Relational Evangelism: Building Trust Before Sharing Truth with Aaron Wakeman

How do meaningful relationships open doors for sharing the gospel? In this episode, Aaron Wakeman of Friends Network joins the conversation to discuss relational ministry and the power of trust in evangelism. Drawing from global mission experience, he explains why listening, patience, and authentic friendships often matter more than perfect words or formulas. Discover how ordinary Christians can live out their faith naturally in everyday relationships and how God uses simple conversations and connections to prepare hearts for the good news. 

SHOW NOTES:

Friends Network: https://www.friendsnet.org/

Transcript

Welcome & Topic: Relational Ministry

SPEAKER_01 0:00

On today's episode.

SPEAKER_03 0:01

One of the fascinating things that I'll often ask people who have who have just come to faith or or new to the Christian faith, I'll ask, how did you come to know Christ? The answer is almost always a very long, roundabout, circuitous answer. It'll involve a lot of touch points with the gospel, a lot of relationships over a long period of time.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Welcome to the Life Challenges Podcast from Christian Life Resources. Our world today presents people with complicated issues of life and death, marriage and family, health, and science. It can be a struggle to understand or deal with them. We're here to help by bringing good information and a fresh biblical perspective to these matters and more. Join us now for life challenges.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Hi, and welcome back. I'm Christophratz, and I'm here today with Pastor Bob Fleischman, and we have a special guest with us, and we have Aaron Wakeman. Welcome.

SPEAKER_03 1:02

Thank you. It's nice to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Yeah, well, we're we're excited to have you here, and we're excited to talk about our topic today, which is gonna be on building relationships and relational ministry. But before we get into the topic, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Aaron’s Journey And Global Missions

SPEAKER_03 1:19

Yeah. Well, I serve as the executive director of this organization. We're gonna talk a little bit more about Friends Network in a bit, but my wife and I graduated from Martin Luther College and we knew we wanted to do ministry of some kind. And uh we were recruited into this organization that was called Friends of China at the time. So we moved over to Wuhan, China, and we were evangelists and English teachers for a couple of years. And uh that kind of set us on our path to not just ministry in the parachurch, but specifically in missions. So ever since then, we've had uh some role or uh some uh involvement in global missions. We have three children, and we moved back over to China, lived in Beijing for a number of years where I served as the field coordinator. So our kids now are 18, 16, and 14, and still have uh an awareness of the global church and missions. So it's kind of neat to see how God has kind of led my career and our family. And now we live in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, just north of St. Paul. Our kids go to St. Craig Lutheran Academy, and um the 18-year-old's just about to head out. So we're entering that phase of life.

What Friends Network Does

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Well, thank you for giving us a little background, and we we do want to talk about Friends Network. So can you tell us a little bit about Friends Network?

SPEAKER_03 2:38

Yeah, we are a uh Wells parachurch organization that trains and sends lay missionaries overseas. And um, when people hear that, they often wonder why the emphasis would be on the laity. We work very closely with Wells World Missions, with ELS Board for World Outreach. So there's a there's a role, of course, for the trained pastor, the theologian, and they do so much good work in church planting or in theological training, but we also found that there's a role for the laity. So we have kind of a tagline in our organization, Ordinary People, Extraordinary Mission. So we take people who come from a wide variety of backgrounds, all ages, who say, you know, I think I'd like to be involved in global missions. I think I'd like to make Jesus known in the world. Teach me how to do that. So we teach people how to be a global evangelist. And so they're engaging in their communities and they're making authentic relationships in in these communities and they're sharing Christ. Uh so a lot of times that looks like home Bible studies or the formation of new churches. Occasionally we'll partner with a church that's in our fellowship. So that's true in Japan, Philippines, a couple other places where we partner with those churches. So I've been serving in this role since 2018, and uh we've seen a lot of change. Uh, we're in seven countries now. We're no longer Friends of China, called Friends Network, because we expanded to all these new countries and we support about 35 full-time missionaries overseas, plus a bunch of children. So I think our total team is a little over 50, 50 people in the mission field that we support.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

You know, what listening to you describe it reminded me when I was assigned out of the seminary in 1983 up to Plymouth, Wisconsin, uh Lyle Lecterhand was head of the uh uh evangelism board for Northern Wisconsin District. And I remember him, we had a big gathering at at our church, and he he showed up, and I I remember it like it was yesterday. He said, he goes, the laity, you know the mission field. The pastor knows you. And uh I found that somewhat inspiring it and kind of further, you know, fann the flame of my interest and uh in the work that we do too at CLR and trying to get laity involved in in ministry because uh you know they're the ones that are you know out there with them. You know, they're they're working side by side, they're involved in community things.

SPEAKER_03 4:58

Yeah, we take our example from a lot of places in scripture, especially we see it starting when Jesus sends the 72, and who knows the level of theological training that every one of these 72 had, but I suspect they felt unprepared to do the work that they were doing. And that was part of the discipleship process that Jesus was sending them on. So we are just pretty comfortable with uh a messy process of saying you may not know all the answers. There's value in that. You can learn together. You may not be comfortable in every cultural setting, but God puts us on this mission intentionally. He he gave the mission to inadequate people. So let's do it.

From Tentmaking To Full-Time Support

SPEAKER_01 5:35

So what is uh the the model really of Friends Network? I mean, I mean, um a little familiar with when you guys were Friends of China and um kind of this English teacher model. What is the model um that you guys use now?

SPEAKER_03 5:51

Right, that has changed. So when we expanded to new countries, we found that that that particular model, which we can call tent ministry, earning a salary like Paul did with his tent making, that wasn't really replicable in all of our other mission fields. So we pivoted, and most of our missionaries now raise their own support. They do it with with our help and with our platform. Um, but that's very, very common in global missions that missionaries will be able to identify, for example, there are 30 or 40 families or two or three churches that are a part of their support team. So what that means is that our missionaries go over with full financial support and they have the benefit of being able to be full-time missionaries. You know, in the past, people were often uh teaching English for 30 hours a week or something, and and then they were often pretty tired and doing their evangelism on the side. Um now we've got missionaries who land and get to to give themselves fully to the culture, to the language study, uh, to the relationships. So uh a lot different orientation to the mission field now than they had in the past.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

Mm-hmm. We had had on an earlier episode uh we had had Billy Heyer on and Bill and Billy and his family are over there and and we get the the electronic newsletter from him, and it's uh fascinating just the broad spectrum of things that he gets involved with and what's all going on. And well, and it's you know, I've I think part of the appeal that Friends Network has had for for Diane and and me to support was that it's a bridge ministry, really. It's always looking for different bridges to reach people.

SPEAKER_03 7:28

Right. And you never exactly know where where the bridge is gonna lead. So when people are serving at the very front edge of missions, you know, so we have a team, for example, that landed in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. To our knowledge, there's no Lutheran presence in in Ho Chi Minh City. So they landed, said here's a city of several million people. Where's God gonna take it? And really, when you're at the front, your engagement in that community is going to dictate where you go and how you develop those relationships and how Christ can be shared in this place.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Yeah, you know, I wanted to kind of focus on that relationship building too and that piece of it. What is the importance of building a relationship? Um, we talk about evangelism and how does that happen?

Launching In New Cities Without Blueprints

SPEAKER_03 8:11

Yeah, when we make friends overseas, frankly, same is true here in America. The thing that we have to offer is more than just a set of statements that we want people to believe. It's an entire worldview, right? So if we're meeting with people who were born and raised in different global religions, it's easy enough for them to read the Bible and say, oh, I can see some wisdom here, but it's a really big leap to come over to the Christian faith and say, these are now the lenses through which I see the world, right? So if you're asking for major transformational change in a person's life, and this isn't just evangelism, on your podcast, you talk about so many life challenges, right? Really difficult conversations that people are having, caregivers or uh people who have family members who are struggling with various things. And we just know from experience and so much research that major transformational change is going to come after a foundation of trust has been laid. So if you're in an inner circle and the person is willing to let you influence their life, right? That takes a lot of trust to get to a point where somebody can say, I hear you and I'm willing to adjust my opinion, I'm willing to adjust my thinking because I trust that you have my best interest in mind. And there's not really a quick way to get there. You have to build that foundation through just a lot of meaningful time and conversations and a lot of listening.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

I think, you know, you can think too that that would take a lot of work to build that kind of relationship. And and so how do you view the relationship maybe as being important and not really like, oh, I've got, you know, to I've got all these projects to do, or I've got to, you know, treat my relationships as projects, but be authentic in that?

SPEAKER_03 9:57

Yeah. First, this is a great question. First, I'll say it can be a little bit disorienting for missionaries because what we are affirming is exactly that. We are affirming the work of relationship. So they'll say, yeah, but it was only, I'm just having lunch with people or I'm just playing badminton. And we're saying, exactly. That's a successful day because we're building relationship. And and they're Americans are just wired to to be achievers and to measure the the output of their activity. Of course, we want output eventually, but we're really careful to first say the relationship has value, period. So we get to demonstrate Christ's love, we get to honor a person with our time, with our ears, we get to uh show a person that they are worthwhile and that they're worth the relationship. And people like Billy and so many of our missionaries will say, we can easily point to people that we've befriended for years and they have not come to faith. And that's when we just have to have a perspective that this isn't this isn't really our business. We continue to plant the seeds, or sometimes before seed planting, you're picking rocks in soil and you're tilling the soil and getting it ready. And those relationships have value in a way that maybe only God can see, but we we're very careful to affirm the relationship for the relationship's sake, not so that it produces the outcome that we're looking for.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

I often um invoke 1 Peter 3.15. Yeah always be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks you the reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect. And that that's always that's predicated on a relationship. Because no one's going to even observe hope in you if you don't have a relationship. Right. And if you're acting like a jerk or if you're acting condescending or if you're acting standoffish, you're not going to have a relationship. They're going to they're going to be watching you, and then the relationship's going to be close enough that when things um get hard, uh they're going to be watching how you how you weather the storm. And and at some point they're actually going to come to you. You know, when when I was in high school, evangelism was very formalaic. In other words, you were given your 27 passages to memorize, and and then you had to go out. And I remember the first cold calls of the evangelism committee in my church and knocking on the door and uh have no relationship. They didn't want to talk to us, you know, and and it just sounded like we were trying to sell something door to door. And uh and there was a time where maybe that worked, uh, but clearly today, you know, there's a there's so much distrust, and especially in American culture, there's a lot of distrust that you've got a major uh hurdle to get over. Uh, just establish the relationship.

Valuing Relationship Over Quick Results

SPEAKER_03 12:50

On that note, I'm never going to tell a person that memorizing the Bible verses, memorizing a formula, being prepared is is not worthwhile. There's a shadow side to it though, which is that we feel like there's a certain level of preparedness that we have to reach in order to be ready to do this. And the relationships that our missionaries are in are actually quite a bit different than that. It it doesn't usually come across in a formulaic way. Oftentimes it's just a relationship where they're talking about their faith in a very natural and organic way. And but we hear that all the time in America that members, people sitting in our pews are saying, ah, I can't evangelize yet. I just don't know enough, or I'm not ready, or I might say the wrong thing. And we really try to reverse that thinking and say, Yeah, but that's the humility that actually allows for the relationship to to blossom. And for for you to be able to say, actually, I don't, I don't really know. I've never dealt with that. Or for you to say, I've always held that belief, but actually I'm not even sure where I can show that in the Bible. Can we learn together? And there's a there's a humble posture that actually fast tracks that trust process in a way that the the person with the immediate answers and the immediate knowledge doesn't necessarily benefit from. It's nuance, but I hope I'm being clear on that.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

I think too, you know, we um we also were talking beforehand too, just about how God can take relationships into places where we don't even know or we don't see where it can go. And and I I just I appreciated that perspective too, because I could think in my own life of relationships that I had and where I thought, oh yeah, this will this will go this way, and then it didn't. Or even the opposite effect, like thinking like, oh yeah, nothing's really gonna come out of this. And then lo and behold, I mean, I can look like eight years down the road and think, wow, I mean, God really used that. And and was wondering if you could just kind of speak a little bit to how God uses relationships in that way, because that just was really neat to me.

Humility Beats Memorized Formulas

SPEAKER_03 15:06

He he surprises us all the time, all the time. We we encourage our missionaries to release their agenda, which doesn't necessarily mean um release your agenda to share your faith or to introduce scripture into a relationship or something, but release your agenda in terms of what God might do with that. We we we don't know. One of the fascinating things that I'll often ask people who have who have just come to faith or or new to the Christian faith, I'll ask, how did you come to know Christ? The answer is almost always a very long, roundabout, circuitous answer. It'll involve a lot of touch points with the gospel, a lot of relationships over a long period of time. And it's a good reminder that we don't get to engineer that process, right? We don't get to say, oh, it's linear. Clearly now you're ready for this class and then this class and then this class and now you're in. It might feel like that if we're, I mean, we're pretty satisfied with the fact that we're progressing through a curriculum or whatever, but what's actually happening in their life is a roller coaster and they're questioning all sorts of things, and they have a lot of deeply held beliefs that are coming into conflict with what they're hearing in your class, but they're honoring the teacher by listening and nodding their head. But if we just recognize they're on a journey, uh, we release our agenda and we just say, What's the contribution I can make today? I'll release it to the spirits where it belongs anyway. And then tomorrow, well, Lord willing, get another opportunity to make a contribution.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

One of the appealing things about Friends Network is it it's kind of a a way, at least, at least for Diane and me, a way by proxy to break out of that temptation to just kind of find a security within our little church. You know, our we we we belong to a church and all of our members all think the same thing, and all of our best of friends uh all, you know, we all send our kids to the same schools, you know. We we create this cocoon and then we begin to feel comfortable. And I'm always reminded, what was it, Revelation uh Church of Laodicea? You say you're rich, you th you don't need a thing, you don't realize you're pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. You get you develop a tunnel vision. And uh when I read read the accounts, and we've known a few of um uh people who have worked uh for friends, and they all have that very relational personality. And and they recognize that all of God's plan doesn't go by a by a timetable and it doesn't go necessarily in order.

Releasing Agendas And God’s Timing

SPEAKER_03 17:38

Yeah. I I sympathize with our pastors and our church leaders because they are they are measured by certain metrics, right? We have the number of people in pews and we have the number of baptisms and confirmations. And I don't think that anyone means to put that sort of pressure on them, but the thing that's not being spoken is affirmation of other activities. So if you have 300 members of your church and you find out that one member is very intentional about his relationships at the gym, and he always stays 10 or 15 minutes after and is always sharing his faith, or even if not sharing his faith, always trying to develop those relationships. What he's hearing on Sunday morning is invite your friends to church, invite your friends to church, which means that's success. But the the thing to affirm is what are all of the ways that our members are in their communities doing whatever it might be? I mentioned rock picking before. I mean, sometimes the Christians who are a member of your church are the only Christian that some of their secular friends know. So we're a long way from getting that person to enter a church, but what's happening is they're warming to the idea of Christianity. Um, their assumptions are being challenged because they thought they knew about Christianity, but now they met one and this is different than I thought. So there's a lot of really good work happening that lives outside of our typical metrics. Do we want them in our churches? Of course we do. But I think there's a lot that we can do to affirm the work. When a farmer picks an apple, it's rewarding to pick the apple. It was no less important that way early in spring after the ground thawed, he was tilling up that soil or doing whatever it took to get ready for that harvest in the fall. So we just need to affirm all the work that's happening in the meantime. And it's really hard for church leaders to do that because they're thinking, yes, yes, yes, I know, I know, I know. But we want people in our pews. Of course we do. But there's a long process that takes to get there.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

Now I want to ask you a personal question. That is, um, you were involved before you became executive director in the field. And I I love asking this question. What were some of your earliest mistakes? What what were your false presumptions? Uh the things that you thought you had right.

Beyond Church Metrics: Hidden Wins

SPEAKER_03 19:53

Bob, you do not have enough time for me to cover. There's a big one that I talk about a lot. I'm a pretty extroverted person. Uh, my wife is more introverted, more relational. So we were a really nice team. Uh, we established a lot of relationships early, and the Lord blessed those relationships. We had people sitting in our home a couple times a week, you know, everyone's in socks, sitting on couches in the floor with Bibles open. Beautiful situation. My mistake early was that I would talk so much because I had all the answers. So if we were together for 75 minutes, it's probably not an exaggeration to say that I talked for 65 of them. And I would flip around to different Bible passages and never mind the fact that they're thinking, what the heck is a Thessalonian? Right? Doesn't no time for this. I have proof proof passage and proof passage, right? Um and the gospel was proclaimed. However, I missed so much of what was happening in that room. And I would ask for comprehension questions the following week, and I would be frustrated that they had seemingly missed everything that I had said. Meanwhile, they have big fundamental questions. And um I came in with an agenda and I came in with answers, and by golly, they're gonna hear the answers. And um you can you can scale that back to no joke, 10 or 15 minutes of effective sharing. Here's one parable. What does that mean to you? What cultural things does that raise? What questions do you have? And you can spend the rest of the time in discussion about that. That's going to be far more effective teaching strategy than just the person with the answers talking. So that I did that for a couple of years. I mean, I Bob, I was I uh I was pretty proud of myself. I know I know the mistake well. Yeah. I do it all the time. So yeah, there's there's something so meaningful about listening. You just you hear what is the person going through? What are their challenges? What are their struggles? And then the way we talk about it is that we hold This gospel, which is a multidimensional diamond. And we say, you can continue to repeat, your sins are forgiven, you're going to heaven. And it's true. Your sins are forgiven, you're going to heaven. You know this. Also, though, that diamond has dimensions of identity and purpose and hope and family and belonging. It's all in there. And if we're listening to the people that we're working with, and I'll I'll extend it to people here in America who are dealing, even if you're in a relationship with Christians, you're in difficult conversations, listening will help you understand how to respond appropriately.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

I keep thinking if Jeff were here, at some point he would go, uh, so where does the Lutheran view of Christian vocation fit in? You know, because I get because I could see Jeff kind of thinking that that question through, because that's really what you're talking about. It's kind of like you are you are the preacher where you're at. You know, if it's if you're you know the housekeeper, if you're the rock picker, if you're the whatever you're doing, yeah, you are that person. And you know, I had a uh I have a good friend who uh came over one night and he asked the question, you know, uh, uh, about, you know, I feel like I need to, um, I should be doing a better job witnessing, I should do a better job talking about my savior. And I remember in that conversation too, saying, or we do a better job listening. Just get, you know, focus more on the relationship than on finding the right words. God has a way of getting his way, you know. So you gotta you gotta put a little bit more trust in him and a little bit less trust in yourself, and just develop the relationship so that so that you are the worthy conduit.

Early Mistakes: Talking Too Much

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Yeah, I think the listening part is uh is such an important piece. And it is it is hard because I even myself too, I I like to talk, which is probably why I'm on a podcast here. And so my husband too, I if I go out with somebody for lunch or something, and then you know, he'll ask me, like, oh, okay, you know, what's new with so-and-so, and I and that's always like a test for me, like, oh yeah, did I let the other person talk enough in in that situation too? And and because I think there is, uh we're just kind of all talking here too about it, but um, that there is really the way to build trust with people and people people want to be heard, and it is it is a way to have that communication open.

SPEAKER_03 24:29

It's a profound gift to give a person the gift of listening. Um profound. And in our society that's being increasingly engineered away from personal relationship, we have fewer and fewer people who are listening deeply and listening intently. There's a study uh that was done that tries to measure the capacity that people have for certain types of relationships in their life. Robin Dunbar is the psychologist who did this, and and um anyway, he measures the number of people that you can have in an outer social circle that you'd be able to say their name or whatever, kind of smashing the illusion that you can have 2,000 friends that social media has kind of created, right? So to what extent can you know 150 people? And then to what extent can you know the 50 that are inside of that and the 25? Well, in the in the very center, there's a group that he calls Close Confidants. Uh, and he says you really can't have more than about two or three of those people. Sadly, there are a lot of Americans who probably would not be able to identify one, somebody that they can go to that will genuinely listen, genuinely know them, genuinely accept them for who they are, just feel safe in their presence. So a lot of times in the mission field, we find that the types of people we attract are people who are pretty complicated individuals. And a lot of times these people have been ostracized in their communities or don't have close relationships in their families. And our missionaries, just with the posture of openness and listening, attract them. And they say there's something different about you. And the thing that's different about them, of course, is that the love of Christ is being demonstrated through this posture that you are safe here, you are loved here, you are known here, you're valued here. That's Christ. So they're attracted to that oftentimes before they ever hear the name of Jesus. They're attracted to what it feels like to be in a relationship where someone actually values them and cares.

Listening As A Spiritual Discipline

SPEAKER_02 26:32

You know, Krista said that she's on a podcast because she likes to talk, but I'll tell you, what's what's a good discipline is like when when Jeff, Krista, and I are here. We all have to kind of take turns. And we've even developed little hand motions to you know, like time to time to cut it short. But the the listening, and first of all, in defense uh for you anxious and so forth, because I have that problem, you know, myself, where it's hard to listen. And part of it is that you get excited because something that you didn't understand before, you now understand. And you get you get almost and that's almost what drove you into what you're doing. You know, in other words, that that zeal, I uh the joy it gives you to understand something that was that previously had escaped you. And now all of a sudden God worked out things that you now understand it. You've you can hardly wait to tell somebody, and yet you you are a hundred percent right. That's where listening is the learned skill because excitement takes you over and channel the excitement to do the work, but then learn the skill to do it right instead of by listening.

SPEAKER_03 27:38

And you can you can really you can prevent an authentic learning process by stepping in and declaring all that you know, you know, someone's riding a bike. Of course, you could hold on forever, you could keep the training wheels on forever, but you have to allow the messiness to happen. So the inductive process is messier, the teaching process, because you're saying, I'm gonna lay out a story, I'm gonna lay out a biblical truth, and I want you to come to it on your own terms, and you're gonna be hearing them wrestle with it, and you're gonna be hearing things that you know to be incorrect. But that's the that's the wrestling process that they need to be able to come to the truth. And it's so easy to just dump it and say, here, here's all the answers. And that's that was my error early on. So that the discernment to know how to respond and when to respond, that comes over time. I wouldn't redo those couple of years because I think that was the lesson that I needed to learn. But we're older now.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

How do you maybe encourage people to be patient in their relationships too? I think we were talking about too, maybe like wanting to pick the fruit and but just realizing, okay, maybe that that isn't your job or that's not happening now. How do you encourage people to be patient and to stick with it?

Patience, Process, And Measuring Well

SPEAKER_03 29:08

Yeah, it's a great question. Because even if we're encouraging it, and I'll answer the question, but even if we're encouraging it, they have this internal clock or maybe metronome or whatever it is that's thinking, but now, maybe now, maybe now, and they need to see something happening. We just repeat over and over affirmation for the work that they're doing in that moment. If I make a field visit or my colleagues make a field visit and they are walking the streets of Davao, Philippines, we can get a sense of the types of relationships that they're developing and the work that they're doing, and we can affirm those things. They may get impatient and think, but they need to know, or we want more people. True. True. But we know from 25 years of ministry that the activities that they're carrying out bear fruit. They bear fruit in their own way in God's time. And we don't really get to control the circumstance. We can engineer it a little bit. There's the old saying that you get what you measure. So if you want, if you want people in your living room, if that's what you're measuring, you can figure out ways to get people in your living room. But it may not be that they were ready for what you have to offer or that it was, you know, I I hate to say that sometimes it's a bait and switch. We certainly try not to do that, but you can get what you measure, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, just have a meal, free meal.

SPEAKER_01 30:28

Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 30:29

And sometimes those have a those have a place, you know. Yeah. Uh-huh. Um yeah, we just we affirm all of the activities that play a part in this whole evangelism process. I'll say too, this gets a little bit tricky sometimes because the word evangelism literally means the telling of good news. Literally. So sometimes we get into trouble when we talk about the value of a good meal or a hug or something, and people say that's not evangelism. Well, true. Literally, you're right. Also, though, we talk about a process of evangelism that involves all of the relationship building. And so usually when we talk about this, we use this phrase, the process of evangelism. We just ask for a little bit of grace that people understand what we're talking about and not jump right in and say, well, that's just and then pick another word, outreach or whatever. You know, we have so many words for these things, hospitality. So the the whole process is affirmed as we teach our missionaries.

SPEAKER_02 31:26

But I mean, first of all, everything you're saying is everything I wanted you to say, because we've been supporting you a long time, and I just I feel even better about that support. What you know, there's there's two avenues uh people can establish in a relationship with friends network. You know, one avenue obviously is support, financial support. And and you know, we'll I'm sure Krista will have the links down below and all that uh kind of stuff so people can do that. But people also want to get involved. I've I've like I said, I've known a few people who've been in the field and have been doing the work. And it's quite quite a big deal. I think it's a big deal for people to to literally step off their their career track to say, I'm I'm just gonna break the cycle and I'm gonna go and I'm gonna go on the this trip. I'm gonna do this work. And and the the people I know that have done it stayed longer than they planned. I mean, they they they found it fulfilling. Can people do that with you? Well, how can they do that?

How To Get Involved Or Serve

SPEAKER_03 32:27

Well, we'll have a conversation with anyone. So if there's someone who's trying to discern what the Lord might be doing in their life, we have a family right now that was farming for years, husband and wife and five children, and they stayed in touch with us for the period of two or three years, and they would call or I would call, and they would say, Yep, timing's not quite right. So we're just kind of discerning, you know, what's right for your family and what's God's timing and all this. So we'll have a conversation with anybody. Yeah, we have semi-retired people and we have families with kids, and we have second career folks, and a lot of people uh who just come from something else and say, I'm I'm I'm looking for this in my life. We have a minimum commitment of two years in the field, which is very short for long-term missions, but uh it's long for a person who has a short-term mindset, right? So we often have people say, Well, I was thinking six months. That's not going to be our program because we're doing the long work of language study and putting down roots in a community. So, of course, to answer your question, there's the possibility that they serve as missionaries with Friends Network. Uh, another thing that a lot of people have chosen to do stateside is they've said, hey, you know, it's not the right circumstance for us to move overseas ourselves, but we see value in this model and we'd love to do this locally. So I've had the opportunity to do a lot of teaching and seminars and things like that, come into churches and say, let's work with your members on what it looks like to do genuine relational evangelism, to release the metrics of church, not to think in terms of institution. I want our churches to grow, but this is not my primary motive in teaching. We really just want the the universal priesthood to be practiced and realized. We if we've got 300 people in pews, step number one before anybody else comes into the pews, is that those 300 people are learning how to speak of Jesus in their lives. So I would invite that too. You know, of course, our time is a little bit limited, but as I'm able, I love to come into churches and and schools and teach on this and uh and help people recognize they're more than capable, they're more than ready to start talking about Jesus in their daily lives and building relationships that lead to those opportunities.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

One of the really neat things, if if people are listening, they have been a Christian for a while or their whole life too, is that you have that track record with what God has done in your life. And that is such a neat thing to be able to share with people too. I mean, obviously you want to do the listening part and get to know people where they're at too. But um, there is opportunity, I think, just in our daily relationships to share with people uh how God has worked in our life.

Simple Ways To Add A Spiritual Dimension

SPEAKER_03 35:14

Yeah. And it it's it's not scary. Missionaries are often almost apologetic for how much fun they're having because they'll say, How can you tell me this is a successful day if I'm just playing Badman? And so, likewise in America, we get all these things in our head about what the ideal gospel presentation should be in a moment or something, but let's back way up and just start to introduce our faith or spiritual conversation into a relationship that doesn't have that dimension right now. So you can be talking to your neighbor, you might have known him for 10 years, you've talked about everything except your faith because there's a barrier there. You think, oh, well, I have to see him tomorrow. What if this doesn't go well? But there are so many safe ways to introduce a spiritual dimension into that relationship. You know, somebody mentions that they're going through health struggles or something, and simply saying, I'll pray for you. Do you mind if I do that? You don't even have to do it on the spot. Please remember to do it, but you don't have to do it on the spot. And what you've done is you've safely introduced in a non-threatening way a spiritual dimension into a relationship that didn't have it. And then you go home and you think, that wasn't bad. It was actually kind of easy and fun. And then you've laid a foundation for future sharing, especially if that person is demonstrating a receptivity to it. So we we get all wound up in our heads about the right thing to say, or what if I make a mistake, or maybe you should just talk to my pastor because I don't know all the answers. And then when you do it in real life and you just share honestly and openly, you realize it's really fulfilling and actually a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Well, thank you very much for being here. And I think we could talk a while about this. That's really, really neat to hear you talk about it. So thank you very much. And yes, for all of our listeners, thank you so much for joining us. And we will link this information from Friends Network that Erin has shared with us today for all of our listeners.

SPEAKER_03 37:09

Thanks for having me today. Yeah, a neat conversation.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

Yeah, no problem. Kind of mind. And for all of our listeners, we'll see you back next time. Thanks a lot. Bye.

Closing Remarks And Resources

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Thank you for joining us for the Life Challenges Podcast of Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it, and sharing it with friends. We're here to help. So if you have questions on today's topic or other life issues, you can submit them as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes at lifechallenges.us, or email us to podcast at ChristianLiferesources.com. You can find past episodes and other valuable information at lifechallenges.us, so please check it out. For more about our parent organization, please visit Christianliferesources.com. A God gives you wisdom, love, strength, and peace in Christ for every life challenge.