UNREACHED
In Revelation 7, John shares his vision of heaven with members from every tribe, tongue, people and language standing in the throne room before the Lamb.
Yet today there are still over 7,000 unreached people groups around the world.
For the last six years, my family and friends have been on a journey to find, vet and fund the task remaining.
Come journey with us to the ends of the earth as we share the supernatural stories of God at work through the men and women he has called to reach the UNREACHED.
UNREACHED
A Global Ministry Outlook with Mark Tatlock from The Master's Academy International & Grace Community Church
Have you ever wondered how the local church can effectively impact global missions? Join us for an insightful discussion with Mark Tatlock (President of The Master's Academy International and Elder at Grace Community Church) where he shares his inspiring journey from his roots in a pastor's home to becoming a key leader in global church development. Tune in to discover how his time at the Master's College under John MacArthur's mentorship fueled his passion for fusing education, discipleship, and missions.
Explore the fascinating story behind Grace Community Church's outreach efforts which began with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992. Mark reveals how the church responded to Ukrainian pastors' requests for help in training leaders, leading to the creation of seminary-level training programs across the globe. Learn about the evolution of these efforts into The Master's Academy International, an organization committed to providing pastors with high-quality theological education and resources while honoring the leadership and invitation of local churches. This segment highlights the significance of humility, service, and the church's collective effort to support global evangelism.
What does it take for a local church to become a sending church? We discuss the transformative journey of mature churches and the exciting development of national churches sending their own members for missions. By integrating a biblical theology of missions into regular teaching and creating a church culture actively engaged in cross-cultural evangelistic efforts, churches can align their local ministry with global missions. Hear about the organizational structure of Grace Ministries International and the strategic support for missionaries, culminating in a more sustainable and culturally attuned approach to global evangelism. Tune in to be inspired by real-life stories of church transformation and the power of sanctified believers living out the gospel.
Follow @unreachedpodcast on Instagram for more!
In Revelation 7, john shares his vision of heaven with members from every tribe, tongue, people and language standing in the throne room before the Lamb. Yet today there are still over 7,000 unreached people groups around the world. For the last six years, my family and friends have been on a journey to find, vet and fund the task remaining. Come journey with us to the ends of the earth as we share the supernatural stories of God at work for the men and women he has called to reach the unreached. Hello friends, dustin Elliott here, your host with the Unreached podcast and very excited to be in the studio today. Mark Tatlock, with the Masters Academy International and Grace Community Church out in California is with us. Help me welcome Mark, mark. We're so excited to have you today. Thank you, dustin, it's great to be with you. Okay, well, let's start with a little bit of your story. How did you get into being in the church, being involved as a pastor, as an elder, as a church leader and really just one of the key people globally training and equipping pastors for the church?
Speaker 2:Well, thank you. I grew up in the home of a pastor and I would say not just a pastor, a true evangelist. So my home life, my family life, my dad's example he's one of those guys who never met a stranger, didn't share the gospel with them. So I'm really thankful for that heritage. It doesn't mean. As a young child I appreciated that I had to grow in my own faith and maturity to understand the priority of God for his people, to be a testimony for Christ in every walk of life. And that took place when I was in college. I was attending the master's college. Matter of fact, it had just become the master's college John MacArthur was appointed the president. Prior to that I'd been Los Angeles Baptist College and a wonderful school, had a rich history, sound doctrine. But when John MacArthur became the president he set into the culture of a Christian liberal arts now university, a commitment to equip and train men and women who would be committed to the local church with a global vision. And you expect that in a Bible college, but maybe not so much in a liberal arts institution. But what that did is it took every discipline, whether it was business or the health sciences or journalism, communication, whatever major that was, and put it in the larger context of the unfolding of God's redemptive plan, and asking every student in their time at the university what's your place? How do you become a steward of your calling and vocation? And that just became an embedded part of the culture for every graduate, and whether they're serving abroad or in a local church, I would say what characterizes graduates of the Master's University is that global vision and a commitment to participate locally and globally in that endeavor. And so that's been a passion.
Speaker 2:I graduated, was going to go to the mission field, had been invited to go into the Ukraine to be part of a new ministry, actually where our first training center was launched in 1992. But I had just gotten married and the agency at the time didn't let newlyweds go to the mission field. They wanted to stay home for a year. But at that point I'd spent seven or eight years leading short-term missions trips overseas and my wife was a missionary kid, so it's just in our DNA. So I accepted the position of being the director of international ministries at the Master's University, working with international students who came around the globe, but also sending out students cross-culturally, locally, working with immigrants and refugees in urban contexts but also internationally.
Speaker 2:Context but also internationally, and I just came to understand kind of the wedding of education and discipleship with missions was where the Lord was directing me. So I went on to attend the Master's Seminary and ended up serving at the Master's University for 27 years teaching missions, discipling students, overseeing their outreach programs, and transitioned 10 years ago to become the president of the Master's Academy International, where now I get to support graduates of both the university and the Master's Seminary who are training and equipping church leaders around the globe. I really come to work with one passion and that's just to serve my former students. I had the privilege of training them, helping invest, with many others, that vision into their life, but then now I get to do everything I can to come behind them and help support their work as it develops around the globe. So I'm incredibly blessed, privileged, certainly undeserving and just really grateful to see what God's doing in our generation as far as advancing the Great Commission through His church, which has always been His plan and His purpose.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that. So very multifaceted, you hit on several different institutions, the growth of basically one concept of education with discipleship and man. That hits home hard for us here on the Unreached podcast and how we do discipleship groups. And how did Jesus change the world? Right, he got a small group together. They did life for three years. There's a model there that we can replicate, right, and 2 Timothy 2 speaks directly to that.
Speaker 1:You know, you've heard these truths and I'll teach them to other trustworthy people, pass them on to others, right?
Speaker 1:So you've been doing that now for decades, mark, and when I think about how many locations and different people you've met and trained and you think about, you know, the branches off the vine and how far those go now, one of the things you said before we started recording was how you're excited about, you know, the depth of, I guess, how those branches have grown and where they're going next, and so, without you know, maybe we would typically start in the back and go to the front, but I want to hit that early because I think it's too important for our listeners. And you said who are your listeners, right? Okay, so we've got traditional missionaries. We've got people doing business as missions. We've got a lot of pastors. So with that audience in mind, mark, how do you explain to them the fruit that you've seen of getting local leaders trained and taught on how to preach and how to lead and taught on how to preach and how to lead, and how does that branch out from the local kind of water well source versus all coming maybe from the West?
Speaker 2:I want to begin first by just referencing John MacArthur and his influence in our ministries. He said from the very outset I'm grateful for these institutions, but there's one institution that God ordained and that's the church, one eternal institution. So any of these what we would term parachurch ministries, universities, seminaries, mission agencies wherever they might be, they have to always keep clear that their responsibility is to serve the local church. And we can give lip service to that. But I would say today, the reality is most parachurch ministries and sadly, many mission agencies have lost their footing as far as the priority of the local church. And you see that around the world there's a lot of good intentions in missions today, a strong focus on evangelism and using creative, entrepreneurial platforms and things like that to do, and that's okay as long as they're working with and strengthening the local church. It's the local church and the Great Commission.
Speaker 2:It's important that we don't overlook the emphasis of the Great Commission in Matthew 28. Yes, it starts with making converts. It doesn't end there. It goes on to make disciples, and the methodology that's referenced there begins with baptism. Which baptism if you're faithful to a New Testament understanding of that is in ordinance of the church. But it's not just illustrative of what's happened to us spiritually. It is a public profession, before a congregation of believers to say I'm committing myself to the local church to serve, utilizing my giftedness, being submissive to leaders and submissive to the congregation at large, not only to serve them but for them to serve me in the further progress of my own growth and sanctification. There's accountability, is what I'm getting out of the local church, and then the emphasis is teaching them to observe all that I have entrusted to you. Christ is saying Well, what he's entrusted to the church is the truth and the responsibility of evangelists and pastors and missionaries to teach and train those in the context of the local church. So we need to recover today the priority of the local church as essential to fulfilling the Great Commission. So I just wanted to tag that base. The other thing as far as John is concerned, he said early on I'm grateful to give leadership to these other ministries as they support the church, but I'm primarily a pastor, I'm a preacher and I'm going to focus my own ministry on the depth of God's Word and trust the Lord for the breadth of impact.
Speaker 2:So the one thing that kind of defines our convictions is be faithful to the authority of God's word, the faithful proclamation of God's word and in a day and age and I've been teaching missions for about 35 years, so I've watched the trends and I would say that we've become a lot more reliant on pragmatic strategies, methodologies. We've really borrowed a lot in the field of missiology from secular sociology and cultural studies and sadly, in many cases and I would say it's trickled into the thinking of mission organizations and missionaries themselves pragmatic strategies and methodologies that, if you're honest, elevate culture and cultural studies as the authority over God's word. And I think the New Testament is very clear it's the proclamation of the truth coupled with the demonstration of God's love. So there's an integrity to the message that shines as a bright light. Whether that's Paul in Philippians, chapter 2, we both proclaim the excellencies of God and then we demonstrate the excellencies of him in putting his character and behavior on display.
Speaker 2:Or if it's Christ himself in Matthew 5, where we shine as bright lights as we practice our good deeds before men. And so the integrity of the Christian life, where it's truth in practice. Well, you can't just focus on the practice part without the truth part, and a lot of people today are focused on the practicing part, and they've ceased to even proclaim the truth. So my little catchphrase right now is to say recognize there's a lot of good intentions and missions today, but good intentions are not good enough. We need to return to the priorities we see in the New Testament and trust that God's word is not just authoritative, it is sufficient. It is the means by which we can faithfully fulfill the Great Commission.
Speaker 1:I love that You're just reminding our listeners and your own people that will hear this got to stay true to the Word. We've got to be in the Word, we've got to know the Word, and I think about Ephesians 6 a lot. And just if I don't, I may have my helmet and I may have my armor, and I may have my shoes and I may have my belt, but I may not have a sword if I don't know the Word and I'm not in the Word and I'm not faithful to it. So of all the things you said, I want to make sure I just reiterate that and your point's well received. It's also that what you've done, starting in the LA area, out in California, and then grown. Tell us about the growth of your international groups. Do you call them seminaries? Are they schools? Are they teaching centers? What do you call them? And where are you now and how does that branch out? How did that happen?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when John became president of the master's, then college, now university, he then started the master's seminary because his passion is to equip and train pastors. That's his zeal. He loves the university students. It's so fun to see him in that context as well. So if you look at both institutions, one is equipping and training pastors and church leaders to rightly divide God's Word and develop a biblical philosophy of ministry that has integrity. But then because the pastors shepherd a congregation comprised of lay people in the pews who are dispersed by God in a sovereign plan, in a myriad of vocations, where they're, in places where, if they're going to glorify God, they have to understand a biblical worldview and how to bring that to bear in a context that doesn't hold to a biblical worldview so that in practice they live a life of integrity. So between the university and the seminary you've got these two entities that are equipping believers in their vocations, either as pastors or in other vocational fields. But the idea is the church as a whole is equipped then to have impact for the glory of God and the advancement of the gospel.
Speaker 2:What happened is and this began in 1992 with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain coming down our church. Grace Community Church hosted an annual pastor's conference. Grace Community Church hosts an annual pastor's conference and some men from Ukraine came to the Shepherds Conference and said we're very concerned with the freedoms, that we anticipate coming the inroads of false teachers, cults, liberalism. We've been protected from all that and we've also for 80 years not had the freedom to train pastors and church leaders. It was illegal, right, you know, couldn't run their own seminars. But they said you know, we've got these proven churches who, under persecution and under attack, have been purified and and we appreciate at that point particularly John's writing the book Charismatic Chaos. They said that's one of our main concerns, that would be the influence of the charismatic movement and we trust your voice on this because we agree with what you're saying. Would you help us? And what resulted then was an invitation from the leaders of the. And what resulted then was an invitation from the leaders of the Baptist denomination the biggest Baptist denomination in the globe, in the world to send graduates of the Master's Seminary to partner with them to develop a seminary-level training program for their pastors. I mean we were incredibly humbled by that invitation, their pastors, I mean we were incredibly humbled by that invitation. So we responded to that and said you've extended the invitation. This is not our agenda, we're not coming to take anything over, but we're glad to come and serve. So our guys plugged into their churches under their pastors and worked with them to develop a Masters of Divinity-level program, and that was 1992 when that program was launched.
Speaker 2:Well, once that took place, people would come back to Shepherd's Conference. They'd hear a testimony about that and church leaders in India who were at the conference said boy, we could use some help as well. We're concerned about the drift of our seminaries into liberalism and pragmatism and things like that. A lot of the mainline denominational seminaries overseas have begun to drift from their convictions about the inerrancy and authority of Scripture. So we said, well, sure, we'll send some graduates. So we recruited some and and set them out as missionaries and they worked with their national colleagues there in India. That happened again in South Africa. That happened again in a number of places.
Speaker 2:So by 2004, we looked at this and said man, after 12 years we see there's a need and an interest. But we need to find a way to support these training centers is what we refer to them as where we can make sure that we offer the highest level of theological education and discipleship and make it affordable to them. That means basically, we're going to have to raise money to offset the expense. They all pay tuition. They cover their travel expenses. They're very sacrificial. They cover their travel expenses. They're very sacrificial.
Speaker 2:So the Masters Academy International was formed in 2004 to function really like a foundation to give grants to an association of pastoral training centers to support these national pastors to complete their theological education in country so they could stay in their churches.
Speaker 2:That was another really important thing.
Speaker 2:We could pull them out and bring them to the West.
Speaker 2:But those early years, particularly after the Iron Curtain came down, we realized that it was a difficult life they faced and bringing some of them to the States resulted in some of them staying and not returning back to their home countries and we said we don't want to be guilty of that.
Speaker 2:When and if we bring a person to the Master's Seminary, we want to make sure they're proven and they're committed to return and being part of that training ministry at that point. So that's kind of our DNA is to really only go where we receive an invitation from national church leaders who have a desire to equip their church leaders to do expositional preaching and implement biblical philosophy ministry. And then we come alongside and provide financial support and it's grown since that. We provide academic resources. We have a whole global publishing division that works in translation of theological resources so those pastors have the tools they need to study and that's expanded to do works for local churches to resource them in areas like biblical counseling and discipleship and all kinds of things. So the work's grown over the years. But that's kind of the history of it, the genesis of it and what our DNA is.
Speaker 1:No, I love that. And you said something else that was really key and I want the listeners not to miss this. You said we go where we're invited and you go under the leadership of the local pastors. You're coming under them to support them, to equip them to disciple and help lead them to make them more effective at shepherding their flock, and that's so key. I think the humility Mark that John has and you have, and your strategy it's not what you would expect from one of the most successful and significant organizations on the planet in this realm.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So where we're at today and we marvel at this Matter of fact, when John and I talk, he goes. This is above and beyond whatever we could ask or think. He just says that every time. And just a comment about John and our DNA, because it's biblical, but also as it's manifested in his own example.
Speaker 2:John is known for a lot of things right, a defender of the truth and a number of other convictions that he stands for. But I'll tell you what. He's just a pastor at heart. He loves people. He's a shepherd. As an elder, we can't even beat him to the emergency room at the hospital.
Speaker 2:He hears about somebody in our church and it's a big church. He and his wife are the first ones there. He knows our missionaries by name. They give generously personally, but he just has a real servant's heart and a very generous spirit. So he says everything that we produce, we don't want to earn any money off of it, we just want to give it away. We want to get it into the hands of church leaders and so that spirit of service and generosity starts with them. We've all been discipled in it and we want to be faithful to it because we believe it's really biblical. Not a lot of people get to see John up close and in a firsthand way, and I've had the privilege of seeing that in his own life for 30 plus years, and so I just want to acknowledge that I'm really grateful for him. Let's pull on that thread for a second.
Speaker 1:So you also serve as an elder at Grace and, as I said, a lot of pastors do tune in, and even our own here. As I said, a lot of pastors do tune in, and even our own here, when you look at the relationship between an elder board and the lead pastor, executive pastor and the other roles in a church. Tell us about your framework. How do you operate? How do you think a healthy local church leadership body should be structured and should serve?
Speaker 2:Sure, leadership body kind of should be structured and should serve Sure Well, this is one of my passions personally is to you know, we train pastors here at the Master's Seminary and then send them out and they develop and train pastors here at the Master's Academy International. So that's kind of our bread and butter. But my particular passion within that is that pastors understand their responsibility to lead and shepherd their local churches to participate in the fulfillment of God's redemptive plan. And that means a pastor has to be trained to understand. He can't delegate that responsibility. I'm fine if you've got a missions pastor or missions elder or missions committee. That's not what I'm saying. You've got to delegate. I delegate to a lot of people. You can't delegate responsibility or setting the vision.
Speaker 2:And when you teach verse by verse in an expositional approach, just tag the base where that text relates to or demonstrates a biblical theology of missions or the advancement of the gospel. It's not adequate to have a mission Sunday or to preach a mission sermon once a year. It needs to flow out of the text in a consistent way. Don't read missions into the text, but also don't neglect to tag the base when you're going through, if it's Acts or if it's an epistle or even the Old Testament, whatever it is. And I say that because a lot of pastors don't know where missions fits into their own calling. They have this kind of dichotomy in their thinking. I'm called a shepherd or local flock and I support missions, but that's something that other people do and what that does is it creates a dichotomy actually in the function of the local church where you reinforce for your own people. I live here and so therefore this is the limited scope of my obligation. I might write a check, I might pray for a missionary, but particularly in a globalized world, here and internationally, every church has cross-cultural evangelistic and discipleship opportunities. Every church there are immigrant populations, refugee populations everywhere around the world understand biblically, a biblical theology of missions, how that flows in their own calling as a local pastor, how that informs the vision of the elders and leadership of that church, and then how you understand the equipping of people in pursuing holiness and sanctification is related to the furtherance of the gospel and see the mission of the church as something that's more complete.
Speaker 2:Some would use the word holistic, I'd say comprehensive instead of this dichotomized approach, and I've just watched John model that at Grace Church. There's not a person at our church an elder In fact we have about 40 elders and I've done the exercise several times sitting at the table. I go around and I can see evidence and illustrate every elder where they play an active part in some aspect of supporting our global work. How about that? Even though they might be in children's ministry or disability ministries or whatever else. And so when you have a church like that, then that church is vibrant, People are coming to faith in Christ, they're being baptized and they're engaged not just in giving and prayer but actual participation across culturally, in their own lives, and that's what brings their own vocation into focus, because every industry has been globalized. So their colleagues represent the nations. But we've got to help pastors that's your question. We've got to help pastors. See it completely as a whole, not in this dichotomized fashion. And boy, when that happens, man, the entire church is on mission, they're on fire.
Speaker 1:I think of it in my line of work as working in your business versus working on your business, right? So if you're spending all your time working in your business as a pastor, then you're totally focused on what's right in front of you and there's a good chance you're not evaluating what you're missing. If you take time to zoom out and that should be, I think, a key role of an elder board right, you take time to zoom out and look at opportunities and weaknesses and threats and the other components and what are we not doing? What are we not getting enough of here? You know, a major part of that, mark, is the humility of the lead pastor. Even at that level. Mark is the humility of the lead pastor Even at that level. They need to be able to trust some people on that board to say, hey, you've kind of gotten focused on this over here.
Speaker 1:There's some other components in that text you're maybe not evaluating or bringing to light that could be really helpful for the body. What does it look like? What's the rhythm of the elder board's engagement? At Grace you said there's 40. That's a big board. What's the rhythm? What's the meetings? What's the roles and responsibilities? How do y'all make sure the bases are getting covered and evaluate with that zoomed out perspective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'll give you our framework or our structure.
Speaker 2:So we've got about 40 elders. That would include lay and staff elders. There's a group of 13, 14 of us who oversee our missions ministry. Now, years ago we actually formulated what's called Grace Ministries International, which is a mission agency that is an entity of our own local church. Now we're a big church, not all churches can do that. But Grace Ministries International was created to facilitate the sending of all these seminary students who were being asked to go out and to help training pastors overseas. So GMI was formed in 1997.
Speaker 2:Okay, the group of us who are elders who oversee that, we are broken down regionally. So we've asked some of our veteran missionaries and training center leaders to serve as regional shepherds because they know the work, they know the culture, they know the life of a missionary and pastor and they're available to come alongside for care, counsel and meeting the needs of couples and families and also coaching when it comes to developing new training ministries. So we have guys on the field. But our group of elders are divided by region to support our regional shepherd. So we have guys assigned to five global regions and then we meet monthly and our elders on that team read every newsletter. We're available for counsel.
Speaker 2:We all live on Zoom these days so we do a lot of follow-up every week to make sure where there's needs and then, in the sending of new graduates out around the world, we work with our guys in the region to develop a ministry plan and then send them out and then support them. So today we have 95 families out through GMI. So we've grown and scaled up with the increased number of invitations. As far as the number of schools, to give you a sense of the work that we're doing on the field, so TMAI is an association of pastoral training centers led by nationals. So our goal, even if we send an American missionary, is to pass the baton to nationals. So we have 19 member schools today. I would say 12 of them are led completely by nationals that we've trained and entrusted the work to.
Speaker 1:Wow that's awesome.
Speaker 2:That's incredible. Those 19 schools, though, because most pastors are bivocational, so we're trying to reach them in their own community. So, after training a couple generations of pastors, then their churches become a host site. So we have today almost 90 teaching sites through those 19 schools, and what we require to open up a school or a site is what we call two model churches, and that means they're not perfect there's no such thing as perfect church but they're a church that's committed to a faithful exposition of God's word, implementation of a biblical philosophy of ministry, worship, children's youth, evangelism all those areas counseling and those might be in development. They become a hub, an example. So as we train pastors, we also disciple and model for them what a biblical church looks like. Then that thing just kind of scales up. If there's a need to open up a new site, we do that. So that's where we're at today.
Speaker 2:What we're working on going forward is we actually have graduates of the Master's Seminary in 75 nations, and we're in touch with all of them, and we're in touch with all of them, and it's just in their DNA to training. What's happening more and more so is nationals are coming to the master seminary and going back to their own countries. So we're actually starting more training centers just with nationals. Then we come alongside and support them and equip them to do that. But right now we're projecting the next well, the next four years to add 16 new schools. Now, when we add a new school, there's about six to eight years of developing that school before they even open their doors. So we've been working with these 16 schools now for, you know, between five and eight years. So we really want working with these 16 schools now for between five and eight years. So we really want to have a smart growth strategy.
Speaker 2:Again, none of those are schools that we initiated. Those were all invitations extended Because of the reputation of pastors who've been trained, maybe in a neighboring country or something they got exposed to at Shepherd's Conference. So these are really exciting days for us. We don't take it for granted. We're not numbers driven, but we do see it as a testimony of a hunger for God's word. People are weary with false teaching, the deception of the prosperity gospel, which doesn't deliver what it promises to offer people, of the prosperity gospel which doesn't deliver what it promises to offer people. People have lost heart with what's masquerading as gospel ministry and obviously that's the work of God in the heart, nothing we take credit for, but there's a hunger for sound teaching and we're just trying to keep up with that demand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Mark, I had to admit once on one of the podcast episodes that I needed to repent a little bit in my own heart, I think, because I was narrow framing my view of missions to we're always trying to get somewhere. We're not welcome just because a lot of our focus has been on the task remaining and the unreached people groups and even the unengaged people groups and the unreached people groups and even the unengaged people groups.
Speaker 1:often what we're hearing and learning is the missionaries that are on the ground are encountering people that are very, very ready and been praying for someone to come and be there and teach them and tell them the good news and show them how to go about planning or leading or shifting their church, and there is a massive hunger. I'm glad you hit on that. I also noticed you said y'all are LA, we're in Austin. A lot of people come here from other parts of the world and we have an opportunity to engage with them, to teach them, and so a lot of what's happening with y'all is it's people coming from another country spending time at your schools and at your church and then getting equipped and then going back with that education and that heart and that mindset to teach and engage and train. And then they don't get sent out and forgotten. They're sent out but they're calling back in, they're on Zooms, they're being supported, they're being fed.
Speaker 1:There's a lot to be said just for that, because if you're staying engaged at that level, then I would hope and I would pray that gives you the opportunity to ask some hard questions and to say I see this going on. I mean, if you read 40% of the New Testament, is Paul writing letters back to his baby church plants and correcting a lot of misbehavior and misguided thought and people coming in trying to interrupt the truth. That's being taught and it sounds like y'all have got a process with veteran, mature, seasoned leaders upstream constantly checking in on the guys downstream and it goes all the way up to John and then it goes down through the elder board and then it goes down through the regional guys and then it goes down through the regional guys and then it goes down through the schools and then it goes out to the 90 or so training centers and through that framework. God's really blessed that and now you see the opportunity, like you said, in four years, for really, I would say, radical, continued growth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I think that's what I'm saying. We all look at it and really feel like we can't and shouldn't take any credit for it. We're just watching God at work in our generation and we credit him. But it's just trying to be faithful to first principles right Interpretation of the scripture, faithful proclamation of the word which sanctifies God's people. Sanctified people have a love for Christ and they want their unbelieving friends and family members to know him like they know him. And so when they have a sound gospel, then and their life demonstrates integrity not perfection, but integrity then it has impact and creates trust. And I think that's what draws people to say I want to be taught, I want to understand. But yeah, that's how it's working.
Speaker 2:Two things that I'm observing right now that we're real excited about is if you look at what I think is going to prove to be the most effective way to reach into two categories of need. One would be how to equip and serve the church and further the gospel in restricted access context. So if you take, for instance, open Border's World Watch list that they publish every year on the most persecuted countries as far as threats to the church and we've dialogued quite a bit with them. But it's interesting. I just looked at their top 50 nations last year. I compared it with where we had had an opportunity to train somebody from one of those countries.
Speaker 2:I was surprised to discover that out of the top 50, we had had the privilege of training at least one, if not many, pastors from 37 out of the top 50 most persecuted contexts. That's awesome and that was nationals having access to training and going back into their own context restricted access context and I was just man. That really impacted me and I thought what a stewardship that we haven't maybe fully invested in and been intentional. So I tried to start pointing this out to our training center leaders and I'd ask them where do you see inroads to train folks who are refugees or immigrants or maybe language speakers of the language in that context? And all of a sudden it was like they begin to tell stories of where God was using their churches to reach these individuals and then bringing them into a training context and I thought, wow, lord, you're already doing this. This wasn't our strategy, you're just doing it already Now. How can we support that?
Speaker 1:a little bit more.
Speaker 2:The second category goes back to the first question you asked, and what I'm looking at right now is the effect of our ministry after 30-some years. I say it this way Mature churches become sending churches. So if you follow God's principles to make sure that the pulpits sound, and then there's a biblical philosophy of ministry being implemented and let me just comment on that, that's my concern a little bit today Even if you get preaching, when I look at the global churches that we serve, they're reliant on a lot of tools and resources coming from the Western church that are very pragmatic and, I would say, not really always biblically sound. They may be wrapped in Bible verses, but they're very market-driven, in a sense that we want to see what's strategic, what's effective, the quickest way to plant churches, the quickest way to do this, whatever it is, or even the worship music that's being created today. That is problematic. So what we're seeing is, once guys are trained to teach the Word, they begin to recognize. Wow, how we're approaching worship doesn't line up with New Testament priorities. Oh, the way we're counseling people, the way we're dealing with marriage, the way we're dealing with parenting, the way we're doing children's ministry we're using all these tools the West is creating. But there's a disconnect, sometimes, not always, and so what we're seeing them do is to be more discerning and say how should we do worship, how should we do these other areas of ministry?
Speaker 2:Now, when a church begins to mature so that there's integrity, where the authority of God's Word drives everything, now you have people being sanctified in the truth in a really exciting way, and then that church, I think, is a 1 John 4 kind of church where they put on display the character of God, they reveal the Father, just as Christ did in the incarnation. Now the church is to reveal the Father and as Christ did in the incarnation. Now the church is to reveal the Father. And how we live in community with each other in accord with God's word is what gives our gospel witness validity. We all know the greatest accusation thrown at us believers is hypocrisy. So for the church to accomplish its purpose in the world and the advancement of the gospel, it's not just sound preaching, it's a biblical philosophy, ministry. People sanctify it in the truth. There's a practicing of the one another's in a way that then, when they go out and declare the gospel of God, they don't talk about a God that just, is loving and merciful and kind and forgiving, and all of his attributes. They actually live those attributes out, which are the fruit of the Spirit in practice, and the combination of their living testimony and the proclamation of the character of God is what has power in their village or their community and so forth.
Speaker 2:So what we're aiming for right now, and to kind of bring into focus, I would say, then, mature churches become sending churches. People are on mission evangelists in their own local lives and spheres. They become church planting churches to reproduce the church and they become missionary sending churches. So, as I look to the horizon, what we're talking about is we're seeing now people being sent out from the churches where we've trained the pastors and leadership to go to reach the unreached people groups or the unevangelized people groups. And what's exciting about that is these people they already live at the local economic level.
Speaker 2:So funding is a whole different endeavor, being a more achievable endeavor. They also speak the language or a like dialect. They understand the worldview where the truth needs to be applied and corrected, and we're seeing people being sent out that we've trained who are now doing Bible translation work, church planting, missionary sending the things the Western church has been doing for almost 300 years. Now we're seeing national churches do that and I think they're going to have a more far-reaching impact into unreached people, groups and unevangelized groups then if we only focus our attention on recruiting and sending Americans I'm not opposed to that, I've been doing that for 30-some years, but this has kind of been something as close as I am to it. That has been a surprise to me. I didn't expect this and I regret that because I shouldn't have known better.
Speaker 1:Back to your humility right there, mark. I don't know about that, but it's exciting to see, no doubt. Well, hey, I'm going to cut you off right here just because I can feel the stories coming. So let's cut this in. We'll do another episode in two weeks. We're going to go a level down to the ground of the actual stories of some of the people. I want to give Mark an opportunity to tell some of the stories of some of the people that he's worked with, some of the pastors and the locals, and how those churches have matured and become sending churches and now have grown and gone into their neighboring communities. And so, mark, as a tradition on our podcast, would you pray for the listeners on our way out? And then, guys, we'll see all of you again in two weeks.
Speaker 2:I'd be glad to Thank you. Let's pray, father. I am considering those who might be listening to this and so grateful for their faithfulness in ministry, their love for Christ, their devotion to his word. Many of them are making such great sacrifices personally to be on the field, and I know they do that gladly in service to Christ, and so thank you for them. For those who are pastoring churches, who are participating in this enterprise, uphold them, strengthen them, help them to be effective where you've set them, and then those of us who are senders by way of prayers and financial support, continue to help us be faithful and good stewards of where we put our resources, that it might really strengthen your church for your glory, and we ask this in Christ's name, amen.
Speaker 1:Amen. Thank you for listening to Unreached. Our sincere desire is that what you've heard today will cause you to see the mission of God differently and your role in it more clearly. If this adds value for you and we hope it does would you please rate and review the podcast wherever you listen. Also, share with your family, your friends, your church, your life group, small group, d group, wherever you do life, and if you want to connect with us, find us on Instagram at unreachedpodcast, or email us at unreachedpodcast at gmailcom. You, you.
