1 877-431-4276Andrew Scarborough | Follow Up for New Believers
Andrew Scarborough is doing follow up of new believer in Cambodia that has seen an 80% success rate. On today’s episode of The Evangelism Podcast he describes his method of turning decisions into disciples. Andrew grew up as a missionary in Indonesia working with his parents. Unfortunately, in his late teens he fell away from the Lord, but in a miraculous encounter with a believer, Andrew came back to Jesus. His gratefulness for how Jesus brought him back and saved him is now his motivation for reaching out to the lost. Keep listening, you will enjoy hearing his story!
Learn More about Andrew Scarbrough and his ministry: https://fireandrain.international/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me, Andrew Scarborough from Australia. Thank you for coming to the Evangelism Podcast.
Andrew Scarborough (00:13):
Oh, it’s such a joy to be here. Thank you so much for having me here in your amazing studio here in Tulsa. Thank you so much.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:20):
Yeah, so we’ve been together a couple of times. In the last year we were in Indonesia together at a conference with the Global Evangelist Alliance for everyone Asia. And then we were just last month in Thailand together for the everyone Thailand. We’re trying to reach that entire region of the world for Jesus. And you’ve actually grown up as a missionary in that part of the world. So tell me a little bit about your background and
Andrew Scarborough (00:52):
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, so my parents were involved in missions in Indonesia. They’re still involved in missions in Indonesia. And so I was there from when I was seven to when I was 10, and then again when I was 15. So that was a huge, I guess, eye-opener and experience for a young Australian guide to live in. I had a pet monkey and we had to learn another language and different culture, different food, and it was a joy. It was a real joy. And I think obviously the most exciting thing was seeing what’s possible when you share the gospel.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:32):
Yeah, that’s awesome. And so you’re called by God to be an evangelist. It sounds like We have a similar upbringing. I was raised as a missionary in Mexico, and even as a teenager, my heart was beating for souls to be saved. And it sounds like you caught the same bug. How did you know that you were called by God specifically as an evangelist?
Andrew Scarborough (01:56):
Yeah. Well, I would say growing up I wanted to impress my parents. So at first it was as most kids do, at first it was I want to be a missionary like my parents. I want them to be proud of me, all of that. I soon worked out that that doesn’t really work. It doesn’t quite fill that void per se, and
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:19):
God has no grandkids, he just has children.
Andrew Scarborough (02:22):
That’s it. So I had to really work out my own identity in him. I ended up being a drunk. I was suicidal. I totally drifted away. And it wasn’t that I didn’t know that God was real. I knew that he was real. But the question for me is, am I good enough for him?
(02:42):
Just as I thought, could I ever be good enough for my parents? Could I ever be a great missionary like them? Now it was, can I be good enough for God? And I came up with the answer, no, I can’t. And then I was in a bar one night and a man came up to me, I’d never met him before, and he said, first thing he asked was, do you love your parents? That’s rather weird. Kind of like Jesus with the woman at the, well, tell me about your husband. And he says, do you love your parents? I said, okay, what do you want? Why are you here? And he said, I want you to know there’s a great love out there for you. I said, who are you? He says, I’m a Christian. I said, oh, I used to go to church. He says, then you know exactly what I’m talking about.
(03:24):
He looked me in the eye and said, God loves you so much. You have to come back to him. And in that moment, I mean obviously my whole world was transformed. I realized that scripture, that while we’re still sinners, Christ died for us is true. And that in my filth, in my sin, he had died for me. But then afterwards I thought, what if I could do for others what that man did for me? What if I could go to others and tell them about Jesus and the good news of the gospel? And that really began the journey for myself. It was no longer about trying to please someone or trying to prove something. It was a genuine, there are people out there, they dunno if they’re good enough for God. They don’t even know some that there is a God or who Jesus Christ is. I need to tell them.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:14):
And so how old were you when that encounter took place?
Andrew Scarborough (04:17):
I was 19. So a friend of mine, he says, Andrew, you got your season of the spirit of stupid. That’s what he calls it. So for about six months, I really just tried to escape life. And then when I had that radical encounter at 19, I then became a pastor for about 10 years. I thought you want to
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:41):
Be, where did you pastor? In Australia?
Andrew Scarborough (04:43):
Yeah, in Australia and in America. So we planted a church in California while I studied at Fuller Seminary. And yeah, that was really good, but still, even as a pastor, because I just didn’t know you could be an evangelist. The amount of evangelists that are full-time in Australia, you could count on maybe one to two hands. It’s just not something that we really have. We have pastors, so you want to work for Jesus, you go and become a pastor, and then we have traditional missionaries that live in country, but someone that travels around equipping the church, preaching the gospel.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:19):
So do they look at you a little weird sometimes when you tell people you’re an evangelist in Australia?
Andrew Scarborough (05:24):
They do, yes. It’s always you. You’re an evangelist, like a tech evangelist? No, not a tech evangelist. Like an evangelist for Jesus. They’re like, ah, who do you work for? Well, we run a ministry and it blows people’s minds. But yeah, in America, maybe a little bit more common. But then in America, people think, oh, you’re an itinerant preacher and you go from church to church. And I say, no, no, no. We actually go out over,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:52):
Yeah, the evangelist isn’t looking for meetings. He’s looking for lost souls, the true
Andrew Scarborough (05:56):
Evangelists. That’s it.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:58):
Yeah, I agree. Wow. So you went to Fuller Seminary and I saw in your cv you recently completed your ma, and what was your degree in?
Andrew Scarborough (06:09):
Yeah, so my first master’s at Fuller was in global leadership, and my most recent one was in, it was an in professional ministry. So I was looking at crusade follow-up and what that looks like.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:23):
Okay, so let’s talk about that. You’ve been doing crusades this last year. You’ve done some really amazing things in Cambodia. And so the number one question evangelists always get asked is, well, what do you do about follow up? That’s a great place to start. What do you do about follow up, Andrew?
Andrew Scarborough (06:43):
Yeah, well, we are really trying.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:47):
I love that question because even people that have never evangelized, they’ve never shared their faith with anyone. They’ve never discipled anyone they know. They got to ask that question, what do you do about follow up? It’s like, well, what do you do about evangelism? Are you going out preaching the gospel? Let’s talk about getting people saved and then let’s talk about follow up.
Andrew Scarborough (07:05):
Yeah, absolutely. And look, it is like the, it’s the classic question that you always get is, but where are they now? What about follow up? What about discipleship? And I think when I first started out in evangelism, I would say, look, we are the midwife. It’s our responsibility to birth the baby, and then it’s up to the parents to raise the baby. The evangelist brings the soul to Jesus. The local church raises the baby three kids in. For my wife and I noticed something with the midwives is they make sure that the baby is actually drinking, is actually putting on weight, is actually getting a little bit healthier or developing before the midwife exits the relationship. So what we’re seeking to do is marry disciple making movements with evangelism. And I know this is something that the team working in Thailand is going to be really focusing on as well. How do you marry those two movements? So you have evangelism, but then instead of just expecting the person to come to church on a Sunday, which in my research it shows that you get about two to 6% of people will actually end up in church on a Sunday and continue with Jesus if we try the approach of just see you at church. But if you go to them and you start discipling them straight away, straight after they make the decision, it jumps up to 80%. And so we tried that. That’s phenomenal.
(08:44):
We tried it in Cambodia. So we went into a village, we preached the gospel and all these decisions. Then we said the next day we got the 80% from a friend of mine, Benji Morph, and I thought, Hmm, I want to try this out. Well, the next day we said, we’re coming back tomorrow to do a follow up, to share more about the Christian faith, how to read your Bible, all of this. We came back to the village and 80% of the hands that were raised we’re sitting under the same tree ready for discipleship. And they’re asking great questions, do I still go to the temple? How do I read my Bible? Where do I start? We were like, oh, this is amazing. But we found that the number to hold true, that about 80% will actually be there if you go to them versus, Hey, come on to a church.
(09:37):
And especially in these regions where there’s not many Christians and there’s not many churches that can be an hour drive, that can be a two hour drive to get to a local church. And that’s hard when we need to make it easier for people to walk with Jesus. I do think the Holy Spirit really does the convicting, and I don’t think we can. Sometimes we try and formalize it a little bit and we try to almost take too much credit or put too much pressure on us. I think if someone really gave their life to Jesus, they’re going to do everything they can to follow him if it’s true. But I do think we have a responsibility to at least get them to a place where they’re beginning that journey. So what we are trialing is we would go in as the evangelist for the beginning of the discipleship, either us or other people that were involved in the campaign. Then we pass it over to a local pastor. Now he’s got some establishment there. So yeah, it’s a little bit different to the standard follow-up form passed over to the local church, still working with the local church. But rather than just giving them a phone call, inviting them to church, we are saying, all right, pastor, let’s go. We’re going back into that location or back into the village and we are going to do discipleship.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:03):
Yeah, that’s awesome. Now, I think the place that you and I first met was at the Christ for All Nations Evangelism Bootcamp.
Andrew Scarborough (11:12):
Yes, that’s
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:12):
That ‘s the minstry that Daniel Kolinda helps to lead, the Ministry of Reinhard Bonnke. And just tell me some of what you got out of that training from the Evangelism Bootcamp and then how you’ve put that into practice in different parts of the world.
Andrew Scarborough (11:30):
Yeah, look, I would say that bootcamp was a game changer for me, and I’d encourage anyone to do keep upskilling, keep doing some sort of training. Like I said, I already had a master’s at the time. I was working for a ministry called Youth for Christ, two PAs, a company car, a phone, a laptop, all expenses paid. It was great. And then the Lord said, do this bootcamp. And I’m like, but I’m already established. I know what I’m doing. I had no idea what I was doing. The bootcamp taught me how to preach the gospel in such a crystal clear way. I almost felt like before the bootcamp, I didn’t even know how to preach the gospel, even though everyone called me an evangelist. And then the other thing that it did is it showed me what’s possible when you stretch yourself. And I think that’s why I like spending time with people like yourself, evangelist Daniel King, because you show me what’s possible.
(12:37):
And I think as you get around evangelists that have done more than you, that have learned more than you, and you glean from them, then you’re able to say, if they could do that in Nigeria or if they could do that in Kenya, maybe I could do that in Cambodia. Maybe I could do that in Indonesia, maybe I could do that in Thailand. And yeah, it’s also given me a great network. I think the GEA Global Evangelism Alliance, the C fan Evangelism Alliance, any of these networks are so helpful because you need someone to join with you in a crusade, join with you in a training. You’ve got a family or a network to run with.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:16):
Absolutely. It’s great to be around people that think big,
Andrew Scarborough (13:20):
That
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:20):
Have big faith and are trusting God to do amazing things. I think it stretches your own faith and you see what is possible through God. So you grew up in Indonesia, you’ve been doing stuff in Cambodia, and I think it’s just so beautiful that in your ministry, God’s really given you a focus on Asia in Africa over the last 50 years, especially with Reinhard Bonnke, we’ve seen such a great move of God in Africa, and now I think it’s Asia’s turn. It is a great harvest field. Talk to me some about what you see God doing and what you hope to see God do in Asia.
Andrew Scarborough (14:00):
Yeah, look, it’s a great question, and if I think about it too much, I’ll probably tear up because the reality is a lot of these nations, they’re 2%, they’re 3%, they’re 1%, they’re 4% Christian. In the last two to three years I’ve been in Japan, Singapore’s got a lot more Christians, but so does Indonesia. But I’ve been in Japan, very low percentage. I think it’s less than 1% Christian. Then I’ve been in Singapore, been in Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, and I look at these nations and as we do evangelism on the streets, people say things like, one gentleman said, I’ve been waiting 14 years for someone to tell me about Jesus. Another person said, I’ve been waiting eight years. I thought you had to be born into a Christian family. I had no idea I could become a Christian. There was even a religious leader. I could put it that way, that one of the followers of their faith came to them and said, I have anxiety, I have depression.
(15:10):
What do I do? And this religious leader said, I can’t help you, but I hear that the God of the Christians can help you. What you need to do is start to pray to their God that he would send you one of these Christians. And so this religious leader, not from the Christian faith, counseled one of his own followers to pray for a Christian to come. And then obviously a Christian came and he and his whole family got saved. And I think that Asia is crying out, send us the missionaries, send us the evangelists. And it is so ripe. It is beyond ripe. It blows my mind how people are like, we’ve been waiting. We just didn’t know this good news. And so where you could argue that some nations are saturated in missionaries, I think a lot of nations still crying out for missionaries.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:06):
In the early years of my ministry, I focused a lot on Latin America, and we’ve seen God do great things there. But the last few years I’ve been trying to focus more on the 10 40 window. I mean, because there’s just such a huge harvest there of people that are waiting to hear about Jesus. They just need someone to come and tell ’em. And so I’m so excited about what God is doing in Thailand. You’re going to be involved in some of the evangelism training in Thailand. Kind of talk me through what does evangelism training look like when you do evangelism training? I know even while you’re here in America this week, you’re driving around in an rv and I saw you’ve been doing some evangelism training for churches here. What does that look like?
Andrew Scarborough (16:53):
Yes, I would say that evangelism training, we do cater it a little bit to the context. So Asia is very different to Africa, and then America is very different to Asia.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:07):
But
Andrew Scarborough (17:07):
In general, I try to deal with the four main excuses that I’ve seen to sharing your faith. So the number one thing I see is people say, I don’t know how. So we just equip them in the basics. Things like three circles or bridge to life or Roman Road. There’s so many Jesus at the door. There’s so many tools that you can equip people with. The second reason people say they don’t share their faith is it doesn’t work in my own life, so why would I share it? And so we really encourage people, you need to fall in love with the Lord again. And if we have a little bit longer training, we really spend some time ministering to the individuals as well. And then the last two, they’re fairly related to each other. One people would say, fear of man. So we really pray for people.
(17:55):
I think a lot of the challenges in evangelism actually have to do with people’s own identity and fears. And we just need to break those and always tell this story. I say there was in Australia, there was a deadly snake in my backyard. I’m very scared of snakes. I don’t like them at all. And we are famous for them in Australia. But with that snake, I became a warrior and I went out with my boots and my shovel and I was going to kill that snake. I couldn’t find it to kill it, unfortunately, but I scared it away. And the reason I wasn’t scared of that snake, even though I was a little bit is because my children play in the backyard. And my love for my children was so much greater than my fear. So I used to tell people, if you’ve got fear of man, you actually need to spend time falling in love with the lost again.
(18:45):
And the last reason that we kind of disarm or dismantle in our training is people say, well, I actually haven’t thought about it. I haven’t let the reality of the lost world break my heart. I haven’t actually, I’ve put it in the two hard basket or the don’t think about it basket, but the reality of hell, the reality of people that don’t yet know Jesus, spinning eternity away from God. I just don’t let it touch me. So we encourage people to pray and we pray and pray and pray in these trainings. During the trainings, we weep over the loss. And just a fun story for you. We were just in Nampa, Idaho, and I said, before we go out on the streets and preach the gospel, we were doing a training with about 30 people from that church. I said, let’s pray for the lost.
(19:37):
And I knelt down next to a window and began to pray, Lord, save America, Lord save Idaho. And as I’m praying a couple walking off the street into the church, I get up, they take one look at me, I’m covered in tears. So I think that freaked them out. They turned around, walked away. And so I grabbed the pastor, I said, go, go, go get them. Get them. So he runs outside and it turns out that there was a couple and the gentleman had just come out of prison. He was trying to get his life together. He needed some food. Well, they prayed for him. The girl, she got healed from pain in her shoulder and they said, we’ll be at church in the morning. Well, that morning I preached the gospel and both of them responded, gave their lives to Jesus. But it showed me the power of prayer. We are literally crying out for the lost, the lost walked into our prayer meeting, and then now their lives are transformed and they’ve got food in their bellies and also spiritual food. So I think a training should go beyond just head knowledge, but into an encounter with the Lord, a heart for the lost and then an activation. So we always activate people and get them out on the streets sharing the gospel. Faith without works is dead. We got to do something. So we get them out there.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:58):
Yeah, that’s awesome. I love what you’re saying about prayer and allowing God to break our hearts and look at people as he sees people. So let’s just take a moment right now and pray for lost
Andrew Scarborough (21:11):
People,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:12):
The lost people of Asia, the lost people of the United States. Would you lead us in a prayer?
Andrew Scarborough (21:17):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Father, we just thank you so much for the privilege of knowing you. And I pray for the lost in Asia. I pray for the lost around the world that you would send forth laborers into the harvest. And for anyone listening or watching this right now, I just pray, Lord God, you’d move their hearts to preach the gospel and to see many come into the kingdom. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:46):
Well, if someone wants to know more about you or your ministry, what is your website? How can they find out more about you?
Andrew Scarborough (21:54):
Yeah, so it’s fire. That’s FIRE because my accent can throw the Americans fire and rain International. So it comes from Elijah and the prophets of Bal, that story, and what I say is if we want to see the spiritual drought broken over a nation, we need the fire of God to first fall on the people of God. So it’s revival, but it’s also evangelism. So fire and Rain, international, that’s the website.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:23):
Awesome. Well, I’d encourage you to go to Fire and Rain International and support the ministry of Andrew and just help them and all of the evangelism that they’re doing and pray for them get connected. And so Andrew, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Andrew Scarborough (22:43):
No, thank you. And I just wanted to say a huge thank you to you, Daniel, because you are a champion of the evangelist. And so thank you for having this podcast. And I’d encourage you to share this podcast with your friends, let people know about King Ministries because I tell you, it is great what God is doing through your life, Daniel, and I’m so thankful for the way that you champion, not just the ministry that you are doing and reaching the lost, which is incredible, but you champion others as well. So thank you for this great resource.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:13):
Well, thank you. Bless you.