I woke up from a dream that my sister and my fiancée would be taken in by the police and deported out of the country. I’ve never had a dream like this before, and I’ve never had a dream like this after.

The embassy where I am from didn’t help much. If you are in trouble, it’s your own fault.

That was the plan. To move to a city where there hasn’t been any Christian church since the Muslims came.

Over the last 20 years, the number of evangelical churches in my country has decreased by more than one church closing every week.

We have it in our hearts to reach anyone. It doesn’t matter who it is. I want to reach out with the Gospel, disciple, train leaders, and see churches planted.

The church has not been prepared for secularization. To a great extent, parents trust the church to raise their kids by just going to Sunday School on Sundays.

It’s been hard to find role models.

We want to try and get to their hearts. It’s easy to raise moral kids, where it’s just moralism, you tick a box.

When we have Bible studies in our home, we start by eating together and having family worship. I invite participants in the Bible study to lead the family worship.

You need to be really deliberate and to know what you are going for. What’s your purpose? What’s your vision?

If you become too controlling, it might backfire.

Four types of people: 1) people who need to be engaged by Christians. 2) People who need to be evangelized by Christians. 3) People who need to be established in the faith. 4) People who need to be equipped for the ministry.

If there is health, a plant will grow. You cannot always stir how it grows, but if it grows, it’s healthy.

Healthy signs of growth: when people start to handle suffering well. How do you view suffering? How do you view trials?

What am I trusting in instead of God?

We also want to see people God-centered and not me-centered.

When I train leaders, I look for six characteristics. 1) Competence. 2) Convictions. 3) Chemistry. 4) Cultural suitability. 5) Calling. 6) Consistency.

When I grew up, I didn’t experience anyone discipling me.

In ministry, there’s a lot of silver bullets and shortcuts to success.

When it’s a silver bullet approach to reach results, you remove some of the cost of discipleship.

I think counseling goes into discipleship. I don’t separate the two from each other.

A lot of secular counseling is about changing behavior or fleeing from circumstances. But to get to the real thing, we want to see a heart change.

If you can get to the heart, you can win the person, but if you just argue, it doesn’t go anywhere.

We want to see a Gospel culture where everyone shares what’s hard in life and where we care for one another. 

I haven’t seen a single person come to faith at the point where I can say, “That’s me.”

From trying to kill a sister to coming to faith.

May the Lamb who is slain receive the reward of his suffering.

I know you look at the world today, and it’s a mess, but God is in control.

The measure of success is not numbers but faithfulness. But then we need to make sure it’s God‘s definition of faithfulness, not ours, so we search our hearts, and it’s not wrong to question, “Am I doing the right thing?”