SO THAT Missions Podcast | FBC Boerne
So that...God's ways may be known on Earth.
"So That" is an FBC Boerne podcast focused on what God is doing around the world with missions and through FBC Missions partners.
SO THAT Missions Podcast | FBC Boerne
Episode 62: Pam Arlund - Stick Figures and Salty Tea: Unlikely Tools for Kingdom Work
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Pam Arland's journey from Kansas City to the remote mountains of Western China unfolds as an extraordinary testament to how God uses the most unexpected gifts to reach the unreached.
"The greatest injustice on earth," Pam explains, is that millions of people in China would live their entire lives without the opportunity to hear about Jesus. This realization propelled her from being a self-described "geeky, nerdy" linguistics lover to becoming a Bible translator and church planter in one of the world's most challenging environments.
At elevations reaching 16,000 feet along the disputed borders of China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India, Pam learned three languages over seven years, bought a cheap bicycle to reach remote villages, and drew stick figures to share the gospel when language barriers remained. Her breakthrough came unexpectedly when a woman grabbed her coat and demanded, "I've heard you know about God and I want you to tell my entire family." This led to an entire household choosing to follow Jesus together – a powerful lesson in how collective cultures often make faith decisions as communities rather than individuals.
Beyond her personal ministry, Pam offers valuable insights into church planting movements, particularly regarding gender balance. Her research revealed that movements with either too many women or too many men often fail to transform entire societies. The most successful movements maintain balanced involvement, recognizing both genders as vital to reaching all segments of a community.
Today, Pam serves as editor for Perspectives, a curriculum that has transformed nearly 300,000 people's understanding of God's global purposes. Her story reminds us that whether it's diagramming sentences, riding bicycles at high altitudes, or drawing stick figures, God can use our seemingly ordinary skills for extraordinary kingdom purposes. What gifts might you offer that could make His name great among the nations?
Visit our website at www.fbcboerne.org for more stories, information, and service times.
Introduction to Pam Arland
Speaker 1Hey everybody, thank you so much for joining us today. I have an amazing guest in the studio with me. Her name is Pam Arland and it's going to be great getting to know her, so I hope you enjoy. Welcome to FBC Missions so that Podcast. This is an encouraging place to hear how God is working in and around us. We know that he blesses His people so that they can bless the world around them. Join us as we discuss how to join God in all that he is doing. Why is God working in our life, church and community? It's so that through us, the world will know that he is near All right. Well, welcome to FBC Missions so that Podcast. I'm so glad that you joined us today. This is going to be a lot of fun talking to our guest I have in the studio with me, pam Arland. How are you doing, pam?
Speaker 2I'm doing well, thanks, good to be here.
Speaker 1Yeah, we're so glad that you got to come today. Pam was our instructor for Lesson 10 on Perspectives today. My understanding is that you've taught all the perspectives lessons at some point in your perspectives journey. Is that true?
Speaker 2That is true. I've taught them all many, many times.
Speaker 1Many, many times. Also, I think I read that you're doing like 50 perspectives classes a year.
Speaker 2Is that also semi-accurate? Yeah, that sounds about right. But the miracle of it is they never get old.
Speaker 1They never get old they never get tiring.
Speaker 2I get excited about them every single time.
Speaker 1Well, the way that you taught lesson 10 today, I would have thought that was your favorite lesson. Like you did an excellent job and and we're so, so thankful that you got to be a part of our loop this weekend, this week. So great having you with us. But you're far more than just a lesson 10 instructor. So, just so, why don't you introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about who you are and how you got to where you are today?
Speaker 2Sure, I'm a kid from Kansas City. I grew up not going to church so I didn't really grow up in a very Christian family, culturally Christian. Yes, every once in a while we'd see a pastor go to church, but my parents sent me to a Christian school, so that's like a shout-out for Christian schools, and I remember learning about Jesus and falling in love with him from a pretty young age. Fast forward, I grew up and I was a product of my college youth group. I went to college without a Bible and I left college madly in love with Jesus because of the InterVarsity group that.
Speaker 2I was a part of there. So, that was life transformative, that time period for me. And then I moved to Western China and I became a Bible translator and a church planter and I'd be happy to tell some of those stories coming up. But that was a wonderful experience. Not every minute of it was really happy or positive right, don't get me wrong. But it's such an immense privilege and opportunity to have been able to be there.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, I can't imagine. I saw some of your pictures today, so I can't wait to talk a little more about that. So that's a pretty concise summary right Of a lot of different things. But I heard you say today that you're not from Kansas, so you're not from the Kansas City Kansas side of Kansas City.
Speaker 2That's right, I'm from Kansas City, missouri, and it's just not factually accurate. I mean, kansas is a fine state.
Speaker 1I'm sure it is.
Speaker 2They have fine human beings there, but I'm not one of them.
Speaker 1Kansas City. It's not just in Kansas, people, We've got to know that that's right. It's like Texarkana, it's not just in Arkansas, folks, it's not. Oh yeah, well, we're so thankful for all the truth. So you're with an organization called All Nations. Have you been working with them your entire ministry career?
Speaker 2Almost. I've been with them ever since about 1999. I did get started a little bit before that and at that point All Nations wasn't really able to process, support and do many of the things that a full-fledged missions agency could do. So I was there not right in Western China?
Speaker 1So that's a big gap from Kansas City Missouri go to college without a Bible, left in love with Jesus and then landed in Western China. So tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2Yeah, I feel like I'm the least. If you just looked at my life as a child, you would never think I'd pick up and move to Western China, and a lot of times I would joke with my parents like why didn't you teach me Chinese when I was a child? It would have been so much easier when I grew up and they're like there's no way we could have thought that you would pick up and move to some place like China.
Speaker 2But when I went to undergrad and was kind of figuring out you know, majors, I wanted to be an international affairs major and I actually fell in love with the culture of China. And it's actually an old culture of China, it's not the current culture, but I people on a podcast may not know, but I'm like the ultimate geeky nerdy. I love to read books and they had this high esteem and honor for scholars and so I think I was really attracted to that culture of China and they had this complicated yet beautiful writing system. I was just attracted to it and so I was very interested in the culture of China. And then, as I got to know Jesus, I began to discover that there were roughly 500 people groups in China who didn't have anybody there who knew Jesus, and to me that seemed like the greatest injustice on earth. That I had people who, by God's grace, I met them at college. They put a Bible in my hand, they taught me about.
Speaker 2Jesus. You know I had people at a local Christian school who also taught me about Jesus, but that there were people in China that had no opportunity over the entire course of a lifetime to learn about Jesus. That really hit my heart and I felt the Lord not only hit my heart with the injustice of it, but something far more significant and important the invitation to step in and do something about it. Because sometimes our heart gets hit with an injustice but we're not supposed to actually go out and start a ministry or do something about it. Our only job is to pray and to weep with the Lord. Right, a lot of times, you know, for example, in the book of Ezekiel, there are people who just weep with the Lord. But in this case he not only hit me with the injustice and I wept with him, but he invited me then into doing something about it To participate in the work itself.
Speaker 1That's incredible. I think many people think that the country of China has a lot of Chinese, but there's a lot of other people groups that live within that country. Tell us a little bit about that. You just mentioned 500 people groups or so, or language groups. Maybe I messed it up, but tell us a little bit. Obviously, if you have any love for China, you probably know the Han Chinese as the predominant culture. That's the largest people group. I can't remember statistics, so I feel like it's like over 200 million, 300 million.
Speaker 1They're roughly 97% of the country 97%, so we're talking 800 million more than that, because there are just about a billion people in China.
Speaker 2I think we're up to 1.4 billion now One point.
Speaker 1So yeah, it's almost 1.4 billion. All right, this is a different subject, but I've heard that India has surpassed them as the most populous country on the planet.
Speaker 2I have heard that as well, so it must be true, if we both heard it.
Speaker 1If we both heard it, it's pretty likely. I think they're probably both pretty close yeah, right so we're talking 1.4, 1.5. That means 3 billion people between those two nations. That's unbelievable. So 1.4 million.
Speaker 1Chinese. 97% of them are Han Chinese, so straight population, the Han. It still remains one of the largest unreached people. Actually, I think I saw that they have moved from unreached to least reached as a people group now, but there's 3% of the population then that are not Han Chinese. So there are other tribes, other people groups. So did you say there was 500? Is that close?
Speaker 2There are roughly 500. And I'm always using round numbers. I'm a linguist.
Speaker 1I became a linguist because I'm actually not very good, justin Long can tell us the exact number of Chinese Chat with somebody else, but yeah, I think if you pick up a copy of a prayer book about China called Operation China some people are probably familiar with Operation. World. We can pray through the countries of the world.
Speaker 2This book, operation China. You can just pray through the people groups of China, and it's a little bit dated at this point it's been out a while, but there's roughly 500 people groups listed in there, and what Few Americans in any event realize is that if you want to be with the most number of Muslims on earth, you wouldn't go to the Middle East Right, you would go to Asia Right. And if people stop and think about it very critically, they'll figure out why Because Asia has so many human beings.
From Kansas City to Western China
Speaker 2Right it has these massive cities and these massive populations, Whereas in the Middle East you've got sand right and such big deserts that mostly nobody can live in those deserts, and certainly not with a high density of population. For sure. So most people don't realize that Western China has quite a number of different Muslim people groups and one of them in particular is somewhat well known in the united states now the uyghurs is what we call them their own word for themselves is kind of unpronounceable in english.
Speaker 2Uh, they call themselves the. We are right, so so, and that's why it's spelled weird, uh, but we pronounce it uyghur okay.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2And they have a genocide being carried out against them by the Chinese government, and I think it is often unrecognized by American Christians that there are Muslims who are oppressed for their Islamic faith, and I personally think it's important for us to talk about that, because I don't think anybody should be persecuted for their faith Right, even if it's what I would personally consider the wrong faith.
Speaker 1Sure.
Speaker 2The faith that's not of Christ. People still have freedom to choose and they still have the right to choose in my opinion incorrectly and they shouldn't be oppressed for that.
Speaker 1Yeah, oppressed for that. Yeah, just in the dignity that we are supposed to offer as believers, that all people are creating God's image, that all of them have rights as God's creation. I would fully agree. Many people are unaware of that and, sadly, sometimes they even cheer because they think of other faiths or competing faiths or even sometimes damaging faiths as a threat or as an enemy, and I think it's a misunderstanding definitely of scripture when we think about it like that. But you're talking about the places where you got to go. Was it a city? Were you in a large environment? China, to me, is one of those places where I learn of a new city name and find out it has 10 million people in it.
Speaker 1I'm just like, how many cities have 10 million? Oh, there's like 50. Okay golly, they're huge and I've never even heard of it. You know there's such a huge population, so were you in a population center?
Speaker 2I was not in a population center Now. I was based out of a city that had a couple million people in it.
Speaker 1It was a small Chinese city which by American standards would be pretty big.
Speaker 2But not by Chinese standards, and then I would spend the summers out on the border between China, Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, and it's actually a disputed territory. If you look at, for example, the most important map in my life, the Starbucks map, if you pull up the Starbucks map for that area, the international boundaries just disappear and there are no Starbucks there either.
Speaker 1By the way, just in case you were, wondering, I was wondering, I was thinking there's probably not a lot in those disputed territories.
Speaker 2Yeah, but the international boundaries, even on the Starbucks map, just disappear at that point Because Pakistan, india and China haven't drawn those boundaries and made international treaties.
Speaker 1Yeah, every now and then they fight over it like every couple of years, right every once in a while get a headline and it's just a very brief little battle.
Speaker 2It doesn't usually go very far, but there's a lot of tension up in that area.
Speaker 1Sure.
Speaker 2And it makes it difficult for outsiders like me to be able to go in there and live there have a reason to be there.
Speaker 2But for me, my ticket into the area right like this is my reason to be here was to do linguistics research, which I really did. You know, when you have a missionary who needs to be in an area and they figure out you know what marketable skill will get them there or what is needed in that area, you have to actually have that skill. You have to actually do those things because you can't establish a false identity and then expect people to believe you when you talk about Jesus.
Speaker 1Yeah, credibility is a big deal when you're going to share the hope of their future Major life decisions coming. Yeah, you have to have credibility for sure.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I am legitimately actually very excited about diagramming sentences and doing linguistic research. So people pick that up about me that I was legit, I really was excited. I mean, I'm more excited about Jesus. That should be good, right. But, I'm pretty excited about doing linguistics work as well.
Speaker 1Well, you had a great line today in your class that I loved and you were talking about just kind of the way people are called and how people have all kinds of different skill sets, and you said I had diagram sentences and for somehow that opened up doors for me to go to the nations. And it's definitely not one of those things that people think about when they're considering what skills do you need to be a successful missionary? But it's amazing that God can take every gift and that one is actually incredibly valuable in lots of ways.
Speaker 2Yeah, one of the, I guess, kind of life convictions that I have is that whatever gift we have even if it seems absurd like diagramming sentences that if we'll put it on the table and offer it to the Lord, he will somehow use it to make his name great in the nations. He will use it for his glory. And in the past what we used to do is like put out kind of a help wanted list, like we're looking for, you know, just a few good people who have these exact specific skill sets, and I actually don't approach it that way anymore. I say if your heart is being stirred towards a people, a location, then the Lord will empower you. We just have to figure out where the match is between what the Lord has put in your hand and what is needed in this place, and sometimes I don't have enough of a creative brain to think of it actually. So I bring in some friends of mine who are great at connecting things together and it's really fun when you find, wow, look, who would have guessed that? A person with this background. So I'll give you an example that got me excited.
Speaker 2I was at a perspectives class now many years ago in we'll just call it a Western country because of the security around the story, and this entire family are ranchers, and so I got to go out to their ranch and, of course, for me as a city kid that was super fun.
Speaker 2Well, let's just fast forward. Multiple years, multiple of their children have been serving the Lord across the Middle East and it turns out that there is this Middle Eastern country that's very difficult to move to for outsiders, but they have been longing to ignite ranching in this one area of their country. Now, if I mentioned the name of that country which I'm not going to do you would actually think, oh, that whole country is just sand and it is like 90% sand. But there's this one area, and so this family basically lives there now, using their ranching skill, and I just love how God put them in the right time in the right place and then made the right connections to use what he had empowered them with and gifted them with to make his name great in a place that actually nobody else can get to.
Speaker 1It's incredible, and you hear those kinds of stories a lot. You know, really, if we will put whatever God has given us in his hands, it's really no limit to what he might do with it. And uh, and what, that's such a fun story. Um, so you got to to work. Uh, in that part of China the pictures were mountainous, it seemed like it was high altitude. Um, I think you said that you started at 14,000 feet and went up to 16,000 or something along those lines. I've climbed some mountains. The highest one I climbed was Mount Rainier in Seattle, which is 14,410, and it was hard to breathe there. So starting at 14 and going to 16 is quite an endeavor. How did that work for you? How did you enjoy that part of the—.
Speaker 2Well, for one thing, I'm a Kansas City lowlander right, so elevation 750 feet.
Speaker 1Oh goodness, I didn't realize Kansas City was that low. Kansas City is pretty low. I think we're higher than that here.
Speaker 2I think we're about 1,500 feet so almost twice as high, yeah, so I guess that part of the country just kind of dips down.
Speaker 1Come off the Ozarks and go down into the valley.
Speaker 2Yeah, when I would first go into the mountains to spend several weeks in the mountains there usually, honestly, I didn't feel good the first couple days.
Speaker 1I imagine.
Speaker 2And I just factored it in. You know, and thankfully it wasn't dangerous for me. You know, for some people altitude sickness is just flat out dangerous. But actually they did live a little bit lower. They started at 11,000 feet and went up in altitude, but I mean that's still pretty high.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's super high. I mean Quito, Ecuador, high Like that's high.
Speaker 2Yeah, so you know, you just took your time, especially those first few days and those first few weeks, and then eventually your body does adapt. But anytime we're in an adaptation process it's always a little bit difficult, painful, it takes some discipline to make it through. And so I eventually was like, well, what would it take to reach the people here in these mountains? And I noticed that there were these like extreme bicyclers going through, and of course they were like all men who are about as fat as a pencil.
Speaker 1Sure, this is going to be the craziest people on the planet to ride a bicycle at high altitude.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I was like, oh so, so they're like people who do that, Like that makes sense to people. Well, so I think I need to learn how to do that. Then and I, you know, wasn't in good shape, I prefer to read books, I don't really like exercise but I actually thought, well, I said to Jesus I would do anything for him. And if I said I would do anything for him, then that would include buying a bicycle and learning to ride it at this altitude. You know, some people may just be physically not capable, which is fine, but for me I was capable. It's just going to take me a long time to be able to get to that place. So I bought a bicycle and of course it was this horrible bicycle that weighed so much and the gears hardly worked, but it was the best that was available in my environment at the time.
Speaker 1This is the Huffy, the Walmart special, yeah, basically, yeah, the. Walmart special, I mean, at least it did have some gears on it, sure, sure, 18 speed or something, yeah, and so I just started.
Speaker 2All right, well, you know, that's as far as we're going to go today, I guess. And then just started going a little bit farther each time and eventually I got to where I could put together groups of people who would bicycle in the area. And then, just only only because I cared about the children, I always rode at the back of the pack.
Speaker 2It wasn't because I was the slowest most pathetic person in the whole group. It's because I wanted to make sure no children were left behind Of course, of course, it's your shepherd's heart, like the mother hen. Yeah, but I'll tell you a story, a different one than the one.
Speaker 2I told earlier today at Perspectives but I do sometimes tell it in Perspectives classes I was riding a bicycle and I had on the back of my bicycle tomatoes and cucumbers, Because at that time the chinese government was growing vegetables and hot houses and giving them away to the locals. Because of the altitude you couldn't do normal, you know agriculture and agriculture and things like that.
Speaker 2So as I was writing back from the greenhouse, a lady came and she kind of waved at me and it was not that unusual that people would stop you and be like, hey, give me your tomatoes and cucumbers and you'd give them away, because freely, if you receive freely, you give sure it gives you a chance to you know, chat with people.
Linguistic Research and Cultural Barriers
Speaker 2So that was fine. But she stopped me, waved me and then I said oh, do you want some tomatoes and cucumbers? And she grabbed onto my coat it was a summer but I had on a coat because of the altitude and she started dragging me by my coat and she said no, I don't want your tomatoes and cucumbers. I've heard that you know about God and I want you to come tell my entire family about God. My goodness.
Speaker 2And up until this point I had spent multiple years, like seven years, learning three different languages and I had tried sharing the gospel with so many people and nobody seemed interested. And I was like somewhere out there there's what we typically call the person of peace, the one that Holy.
Speaker 2Spirit's already been working in, but I have to find them, and so far I am not finding them, and so I had actually really upped my sending team and I said come on, sending team, let's be praying into being able to find these men and women. Because Jesus said, and I believe, the harvest is plentiful, it's the workers that are few, and what I normally hear people say is like, oh well, the harvest is plentiful somewhere else not here, wherever I am, the harvest is not plentiful.
Speaker 2I'm like, no, the harvest is plentiful, we just have to find it. So the fact that she was grabbing onto my coat, I was like wow, this is so different than before and I really give the credit to my senders, my sending team that was praying for me and partnering with me at a whole new level, uh, that they, through the spirit, uh, opened up my ability maybe even to hear that I needed to be bicycling that day.
Speaker 2So, anyway, she grabbed onto my coat and she said now wait a minute. I want my entire family to be assembled before you say whatever it is that you feel like you need to say. And so I waited, and you know, you drink your salty milk tea with rancid butter in it while you wait, because that's what they drink. Sounds wonderful, yeah. And so she gathered maybe I don't know 15, 16, 17 people in her home and I basically began to follow a model where I had eaten what was put before me. I already did that. Now, pray for the sick, I asked, is anybody sick? And basically it didn't work very, very well because there were too many people in the room and I was like, all right. So I got out a piece of paper and I started drawing stick figures, which is what I do. I draw stick figures of the story of Zacchaeus, and I love the story of Zacchaeus because it conveys cross-culturally very easily. Every culture knows that tax collectors are bad guys. You don't have to explain that part of the story Universal truth.
Speaker 2It's a universal truth, absolutely, and there's an obvious moment of repentance and an obvious moment of the kindness of God.
Speaker 2And then I love the fact that there's an adoption that happens at the end of the story. It says now you've become a son of Abraham, that you get brought into the family of Abraham. At the end of the story it says now you've become a son of Abraham, that you get brought into the family of Abraham. At the end of the story. And so I drew the little stick figures of Zacchaeus and then I asked her you know, basically, what do you think? And she kind of looked around at everybody in the room and then she looked at me and she said as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Speaker 2And she quoted scripture that didn't exist in her language but Holy Spirit had just dropped it right into her heart. And so I went around the room because I was still thinking like an individualistic Westerner. I was like do you want to follow Jesus? You know, I asked every single individual person in the room do you want to follow Jesus? And they all said yes. And then later I had this one young gal who came up to me like young, maybe 12, 13, I don't know and she said teacher, they always call you teacher, right? She said isn't this like a really important decision? I said, yeah, this is probably the most important decision you'll ever make. And she said I didn't think it was good to make really important decisions alone. Like, oh, yeah, you're right. Why should I think that the decision to follow Jesus would be a decision that you would make alone? Because actually, if you make it in community, then the entire community might follow Jesus would be a decision that you would make alone?
High Altitude Ministry on Two Wheels
Speaker 2Because actually, if you make it in community, then the entire community might follow Jesus together and you can still go it solo if you need to right, I get it, sometimes you have to choose Jesus over your community, but wouldn't it be so much better if we could have Jesus in that community, of course, rather than just having one or two isolated believers here and there? And so, yeah, that was really a breakthrough moment for me. There were just a few of those moments, but I want to help the listeners of the podcast to hear that that breakthrough moment happened after multiple pre-successes or abject failures. You know, multiple years of learning language, trying to share Jesus, with maybe hundreds of people, nobody being interested, but just knowing they're out there somewhere. And we continue to pursue them and follow until Holy Spirit finally opens up the way and we find them. So I just want to encourage people to not give up. Yeah.
Speaker 2If they just get rejected by one or two people and be like, oh, forget it, I'm out, but just to keep at it.
Speaker 1Yeah, there's so many elements to what you're saying. It's such a beautiful story too. It feels like you're reading it right out of Acts and it feels like you read a story like that out of all the famous mission stories. Those are the stories that just capture your heart, where God has prepared people's hearts. Before you ever walked in the door You're riding a bicycle with some vegetables on it and that's the day and that's the moment that God chose to to bring someone really out of nowhere and they're ready to gather their family, cornelius. It's like Cornelius' story all over again. Well, it's so wonderful to hear stories like that. It captures our hearts.
Speaker 1In the West, you know, we hear stories and it does give us hope. It gives us some courage because, you know, here we learn systems, we learn processes, we learn gosh methods and methodologies, and then you know, we measure them for success. We learn gosh methods and methodologies and then we measure them for success and unfortunately our measurements are far too short. Right, you try it three or four times and you feel discouraged. Some of our missionary friends will share the gospel a hundred times or a thousand times, and they're there to find the new believer that the Lord is going to bring about, and sometimes it takes an inordinate amount of effort. Three languages in seven years would be an inordinate amount of effort. You know it's a lesson in extreme perseverance, especially when you're thinking about the ends of the earth, the top of the world kind of places. And so what an encouraging thing, and really to anyone that would go right, to anyone that would have the willingness to follow where the Lord leads them, and so many great things, directions we could go.
Speaker 1But before we run out of time I want to ask you I read an article that you wrote as a chapter, I think, in Modestay, that talked about women's contributions in some of these church planting movements. We've talked a little bit in the podcast about movements in the past, but why don't you give me just a little overview of some of that work you've done? That kind of ties into a movement, some of that movement ideology. What is a movement? Why don't we start there?
Speaker 2Yeah, so a church planting movement is just a remembrance, actually, that church is alive. It's organic, and organic things reproduce, and so a movement is when you have a rapid multiplication of disciples who are making disciples. And when disciples make disciples, they'll end up planting new churches. They'll end up planting new churches because now you've reached a pocket of people who maybe lives too far away or they have a different work schedule or they have a different language, even that they're speaking, so you'll end up planting more churches as you make more disciples speaking. So you'll end up planting more churches as you make more disciples. So, rather than bringing everybody back to one central location, you end up having typically, though not exclusively, lots of little churches instead of one big church. And one of the questions that I had about church planting movements was really the role of women in church planting movements. Now you probably heard that two-thirds of the missionary workforce of today is female. And.
Speaker 2I had begun to interview a few different ladies you know like tell me about the women's work that's going on where you are, and I honestly began to get a little bit distressed, because a lot of the women I was talking to were like I actually I only work with the women, I have no idea what's happening with the men and they were highly segregated, and I began to wonder if that was because of what was happening in the culture, and so I kind of began to dig into that, and what I found was that there were basically kind of two different errors that people were falling into, in which they would sometimes have too many women and sometimes have not enough women, and on either side, what would happen is they would lose the rapid reproduction of church planting movements that they were hoping to have rapid reproduction of church planting movements that they were hoping to have.
Speaker 2And I think that the reason why is because you would end up encountering what, in perspectives, we call a barrier of acceptance or understanding, and one of those barriers is sometimes a gender barrier, and so that's why it's important as much as we can I know that this is an ideal that we have both men and women that are following Jesus in our local churches, men and women that are following Jesus in our local churches. And what would happen when you had a women's movement is that the gospel would continue to percolate through women, but it very rarely was transforming the entire society, because it wasn't reaching the men, it wasn't reaching the head of households, it wasn't reaching the workplaces. And then, likewise, we had another area where they had too many men and they really weren't reaching out to the women, and the reason why was because they thought that religion was something for men.
Finding the Person of Peace
Speaker 2It wasn't something for women, and likewise they weren't seeing the societal level transformation there either that they wanted to have. But there were a few places, and I think in the article we highlight some of the work in Uganda that All Nations has been a part of. They've done a magnificent work through a local leader named Wilson in Uganda, and they've had thousands of churches now and have planted and sent out their own missionaries cross-culturally into many different places, and there was a cultural conception about women, but also those leaders were like that might be our cultural conception, but we don't think that that's how Jesus views women, and so that's one of those sticky points right, that you have to sometimes challenge cultural conceptions as you bring Jesus in. And so they had deliberately and decisively put women into their first tier of leadership and sent out women as missionaries some married, some singles, and they had actually achieved more of a balance between men and women. And I think that's not the only reason. That's not the only significant factor.
Speaker 2But I think that that is one of the significant factors in why that particular movement did so well.
Speaker 1That's really a great example. There are places maybe on the planet where there's just such segregation between the genders already. I wonder how that would look in a Muslim context, for instance, where that would look so differently. I've read stories, of course, of men and women workers working in Muslim contexts where they both had some meaningful work and success. But I really am encouraged when I read the things that you've written. Knowing that the missionary workforce is two-thirds women and knowing that in the US the political pieces get kind of tense within the evangelical circles on what women can and can't do, it's really interesting to see that kind of. Regardless of that, there are places really all over history and even modern day examples throughout the world where God is using women in really meaningful, like you said, top tier level leaders and roles that are doing things. So even your work as a church planter is exciting to hear about and hear about the breakthrough kind of moments that God orchestrated and gave you is such a meaningful thing.
Speaker 1But beyond that, today I can't clear my throat. I don't know if it's the barbecue or the water, but God has given you an incredible new role here with Perspectives. It's a 50-year-old organization. It's got almost 300,000 alumni in the U? S and more all around the world. What an incredible thing. And you're kind of working alongside Steve Hawthorne to be the editor for the fifth edition and, I think, moving forward, one day, if there's a sixth edition, you'll be the the the editor for that. Be the editor for that. What an incredible role God has given you. Those dissecting sentences pays, not pays off. I don't know that you get paid anything for this, but what an incredible effort to shepherd that content that has made such a difference in, I think, this world and especially in the way that we engage God's heart for the nation. So congratulations on that and thank you for stepping into that massive space and I'm excited to see how that goes.
Speaker 2Yeah, I often tell people you know like, how did you get this job? And I say, well, if they had put out like a help wanted you know, new editor for perspectives advertisement, I would have been like, wow, that would be such a cool job, but I'm not good enough for that job. I, I honestly, would not have applied. I would have been like I don't know who should do that job, but I don't feel qualified for it. Um, so when several perspectives leaders went away and prayed about who should come alongside Steve and learn from Steve Hawthorne doing the fifth edition, they came back. I don't know all the details of the story, but they came back with my name. And so when they approached me about the position of course it is an unpaid position I immediately actually knew it was the right position for me because I loved perspectives. I had instructed perspectives hundreds of times.
Speaker 2By then I had fallen in love with the curriculum. I had been formed and changed through the curriculum myself, and so I was like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to pause and pray because that's the right thing to do, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to say yes. And then I was serving my organization, all Nations, in other capacities and I'm still with my organization, all Nations, and so I needed to request from them that they would free me of some of my other duties and responsibilities. And so I just want to give a shout out to all nations to say thank you for letting me do this editing job with Perspectives, and so I tell people, for the past couple years I've basically been a 50-plus-year-old intern.
Women's Role in Church Planting Movements
Speaker 2I'm doing my internship with Steve Hawthorne, and each day that I'm with him I learn so much. You know, not every day on a project of this size it's just like mountaintop to mountaintop, but each day I'm like, oh, that part didn't click for me before, I didn't understand the significance of that part. So it's been critically important actually that I have this, to be with Steve and learn from him, because he's got you know, 40 plus years in with this curriculum at a different level than I have.
Speaker 2I've been an instructor for 15 ish, plus maybe more years now, uh, but I hadn't been there for each of those additions going forward, so I've been very grateful for his patience to take the time to train me as well.
Speaker 1I can't imagine even the thought of trying to capture all that Steve has had in his heart as he's shepherded this content and this curriculum along those 42, 30, 44 years, whatever it is since he's been kind of that leader. But the paradigm shift that has come with perspectives is really, as a missions pastor I've worked hard to to try to help people gain, um, the perspective that you get following taking the class and uh, and there's, there's really no equivalent. You know, I, I I've often said if I could find a better course that wasn't quite as heavy and in-depth and time-consuming, I would. But unfortunately it's not out there. So then someone says, well, just write it. And you think well, you can't Like this has got 140 authors or more.
Speaker 2How many authors? 168 authors 168 authors.
Speaker 1You're going to know that.
Speaker 2And you know, I don't know if people know, but they've tried to create like lighter versions of perspectives.
Speaker 1All along the way there's these examples.
Speaker 2And each time that they've done it, they just haven't seen the life transformation that comes through perspectives. And so it's not, you know, just an accident of 15 lessons. And oh, we've never really thought about this. No, we've never. Of course, we've thought through making it shorter, and, yes, you can make it shorter, and I'm not sure we totally know why. But what we have discerned, is that when it's shorter, you lose that transformation.
Speaker 1You lose pieces that you miss. So there's a number of churches I know that have tried different curriculums that all were perspectives-like at least the way they're proposed and they come back and say, well, those were good courses, but they didn't have the same impact. And so, like I said to you, the course continues to be the single biggest return on investment a missions pastor can do, having access to people's hearts and lives. For the 45 hours of instruction plus the time they devote to the reading and the assignments, it really is an equivalent of a very meaningful mission trip. That, I think, has even more impact. It's spread out over 15 weeks. It's spread out with enough time for people to think about it year after they take the classes where their lives are particularly engaged, where they say, okay, now I've thought through, maybe they've read additional books that they thought of as they went through or heard referenced.
Speaker 1It really is incredible. So in some ways, you get to be the shepherd of that paradigm moving forward and that's a really cool thing, pam and, honestly, getting to know you. I met you in Chicago this last summer and I've obviously seen your name around a long time, but to get to have you here and spend a couple hours with you has been a wonderful thing as well, so I'm very excited to see how God uses this in your life and how you get to leave a fingerprint as well on perspectives moving forward.
Speaker 2Thank you, and I really do covet people's prayers.
Speaker 1I'm sure yeah.
Speaker 2Being a steward of anything has got some pressure associated with it, and especially something as precious and with such a long track record as Perspectives. I want to be a really good steward of what I have received, so I really do covet your prayers.
Speaker 1I think one thing every single prospective student has an idea of what you could do to improve it as well.
Speaker 1So you have 300,000 people saying, hey, I love perspectives, but why don't you do this? So you have to have great patience and gracious attitude and caring and loving all these people. Some of them are powerful leaders. Some of them are just nobodies and like me, who have nothing to give other than just trying leaders. Some of them are just nobodies and like me, who have nothing to give other than just trying. But it's such a an incredible thing, uh again, that we continue to see having an unmeasurable value. Uh, I think we saw that last summer in Chicago. Just the value of perspectives is limitless. You can't assess all the all the impacts, and so what an incredible thing.
Speaker 1Well, thank you for spending a few minutes with us on the podcast. It's great to get to know you just a little bit. Hopefully we'll have you back in the future and spend some more time. You mentioned praying for you. As you kind of lead through the curriculum development. I know there's a lot of pieces from the study guide to all the grading keys and everything that has to go along on the back end of changing a major curriculum. We'll definitely be praying for you. Is there anything else that we can pray for you about?
Speaker 2You know, just on a separate little project, I really want my home, where my mom and I live, to be a welcoming place for missionaries to be able to come and relax and stay, and so I just pray that we can create that environment. It's not like my main ministry, but you know, people have been so kind and gracious to me to host me in their homes. I travel all the time, I'm always staying in somebody's homes and we want to be able to offer that same kind of comfortable hospitality. Somebody's homes, and we want to be able to offer that same kind of comfortable hospitality. And we bought a four acre property inside the city limits of Kansas city for that purpose. Um, and it's we're fixing it up. So pray that we can fix it up well and that when missionaries walk on that property they just have a sense of peace, um, and the protection of the Lord, yeah, of course, of course.
Speaker 1Is there any place we can learn more about that? Do you have a small website or do you have a document of any kind?
Speaker 2I always just write about it in my own personal newsletter.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2And so if people wanted to email me, maybe you can put my email. It's already publicly anyway. Okay, so you could just put my email address.
Speaker 1Yeah, we'll put it in the show notes if someone wants to email and can get to know you better. Well again, pam, thank you so much for your investment of the last couple of days here in Bernie. We hope that it's been a blessing to you as well and those of you listening. If you have comments or thoughts, we'd love to hear them. Feel free to email us here at the church and, just like we always talk about, the reason we do this podcast is to tell you stories of what God's doing.
Editing Perspectives and Future Ministry
Speaker 1Why does he bless us? Why does he make his face shine on us? Why is he gracious to us? It's so that his name will be made known among the nations and his salvation among all the peoples. So, whoever you are, wherever you are, be a blessing to everyone that you can today and make sure that you're living out the mission that God has given you. Hope you have a wonderful day. God bless, we are so thankful that you joined our podcast today. We would love to hear any feedback you may have for us. Remember, psalm 67 says may God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us so that your ways may be known on earth and your salvation among all nations. Don't forget why the Lord blesses us it's so that we can be a blessing to those around us. Until next time, god bless.