Fellowship Around the Table
Great conversations about life, faith, and the Bible from Fellowship Bible Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma (www.fbctulsa.org).
Fellowship Around the Table
REPLAY: A Transformative Journey: Rick Cornish's Mission to Train Pastors Across the Globe
We're overjoyed to welcome Rick Cornish, founder of Teaching Truth International and an ardent missionary, who's left an indelible mark by educating pastors in underprivileged communities worldwide. Rick, a former Marine officer, embarked on an extraordinary journey that led him to serve as a pastor, write equipping books, and launch a unique international teaching ministry. His commitment and heart for building up the Church globally are nothing short of inspiring.
Rick shares intimate details about his transformative life journey, touching upon crucial topics such as the significance of Christian history, the preservation of wisdom, and the need for a more robust approach to teaching the Bible in churches. We discuss in-depth about his compelling five-minute books - a treasure trove of wisdom and knowledge for parents desiring to equip their children. These bite-sized books, including 'The Five Minute Theologian,' 'Five Minute Apologist,' and 'Five Minute Church Historian,' have earned their place as a must-read in many Christian households.
Our conversation with Rick Cornish left us in awe of his dedication to truth and his relentless effort to equip churches and leaders globally. We're grateful to Rick for sharing his incredible journey and to everyone who has supported him along the way.
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You are listening to Fellowship Around the Table. All right, everybody, welcome to the weekly chat. We have a special guest here today. As you know, this church has a real big heart for missions. Since its founding, we put a lot of our budget towards missions, funding local missions and work throughout the world. And today I get the pleasure and honor of interviewing one of our missionaries, rick Cornish. Yeah, thank you, it's good to be with you today. Yeah, so, former Marine officer, you got your master's in Greek and history from the University of Nebraska, that's correct. A doctorate from Denver Seminary, right Been a pastor.
Speaker 2:Yes, I was a pastor for about 17 years here in the US before I started doing my missions work around the world.
Speaker 1:Right and founded Teaching Truth International.
Speaker 2:That's correct. We did that in 07, although I began doing this kind of work in 95, but formed my own organization, teaching Truth International, in 07.
Speaker 1:Okay, Tell me. I don't even know the story, but what is the connection with Fellowship Bible Church and how did all that get started?
Speaker 2:Well, when I got out of the pastorate in 97, we moved here to Tulsa as I began my international teaching ministry, because Tracy had family, tracy's my wife. She had family here and since I knew I would be gone five or six times a year for two or three weeks at a time, I wanted her and our two sons to be near families. So we started joining fellowship and going to fellowship at that time.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that was around 95?.
Speaker 2:That was 97. 97. 97, yeah.
Speaker 1:And you guys were heavily involved in this church. I've heard stories from folks that you guys were heavily involved in the youth and that you impacted their kids' lives.
Speaker 2:Well, we hope so. Our two sons were in junior high and high school at that time. They were very involved in the youth group and we contributed to the youth group in doing some of the things that we did with them also.
Speaker 1:Okay, so when did you kind of transition with Teaching Truth International to being full-time missionaries, and was this church a part of launching that?
Speaker 2:Yes, when we came here in 97, that's when we really started doing this. I had done it a couple of the last years when I was pastoring in Kansas from 95 to 97. 97 is when I went full time into international teaching. That's when we moved here and fellowship was very encouraging and supportive of that and, of course, many people have prayed for us over the years and financially have supported us all these years.
Speaker 1:So our five years here in Tulsa and at FBC was very important to us and tell me about this ministry and kind of the birth of it and your heart and what you're going about here with that.
Speaker 2:The birth of it came from the fact that when I finished my doctorate back in the early 90s, right after the implosion of the former Soviet Union, a Denver seminary, where I took my doctorate, had just begun at Christian University in Donetsk, ukraine, where a lot of this current activity is going on with the Russians.
Speaker 2:So I had the opportunity to go teach there in 95, and the church I was pastoring at the time let me go two more times each of my last two years in that church and I realized my first trip there, which was in, I think, march and April of 95, and I had pastors in my class who had come from all the republics of the former Soviet Union, all over that huge country I realized this is what I should be doing.
Speaker 2:It took me about two days to realize with those great guys, this is where the need is, and so I began teaching back and forth with Donetsk Christian University at that time. And one of the things that is behind this is that there are about 2 million evangelical churches in the world today, but 85% of them don't have a pastor or they have someone functioning in that role who's never been trained, because in so much of the world they can't go to seminary, either because they live in the bush or they're very poor, or they're in countries where they won't allow that. So Teaching Truth International formally, which I began in 07, as I mentioned, we go to them, we take seminary classes to them.
Speaker 1:So what kind of equipping do you find as you started out, what kind of equipping did you find important and what does that look like?
Speaker 2:Well, the main thing, they needed to know was, of course, the Bible Just key doctrine yeah. Yeah, the text itself and key fundamental doctrines, sometimes a little church history, a little apologetics, but mostly the biblical text and the doctrine within it, because most of them simply had never been taught. So the little bit they knew in these various places around the world was sometimes off base and sometimes outright heretical. So we bump into some interesting things and try to steer them back toward the scriptures.
Speaker 1:Okay, what does that process look like? How long do you spend with them and training them? Is it in person? Are you doing resources that they can access?
Speaker 2:It's primarily in person. We go to them, we have partners and translators in a number of countries who get them together and we come in for two to three weeks usually and we develop our own curriculum and we teach them, depending on the place, usually all day, monday through Friday, for two weeks or sometimes three weeks. So they in effect get a full block course, as they would at a seminary if they went for a block course.
Speaker 1:So I want to read a little bit about Teaching Truth International right from your website the vision, what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, and trust of faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Timothy Tutu Right, teaching Truth International's mission is to teach the forgotten pastors who serve in the hidden corners of the world, and you've developed courses in Bible, theology, hermeneutics, church history and apologetics. And then you're training indigenous pastors in many countries. In 17 countries, 19 teaching cities, 35 people groups and over 1,300 church leaders.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:What are some of those countries that you're in?
Speaker 2:The first countries I was going to, as I mentioned briefly, was Ukraine and Russia, and then we began to expand, and the country that I've been to most was China. I was there 36 times, although I cannot go back because the president there, xi Jinping, he no longer allows Christian Western missionaries in. They have all been, let's say, invited out. I have some friends, in fact, who got the knock on the door and were told you've got 24 hours to be out of the country, which would be quite a challenge.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I can't go back there, but that's where I was most often. Also teach in Central America now a lot in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, panama and this December I'll be in El Salvador for the first time. We've taught in four countries in Africa. See from west to east Sierra Leone, cameroon, ethiopia, tanzania, down in the southeastern part of that continent. I also teach in India. I've not been in India, but my son, ben and Jamin, one of our other partners. They've taught in India. So we've covered a lot of places in Africa, asia and Latin America.
Speaker 1:That's just incredible. And then tell me about the teaching center. Is that in Tanzania?
Speaker 2:That's in Mbeya, tanzania, which is a city in the southwestern part of that country, near the border with Malawi. We have a wonderful partner there who drives around. We got him a vehicle. He drives around through 10 or 12 surrounding countries and invites pastors in, and so that ministry has grown so big that we outgrew every place we could rent, and so we are building our own training center there. Now Our phase one is finished, we're launching into phase two, and it will be not only a place where pastors can come for our conferences twice a year, but it will be a resource center where they can come and do study. We'll even have a small cafe where some locals will work out of it, so it'll make a little money to keep itself sustaining. And it's been quite a process to try to work with the Tanzanian government and the construction companies over there.
Speaker 2:I would benevolently say that our American guys build better than the Tanzanian guys do, but it is getting finished. We're moving toward that and we're excited to get that done within a couple of years.
Speaker 1:That's just incredible to see how God has used this ministry to impact so many lives and generationally training up people to pass that down.
Speaker 2:Yes, in fact the verse you read 2 Timothy 2, 2, that is our sort of our foundational verse as to what we do. We want to teach guys, not only so they know, but so they can turn around and teach others in their churches and train other young men to come up behind them, to keep it going so that when we're all gone, the ministry will continue. Yeah, and we think Paul's model with Timothy and Titus was ideal for us to follow, and so that's what we try to do.
Speaker 1:This is something that's near and dear to my heart right now, thinking about even in our local context, but in society, and just I kind of say passing the gospel to the next generation, but in general, passing that down. The millennials are going to be leading the church and what does that look like? Is that a program in nature at local churches? Is it organic? What advice do you have for doing that well and stewarding that?
Speaker 2:It's a tough challenge in America, because it seems that our American society has moved beyond being a post-Christian society to actually being an anti-Christian society to actually being an anti-Christian society and so young people in America today.
Speaker 2:most of what they hear about the gospel and Christianity is negative in their growing up and in their own subculture of American society. So I would have to say I'm a little pessimistic about America's future, spiritually speaking and otherwise. Perhaps Around the world, depending on the country you're in, the anti-Christian hostility is not so severe Now. There are some places it is, but in some places it's not so much. Our big objective is to make sure the countries we go to we produce as many Bible-teaching pastors as we can so that they can spread out and begin to teach the scriptures in their communities and their churches in those countries.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and pass it to that next generation that are able to do it just like that 2.2 passage.
Speaker 2:Yeah 2 Timothy 2.2.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which, in many various forms and ways, is what's been happening the last 2000 years, right, exactly.
Speaker 2:In fact, the evidence that Timothy did what Paul told him is the fact that we're here. That's right, that's right. So for 2000 years it's been done and we hope to. In our little piece of it, we can keep that going.
Speaker 1:And I've came to faith in high school and have been a part of Bible churches ever since in the various communities I've lived and have benefited a lot from the stuff those churches have did and where that are more program-based, where they had classes and equipping things and blessed me greatly. And I've also been blessed by just men in that church coming alongside me, meeting with me and discipling me. There wasn't an official program right.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I really have fond memories about here at Fellowship is that it was the Impact Series which I had the privilege of teaching in most of the years when it was offered and enjoyed that very much, and our boys went through the youth programs at the time and I was teaching in most of the years when it was offered and enjoyed that very much, and our boys went through the youth programs at the time and I was teaching an impact and it was a great ministry.
Speaker 1:That ministry is still alive. I've been lay leading it the last 10 years with a couple other guys.
Speaker 2:Okay, great.
Speaker 1:And it is still going.
Speaker 2:That's wonderful. Well, I think the fact that it's lasted that long shows you that there's been a significant degree of effectiveness, or it would have died off in those years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in fact, this fall, me and a couple other guys are going to be doing a church history impact course Great, so I know this is something you've taught on and you even incorporated into your training of the pastors. It's not the main thing as you said, but what is the importance of teaching church history?
Speaker 2:Well, as believers, we need to realize that we're not the first who've ever believed this. We come 2,000 years after it began, and even more longer than that clear back through Jewish history before Christ came. People need to know that there's a heritage there that is not just something current, it's not a trendy thing. Christianity is actually God's eternal plan for the salvation of sinners, and so we need to know that background and know some of the sacrifice that has been made for what has been handed down to us today. And unfortunately, history is not taught anymore, even in the general sense in our schooling systems, it is not People don't know American history, they don't know world history and Christians sadly often don't know Christian history.
Speaker 1:They really don't, and some of that I think we threw the baby out with the bathwater. I know I think a lot of people agree with me to be a good citizen. It's important that you know your country and nation's history Exactly your country and nation's history and I feel the same way in stewarding at the church Exactly To know our church history. It's not authoritative for our lives, that's not what we're saying, but I found it really helpful yeah.
Speaker 2:And it grounds your faith, it does you know people like to study genealogy and where their family came from and that is intriguing. That's very good, yeah. But knowing our spiritual genealogy even has more importance for us. And I know who it was that led me to the Lord when I was just a boy growing up in Kansas and I know who it was that led him to the Lord the week before. I don't know before that. I wish I did know. But in the broad sense, I can study my spiritual genealogy back through the early Christians in America and you think of the Puritans who came from Europe, and you can go clear on back to the apostles. It's a great study and more Christians should know more church history.
Speaker 1:I've been thinking about this and the idea I don't want to, it's not so much I'm not leading into a government political conversation, but the idea of conservatism and conserving the wisdom of the prior generations, and to me that's grounded in that fifth commandment honor your mother and father all the days of your life not just theirs. And they might've made mistakes, but they learn stuff about life and it's foolish of us just to throw all that away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, we often say that older people have wisdom and while there may be variations of that, that's generally true. Yeah, I mean, what 50-year-old knows less than a 20-year-old? I'm getting old and when I look back at when I was 50, I think I was an idiot even at 50. But now, at 73, I know a lot more. Wisdom usually comes with some age and experience, and we don't value that much today in our society.
Speaker 1:I know it's unfortunate. I think part of that very Enlightenment liberal idea is once we hit 18, we can burn everything down and build it up better because we're smarter, right and every generation does the same thing.
Speaker 2:I came out of that 60s generation.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And the crazy radical stuff that went on then it was just the same. And then they got a little older. They go out to get married, have kids, get a job and they realize maybe I just need to settle down and raise my kids and pay my bills and be a responsible citizen.
Speaker 1:I'm reminded of one of Chesterton's essay about the wall. You know that, one in the field, I don't know if I remember that. The guy comes up and says, I think, to the farmer that owns the field, this wall, I want to tear it down. And he basically tells them you can tear it down and remove it if you can tell me why it was there in the first place.
Speaker 1:And the idea that I think every generation is anxious, even in, I think, in a local church, to tear everything down and start over. We got it figured out and a lot of those structures were put in place for a reason.
Speaker 2:That's right, and traditions have lasted for a reason. They were started for a reason and they still hang on for a reason. That doesn't mean that every tradition is always good. However. If it's there, you need to find out why. What's the benefit, what would be the disadvantage of getting rid of it? If you got rid of it?
Speaker 1:Amen. I love that Well, you have a lot of experience and wisdom in equipping local churches and that leadership. For our context here in the States and the culture that we live in, what advice would you give us for equipping our saints?
Speaker 2:for equipping our saints. As I look at the evangelical church in America today and I think I can make a reasonable comparison with around the world because I'm in all these different places and here in the US at times it seems to me that so many evangelical churches I'm not talking about churches in other categories, but evangelical churches which claim to be the people of the book, etc. They're no longer. In many cases they're no longer really Bible-teaching churches as they were up until 75 or 100 years ago. A very profound book was written by JP Moreland, an apologist and theologian at Talbot Seminary in LA. I think he initially put it out in 97, called Love the Lord, your God, with All your Mind, spinning Off Jesus, commenting the Gospels.
Speaker 1:I've read that book.
Speaker 2:It's a wonderful book Jesus Comment in the Gospels. I've read that book. It's a wonderful book, and he asks the question, kind of a rhetorical question that he goes on to answer. But he asks the question that I think is one of the most profound for American evangelical churches and I've used it so often. I know it absolutely. I can quote it. He says how is it that a person can faithfully attend an evangelical church for decades and still know next to nothing about the teaching and history of Christianity?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and doesn't Paul make that admonishment, or did I say, paul, the letter to the Hebrews? I don't know who wrote Hebrews, but by this time you should have been teaching others and I have to come back with the basics.
Speaker 2:Yes, right, hebrews 5, 12 through 6, to a fantastic passage. He says we need to move on to maturity. Yeah, he doesn't say ignore the basics, but move beyond them. You've got them, let's go on to the next phase Right Now teach more. And so many American evangelical churches are not doing that because they want to be trendy with all kinds of gimmicky things to draw people in Sure when gimmicky things to draw people in, when what God really wants us to do is teach his word.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he kind of uses that analogy of milk versus moving on to fuller foods, and I think any parent and adult that their kid wasn't leaving milk after 20 years they would have sought help. Yeah, exactly, it said something's wrong here.
Speaker 2:And so many American churches seem to think that just getting the core salvation message of the gospel to the lost and seeing them come to Christ, they think that's the objective. That's just the starting point. That's why it's called spiritual birth and if you have a baby you got 20 more years to raise that kid. But in churches, some churches, seem to think that just getting people saved is the objective, when that's just the beginning. We need to grow them towards spiritual maturity, toward Christ-likeness, with teaching them God's word. I love that.
Speaker 1:Well, speaking of good resources, something that our family's been blessed with is you put out these five-minute books, five-minute apologists, five-minute church historian, five-minute theologian. Talk about these resources.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wrote those when we were here, basically, or at least the beginning of them when we were here, my boys and I, scott and Ben.
Speaker 2:They were in early high school and junior high and we would do kind of a morning devotion during breakfast time and of course, like all families with kids at that age, we're very busy. So during the five minutes that they were eating breakfast I wanted to give them some devotion and so I went to Christian bookstores and I would ask Christian pastors where is a good youth devotional book that has some meat to it, not the fluffy kind of meaningless stuff that you can find? And everybody said I don't know, I've never heard of one. Why don't you write one? So eventually I thought, well, maybe so. So I started to experiment by just writing my own little one or two page things that I would read to my boys while they had breakfast, and they really liked them. Then I'd ask them some questions to make sure they got it.
Speaker 2:They told some of their buddies again, this is here at Fellowship in the late nineties and their buddies said that sounds pretty good. And they apparently told their folks and their folks some of them in our community group at the time and some of the others. They said well, let's have a meeting. And so about 20 of these couples who had children my son's age. We had a big meeting and I gave them about four that I had written and I said what do you think about this? And they all said this is great you need to write books.
Speaker 2:So I ended up writing five-minute theologian, five-minute apologist and five-minute church historian, and behind all that I was thinking what do I want my sons to understand before they go to university? And so many of the professors try to rip them off from Christianity.
Speaker 1:How can I ground them?
Speaker 2:And so each of those three books has a hundred lessons that I thought were the most important in each of those three categories. So that's the background of those books.
Speaker 1:I love that it was born right here at Fellowship, right here. Well, in the acknowledgements it says thank you to the youth group at Fellowship Bible Church for reading these and the parents and giving feedback.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so I didn't make that up.
Speaker 1:That is true. I love that so much. And all of these resources I'll put in the episode description so people can access them. I know parents would be greatly benefited by using these.
Speaker 2:Well, we've heard a lot of positive feedback, even though they're almost 20 years old now. And they've been translated into some other languages and used around the world, and I even found them in a Christian bookstore in China Now, not the one on church history. They don't like there are things in there that they didn't like and they modified some of the other things, but nevertheless, I even found them in China and some other places.
Speaker 1:Wow, Well, this has been so fun to catch up and so thankful of our connection with this local body. Anything else you would want to update or talk to the body about here?
Speaker 2:Well, just in general say thanks for everybody praying and for the financial support over all these years and the friendship. We always enjoy getting back typically about every other year, and it's great to be back and to see everybody.
Speaker 1:So big thanks to them all Well thank you for being here, rick, I appreciate it, you bet, thank you. All right, we'll see you all next week. Thanks for joining Fellowship Around the Table. If you would like to learn more, go to fbctulsaorg.
