I was so struck by peoples’ commitments to God, and yet they didn’t know Jesus.

From that point on, I was never thinking of doing anything else. I burned the bridge.

It was one of these things where someone had done it for me, in a very similar way, where I would hang out with him, and he could speak the language. And I would just fumble along. But just being around him, and visiting with people and learning, his ways was super helpful for me. So then it was just a natural thing to do for someone else when they come one or two steps behind you.

Spiritual Fire

The person I am today and the relationship I have with the Lord today are definitely very different than what it was when I came out to the Middle East. The difference now is intimacy with the Lord.

I have learned to be very purposeful and almost just learning how to get closer to the Lord. And sometimes, it can come across almost very mechanical and a sense, but the heart behind it is to get closer to the Lord to have that sense of really communing together.

Another thing that has helped me is finding people with a similar heart—and quite often, that’s not people on your team.

There’s a healthy jealousy where you say, “I would love to have a connection with the Lord like that person has.”

I have a couple of relationships with people further along in the journey who are just very concerned about me and my walk with the Lord, and that’s what we talk about from time to time. They’re not asking me so many questions about ministry outputs. They’re asking me about my walk with the Lord.

Advice for spiritual strugglers

I’ve taken the time to ask myself, ” How am I going to spend this time? What am I going to do with God?” I want to have time in the Word, but sometimes, I can spend all this time in the Word, and it’s like permanent Bible study time. Lots of information is coming in, and it’s on a head level. But how am I loving God with my heart as well?

It’s more of an art form than a science.

Keeping a passion for ministry 

For my time in the Middle East, roughly about 14 or 15 years of that time, there wasn’t a huge amount of fruit.

I made a shift in my ministry about four or five years ago.

One of the challenges for me was whenever you see someone else seeing the results that you desire, you start to wrestle with things like: is it me? Is it them? Who do we need to blame here? Somebody must be at fault.

Someone said to me quite early on in ministry, It’s good to have a hobby because whenever things in ministry don’t seem to be working, at least if you’ve got this hobby, you can be good at something.

That struggle with the comparison or cynicism, the lack of satisfaction, let’s say, in terms of the fruit, sadly, I’ve seen cause people to leave or just give up on it altogether. But for me, it’s really driving me closer to the Lord.     

Also being faithful in the sense of, ok, we are still focused on the vision that the Lord has given, but we’re willing to make changes from a places of faithfulness, to say, I’m not going to attach myself to this project and to have all my identity is wrapped up in this thing.

Pivoting in Ministry

The Lord was boing very gracious. It was like he was giving a quick win to show that maybe there is something in this.

I did that training, and I tried to put some stuff into practice, but it didn’t have anyone coaching me or mentoring me, so I basically just had my notes, and I was referring back to my notes.

Rookie DBS mistakes

If you think this person is a person of peace, we don’t want to pin all our hopes on the person of peace.

We need to have the discernment to say, What is the key thing that needs to be focused on right now?

We need to have a much clearer view of what is the church.

What is the Church

The local church is:

• 5 people more, some of whom are not in the same immediate family
• Most members have professed faith in Jesus Christ
• Members are in solidarity with one another by meeting regularly
• Meetings include worship, teaching in the Word of God, and sacraments
• Appointed indigenous leaders

How does a Bible study get to a church?

The importance of this is that it’s not this secretive thing with one nuclear family. It needs to be more than that because then it has the potential to multiply and grow.

Local leaders

Trying to find that healthy balance of Indigenous leadership, you want them to lead in a way that fits their culture. But then, at the same time, they recognize that there are elements of their culture that are probably not in harmony with the Kingdom of God.

Number one characteristic is teachability and that’s connected to humility. And then a clear sense of obedience, not to me, but to the Lord.