SPEAKER_00: How many uh by show of hands, how many of you knew Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett?
SPEAKER_00: How many of you were here when Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett was here?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, amen.
SPEAKER_00: So a lot of you.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you have just heard of Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett?
SPEAKER_00: But that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so basically everybody here, okay.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not I'm not a beat around the bush kind of guy, so I want to like hit the ground running, and I think the way I want to do that is with the Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett story, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm gonna tell you, I've got a lot of Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett stories, and uh, people I've met since I've been here also have a lot of Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett stories.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna I have chosen the one that I think most uh clarifies my personal relationship with Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett, okay, as my disciple maker, my teacher, and that's who Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett was to me, okay, but also to be on staff of the ministry.
SPEAKER_00: So about a year, uh, and I'll I'll give you some details on that later, but about a year after I came on staff of the ministry, Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett decided he wanted to help me with something he knew I was struggling with.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: And so even as a as a young kid, I had uh I had a tremendous fear of public speaking, a paralyzing fear of public speaking, to the point that my entire scholastic career, even in my early years in college, I took a voluntary zero on every oral report that I ever had.
SPEAKER_00: My entire this so God so I surrendered to the call to ministry in two November 11, 2004, and it and I wrestled with God over that for eight months.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and it wasn't that I wasn't willing to surrender to the call, it was just I couldn't believe, Lord, you can't be calling me.
SPEAKER_00: And I sounded like Moses, Lord, I can't talk.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and so but I finally surrendered.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett knew this, and he knew this about me because obviously he, you know, uh and I talked about it, and so uh God was starting to work that out in my life, and you know, I taught seventh-grade boys, then I moved up to singles in my home church, and you know, but now I'm on staff, and Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett has to go out of town, and when he does, I've got to teach.
SPEAKER_00: That's a little heavy to teach after Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett, okay.
SPEAKER_00: And so, but it wasn't going as fast as Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett wanted it to go, okay.
SPEAKER_00: So we about 30 minutes outside of Wilmington, there's a little church out in a rural area named called Barlow Vista Church, okay.
SPEAKER_00: And the pastor of that church, Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett, was meant was his pastor's mentor.
SPEAKER_00: Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett spoke there often, okay, and he had a great relationship with the chairman of the deacons.
SPEAKER_00: And so, pretty much if Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett wanted something to happen, okay, it would happen.
SPEAKER_00: I know y'all didn't have that same experience, did you?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm at a staff meeting with Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett, okay.
SPEAKER_00: We're finishing up.
SPEAKER_00: And just nonchalantly, okay, he said, and this was, I think, on like maybe a Thursday, okay?
SPEAKER_00: He said, Thad, by the way, I booked you to preach uh at Bar La Vista next Sunday night at the 6 o'clock service.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, You did what?
SPEAKER_00: He said, I booked you to preach.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, can you cancel?
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, No, I even if I could cancel and I'm not gonna cancel it, you're gonna do it.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just like, oh my, oh, I'm losing my mind.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and it was too I could, it was too close.
SPEAKER_00: It was the following Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so here we go.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, here's God working in my life, gonna help me work this out.
SPEAKER_00: So I go to Bar La Vista, and have you ever heard of this thing like where you have a fear of public speaking in the noodle leg thing?
SPEAKER_00: You ever heard of that?
SPEAKER_00: That's real.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: I had that, all right?
SPEAKER_00: And you heard of the cotton mouth?
SPEAKER_00: That's real.
SPEAKER_00: I had that, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So I get up there and it and it's a you know traditional Baptist church, and I'm up in the pulpit, you know, and I've got the podium, and Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett's sitting down here, and he's invited friends of mine.
SPEAKER_00: It's probably about 25 people there, it's not a big church, but he had Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett hand picked the people he wanted to come, okay, so they would give the right response.
SPEAKER_00: I found out later.
SPEAKER_00: So he's sitting down there, he's introduced me, and I go up and I think I've got a good message.
SPEAKER_00: And it, you know, it was from Acts when they called the apostles in, and the religious leaders were going like they saw them and they looked at them and talked to them, and they realized they had been with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that?
SPEAKER_00: So I'm thinking that's a great sermon.
SPEAKER_00: And so the idea was when people look at you in your life, do they immediately go, She's been with Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: He's been with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So that was my idea.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, man, I got a sermon.
SPEAKER_00: So I get up there to do it, and I'm talking, and it's going, and all the while that I'm preaching, I am thinking in the back of my mind, this has got to be the worst thing that has ever been spoken in any pulpit in anywhere in the world since the church began.
SPEAKER_00: This is awful, okay?
SPEAKER_00: But I had to, I couldn't stop, I had to do it.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So I go all the way through it.
SPEAKER_00: Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett gets up and he comes up, and I'm, you know, I'm kind of like standing there like a deer in the headlights after I'm done.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, move over, son.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and he goes, Oh my goodness, that was that was a tremendous first sermon in the church.
SPEAKER_00: It was better than mine, this and that and the other, and Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett, bless his heart, broke the ninth commandment.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: This is the greatest thing, you know, and so he and so he goes, Y'all come down here.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm gonna come down in front with Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett with Thad, and y'all come down and tell Thad how wonderful this was.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So I go down there with Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett, and they're just coming.
SPEAKER_00: Thad, that was wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: Thad, that was it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, they just lying to me.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, they're just lying.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm going through all this, and I just when I thought, maybe I'm being self-critical.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was okay.
SPEAKER_00: There was a break in the action of the people coming up.
SPEAKER_00: And Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett, now, you know, he was about here, okay, so he's standing right here beside me because he's up there, I'm in it with you, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And so he reaches up with his left arm and he puts his hand on the back of my neck and he pulls me down, pulls my ear down to his mouth, and he goes, I'm not making this up.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Don't believe, don't believe a word anybody say.
SPEAKER_00: That is my relationship with Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and he and he was helping me, and I praise God for it.
SPEAKER_00: I had to get over that hump, but he wanted to make sure I know.
SPEAKER_00: Now, look, you're okay, you're capable of more than this.
SPEAKER_00: Don't believe what these people are saying, but that's that's it.
SPEAKER_00: That's my relationship with Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett in a nutshell, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I want to talk a little bit about Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett today, and obviously I want to talk about mentoring men for the master, uh the ministry that he founded, but I want to make something clear, okay, in that, and please understand, I'm not here to promote a ministry.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not here to promote a man.
SPEAKER_00: As significant as that man was in my life and probably in the life of this church, okay, I'm not here to promote a man.
SPEAKER_00: What I'm here to promote is I'm here to promote and glorify the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Because everything that Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett did in his life, and it is significant, Jesus did it.
SPEAKER_00: And Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett will be the first one to tell you.
SPEAKER_00: All the things that you're going to hear today about what God is doing in the ministry, Jesus has done all these things.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm here to promote.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here to tell you what God is doing.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: So that you can see it and rejoice and be glad.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So I don't have words.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've probably cried about three times since I've been here already this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Thank y'all.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all are so nice.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it so much.
SPEAKER_00: It means more to me.
SPEAKER_00: Again, for me to be able to stand here, and I don't know if Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett stood in this spot, but to be in this church and to speak to these people that Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett loved, is I can't give you the words.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I feel like I know this church probably more than I know my own home church.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: My first my first day on staff with the ministry was August 14th, 2006.
SPEAKER_00: That was a Monday.
SPEAKER_00: And in those days, because the ministry was so small, you know, I took the first role on the first weekend that had ever been taken in the ministry, it was me and Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett and 14 guys.
SPEAKER_00: That was it.
SPEAKER_00: That was the totality of men and men for the master, okay, in 2006.
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, I came on staff and we were looking for stuff for me to do.
SPEAKER_00: So I spent a lot of time driving Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett around.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett was uh the chaplain of Southeastern Baptist uh theological seminary, which was in Wake Forest, North Carolina, which is about two and a half hours from Wilmington.
SPEAKER_00: So I drove him up there every week, drove him to his to his uh speaking engagements, etc.
SPEAKER_00: And so Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett and I had a lot of time in the car together.
SPEAKER_00: And I was just wearing him out with questions, okay, about what is it like to be in ministry, what is it like to be a pastor, et cetera, because I was green.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know this was my first experience, and he was gracious, he loved it, he answered all my questions.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm gonna tell you, 19 out of 20 questions that I asked that I asked Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett, the answer came in the form of something that happened at this church.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: None of it was bad, okay?
SPEAKER_00: It was all good, okay.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, you know, you guys know Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett pastored several churches, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and he loved them all.
SPEAKER_00: And he loved all the people in them, but I can tell you firsthand, from his mouth, this church was the apple of Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett's eye.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: This church in Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett's mind and heart was the gold standard of his pastoral career.
SPEAKER_00: It was all he wanted to talk about, was Fort Smith, that is.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So I say that to oh, how you were loved.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: The providential hand of God has not escaped me in me being here today.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Um, we have, you know, this ministry, men are men for the master, this church, we have a common cause, okay, in the Great Commission of Jesus Christ, and we have a common thread, humanly speaking, in Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bill Bennett.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: That bind us together.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: I want to thank you toward the end of the year, and even before that, you guys gave money at the end of the year to provide Bibles, okay, in Africa.
SPEAKER_00: And you and we have distributed those and dispensed those.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to show you a couple of slides where you can see where that's happened.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but I want to thank you for that, because all those Bibles went to people who have never owned a Bible in their life.
SPEAKER_00: Most people and most Christians in the United States don't know what it feels like to not even have to never own a Bible, much less four or five, okay, but to never own one and never have the opportunity to own one because if I buy one, I can't feed my family.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're dealing with in Africa.
SPEAKER_00: And so, what you've done is you have provided the word of the word of God to people who desperately desire it.
SPEAKER_00: They desperately desire it, and they're so grateful.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to thank you for that.
SPEAKER_00: And again, we're going to give you an update on that in just a minute.
SPEAKER_00: And as well as an update on uh on this ministry as a whole.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: I can assure you of something.
SPEAKER_00: If I don't know what Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett's aware of, now that he's been promoted to heaven and he's with the Lord, I don't know if he's aware of this.
SPEAKER_00: I like to think that he is.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I promise you this: if Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett knows that this church provided funds for the Word of God to be distributed through this ministry, he's more overjoyed than I can possibly articulate.
SPEAKER_00: To see his ministry life and the two ministries that he loved the most to come full circle and to come together and be partnered together to this end of the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I want to how did this happen?
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give you just kind of as quick as I can, like a timeline.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not doing this.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you why I'm doing it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing it because I want you to see how God works.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to see how God put this together in a way that I'm not smart enough to figure it out.
SPEAKER_00: David's not smart enough to figure out.
SPEAKER_00: Even Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett wasn't smart enough to figure this out and orchestrate this.
SPEAKER_00: In the year 2000, Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett formed mentoring men for the master.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And those, and so when that was going on, you know, Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett and the board were having what Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett would have called an intense moment of fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And here's what it was over is Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett went, they were fine with what Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett wanted to call the ministry mentoring men for the master.
SPEAKER_00: Great.
SPEAKER_00: They were all for that.
SPEAKER_00: But Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett insisted that the that the ministry actually, the full name, be mentoring men for the Master International.
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, and he insisted, okay, and they didn't want it, and he insisted, and you see the name of the ministries Mentoring Men for the Master International.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett, why do you want that?
SPEAKER_00: We don't have, and he's like, he, and this I asked him later on, because this was in 2000 when I came on staff and said, Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett, why did you push for that so hard?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Thad, because you don't call yourself who you are, you call yourself who you want to be.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So that's that.
SPEAKER_00: In 2003, David already mentioned this.
SPEAKER_00: David and some guys from this church end up going to Kenya.
SPEAKER_00: Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett's Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett gets invited onto that trip.
SPEAKER_00: Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett is speaking there.
SPEAKER_00: Who is his interpreter while he's there?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's Pastor Fred.
SPEAKER_00: Fred and Dangasi.
SPEAKER_00: Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett spends two weeks with Fred, invests in Fred for two weeks, encouraged, and if you know Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett, that means he had to do it, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Encouraged Fred to learn the Bible pledge, the pledge to the Bible that Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett wrote, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And that, and you know, by Fred's own testimony, so that changed my life.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So here, Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett planted a seed in a young man, not because he thought there was anything going to come of it in the future, but that's who Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett was.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here with him.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to sow into him and see what I can do.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And so in 2006, Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett, I mean the not Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett, but the Lord calls me to staff, calls me to ministry, calls me to the staff of mentoring men.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: In the 2008 to 9 range, I'm at Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett's house with Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett and Miss Doris, by the way, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And we're finishing up a staff meeting.
SPEAKER_00: And Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett said, Thad, I want you to close the meeting in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I said, okay.
SPEAKER_00: And so I had no premeditated thoughts of what was getting ready to come out of my mouth that just came out of my mouth.
SPEAKER_00: So I was going through it and I'm praying, and my head's down, Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett's head's down, and I said, Lord, we want to change the world for your glory.
SPEAKER_00: Show us how.
SPEAKER_00: I believe, Lord, that you can take this ministry and change the world with it.
SPEAKER_00: And Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett stopped me.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Hold it, hold it.
SPEAKER_00: He stopped me from praying.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Brother Thad, do you believe that?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I do, Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett, with my whole heart.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, How?
SPEAKER_00: How can that be?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I have no idea, Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett.
SPEAKER_00: He said, but you believe it.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett, I believe it with my whole heart.
SPEAKER_00: He said, then pray on, brother.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And so we continued to pray that, having no idea how it's going to, you know, how can it possibly take place?
SPEAKER_00: In 2010 to 11, you know, the thing that the board was struggling with in those days was is mentoring men for the master just supposed to be a ministry for such a time as this?
SPEAKER_00: And when Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett got gets promoted to heaven, is the ministry going to be over?
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm fighting, like, no, I don't believe that's the case.
SPEAKER_00: I believe God wants to do something with this, but you heard the prayer that I prayed.
SPEAKER_00: I believe this ministry can change the world.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we so God, so the Lord puts it in my heart to start developing a curriculum that at that time was made up of lessons Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett had taught.
SPEAKER_00: It has, you know, scripture internalization, life application assignments, all these things.
SPEAKER_00: And so, with the goal being that we had three years worth of that, okay, so God puts that in my heart to start developing that.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: 2013, David and some guys are bringing Pastor Fred over to meet with them for strategic meetings because of the tremendous crusade ministry that God had given Fred.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Fred says, I'd like to connect with Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett if that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Can you drop me off where I can see Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett?
SPEAKER_00: So Fred comes to Wilmington to visit Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett.
SPEAKER_00: I've never even heard of Fred before.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Fred and I end up talking, and we start conferring, and he's going, man, there's people coming to Christ hand over fist.
SPEAKER_00: Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people.
SPEAKER_00: The receptivity to the gospel is unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00: But there's no sound biblical teaching, leadership, or discipleship anywhere, and the people are being led astray.
SPEAKER_00: And what happened is what's happening, Thad is that they they accept Jesus, and because nobody's there to tell them what to do next, and certainly nobody they can trust, Christianity becomes something that gets added on to what they already believed.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of something that completely replaced that.
SPEAKER_00: And so two months later they get sick and they're right back to the witch doctor like they always were.
SPEAKER_00: And their life hasn't been changed.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it didn't take long for Fred and I to sit there and talk and go, something's happening here.
SPEAKER_00: Because to see the connection of the thing that God had me working on, the thing that he needed, the thing we need a place to do it.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we got God's put it on our heart.
SPEAKER_00: We're praying to change the world.
SPEAKER_00: So we share that with David.
SPEAKER_00: David says, I think I see something there.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Thad, why I'm getting, you know, Fred's getting ready to fly here to Fort Smith to meet with us.
SPEAKER_00: Let me fly you out here too.
SPEAKER_00: So I came out.
SPEAKER_00: We all talked about it.
SPEAKER_00: We all agreed God's doing something.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know 100% the totality of it, but it's clear God's doing something.
SPEAKER_00: So the way we left that is Fred left Fort Smith with the idea that here's what I'm gonna do.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go back to Kenya and I'm gonna hand pick some guys, okay, that he had uh uh had picked for himself that those guys were gonna be uh pastors, these young guys are gonna be pastors of churches on the King's Highway.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, be a part of King's Highway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: That was what, but I'm gonna handpick them and I want you guys to train them on how to use this curriculum so we can plant venturing men and begin discipleship in the churches.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So he left with that idea.
SPEAKER_00: So, and here's that group.
SPEAKER_00: There's eight guys.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember Nicholas?
SPEAKER_00: It said the M3 director.
SPEAKER_00: That's Nicholas right there.
SPEAKER_00: He was just a kid.
SPEAKER_00: This was in 2014 that I trained this group.
SPEAKER_00: Six of these guys are either on our staff currently or they're heavily involved in the ministry in a leadership role.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Two of them had issues and have moved out west in Kenya.
SPEAKER_00: We lost contact with them.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Because they didn't have a device.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And so, how did it get from eight to where we are now?
SPEAKER_00: Now you've got some like pamphlets on your table.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you, you know where we are now?
SPEAKER_00: From 2014?
SPEAKER_00: You know, we are actively discipling over 41,000 people in Africa.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: In 36 of the 54 countries on the continent of Africa, we've got two countries in the Middle East, in the Saudi Arabia area, and I can't tell you where we I can't talk about it publicly because their lives would be in danger.
SPEAKER_00: We have a we have a ministry in Haiti that we've just begun.
SPEAKER_00: We have, you know, and remember, remember my prayer, Lord, we want to change the world.
SPEAKER_00: And when I'm asking God all the time, Lord, give me the continent of Africa.
SPEAKER_00: I want the continent.
SPEAKER_00: But I don't stop there because I feel like God can take the continent of Africa and it can be a jumping-off point to the world.
SPEAKER_00: And we're starting to see that happen.
SPEAKER_00: It's these people that are in the Middle East, see, they were in Kenya, and they had been discipled with us multiple years.
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's no work in Kenya, so they leave and they go to the Middle East to find work.
SPEAKER_00: And now they're trying to plant mentoring groups in Saudi Arabia.
SPEAKER_00: We have a girl who's been discipled for multiple years with us who has a scholarship to Oxford in Great Britain.
SPEAKER_00: And she's trying to start a M3, a mentoring men discipleship group on the campus of Oxford.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: And we're seeing people leave the continent and being dispersed out into Europe and all over, and we're starting to see possibly a glimpse of what I feel like God's put in my heart.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And this is all with me having to put literally, I've got my foot on the brake of this ministry as hard as I can stand on it.
SPEAKER_00: Not only are we discipling the 41,000, we've got over, we've got 15,000 people waiting to be discipled.
SPEAKER_00: Just on standby.
SPEAKER_00: We have 600 active leaders who have been trained in discipleship and are actively making disciples throughout the continent.
SPEAKER_00: We've got 200 leaders who have been trained and are just waiting on the necessary funding so that they can get their group again.
SPEAKER_00: Get started.
SPEAKER_00: Why necessary funding?
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And here's part of the difference, and this is in their words, not mine.
SPEAKER_00: The people of Africa, the believers in Africa, a lot of them are kind of shell-shocked from relationships they've had with foreign ministries.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: European foreign ministries and some American foreign ministries who come in and they we love you.
SPEAKER_00: We want to help you, we're going to do this for you.
SPEAKER_00: And they get so excited because let me, this is how they feel.
SPEAKER_00: They feel unseen.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody knows who we are.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody cares about us.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody loves us.
SPEAKER_00: And then these white people show up from these, from Europe, from America, and they go, We love you, we want to do this for you.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And then right when it gets, and they but and they start to believe it.
SPEAKER_00: They start to believe, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I think they might, they actually may care about us.
SPEAKER_00: And then when it's time to pull the trigger, we're gonna do this for you, and it's gonna cost you 40 bucks.
SPEAKER_00: And they don't have 40 bucks.
SPEAKER_00: They can't eat.
SPEAKER_00: And so we don't charge anything.
SPEAKER_00: We actually pay for this.
SPEAKER_00: People who partner with us pay for this.
SPEAKER_00: We pay$16 to rent a motorcycle, to put a leader on, so that he can drive two hours into the bush to this little church that's in the middle of nowhere, that nobody even knows it's there, so that they can be discipled.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: We pay$4 for internet access, what they call bundles, so that a trainer in Kenya that's been trained can train 10 bishops in Ghana who want to have discipleship in their church.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: We print books.
SPEAKER_00: Did you see the printing?
SPEAKER_00: That's in the office in Mtuapa, adjacent to Mombasa.
SPEAKER_00: That's our staff.
SPEAKER_00: They print books almost day and night.
SPEAKER_00: We've got it down to where we can print a book for a dollar and a quarter.
SPEAKER_00: And we send them out.
SPEAKER_00: We just recently had to put a print center in Nigeria because God's doing a great work in Nigeria.
SPEAKER_00: And the zeal is amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: We just had our first person martyred in Nigeria, simply who had been through M3 of Discipleship, was shot just simply because he's a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: And they will not back up.
SPEAKER_00: All it does is wind them up.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And we see that, so we put a printer.
SPEAKER_00: We bought a printer, a commercial printer.
SPEAKER_00: It's in the guy's name is Jesse David, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Put it in Jesse David's home and they're starting to print.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: We started out with 1,500 people in Nigeria over here.
SPEAKER_00: Where is it?
SPEAKER_00: Let me make sure I don't misquote it.
SPEAKER_00: We started out with 1,500 people in Nigeria in January of this year.
SPEAKER_00: We've now got 5,344.
SPEAKER_00: And that's an old statistic.
SPEAKER_00: It's more than that.
SPEAKER_00: Just simply because we made a small investment to prep books and get it happening.
SPEAKER_00: That's how fast it can grow.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: I had a donor ask me about five years ago.
SPEAKER_00: He said, if you had a million dollars, could you spend it?
SPEAKER_00: And I went, No.
SPEAKER_00: I can't spend that right now.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be honest with you.
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to have it, but I can't spend it.
SPEAKER_00: I won't be honest with you.
SPEAKER_00: If I had a million dollars today, I could spend it in six months.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: Because that's how great the demand is.
SPEAKER_00: If we wanted to add these 15,000 people that are waiting, what it would cost, what it would look like in real life is about$4,500 a week, which comes out to roughly$216,000 a year.
SPEAKER_00: But that's for$15,000 people.
SPEAKER_00: How much is that worth, by the way?
SPEAKER_00: How much is that worth?
SPEAKER_00: I had uh I'm so I'm a couple minutes over, am I okay?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: I had somebody um ask me what I thought the greatest miracle in the Bible was.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: And I think if I asked that question, like, what do you think is the greatest miracle in the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: I bet you I'd get a bunch of different answers, right?
SPEAKER_00: Some people would say the Red Sea parting, some people would say, you know, a lot of things.
SPEAKER_00: I feel like the greatest, for just me in my heart, I feel like the greatest miracle in the Bible is the incarnation of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I don't wonder, I can't wrap my mind around how the fullness of the Godhead can somehow be condensed down into one person.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's the greatest miracle, not just the fact that it could be done, but the fact that he was willing to do it.
SPEAKER_00: Makes it the greatest miracle.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what I think the second greatest miracle in the Bible is, right underneath that, is what God does in the lives of the redeemed of God.
SPEAKER_00: That God could take a person like me and change me from what I used to be into not that I haven't arrived, but turn me around completely and make me something completely new and give me a completely new set of desires.
SPEAKER_00: Desires that I don't always fulfill.
SPEAKER_00: Like the polite Apostle Paul said, the thing I feel like I want to do, I don't always do it.
SPEAKER_00: But I want to.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: My desires have changed.
SPEAKER_00: And when I don't do right, I'm convicted immediately and I want to repent.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't used to feel that way.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't chasing after God, I was chasing after sin.
SPEAKER_00: The fact that God can do that and is willing to do that to anybody on this earth, to me, is just as a miracle, it's just underneath.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: What is the value of the work that is done in the Great Commission?
SPEAKER_00: You can't put a price on it.
SPEAKER_00: But I tell you what it cost.
SPEAKER_00: It was important enough that Jesus was willing to spill his blood for it.
SPEAKER_00: How much is the blood of Christ worth?
SPEAKER_00: It's an inestimable value.
SPEAKER_00: There's no way you can put a price on it.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: It's the most valuable commodity in all of existence.
SPEAKER_00: The precious blood of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And he spilled it for that purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I feel a big preach coming.
SPEAKER_00: Just real quick, let me say this.
SPEAKER_00: You know, part of what we do in discipleship, we show the Jesus film.
SPEAKER_00: We're involved in that leg of the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: We do all these things and get people, as soon as when people get saved with the Jesus film with us, we try to immediately, we show the Jesus film in areas where we have a footprint with discipleship so that when they're saved, we can immediately try to fold them over into biblical discipleship immediately so that they don't sit around for months, two months, three months with to be victimized by false teaching.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: We feel like that's so important.
SPEAKER_00: But but the again, another thing that we do is we give we have our Bibles.
SPEAKER_00: We give out Bibles, we give them.
SPEAKER_00: We don't charge for Bibles, we give Bibles.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm Will's going to show you a slide.
SPEAKER_00: Back in back in uh at the end of the year, you guys gave this.
SPEAKER_00: This is a recent distribution of 338 Bibles that this church you guys bought.
SPEAKER_00: Here they sit in the office.
SPEAKER_00: They were ordered from the Kenya Bible Society.
SPEAKER_00: The average price of those, I think, was about$740,$7.40, which is pretty good, right?
SPEAKER_00: Dismitted on the continent.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So$338 of those.
SPEAKER_00: There'll be multiple distributions of the Bibles that you guys bought.
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and show the next one.
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to see, I want you to see, this is people receiving those Bibles in addition to our curriculum.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the blue is, the books that were printed.
SPEAKER_00: But you guys paid for those.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You guys made sure that those people are.
SPEAKER_00: Do they look happy?
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: As we have to have more, is that it?
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Look at that.
SPEAKER_00: Look at that young man.
SPEAKER_00: Look at that.
SPEAKER_00: It's the greatest thing he's ever received.
SPEAKER_00: And he knows it.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: People ask me, what is it?
SPEAKER_00: What is what's the difference in what you encounter in Africa versus what you encounter in other places?
SPEAKER_00: That's hard to answer.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to say critical statements of the church here in the United States, just different, okay?
SPEAKER_00: But I will say this thing that we see across the board is this is that it is a zealous desperation to grow spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm I chose my words carefully.
SPEAKER_00: It is a zealous desperation to grow.
SPEAKER_00: If somebody will just help me, I'm desperate.
SPEAKER_00: And the other thing is extreme gratitude.
SPEAKER_00: Extreme gratitude for everything that they get through this ministry.
SPEAKER_00: You will never do anything for the rest of your life or anything in the body of Christ where they're going to be more grateful than those people are that they got a Bible.
SPEAKER_00: They're so grateful.
SPEAKER_00: And they pray for y'all.
SPEAKER_00: They love y'all, that you would care.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: They pray for this church by name.
SPEAKER_00: They know this church, and they know that Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Bennett was the pastor.
SPEAKER_00: They know we tell them all these things.
SPEAKER_00: They know who founded this ministry.
SPEAKER_00: They know he pastored here.
SPEAKER_00: They know the connection.
SPEAKER_00: And they pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Ayah.
SPEAKER_00: I could go on and on.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Here's here's, you know, I'm here for two reasons.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe three.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here because I'm astounded that I get to stand here in the place where my teacher stood.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: I try to stop there or else I won't be able to continue.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here to tell you what God is doing because it's significant.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: It's all His doing.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm here to tell you that like these the only obstacle to these 15,000 people being added is just funding.
SPEAKER_00: It's just money.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's being waited on.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to get you to pull your checkbooks out and write me a check, right?
SPEAKER_00: This is not what I'm after.
SPEAKER_00: I just want you to hear about it.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just asking that if God puts it in your heart to partner with us, come tell me.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what that needs to look like.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: We'll let God figure that out.
SPEAKER_00: Tell me, tell Will, tell David, tell your pastor.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll figure out what that means for us, for you, for you to put to partner with us.
SPEAKER_00: But if you if it means something to you to make an investment in the kingdom of God that will greet you when you enter into glory, if there's one that's greater and more of a guarantee, I don't know what it is.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: What you give will literally go into somebody's life being turned around for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Thank y'all so much for having me here today and being so kind to me.
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, quickly, we have some we have some booklets here that kind of like tell the story of the ministry from inception, kind of like to where we are now.
SPEAKER_00: Please, if you want one of those and they're interested in that, please feel free to come get one.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And oh, also, if you'd love to start receiving our ministry updates just to see what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: So you can I want you so that you can see it.
SPEAKER_00: See more than a video, see a hundred testimonies.
SPEAKER_00: I could put 10,000 testimonies up there.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: To see that and hear that, just come let us get just give us your email address and we'll start sending it to you.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Pastor.