Podcast EP.104: Taking the Gospel to Muslims
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Increasingly, our international workers are serving in the hardest places. Doing missions is hard. Those we send out face tremendous hardship. While their heart-song is to proclaim the gospel, the restrictions in those cultures makes it very difficult. READ MORE
Podcast Ep.99: The State of Global Mission (Tim Crouch)
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What is the state of Global Missions? Ironically, in my view, globalization has affected our burden for the lost in our world. Or, maybe it’s just me. I remember early in my days of ministry training, you had to work hard to see what was happening in far reaches of the world. READ MORE
Podcast Ep. 41: Church Matters (Dr. Dwight Smith)
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Lets talk Church! Do we need to resign oursleves to the notion that church as we know it is dead?
A recent FoxNews story wrote the following: “Now, about a decade ago, forward-thinking churches realized that people no longer engaged with organizations just physically, so they developed online platforms that streamed services parallel to the physical church.
This caused plenty of controversy at the time because people suddenly had the option to attend church OR stay home and watch online, rocking the old location-centric model. So, church leaders opted to keep the physical and digital services separate enough to make it work.
Then, when social media and YouTube entered the scene, those forward-thinking churches adjusted again, creating multi-channel strategies that allowed people to access some content physically, some online, and some on the church’s social media platforms.” (For Source of article click here)
I recently had the privilege of talking to Dr. Dwight Smith about how church has always mattered, and continues to matter. In fact, it is primarily through the church that God does what he is doing. The church IS The Body of Christ. God works through his church. Church does matter.
About Dwight. In addition to his responsibilities as the leader of Saturation Church Planting International, Dr. Smith carries a strong burden for the local churches of North America because it is his firm belief that the local church is God’s primary instrument for world evangelization Therefore, he makes himself available on weekends for conferences, teaching seminars and leadership workshops. as his schedule permits. In recent years, Dwight has worked with a growing number of church leaders and church planters in the US. The goal of those relationships is the reevangelization of the some 300 million people living in America by the planting, replanting and repurposing of 100,000 churches.
Podcast Ep 6: The Call of God, Recovered and Strengthened in Grief
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What happens when someone close to you, who you committed to serve with, and together dedicated your life to follow Jesus, is no longer with you. Being a pastor, or being in any kind of ministry vocation is different than any other job, in that, it really takes both you and your spouse to do it well. This is why we often say that when a pastor is called into ministry, his wife is called too. A little personal disclosure here… When I was dating Elaine she knew I had committed my life to serve Jesus overseas, and she understood that a commitment to me would also mean a commitment to that. So do you know what she did? She broke up with me. Pretty mean, huh? But I am glad she did, because she needed to make sure this was a journey she could also travel. So two weeks later she concluded, “I know I can live with that guy, but I also know I can go with him anywhere and do what he does.” We got back together, and have been serving together for 34 years. 
I’m excited to sit down today with Mark and Viviane Shady who will share how the call of God on their lives to serve him was not only recaptured in loss, but also strengthened as the gospel pushed its way past the grief and dominated their lives again. Mark and Viviane have been married for 14 years and together have five children. They currently serve as International Workers with the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and I was blessed to meet with them just one day before their return. They share with us what happens to that call in loss, and in grief.