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
Global Missions and Generational Faithfulness with Mark Tatlock
Ever wondered how faith can spark societal transformation? Tune in as we welcome back Mark Tatlock to share supernatural stories of God's work among unreached people. We'll take you to Christ Seminary in South Africa, where local pastors like Sammy are being equipped to preach the Word and disciple their communities, leading to a wave of repentance and heart transformation in places like Soweto. Discover how integrating vocational skills with ministry efforts is creating sustainable development, celebrating God's remarkable work in South African townships and beyond.
Curious how a global pandemic can unexpectedly expand a missions movement? This episode uncovers the surprising ways technology and circumstances have amplified our training efforts. From the Philippines to Pakistan, over 500 pastors have been trained through Zoom in regions facing severe persecution. Learn about our new training ministry in Cuba and the translation of essential theological texts into languages like Farsi, Arabic, and Urdu, empowering local pastors and immigrant populations worldwide. Mark Tatlock shares incredible stories of pastors crossing cultural barriers to spread Christianity, underscoring a biblical mandate that transcends Western initiatives.
Explore the vital concept of generational faithfulness and passing the baton of spiritual commitment. Reflect on 6,000 years of biblically chronicled history and the importance of each generation's dedication to living for Christ. Hear inspiring contemporary ministry stories, such as a pastor in the Philippines reaching tribal groups and an individual in Nepal overcoming barriers to train others. We also provide practical advice on maintaining sound doctrine in church relationships and supporting church leaders. Join us as we celebrate God's divine involvement in global missions and discover how you can actively participate in His grand plan.
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, welcome back to the Unreached Podcast. Dustin Elliott here, your host back with Mark Tatlock.
Speaker 1:As promised, we did such a just big picture review in the first episode in this series of the Master's Academy and the Master's Seminary and Grace Community Church and how they're structured, how they are equipping people locally, even people that come to the states to be trained, and how they're sending people to support and work alongside local pastors and leaders.
Speaker 1:And really at the heart of their work is training the pastor, getting the pastor trained up, coached up on how to be really true to the Word, how to walk and live in the integrity of the Word and then to have the body grow and mature through that leadership and teaching. It was beautiful. I can't imagine how many people would love to look behind the curtain of your church and your organizations and see how could we do some things like Grace has done, because God has blessed that work immensely. And so today Mark's got stories. Mark's been doing this for decades. He's been taking notes about who and what stories he wants to tell, and I can't wait to cut him loose. So, mark, let's get right to it. Let's tell some stories of how God's really changed people's lives, the supernatural stories of God at work among the unreached around the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's great. Let me start with just talking about our school in South Africa. So we've been there for about 25 years in the northern part of the country, started out by training village pastors. Of course that's grown and now there's satellite locations opening up in places like Cape Town and Durban and so forth. But just a couple of cool stories.
Speaker 2:So there's a guy named Sammy Lobato who came to Christ Seminary and got trained, but he's from Soweto, which is, of course, one of the best known townships as far as you know, a community under apartheid that was segregated and put within the confines of a community that really is like a slum.
Speaker 2:And Sammy came to Christ Seminary and then went back to Soweto and just began to preach the word and disciple men and his wife women, matter of fact, his wife's amazing you should hear her testimony and just to see that church begin to flourish and then to talk about local outreach and then you begin to see even where a community begins to change because they repent.
Speaker 2:So many efforts today to bring community development and change are trying to be achieved from the outside Change systems and structures and all the rest of it but it's really not until the heart transforms and people repent, that you begin to see they turn from crime, they turn from whatever other you know the addiction or pattern is, or even their thinking about race and issues like that. So I love talking to Sammy because if you were to visit his church today you would hear him preach, just following the same example of men like John MacArthur and many other expositors, verse by verse, going through the Word of God. But then you look at what's happening in Soweto around them, and now they're planting another church in Soweto. And now they're working with a fellowship of township pastors who also graduated from Christ Seminary to support one another. And now they've opened up like a Bible Institute-level training out of their own church Whoa, let's go.
Speaker 2:How great is that that's? Phenomenal, you're just seeing church members' lives being transformed and, as I've already said, and I just like to say, it's the truth that transforms. You know, there has to be some intentionality and framework and some you know trellis aspect to that. It's not that you don't have to have a strategy and all the rest of that, but at the core it's got to be work that advances the truth in the lives of people. So praise God for what he's doing today in the townships across South Africa.
Speaker 1:A lot of the concept around the business as missions movement, which I think is being renamed and rethought, and it's really just doing life as a follower of Christ through your vocation, et cetera. But a lot of that is like how do you bring economy, how do you bring the sustainability and business and a whole holistic or comprehensive to use one of your words framework to a community, as opposed to handouts which maybe just end up resulting in the people getting used to handouts and not really ever getting a chance to get to know the Lord and grow on their own. So there's a version of what Sammy's doing. It sounds like that's empowering and it's educating and it's getting people out of maybe a history or a lineage of their family's framework being limited and what they can do and really unlocking them and unleashing them to go realize something they couldn't do on their own.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and one of the things that you do in a context like that is you tap into your church members' vocational skill set.
Speaker 2:So for instance, a lot of the folks in that context can't advance academically because they can't read Well to start a reading program in your local church that is staffed by some of your church members who are school teachers, or creating a tutoring program, it's employing your church members in a way that meets a particular need and serves people in a really genuine loving way but also facilitates that truth being taught and applied in their own life. And I love it when you see that all working together. But let me tell you another story, cause we were talking last week about new horizon opportunities into, uh, restricted access or unreached people groups. So I just heard this testimony uh again, christ seminary, south Africa.
Speaker 2:Now we all know that China, through its bridge and tunnels program and everything that they're doing to try to pour money into developing countries, particularly in places like Africa. If you look today, a lot of African countries have a large Chinese immigrant population who have been sent there to do these infrastructure projects, and that's true in South Africa. So there's a testimony of a guy sent from atheistic China as part of one of these projects. I believe he's in the Johannesburg area and he started hearing sound preaching on the radio and got directed to our school there. He went through the school program. But he's actually pastoring a Chinese church in South Africa that he has planted among immigrants from China, that China spent there and that church is growing. People are coming to faith, baptisms and things like that. But he's preaching in Chinese, in Mandarin.
Speaker 2:And now he's taking the resources that we're translating for our schools in Chinese context and he's using those from one part of the world and reading it into his local ministry in South Africa and I thought, yeah, that's just to the glory of God.
Speaker 1:Well, just imagine that guy leaving right, Okay, hey, honey, fam, I'm going, I'm going to go build some bridges and do these things and advance the cause of, you know, our government, uh, and and their and their purposes. And then he got there and he just got rerouted, Right, Uh, that is awesome, and that's the kind of thing I'm starting to hear about.
Speaker 2:I can give you some other examples. Many of us can go back to the period of COVID where we were all living on Zoom and so a lot of our training for a period of time in some countries had to utilize Zoom. Well, man that kicked the door open. So our school in the Philippines. There was one guy who'd immigrated from Pakistan to the Philippines and had been introduced to our training ministry there, so he was able to get involved there. But when they start teaching through Zoom, he said, hey, I've got friends who are pastors back in Pakistan. Could they join the training via Zoom? Wow, okay, let's do that. So there were six men, six pastors, who joined the training. They completed the program.
Speaker 2:When the restrictions were removed for travel, international travel after COVID, they extended an invitation to our faculty to come into Pakistan and begin to train pastors in Pakistan. Well, we never expected that. We didn't go looking for that. That's that invitation I was describing last week. And so we did that. And the first trip in boy, our faculty member was there for several weeks and he went to five cities, did conferences on exposition, preaching and other biblical topics, preaching and other biblical topics, and that resulted in the birthing of a new training ministry in Pakistan. And while he was there, that first trip, they had over 500 pastors come out for the different training events that were set up, all by national Pakistani pastors, and these are men definitely under persecution. I don't have time to tell you, but I could tell you explicit and specific testimonies of Bible burning, men being killed, assaults on their church buildings and things like this. And to be given the opportunity to serve these men, totally, totally undeserved certainly, but a great joy to do what we can, because they're counting the cost every day. What? What cost are we facing, no doubt. So all we can do to stand with them and encourage them. So the lord opened up pakistan.
Speaker 2:Same thing happened in cuba recently. We had one student studying in a school in Latin America. He completed the Master's of Divinity-level training there, returned home there's a network of evangelical churches within Cuba. At that time he just took the video recordings of the lectures. That resulted then in an invitation and we're doing our first pastor's conference in Cuba this fall with our faculty from three different training centers, spanish-speaking training centers in latin america who are going in to to respond to that need. So these are examples of what's becoming a pattern and we're just trying to be faithful to keep up with it. But in in all those cases it's not even really Americans behind it. These are nationals going into contexts that are within their region. So there are many, many more examples of that.
Speaker 2:The other thing, kind of related to the restricted access, is in many places we realize early on, if you're going to train church leaders, they need textbooks, they need theological resources, they need commentaries to prepare their sermons, and so years ago we just started translating a book here or a book there. Three years ago we realized, boy, we're doing a lot more of this than we realized. And if we could organize ourselves to work with Christian publishers to secure contracts not just in one language but multiple languages. So we opened up a global publishing division to respond to the requests from the field to translate Christian books and commentaries, and that's led into translation MacArthur Study Bible into languages and all kinds of things, and not just print versions but electronic or digital libraries. We also get contracts for audio books and media content, videos and things like that. So now we're positioned to translate these resources.
Speaker 2:What's happening? Because we're translating into languages like Farsi and Arabic and Urdu and Bahasa, and I could go on and on. I think we're working in about 40, 45 languages right now. Well, those resources that were designed for a particular cultural context now become available when there's an outreach to an immigrant population in another part of the world. And I saw a book recently, our Russian speaking school, one of the faculty members, wrote a book on the incarnation and speak about the duty of Christ, and that book was translated into Arabic, urdu and Farsi. And I got a video clip actually of the book coming off the press in Iran and there were no faces, no names, it was just the book coming off the press with the workers there. And that's the ability we have in today's generation using technology and distributing content and resources.
Speaker 2:And there's more I could see there, but this whole area of restricted access, it's not restricted. It might be in the terms of sending an American missionary, but there are other doors that are wide open.
Speaker 1:We talked about that with Andrew Scott. Right, we've been trying to come in through a back door or a top window when the front door is wide open. And another story we told on the podcast was something that Bless got to help fund training Ukrainian pastors who were able to get into other countries that we weren't able to get into. And I have an image in my head which I'll never forget of 22 baptisms in Iran via one of the Ukrainian pastors that went through that training and, of course, again, faces were blurred out. But it's happening, it's working, it's a beam it off, a satellite kind of a version of we've got the education and some resources et cetera. Train and equip over here, then they go into there.
Speaker 1:But you brought up a whole nother framework for this happening, which is one people group traveling to a different people group. That's not our people group, but that we happen to be working in. And now they're getting access and they're planning churches and leading their people to Christ in their own language, in their own culture, in a different culture. Right, I mean, that's right. You can't script that. You don't know that that's going to happen, right? No, but it's biblical.
Speaker 2:When people think biblically and they think about God's calling the church and individuals to make disciples of the nations. That's not exclusively a Western mandate, that's just a biblical mandate to the church. So I believe you and I in our generation may witness the greatest global missions movement in the history of the church and we have more opportunities by way of use of technology and transportation, things like that, and I will add to it. I actually think we're going to see more and more limited opportunities for Western missionaries to go into those contexts.
Speaker 1:But we have a role to play. Absolutely. It's a different role. Can I ask you, just because of your time in the Word and your time teaching the Word, something that I think we just don't frame in context? You said in our generation. So I teach through the Bible with a discipleship group every year. I get six, eight guys. Every year. We go Genesis to Maps when you start Matthew and you go to look at the genealogies and you see 14 generations from Abraham to King David and then 14 generations from King David to the Messiah. When you talk about the frame of how many generations they've really been in human history, can you give some context to that? Because I think we feel like some things are ancient and distant and so so long ago. But 2000 years ago is not that long ago really.
Speaker 2:I won't speak for you, but for me. As I get older, I have a greater appreciation that things weren't that long ago. I remember names and people and faces that others would see, as you know, in ancient history, and I'm like, no, I knew those people, and so some of us bridge generations to generations, but, biblically speaking, and I'm like, no, I knew those people, and so some of us bridge generations to generations. But, biblically speaking and I'm a young earth guy that's our position we're looking at about 6,000 years of human history and it's all chronical biblically and it's the same principle you're alluding to. It's generation to generation to generation.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite references to this is the testimony of Joshua in Joshua, chapter 22,. Right, they led the conquest, you know. They purged the nation, the promised land, of all the idolatrous, people, groups that were in the land. That's what was really taking place in the conquest, so they could fulfill being in the center of the land was really taking place in the conquest. So they could fulfill being in the center of the land. Ezekiel as a testimony to the nations, to the one true God, jehovah. So he fulfills all that. What does he do at the end of his life, before he dies, he calls the whole nation together and he rehearses the Abrahamic covenant, reminds the people what they're called to. But there's this really sweet, sweet verse at the end of chapter 22, and it says that the people remain faithful for as long as the generation of Joshua and those leaders lived, meaning it only lasts one generation as far as faithfulness. Every generation has to determine that they're going to be committed in their generation to live for Christ, to stand for the truth and make sure that if there's a need to fight for the truth, they fight that fight.
Speaker 2:And I think by linking I was a history major personally. So I think in these terms that it's the passing of the baton from generation to generation and that's why we can't make more difficult Christ's strategy. I mean 12 guys and then to talk about what we're talking about today, 2,000 years later, that doesn't make sense to human wisdom. It makes perfect sense to the mind of God about faithfulness. While numbers are exciting, I think they give testimony to how God is at work.
Speaker 2:The subtle mistake we make is we make success. We define success by numbers. As Americans and Westerners, eager is always better. The principle we see in scripture is be faithful to first things God will cause, the growth God will further, the he's going to build his church. You and I are not going to do that. So I think what you want to do is give every generation a call to be faithful to those generations who come behind us, to that same commitment and then trust the Lord. And when there's wonderful numbers fantastic and when there's not, knowing this is God's purpose in His season, my standard of success is faithfulness to the Lord. That's what he's going to hold me accountable to.
Speaker 1:Let's go back to maybe what's your favorite story or two over the last 30 years that you haven't had a chance to tell anybody in a while. You're like, oh man, I remember this one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a couple come to mind. So, going to this other category we've been discussing, there's restricted access. Then there's this idea of unreached people, groups and the nationals we're seeing being trained and sent out. So I was in the Philippines last year and we have locations both in the Northern islands and the Southern islands. So I was down in Mindanao and I was in the capital of Davao city and I was sitting across from a pastor that works with us and he was like I got to tell you what's going on. He said we're training here in the city, but he says my passion is to reach these tribal groups that are not accessible to us in the city. But he says my passion is to reach these tribal groups that are not accessible to us in the city. So he says for the last two years I've been taking all the content, I've been learning and I've been going out to these tribal groups and I've been passing that on to pastors in these rural contexts and he goes I didn't even ask you, but I'm taking some of the curriculum and some of the resources and I'm translating that into their local dialect and I'm like praise the Lord, you know you're doing it yourself because you understand there's a stewardship of being trained and equipped and you're stepping into places I could never go and it would take a decade for an American to get his training. Raise support, learn the national language, learn the local dialect you know and then try to have an effective ministry. Right, right and he's going. I've got 50 pastors and church leaders that I'm training.
Speaker 2:Same thing happened in Nepal. A student that I didn't even know was doing this. He comes to me. Here's a great story. His name is Ben. Ben had been incarcerated and couldn't even meet the enrollment standards at the Master's University, oh goodness. But he had married a graduate of the school that I'd had as a student years ago, and they walked in my door one day and they said boy, I can't even meet the enrollment standards. Could I just audit Bible classes? I want to serve the Lord and I need to know the scriptures. I said, well, sure, we can do that for you, wasn't maybe?
Speaker 2:Two years later I heard that they had made a decision to go to Nepal and I thought, man, that's fantastic, but you know you get busy. I lost track communicating with them. Well, they came into town last year and said can we go to breakfast? We want to tell you what God's been doing. I said okay. So we sat down for breakfast and they said look we, this guy's so humble, you know, having been in prison. He's like I don't have a lot to offer, so why don't I go where nobody else is willing to go?
Speaker 2:So he took his wife up to the most remote region of Nepal, to a valley where there's 12 tribes, and he found a local pastor who'd been trained down in Kathmandu in the city, but he's from this region, and they went up there and they just started to come alongside and try to encourage the pastors there. They realized that the people were not very doctrinally sound. So they took our curriculum, fundamentals of the Faith, which we developed at Grace Church, fof, and we use it with new converts in our church as part of our membership process, and they translated it into Nepalese up there and they were just using it and they said right now we've been able to actually establish churches in four of the 12 tribes, but we have invitations from all 12 to come in and to train believers using FOS.
Speaker 1:That's supernatural up there, because we know the system up there, the shamans and how that works and the way that people are oppressed. What you're saying is not normal in that part of the world, mark.
Speaker 2:Well, I've said there my jaw's dropped I love these guys, I'm so proud of them. It's personal to me, these are friends, these are students. But I just didn't know what God was doing. And they were kind enough to tell me. They said do you know what our dream would be? It would be to translate some of MacArthur's books and eventually the MacArthur Study Bible and our systematic theology into the local language. And I said well, listen, while all that's been going on, we've started this whole global publishing office and we're getting contracts for all those works. Right now, would you like those to do in your language? And I said, not only that, we've been raising funds to give grants to translate those works, to give grants to translate those words.
Speaker 2:And they just sat there and they just began to cry what else could you do? Because they were like we didn't come to ask for anything, we just wanted you to know what God's doing. And this was in our hearts and we weren't even sure we should mention it to you. We just were going to ask you to pray for us. We had no idea. Well, since then, you know, we've connected them, we've got the contracts, those things are in the process of being translated, and to know that you know our little effort here can undergird their work because they were willing to go to the most difficult places and God is opening up doors of ministry. And sometimes you just sit and you weep with your friends as to what God's doing and where you get to help each other. It's humbling, it's exciting. I can't wait to get out of bed every morning because you just hear these kinds of stories and you just know I don't have to worry about it. God's got this.
Speaker 1:You know, something I want the listeners not to miss on this is if you're not discipling and leading and teaching and raising up other people who are discipling and leading and teaching, you will not have these stories to tell. You'll hear other people's stories, but you won't have a part in them. And a beautiful gift that God's giving you, Mark. He's giving you back evidence of fruit downstream, of your faithfulness and your storytelling and your teaching.
Speaker 2:Well, you know what? It's a little foretaste of heaven for all of us, right With all the unfolding of those stories and testimonies, and the purposes of Christ become kind of revealed to us, and all those generations you alluded to before.
Speaker 1:So that's God's grace, isn't it, to just give us little stories and little insights to it and part of the reason for the podcast, mark, is you know, fruit doesn't happen right when you get in the field. Necessarily You're not necessarily going to walk right into your first convert, believer, disciple and church plant and all that. A lot of that takes, sometimes years, and I want the other workers that hear this to know fruit is happening. It may not be right off your vine at the moment, but stay faithful and stay true and continue the work that God's called you to and in His perfect timing it will.
Speaker 2:Yeah, please, I want to do the same Encourage faithfulness. Look, don't be tempted to take shortcuts. Those shortcuts are going to lead to real long-term. It's going to lead to compromise in the church. It's going to lead to confusion. It's going to lead to problems that you don't want to be the result of your ministry.
Speaker 2:I tell guys we can't get ahead of God where he's going to grow his church. There are some places where the church, the missions work, has been going on for generations and we work with tons of pastors who want to be trained. There's other places we're just going to be faithful to church planting for 20 years before there's a handful of pastors to train. So we just have to do the work God's called, you know, in each cultural context, and not lose heart, but recognize that our pragmatism, in our American culture, always is looking for the most efficient and quickest way to achieve the outcome. And what that will lead you to do is to adopt shortcuts that masquerade as good strategy.
Speaker 2:But I'm telling you some of the things we see in the rapid church planting movement, or DMM movement, things like this. I'm concerned because they're calling things churches for the sake of claiming hey, we planted 10,000 churches last year and I'm like what's your definition of a church? And let alone if you've got people who claim to be Christians now they're vulnerable to false teaching and they have no discernment and you're just taking a hands-off approach saying, hey, check, our job is done. That's a shortcut to the biblical methodology and I feel we, as teachers before the Lord are accountable, and I include missionaries, pastors, church leaders.
Speaker 2:Very biblical and I'll tell you what. If we tee people up to be deceived by false teaching and error and everything else, we may tell stories in our newsletters. Today, it's going to be a different matter when we stand before the Lord and have to give account.
Speaker 1:To speak to the listener that maybe isn't at a church that's got a Bible open on the pulpit that's going verse by verse and word by word, and expository, teaching, observe, interpret, apply. What do they need to look for in a church? What do they need to get plugged into or what do they need to question, maybe at their church, that maybe they're there as somebody that can help redirect?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, we hear from a lot of people both here in the US and around the world. I just can't find a good church. Well, that's not an excuse to not plug in and make a contribution to your own local church. Find the church that is as sound as possible and had the long view in mind. Now, today, you can have access to sound teaching through media and internet and things like that, so you can feed your own soul, your, your spouse's soul, your kids, in a way that wasn't possible before. But then don't abandon the local church. Right, be faithful.
Speaker 2:Now, if they're teaching error and all kinds of things, instead of coming in with a big, giant bat and trying to take everybody out and confront them, establish yourself as somebody who loves people, is faithful, you're trustworthy, and then just begin to do your very best to pray for the pastoral leadership. What I found in many times these men love Christ who are pastoring these churches. They've never had the privilege of being effectively trained and they bought into whatever their denomination or their movement is promoting. But when they're presented with sound teaching many of them I've been in the room with pastors like this who just begin to weep Because they realize I've not been teaching the truth to my flock. I didn't know any better. So don't make them the enemy out of the gate. Don't be the critic and the feud, be the one who's attacking them. Come alongside them, invite them to a conference or share a resource with them, and do it in a humble manner. Now they may come out on the other end and go no, I'm defiant, I'm committed to this doctrine. Well, okay, that's probably a church you can't stay in for a long term because you don't have a pastor who's teachable. But if you've got a teachable guy, be patient, have a long view of mind, come alongside them, give them resources, be an aid to them, and be cautious that if you start talking to other people and critiquing their sermons and you start discipling people and you keep pointing your finger at everything that's wrong with your church, it's going to make it very difficult for the church leaders to see you as someone who's committed to their future benefit and growth.
Speaker 2:Now, sometimes, dustin, I'm just going to say sometimes, after you've done that and we do that all over the world I told you before last week that our guys go in and serve under national pastors. A lot of them haven't been trained yet. So sometimes, though, after more and more people are trained, it does lead to a point of separation where you humbly agree. You know what. There's not sound preaching in this church. It may be time to plant a biblical church, but we don't encourage guys to do that right away. We encourage them after every effort's been made to love and support their local pastors.
Speaker 2:And I want to add one thought For those who are working around the world in their own local context I'm talking about American missionaries and you feel like there's not a good biblical church that you can send people to look. You're called to be a member of a local church, and I've been in places with missionaries who said we're not plugged into any local church, we just meet as a group of families or missionaries. And I said we're not plugged into any local church, we just meet as a group of families or missionaries. And I said you know that?
Speaker 1:church needs you. Yeah, how do people get engaged? We believe in what you're doing. I'll just you know what little bit my endorsement and Clint's and the Unreached podcast has here, but we love what y'all are doing. We're so supportive. What can people do, whether they're local in the West or whether they're around the world? How can they get to know you? How can they get to a conference? How can they access your content? Where do they go next to go? Man, there's some good stuff here I really need to get into. Sure.
Speaker 2:Well, let me say, first of all, there's a lot of good ministries out there. I actually think there's kind of an exciting reform movement within evangelical missions to return back to biblical convictions. So we're not the only one I want to say, but as far as our ministry, I appreciate the question. A few things. As you alluded to again last week, a lot of pastors are saying boy, how do I get my missions program in line with my own convictions or the convictions of the elders? A lot of missions programs they're delegated downstream people with good intentions but you've obligated a lot of money and a lot of resources of your local church that if you press into you might find those people don't even teach what you teach. They're not working through a local church. So one of the things that we just like to offer people is a resource that we have available on our website and it's just a little pamphlet entitled how to Build Effective Missions Programs for the Local Church, and what it really is is just a survey we did of churches who went through the process of what questions do you ask to evaluate your church and then what's a process that educates your church missions leadership so then they can make discerning questions. That's available on our website, tmaiorg, and you can go there Now. Other ways to get engaged If you would like to know more about a work in a particular country, we list all of our training centers on our website and we have a couple of ways people get invaped.
Speaker 2:We invite everybody to pray and that's not just a throwaway. For us, that's number one. Based on Colossians 4, paul says he urges us to pray unceasingly that God would open up a door for the gospel. Prayer is number one and we will share with anybody prayer requests from around the world so they can join us in that endeavor. We just finished an annual campaign. It's not a fundraising campaign, but it was called Together we Pray and it was a global prayer campaign to engage people to pray with us. So all those resources are available online in prayer request.
Speaker 2:Some are saying, hey, I'm looking to invest my resources in a place that I trust and I will apologize. We need help. The ministry is growing and we believe we're a trusted ministry you can rely on. So if you want to give financially, you can certainly do that. You can give to a number of funds where we provide grants to provide scholarships to our training centers. You can also work with your local church and bring to your local church what we call a church partnership program, where your church what we call a church partnership program, where your church can adopt a training center and the students in that training center get testimonies on a regular basis, pray for them. You can send a short-term missions trip. You can send your pastor to speak at a conference. There's a lot of things that you can do in partnership through your local church.
Speaker 2:Some events that you can look forward to we actually have a one-day pre-conference to our Shepherds Conference in March every year, called the TMAI International Symposium. We bring all of our missionaries and school leaders back for that conference and we had about 1,200 people gathered last year and you spend all day with our international leaders, hearing testimonies, talking about trends and missions, what's happening in these areas of Bible translation, church planting and so forth, and find ways to partner and engage. You can come to the Shepherds Conference because there's a lot of things going on related to missions at that time. But we also have some regional events that we host that are like a one-day missions conference and if churches are interested in inviting us to come and do that, we're happy to serve them in that regard. So I think you get the idea. There's a lot of ways of connecting. But one last thing I will mention that we're excited about to strengthen local churches' biblical convictions and involvement in missions.
Speaker 2:We've just completed a two-year project to write a missions textbook. It's entitled Biblical Missions Principles, priorities and Practices. There's a course that goes along with it and a workbook book and you can use it in a small group format in your local church or, if your church has a Bible Institute program, as a class, or you can use it a local Bible college or Christian university can use it for an undergrad class, or it can be used for a graduate level missions course at a seminary. The workbook has designed all the assignments and questions by context small group Bible Institute all the way up and so you can use it also as a resource for people going to the mission field in your local church who want to get a stronger biblical perspective on missions. So that's going to come out next February, february 2025.
Speaker 2:Missions so that's going to come out next February, february 2025. And you'll get the book, the workbook, and then we're going to launch what we call the Center for Biblical Missions and that's going to be a web-based platform to host content on issues that the global church bases in their context theological issues, ministry issues, missiological issues and we'll continue to populate that with more content, as that's created by our guys around the world, and so we're just trying to create content that can be used by local churches to, let's just say, increase their mission's literacy and equip their people to make good decisions by way of stewarding their prayers, their finances and their people for the kingdom.
Speaker 1:Outstanding, so there's a lot of on-ramps. There's also, I think, a lesson here we don't have to reinvent the wheel, and I want to say this too this has bothered me for a long time. I work more in the financial industry, and asking someone to support you or partner with you financially should not be something that you are reserved about doing. And I'm not talking about you, Mark, I'm talking about everybody. You're blessing them with an opportunity to be part of something bigger than themselves. That is to be celebrated. It should be something that you're excited about.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite kind of fundraising quotes that God gave me years ago was you know, cast a vision big enough that people can see themselves in it and show them how they can be a part of it. And then stay connected to them when you do Tell them the stories, get back to them with what's really happening, Give them something to talk about when they're at their next gathering with a group of people and say man, I got to be a part of supporting this ministry and this is what happened. There's a guy that came from China to build bridges and now he's become a Christian and he's leading a church. And I get to give financially to this and I get to hear about it. And what are y'all doing with your money? By the way, it's not yours anyway, it's God's money. I end up on a little bit of a tangent there, but there's like 2,300 verses in the Bible about money. It's an important topic. It's not to be missed.
Speaker 2:I used to feel a little sheepish about asking people to give and someone helped me, just like you're just saying wait a second. If that's God's sovereign call on those people's life, it's actually their ministry. You're hindering their ability to fulfill their ministry and this is God's work. It's not mine, it's not TMAI, it's about the work of the kingdom. And, boy, I love our donors and partners, prayer or financial, matter of fact, we're committed to praying for them.
Speaker 2:We just finished our staff meeting an hour ago and we pray every week through a long list of personal prayer requests for our donors, because we don't want to be one sided. We want to serve them, give them good data, good information. We give all the financial reporting, so there's accountability and integrity, but we want to pray for you and these are requests. They're telling me, man, my marriage is struggling, I have an unbelieving kid, I lost my job, I've got health issues, and we just want to join with them in caring to meet their needs. They're meeting our needs and we share those prayer requests, with their permission, also with those around the world. So our guys who are benefiting from their gifts, are praying back for the donors at the same time.
Speaker 1:So we're all in this together. Let me just thank you, mark. Thank you for your life, thank you for your ministry, thank you for your leadership, thank you for sharing the framework and the stories, and, to guys like Sammy and Ben and others that I know, there's many stories we didn't get to today. There's also many stories that are yet to be written and soon to be told. Let me pray for everybody as we go out, mark, thank you again.
Speaker 1:Father, just thinking about those stories yet to be told, thinking about the chapters yet to be told, thinking about the chapters yet to be written, thinking about what you've equipped us with time, talent and treasure.
Speaker 1:We all have a unique combination of time, talent and treasure. We're all called to align our lives to your will. We all have a role to play. So keep revealing to us through prayer, through your word, through small groups and d-groups and life groups, and such. Keep revealing to us through prayer, through your word, through small groups and d-groups and life groups and such. Keep revealing to us that plan. Keep revealing to us our role in it and how we can be both useful today and how we can be teaching and reproducing others so that they can continue to do the good work, and we thank you for Mark, we thank you for John MacArthur, we thank you for the different organizations and all of the branches coming off the vine. Lord, it's amazing to see how you put this all together, and the fact that you let us be a part of it is so humbling and it's the greatest joy of our lives. It's in your name we pray, amen.
Speaker 2:Amen.
Speaker 1: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 unreached podcast, or email us us at unreachedpodcast at gmailcom you.
