry for Jesus and that wants to impact our communities. For us, it’s not just about the one-to-one evangelism for us, it’s about the long-term and the longevity of the impact in communities. So we, we would love to do like festivals like similar to Louis Palau. So we’re doing one in August in in Our Town. So we’re looking at that doing like a mini festival where we do like a week of evangelism
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:46):
In in the
Reggie van Dinter (14:47):
Uk Yeah, in the UK in Rochdale where we live. So Rochdale is sadly known, has been in the news a lot for like grooming, like, and stuff like that. So Asian people that will, Asian men that will groom young girls and all this sort of stuff. It’s been massively nationwide in the news. The town is known as the most deprived town in all of the uk so it’s in the top list of, of deprived towns. So God placed us there and to, to make an, you know, to bring an impact in the community and to, so, so, so we basically are actually, after we leave here for Columbia there’s a chance that we have a new house literally in the middle of, of the roughest estate of, of, of the town. Because, you know, we want to reach people and to reach, in order to reach people. We have decided that we want to live in an estate, in a rough estate to actually build relationship with the people in the estate to build long lasting relationships, get them saved, get them discipled and plant a church.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:44):
That’s awesome. Well, I believe it will be a great success and I think it’s wonderful that you’re reaching out to the uk. Yeah. May God give you a great harvest of soul in Jesus’ name.
Reggie van Dinter (15:56):
Thank you so
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:56):
Much. Well, brother Reggie, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism podcast. Yeah. It’s
Reggie van Dinter (16:00):
Been so lovely. Thank you.
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Shawn Brann | Ignite Europe & Flower Evangelism
Shawn Brann assisted the sports chaplain for the Dallas Cowboys and was the Dean of Students at The King’s University. But he left it all in order to become a missionary in Zürich, Switzerland. He started Ignite Europe. Today we talk about what God is doing in Europe and you will hear about an innovative evangelism method using flowers.
Learn More About Ignite Europe: https://igniteeurope.com/
Buy Shawn Brann’s book Go & Tell:
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, Sean Bran, and he is the author of Go And Tell. It’s a book about evangelism, and he is a missionary in Zurich, Switzerland. Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast,
Shawn Brann (00:20):
My honor to be here. I’m so glad to be part of this podcast.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:24):
So let’s just start out at the beginning of how you ended up in Zurich. Yes. Talk to me about how God got you There.
Shawn Brann (00:32):
Absolutely. So before I moved to Zurich six years ago, I was working at the Kings University at Gateway Church as a dean, the dean of students. And my wife kept telling me over and over that God was calling us to Europe to evangelize. And over and over I kept telling my wife, No way. I didn’t, I didn’t really fill the call to Europe. It wasn’t on my heart. It wasn’t burning on my heart to move to Europe. But over time, the Lord started making it very, very, very clear that this was what he wanted us to do. And so six years ago my wife and I took the step of faith. We gave away our cars, sold everything we own, bought one way tickets to Switzerland, and flew to Switzerland and said, Okay, let’s do this. And that’s where we’ve been for six years.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:14):
And in some ways, Europe has a very rich history of Christianity. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, but in other ways it is really territory that is very unreached and there’s lots of challenges there. Yeah. So what are some of the greatest challenges of ministering in Europe?
Shawn Brann (01:32):
Yeah, so I can for sure speak about Switzerland, and we’ve been all over Europe as well. But what you find is people generally think that the church is something that’s archaic. It’s old, it’s, it’s, it’s not updated. It’s not relevant for today. And so when you start talking about the Bible, it’s almost like telling someone about a Shakespeare play and, and saying, Okay, turn to play number four on the seventh page. And they look at you like, What are you talking about? Like, Shakespeare is long gone and dead. And you see that oftentimes in, in Europe and especially in in Switzerland, you, when you talk about the Bible, people look at you like you’re crazy. And so they just need to know that Jesus is alive. The Bible is for today. And whenever you just share the simple message of the gospel of Jesus, lives are changed. And that’s what we do.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:25):
You told me about an innovative idea that God gave you for reaching your village and telling people about Jesus. Tell me about that.
Shawn Brann (02:33):
Yeah, so when my wife and I first moved to Switzerland, we were there for about two weeks, and I obviously was there to evangelize. And so I went to the main station and the main train station, and I started to evangelize this guy and he thought I was crazy. And he scooted over like 10 foot from me. And so I go back, obviously the conversation was over. I go back to my wife and I said, Babe, pack your bags. We’re moving back to Texas. And I just kind of licked my wounds for a couple weeks. Like, Oh, what am I doing in Switzerland? What am I doing in Europe? Well, two weeks later, I decided, I’m gonna try this again. So I go on this, on the streets, actually, I go to the train station that was selling the tickets in the ticket box area, and I start telling this person about Jesus.
Shawn Brann (03:17):
And again, it just wasn’t connecting as hard as I was trying, nothing was happening. And again, I’m driving home just feeling defeated. But having this passion to share the gospel, not only to people in Zurich, but really to my village, my little town of 600 homes. And I got home and I was just, I just was so discouraged. I said, Jesus what can I do? And in my prayer time, one of the things the Lord told me that night, he said, Sean, I want you to be a voice, not an echo. You’re copying people. And you know, when you go to like the Louv in Paris, you, you go to see them on Lisa, and it is worth $300. But when you go outside, they have all these copies of the Mona Lisa that are $1. And the Lord was just saying, You know, I I, I don’t want you to be a cheap copy.
Shawn Brann (04:05):
I want you to do what I’ve called you to do. And I said, Well, Jesus, what do you want me to do? And so the next morning I woke up and the Lord reminded me that when we first moved to Switzerland, someone gave us a bag of vegetables, and they put them on our front porch, didn’t ring the doorbell, didn’t knock, just left them there. And I asked my neighbors, Why did they do that? And my neighbor said, Well, that’s a sign of affection that, that they care for you. This is how they showed that they’re glad you’re in the neighborhood. And and then all of a sudden the Lord told me, I said, Sean, I want you to give everyone in your town a flower. I thought a flower, Are you kidding? I’m from Texas, you know, like, I, like, I’m going to Switzerland.
Shawn Brann (04:45):
I want to be bunky, you know, not, not a flower evangelist. You know, like, what is this? I’m from Texas. You wish me carry guns. No. So I said, Are you kidding me, Lord? And he said, No, this is what I want you to do. And I’ve learned that God has created us to create, we are creative to create. He’s a creative God. He gives us creative ideas to get his gospel out. And so I said, Okay, Jesus, if this is what you want. And so we bought these really nice flowers around 15 US dollars per flower, The the whole, the whole thing. And in the flower we put a card that said, just as a seed goes in the ground and dies and rose again to this beautiful flower. So Jesus came to the earth, died, went in the ground and rose again for you to have eternal life.
Shawn Brann (05:30):
And then we had a website link on the bottom that says, If you want to know more, go to this website. And we went to our village and we just sat ’em on everyone’s front porch. We had some really cool divine connections where we were able to pray for people to get healed. And that was really neat. But generally speaking, 600 of the flowers really were just sat on the people’s doorsteps right outside their front door. And what happened was amazing, within 24 hours for every 100 flowers, we put out 300 people in the village, went on the website and read the gospel message. And it was amazing. Like my heart, my desire was to share, share the message of Jesus. And it wasn’t the way I ever would’ve expected I ever would’ve done, but it’s what the Lord had us to do. And so we did that for all 600 homes, shared the gospel, Everyone got to read or hear or had a chance to hear the gospel of Jesus. And now there’s a village beside us that’s over 15,000 homes that were, we’re now doing this thing called the Seed Project to those homes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:36):
And so you’ve heard of Holy Spirit power. Well, this is flower power with the Holy Spirit. Yes. And, and so people re they look at the, the website and you’re able to track that.
Shawn Brann (06:47):
Absolutely. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:48):
Having a, a tremendous impact. That that’s amazing. Now, you wrote this book, it’s called Go And Tell, and it’s very innovative how you wrote it, because you, you went through the, the last 2000 years of church history and every century you pulled out a story in order to emphasize a little lesson Yes. On evangelism. Yes. Okay. So tell me some of your favorite stories,
Shawn Brann (07:16):
Facebook. Well, what started was, I was reading the, the gospels and Mark, Jesus said, Go into all the world and preach the gospel. And the Greek word for go is Pru. And Pru obviously means to go, but it, it’s also transfer. And it’s, and it’s a word that would be used whenever, like a runner’s transferring a baton, a runner’s baton to another runner. And so generally speaking, when Jesus was talking to these disciples and he looked at them and he said, Go into all the world, It wasn’t just, Hey, go, go, go. It was Jesus saying, I’m giving you a baton, like I’m now all authority and heaven and earth is being given to you. I am with you always to the end of end of the age. So God, Jesus was given us this baton to run with, and that baton has been, message has been passed down through all the centuries to where we are today.
Shawn Brann (08:07):
And so yeah. So I go through every Century 21 centuries, and I highlight a story and, and a need for evangelism, and then countering an excuse. So for example, you know, we say the Great Commission the, the early believers, they received the baton. And I talk about the Holy Spirit. It’s called the Great Commission. But if you really look at us, the Great Commission, it’s us doing ministry together with the Holy Spirit. And we can’t evangelize without the Holy Spirit working with us, doing it with us together. And so to be an effective gospel bringer, effective runner of the gospel baton, an effective deliverer, we must be men and women full of the Holy Spirit and fire. And you know, you look at the life of Peter, he, he couldn’t evangelize to, to three people around a fire when Jesus was being crucified.
Shawn Brann (09:01):
And yet, we read a few pages later, and he’s standing in front of crowds preaching the gospel. Well, what was the difference? It was the Holy Spirit living in him, equipping him, filling him, filling him up. And people say, Well, I don’t feel comfortable sharing the gospel. And as you and I both know, you know the Holy Spirit is a comforter. And so the, the second chapter here in the, in the first century, I believers, the very first thing they did was they were filled with the Holy Spirit and he comforts you and he goes with you. And so I go through all these different stories. Creativity is one. When the first bubonic plague hit the world the in, in, I think it was five, the five hundreds, the, generally speaking, the pastors and the leaders, they, they were afraid and closed the church doors.
Shawn Brann (09:48):
But it was the ordinary men and women who took the gospel out in, into the, the into Europe with creative ideas. And so God will give us creative ideas to share the gospel. And we all have giftings and talents that are needed and, and, and creativity that is needed. And, and God has given you these abilities to share the gospel that could be writing a poem and you put it on social media, you know, that that’s maybe the way God wants you to share the gospel. And so yeah. So we just go through, Yeah. 21 Centuries of Church History. It’s a, it’s a fun read. I think you’ll like it.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:25):
So the book is Go and Tell by Sean Bran. And I really like your metaphor of passing the baton down. Yeah. My pastor Billy Joe Doherty, he once had a vision where he saw that a race track, he saw that we were in a race and Jesus took the baton, passed it to the first generation of disciples. Wow. Peter, James, and John. And then they passed it on to the next generation, you know, Irans and Telian, and yes, those great men have gotten in. So from century to century it’s been passed down to, to Martin Luther and now coming down to us and the, the baton has been passed to us. Yes. And we’re running. And then he saw in his vision that we are close to the finish line, and that we’re actually in the last lap of this marathon that the church has been running for Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:19):
For 2000 years now. And he saw that Jesus is coming soon and we need to make every single second count for God. And, and then the vision zoomed out. And he saw that surrounding the racetrack is a stadium. Yes. With all the saints who have died in gone to heaven. And he said that all of these saints, all these great men and women of God know Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and Peter, James and John, and all these great heroes of the faith like you write in your book about Saint Patrick, and you know, these great evangelists that have gone out into the world. And he said they, they weren’t sitting in their seats. They were standing up on their feet and they were clapping and applauding and say, Go run faster. Jesus is coming soon. This is the greatest hour of evangelists. And and if you think about it, we have so many opportunities here today to evangelize that people in centuries past never had there’s actually more people alive today than have ever been alive all throughout history.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:25):
And there’s actually more Christians in the church alive today Wow. Than if you add up over the last 2000 years. And so, so the, the church triumphant is actually smaller than the church militant here on Earth. Wow. And so that means that the greatest harvest of souls in history will happen in just the next few years. And we have the privilege of of being a part of that. And heaven is on its feet. Heaven is cheering for us and watching and saying, You’re, you’re, this is the greatest Come on of church history. Come on. You’re gonna see thousands and millions of people come into the kingdom of God. And I, and I think that’s true.
Shawn Brann (13:06):
So good. I I’m like on fire right now because Absolutely. Yes. if you could grab the, the curtains of eternity and just pull it back as, as the writer of Hebrew says, We are surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses and, and the, the Greek word cloud as the word that was used for like the nose bleed, bleacher seats of the, of the stadiums. And they’re standing there going run, run, run. And many of these people you’ll read about in this book, but many of these people, they died as a martyr. They gave their lives, they laid their life down for Jesus like they were killed because they told their neighbor or their friend about Jesus, and they’re in heaven. And they’re saying, Run, run, run. And the baton is now in our hands, the, the, the subtitles, This is your moment to run because this is your moment in history.
Shawn Brann (13:55):
This is it. And all of heaven is saying, Run, run, run, run, run. I went to a professional baseball game and it was the New York Yankees were playing the Texas Rangers. It was the first time the Rangers went to the, the World Series and it was the final game before the World Series. And the, the Rangers had played this great game all the way up to the ninth inning, and they bring in their, their closing pitcher. And I remember we all got on our feet and we were cheering cuz I was a Ranger fan and we was in Texas. I was cheering go Rangers. And this closer, he wound up through it, struck out Alex Rodriguez, the baseball player for the Yankees. And the stadium went crazy. And I was reminded about where we are in the timeline of world history, that we are closers, that we are on the final stretch.
Shawn Brann (14:42):
And they’re all saying, what? And it’s not about, it’s not about us. It it’s not like our generation is greater than any other generation. We just happen to have the privilege to have the baton in our hand, the ball in our hand when the game is coming to an end, the standing ovation. And one day we’re gonna stand before Jesus. And, and with all of our brothers and sisters who went on before us and let it be set of us that we ran, that we grabbed that gospel baton and that we, man, we gave, we gave it our very, very best because these men and women were not martyred for us to just have big churches and big social media channels. They were martyred. They lived their lives for the gospel so that we would push it through the, the finish line with the, with the good news of Jesus. And what an incredible time in world history to be alive. Amen. We, we are, we are, we are blessed. We are a generation. David Livingston installed in the future, this blessed generation who’s gonna reap this in time harvesting, I believe we’re that. I believe we’re that, that that generation. And man, what an honor, and I would just say run. And you’re running so hard, Daniel, we respect you and honor you for what you’re doing.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:59):
Well, if someone wants to know more about your ministry or to, to find the book, what is your website? What’s a good way for
Shawn Brann (16:07):
Someone to Yeah. The website is called igniteeurope.com. Or for the book, go and tell Go and tell.online. And you can buy it if you’re in the US at Walmart, Target Amazon, Barnes and Noble. If you’re in other places, maybe in Europe, you can go to Book Depository, You can go to any bookstore and and buy it. It’s in, in pretty much most bookstores around the world. So. Awesome.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:32):
Yeah. Well thank you so much for being on the Evangelism podcast. I appreciate it.
Shawn Brann (16:36):
My honor. Thank you, Daniel. God bless you all.
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Daniel Liberek | Global Evangelists Forum in Europe
Daniel Liberek is from the nation of Belgium and he leads the Global Evangelists Forum in Europe. On today’s Evangelism Podcast he talks about how his movement is training lay evangelists within the local churches of Europe. He shares his insights for reaching people for Jesus in the European context.
Connect with Daniel Liberek: http://liberek.net/
Learn about the Global Evangelists Forum: https://uwm.org/projects/65475/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Daniel Liberek is from the nation of Belgium and he leads the global evangelist forum in Europe. On today’s evangelism podcast. He talks about how his movement is training, lay evangelists within the local churches of Europe. He shares his insights for reaching people for Jesus. In the European context,
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:31):
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 (00:55):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast on Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me, Daniel lek from Belgium in Europe. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (01:08):
Pleasure being here and pleasure meeting you the last few days.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:12):
Now you are helping to lead the global evangelist forum and you are raising up evangelist in the continent of Europe. Tell us, what is God doing in the area of evangelism in Europe?
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (01:26):
Well, about 20 years ago, we discovered that evangelism had fallen into distribute almost. It was not the fashion. It was on the order of the day. And so with a few friends the global evangelist forum was launched. Now. It was called the <inaudible> evangelist because it was a French speaking venture out of Belgium and France and Switzerland Quebec joined it joined pretty quickly. And our goal was to help local church pastors identify mobilize, train, and deploy local church evangelists in Ephesians. The Bible says that God gave to the church, obviously apostles prophets, pastors teaches and evangelists. And in many churches, pastors don’t have time or don’t know how to train the local church evangelists. So what we do with the forum of the evangelists, we tell pastors, send us your evangelists. We will train them. And then you can have them back to minister in the local church.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (02:27):
We’re not trying to take anything away from the local church. We wanna invest in the local church. And so we started doing this through forums. These are times where we speak to the heart of the evangelists. We, we try to impart skills through workshops and we were doing this in Belgium, in France, in Switzerland. Then quickly, we moved to Africa in many countries in Africa, all in French. And we liked the specificity of having this in French for French speaking people, but then English speaking countries came knocking on the door and suddenly we became the global evangelist forum moving into some of the English speaking African countries. It was going great. COVID hit which has made it hard. It’s difficult for evangelists to be mentored, to be trained without contact evangelists. I, I think I could say are by nature very personal people.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (03:23):
They like contact. They like to be with people. And so not being able to mentor in a personal way was difficult, especially the forum also establishes mentoring communities. So we think evangelists need to be mentored, not simply trained, but mentored, not coached mentored. And we try to establish vertical relationships. So we try to pair an evangelist with a younger evangelist, but also horizontal mentoring relationship relationships. We try to get four or 5, 6, 10 evangelists that are about the same age do the same kind of ministries in a supporting group. And so they can share difficulties, problems, solutions. Sometimes they can share platforms and different things. In evangelism.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:16):
Now you are specifically working to help develop evangelists that are sharing their faith. One on one in the context of the, the local church. And, and, and tell us what are some of the, the methods that you teach them that you feel are so important for evangelists to learn, to be able to do that?
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (04:40):
Well, it’s important for us to realize that doing evangelism should be natural. It’s not something that we put on suddenly that sometimes I, I interview missionaries or missionary candidates. And I, I ask them one of my first questions. When is the last time you share the gospel? Because sometimes you get in our minds. If I fly 3000 miles, suddenly I’m an evangelist. No, that ain’t true. If I’m not an evangelist here, why would, would I be an evangelist across the ocean? So we have to think that Evangel being an evangelist is a way of life. It’s like breathing now in the church. I, I distinguish between regular church, people who are witnesses of what Christ has done and evangelists, those that God has given to the church. He has imparted special gifts and he’s put a seal on them to be evangelists.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (05:36):
And it’s, it’s a fabulous vocation. My father was a pastor evangelist, and I guess I was infected because that’s what I became. And now our youngest son, Timothy is is an evangelist. Now he’s also a platform evangelist, but he’s an evangelist in his life. Always inviting people to his home, always trying to see, to share the gospel. It’s the way also I live now, when I go to my barber and I go to the same barber, I have gone to the same barber for over 20 years. Maybe I should change. Some people will say, but Hey, that’s the way I like it. So I, I just go there. He’s not a believer yet, but every time I go, I plan ahead in my mind, how am I gonna steer at this conversation? Which questions am I gonna share? Okay. Where have I been? So next time I’ll go.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (06:23):
I probably will talk about being in Portland, being with evangelists. And somehow I’ll try to have him ask me a question about what evangelists are. I want to be in charge of the conversation, but in a discrete way, always planning ahead. Now, if the weather’s very bad, what kind of greeting am I, am I gonna share? When I walk into a store, I’m gonna share something that will elicit a response. It’s like the Lord said we have to be salt. So I’m trying, how can I be salty and create a response from the people? It’s a way of looking at reality and everything we do to be an evangelist is always looking for the open door and trying to create the open window so that, that we can share. Now, the Bible says that we evangelists have been given to the church, not simply to evangelize outside of the church.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (07:19):
Efficient chapter four says that we have been given to the church for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry. So evangelists in the local church have the responsibility to partner with the, the local body of believers. And we should do team. I often encourage church members if they have a barbecue and they’re inviting friends, why not invite one of the church evangelists? Not so he can lay it on people. That’s not the goal. Evangelists ought to be very sensitive people. I remember a couple that came to, to Belgium. They were evangelists and they wanted to evangelize. They didn’t speak any French. And after a couple days I noticed they were going downtown and they would talk to people and they would corner them and they wouldn’t let them get away. I actually saw them push people into a corner and they were sharing the gospel to me.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (08:17):
That’s not evangelism, that’s proselytizing. Maybe it’s imposing on people. And it gave out George a bad name because we were not respectful. Evangelists ought to be very sensitive to where a person is at and lead them little by little. My barber is still not a believer. And it took about 15 years for him to ask me questions. Some people will say, well, he’s a very bad evangelist. Well, Barbara’s, you know, Barbara’s, they can talk about anything and they never take a position. And that was my barber. He would cut my hair and we’d talk about politics. We’d talk about everything under the sun, but he’s always very neutral. And that was the way with faith. But finally, after about 15 years, he started asking questions and I’ve had the opportunity to share the gospel, not once, but several times. And I’m longing for, for the day when I’ll call him, my brother and Christ might take another five years. Might take more, but I, I I’m. I will be there gently prodding, gently pushing to share the gospel with him.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:25):
Let’s talk about evangelism in the local church, because not only do you lead the global evangelist forum, but you also pastor a local church there in Belgium, how can a pastor empower the believers in the church to do evangelism and to share their faith?
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (09:48):
As I said, it’s all a matter of partnership. I’m the local church pastor. Now, for example, on Sundays after the sermon, I will be at the door, shaking hands and greeting people. I mean, it’s like 30 seconds, 25 seconds with all the people that come by, because there’s always a cue and people want to get out. What, what I’ve done is I know my evangelist in the church. And if there’s a visitor, obviously I will have gone ahead of time. Introduce myself. I, I will have met the person, tried to get a bit of information, but as the person is coming out, we serve coffee. After church and tea, they don’t wanna stay. They wanna get out. They’ve had their first dose of Christianity and they just wanna get out where it’s safe, but I’ll call one of my evangelists and I’ll say, Hey, John, meet Peter here. It’s the first time. And suddenly there’s another link and we have trained them on what to do. You know, you can ask, you ask a few questions about their life, where they work and this and that. And they say, can I ask you a, a more personal question? Is there anything I can pray for you about
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (11:00):
Praying even for regular needs, from physical needs for medical needs touches the person in his heart, because someone cares enough to ask and to pray, but you, if the person says, well, you now have this medical appointment on Thursday, or can I call you on Friday to know how it went? What have we done created a link. We get a phone number and it’s all this partnership. We have a large food bank at the church I pastor. So we have a lot of people who are doing administrative stuff. They are taking names of people filling out the forms, giving out the, the boxes. But we have evangelists who will come. They’re not involved in any of the administrative stuff. They’re just walking around. They’re on the street where the queue is formed and they’re talking to people. So we wanna strategically place our evangelists in the position where they can be very helpful.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (11:53):
We also tell our church people, Hey, you’re talking to your neighbor and you’re not making any headways. Talk to one of our evangelists, go to some of the church evangelists and ask them, do you have any, any any clues for me? Do you have resources? So while I I’m talking to this atheist and I, I just don’t know how to go. Oh, I read this book it’s called that reason is not enough. Oh, why don’t you read it? So we try to always encourage partnership between those who are witnesses, the regular church people and the evangelists. And obviously as a local shorts pastor, I will often say things from the pulpit. My, my sermons will be into sports with anecdotes, some of my mistakes. And I sure make many mistakes as an evangelist. I, I missed, I miss open doors. I remember one Sunday. I, I went to get food at a store and I do that before the service, I have to pick up all the leftover bread day, old bread and all that. And the lady knows I’m a pastor I’ve, I’ve seen her weekend, week after week. And she asked me a question. She said, what is the difference between your view of extreme function and the Catholic church’s view of extreme function?
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (13:20):
And immediately the theologian in me said, oh, I’ve gotta prove I’ve got my doctorate. So I, I formed this this speech in my mind. And I shared with her the difference and how James chapter five or 13. And she was quiet after that greeted her went, and it was, I got back to the church, unloaded the car. And it was like, the holy spirit hit me with a two by four. Why did she ask that question? Was she looking for the theological answer? Very few people are looking for a theological answer theologians mainly but regular people. They have an existential question and the holy spirit told me go back. So I told the guys, if I’m not back start the service it’s okay. People are more important than the service aren’t they? So I went back to the store and there she was.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (14:15):
And I said, Hey, I’m so sorry. I, I missed something. Why were you asking this? And she started sharing about her grandfather, who was at the point of death, started crying there. And I was able to share a little bit with her of the gospel, who cares about extreme when we have extreme salvation <laugh>. And so it opened the door. I was able to I had brought with me a couple gospels. So I, I gave those to her and we’re continuing the dialogue. I see her a few minutes every Sunday, except the summer she’s on vacation. So I’m looking forward to September, her grandfather passed away, but the grandmother is open to the gospel. She’s been reading the, the new Testament. I mean, it’s a matter of listening to the voice of the spirit and partnering for evangelism.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:06):
Let’s talk about Europe. Some have said that Europe is a post-Christian continent, but I say that Europe can once again be a Christian continent with people full full of people that love Jesus and, and, but methods are different in EV every nation. And so when we go to Africa, there’s certain methods that we use for evangelism, but tho those methods are different in, in Africa or in central America. What do you see that will work to draw European people often very well educated, sometimes very skeptical often atheist or and, and don’t want anything to do with organized religion. What can an evangelist do to, to reach out to these people in Europe?
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (15:58):
We have to live it. That is the first thing my father was an evangelist. He helped to plant several churches and we would go in with a popup tent. We had what we call the mobile chapel. It was on a trailer and we’d pop it out and we’d, we’d have a chapel. And so we would go to a town where there was no evangelical witness. And we still have towns in Belgium where it’s not a single church. I mean, that’s in, in the middle of Europe, we would go preach for three weeks, four weeks, do an extensive crusade. And then hopefully there was AEUs of 10, 15 people. And the church was born nowadays. If I go on the town square and I put up a big screen and I say, Hey tonight, we’re gonna have a the showing of a movie people young, because they have Netflix, they have 25 channels.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (16:49):
They can have movies day in, day out, all day long. If they want it doesn’t appeal. Or if we come and say, well, we’re gonna have a preaching of the gospel tonight. Not interested. We’ve had scandal up on scandal in Europe as in the us with one church or the other. It doesn’t matter. It affects all of us when there is a scandal. So what we’ve in many, in many places, what we’ve done is to transform the local church into a powerful evangelizing tool. Now there is room for crusades, and I I’m so glad that you are involved in these powerful crusades, but it has to come on the back of regular witnessing by the local church. If the local church says we’re gonna do evangelism, let’s have a crusade. It doesn’t work that way. We have to sew and water for the reaping to happen. So we try to set up the life of the church as a witnessing pulsating life, everything in the church. I, I look at every every message, every service will the gospel be presented today. It might be through communion. It might be through some of the songs and the introduction, introduction to a song, but the gospel is gonna be presented every time we meet. I mean, sometimes I joke, you know, even in the bathrooms, you can have a sign, don’t forget to flush. Remember your sins can be flushed away by the
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (18:20):
Let’s try to have everything. I remember a lady that came to Christ through one of our prayer meetings. She, she realized that on, on the street where she lives, there was this group meeting every Wednesday morning, there were mothers of teenagers. She had concerns. She came and through a prayer meeting, she came to accept the Lord. So if we infuse everything we do with the gospel, it is a powerful witness. Now I don’t condemn any method. As long as it’s biblical ethical. And the gospel is clearly presented, but I think the life of a body, the community of believers as we live the gospel out is one of the most powerful tools. And then as we intentionally make friendships, where in the lives of people were concerned about them were giving were just unusual. I remember one day I was I was leaving and this big car came next to mine and I thought, he’s blocking me, come on, get out of the way I need to go. Window rolls down. And it’s the mayor of our city.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (19:28):
Now he’s not in the faith. He’s strong, socialist, pretty much. Anti-Religion says, I want to thank you, pastor, because of all that you’re doing, we don’t know what we be, what we do in our city without you and your food bank, our works are being seen, and they’re creating a platform to share the gospel. Our words come on top of our works. And as we share it is noticed in our city that’s the value O O of a local church that is intent on sharing the gospel. I often tell people know the church doesn’t exist for us. It exists for those who, who are not part of it yet.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:11):
Well, thank you so much for being on the evangelism podcast. If someone wants to find out more information about the global evangelist forum and get connected to what you’re doing in your training what is your website? What is a way for them to be in touch with you?
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (20:28):
Probably the easiest way would be to go to my own personal webpage and send us a message. It’s L I B as in boy, E R E k.net, L I B E R E k.net.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:41):
Wonderful. Well, thank you for sharing. And I am praying for Europe to be saved in Jesus’s name.
Daniel Liberek – Global Evangelists Forum (20:50):
Amen. Made the Lord move powerfully like he did in the past. I mean, there were dark days. I remember even in Belgium when the gospel was destroyed by persecution and the inquisition, but during the, after the first world war, there was a powerful movement. The second world war stopped it. So I’m looking for another powerful move of God in Belgium.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:13):
May it be Jesus in Jesus’ name? 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 (22:34):
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Malta
Malta is where Paul was ship wrecked. The story is found in Acts 28. Paul was bitten by a snake there because he shook it off. When you are attacked by Satan, just shake it off.
CAN YOU HELP US REACH PEOPLE FOR JESUS?
Evangelist Daniel King is on a mission to lead people to Jesus. But he cannot do it without your help. Can you give a financial gift today to help us “plunder hell to populate heaven?” To support King Ministries in our quest for souls, click here!
France
Preaching at a Malagasi church in Paris, France
Many people say Europe is a post-Christian continent. But we believe the people of Europe are hungry for revival.
This is one of my favorite photos from Paris.
CAN YOU HELP US REACH PEOPLE FOR JESUS?
Evangelist Daniel King is on a mission to lead people to Jesus. But he cannot do it without your help. Can you give a financial gift today to help us “plunder hell to populate heaven?” To support King Ministries in our quest for souls, click here!
Croatia
Why do we wear ties in church? Find out in this video from Croatia.
Did you ever wonder why people wear ties to church? I heard one pastor say that it is Biblical to wear ties in church because the Bible says to bring your “tithes” into the storehouse.
According to Wikipedia, “in 1660, in celebration of its hard-fought victory over the Ottoman Empire, a crack regiment from Croatia visited Paris. There, the soldiers were presented as glorious heroes to Louis XIV, a monarch well known for his eye toward personal adornment. It so happened that the officers of this regiment were wearing brightly colored handkerchiefs fashioned of silk around their necks. These neck cloths struck the fancy of the king, and he soon made them an insignia of royalty as he created a regiment of Royal Cravattes. The word “cravat” is derived from the à la croate—in the style of the Croats.”
CAN YOU HELP US REACH PEOPLE FOR JESUS?
Evangelist Daniel King is on a mission to lead people to Jesus. But he cannot do it without your help. Can you give a financial gift today to help us “plunder hell to populate heaven?” To support King Ministries in our quest for souls, click here!