Larry Henderson joins the podcast to discuss life, missions, Europe, and collaboration. Dick Foth returns for another session of Back Channel with Foth.

Takeaways:

• The importance of gravitating towards friendships with individuals who think differently from us cannot be understated, as these relationships offer unique perspectives and opportunities for growth.
• The process of suspending judgment when engaging with diverse individuals fosters deeper understanding and connection, allowing for meaningful exchanges and dialogues.
• Establishing friendships within the Christian community can be categorized into several types, including mentoring relationships, short-term associations, and those that may be dormant but can be revived in the future.
• Effective collaboration across cultures requires clear communication, defined objectives, and a mutual understanding of the goals to ensure productivity and minimize misunderstandings.
• The current landscape of Europe presents significant challenges for establishing churches, particularly in areas where less than one percent of the population identifies as evangelical, necessitating innovative approaches to gospel access.
• Finally, the role of the local church in supporting missionary efforts is crucial, as it provides the necessary foundation and resources to sustain long-term missions and outreach initiatives.

Foreign.

So excited to have our friend Dick Foth on another session of Back Channel with Foet.

And then we're going to jump into our interview with Larry Henderson.

Dick, welcome back to the podcast.

My joy, as always.

Thanks, man.

Dick, got two, two questions for us today.

The first one is I find myself gravitating towards people who think like me and am missing opportunities to share the gospel.

Have you ever experienced this?

I have and I don't.

I don't think it's a. I don't think it's a bad deal to gravitate toward who think like we do.

And over time we call them friends.

And there are different.

There are different kinds of friendships.

If I could.

Some years ago, Ruth and I wrote a little book called Known Finding Deep Friendships in the Shallow World.

And I quoted a couple of friends who mentored us in Washington D.C. some years ago.

And they break down friendships, people who think like you do.

Often they.

And well, oftentimes they're your friends who don't.

But here are just a handful of categories real quick.

A mentor and a mentee that's often older to younger is a beginning place for many friendships in the body of Christ.

Second one is short term friendships.

And you know, we're talking to people who are admissions or you have people coming through who might say six months and go on, right?

Yeah.

God moves us into and out of many lives and we give ourselves to each other when we're together.

Then there's historical friendships.

We were very important in each other's lives at some point in our histories, but for various reasons, we are not a priority for each other at present.

Then there's dormant friendships.

We're very important in each other's lives, but because of circumstances, for example, raising a family in another part of the world, in this season of life, we're not able to interact or be together often.

But this will change in the next season of life.

Then constant.

These are the special few friends with whom we have the most intimacy.

Two characteristics of these are that we mutually initiate being together and we mutually submit our lives to each other.

These are the special few with whom we have the greatest degree of intimacy.

These are the friends we all long for and few have.

Now, that's a bit off the question, but I think it's a good basis for saying, okay, so you got friends, but what about people who don't think like you at all?

I mentioned a friend a bit back, Alan Groff, who was 17 years my senior, who in my early years in church planning, said Folks don't just hang out with people who are just like you.

What can they add to your life?

And I found that in those differences, there's power.

So I think when it comes to.

Because the question is, I find myself gravitating towards people who think like me and the missing opportunities to share the gospel.

Have you experienced this?

My.

My thinking is that presence is everything.

I. I was talking recently with a leader in Washington state who was a pastor of a large congregation, several thousand.

He said, when we bring new staff members on, we ask them two questions.

One is, do you like kids?

Because if you don't like kids, it's nothing.

And the second one is, are you willing to engage in the community, go coach something, go sit at city council, listen to what they're.

That sort of thing.

I. I think that I. I need to put myself in a place to meet people who are different than I.

And that could be anything, any kind of situation.

It could be going to the market.

It could be sitting in the plaza.

I asked a guy in D.C. who's a former ambassador from a large country.

We were at a breakfast together.

I said, why do you come to this breakfast?

Because he was not really a Jesus follower, per se.

He said, because this is the closest.

He was from Latin America, so this is the closest to sitting in the plaza as a young man, drinking coffee, playing dominoes, thinking about poetry and looking at young women.

We didn't have any young women in our breakfast group, but he was.

He sure he was saying that this.

This intersection of differences in an environment that allows for conversation is a.

Is a plus.

So I, I have experienced it a lot.

And what I have experienced is that when you, when you talk to somebody who's very different than you, you.

You.

You meet somebody who has a whole sleeve of tats, which is very common today.

And when you say, what's the story behind?

Tell me the story behind that.

You start hearing their story.

So I have experienced this.

I recommend it.

And in order to move those.

Those relationships along, you start without judgment, you suspend your judgment.

Just spend time and see what happens.

Yeah, because that's their second question.

Was.

Is like pushing through that?

So you're saying suspending judgment.

Can you share just a little bit about what that looks like?

Suspending judgment.

I was brought up in a context where evaluation or judgments about behavior and other kinds of things were.

Was pretty strong.

It was front, state, center.

And that's not.

That's not a bad thing unless it gets in the way of engaging people.

Because when I do that.

When I have that attitude, it's easier for me to deal with you as a category than by, by really getting to know you.

And when you read Jesus, the only category that he really comes down on are people who are supposed to speak on behalf of his father, I. E. Pharisees and Sadducees.

And they don't.

They add stuff to people instead of bringing them up.

And so I, when we went to D.C. and again, I keep referring to this, I was 51 years old when we got to D.C. i had done some stuff, but they said if you're going to work across the lines, not just with a particular group, not with, just with the libertarians or with the Democrats or, you know, work across the line, you have to be willing to suspend judgment at the front end in order to build a relationship.

And that takes work.

And it doesn't mean you have to.

Well, you clearly don't agree on some things and other things.

But, but that I found found to be such an exhilarating thing to ask the question, so why, why do you think that way or what?

I noticed you spend a lot of time and whatever.

Tell me about that.

Good word, Good word.

Dick's always a joy to spend time with you on Back Channel with Foth and always got great answers to the questions.

We're going to go ahead and jump into our interview with Larry Henderson on Life and Mission.

Well, there's no time better than now to get.

Here we go.

Greetings and welcome back to the Clarity Podcast.

So excited to be here today with a new friend of the podcast, Pastor Larry Henderson.

Larry, welcome to the podcast.

Hey, thanks so much, Dr. Aaron.

It's great to be with you, Larry.

It's great to have you with us.

You and I have gotten to know each other over the last few years, but maybe somebody's listening in and they've not gotten to know Larry yet.

Will you share a little bit about yourself before I start asking you some questions?

I'd love to.

It's an honor to be with you guys today.

Melinda and I, my wife, we met as teenagers at summer youth camp and we actually lived in different cities and we wrote letters the old fashioned way and made phone calls on the weekend because it was too expensive during the week.

But we first started noticing each other after a missions trip and really that was where we both had our call nurtured at summer camps, youth conventions, part of Sim God district in Alabama.

And we, we just continue to pursue that call.

After graduating from the university, we served in stateside ministry for almost 10 years, knowing we would be serving as missionaries, just didn't know when or where.

But throughout that time, just kept praying.

And the Lord opened doors for us to apply with AGWM.

And.

And it's just been a wonderful journey.

Now 25 years, someone's got a world mission.

So we've been married 35 years, three grandkids, and those are most important, obviously.

And then three kids.

Very, very cool, you know.

Yeah, church camp, it's a.

It's a place.

That's where I was called in the missions too.

So that definitely resonates with me.

Larry, who.

Who are some people that help nurture that call into missions?

You know, there were so many people.

I grew up in a small church, and we always had missionaries come and speak.

I can remember speakers like Charles Greenaway, Charles and Mary, who came and talked about Yugoslavia, talked about Africa.

I can remember missionaries from Latin America, from Asia Pacific, from Africa, who would come and just, you know, I felt the call of God.

And during those moments when they were there, the call to missions was just really affirmed in our lives because you would hear as they told their stories about places where the church didn't exist, exist, and they were planting churches.

And.

And so, you know, I feel like there was a multiplicity of people who poured into our lives.

But.

But definitely those missionary speakers, especially on Sunday nights when we had services, those were just such influential moments for us.

And then, of course, you know, our parents.

My parents were just wonderful lay people in the church.

But.

But from the very beginning of that time, I can remember going to church and being in Sunday school.

You know, we.

We would give to BGMC through those classes and our buddy Barrels, of course, later as a teenager, Speed of light, missions trips.

So those things were very formative for us.

And then as I, as I moved to college at Southeastern, you know, I had professors like David Beth Grant who were.

Both taught classes that we were part of.

And man, just deeply influential moments.

Things I can remember certain days of class were things that Beth taught that still have influenced our lives today.

You know, we were youth pastors after graduating from school and, and of course, during that time, Speed the Light just continued to grow in our.

In our hearts because we knew it was an expression of missions we could do through the local church, mobilizing students to go on trips, but also to give, to raise money for missionaries.

But, you know, so many great district youth directors like, you know, Tom Green in Oklahoma and Gary Sapp, Louisiana.

Cecil Culbruth, Arkansas.

These guys that would Challenge us, just do more that and, and would even make a commitment saying, hey, if you go up another 5,000, I'll give you a thousand, you know, raise those feet of light funds.

But, but those moments were just so formative for us.

But, you know, I can remember even John Bueno one time came to our church where we were on staff, and I had the responsibility as youth pastor to take him back to the airport at 5am and the whole time, you know, he was probably tired and didn't want to talk much, but I talked his ear off because I just had so many questions about the call, you know, the missions call.

And when he got back to Springfield, he wrote me a letter and he said, you know, thanks for, for, for taking me to the airport at such an ungodly hour.

He said, we look forward to seeing you in Latin America.

You know, no God's calls on your life.

But I'll never forget, you know, those kinds of moments where leaders just took time to nurture the calls, you know, and I, I think probably same with you, but you think about missions trips, probably at some point, everybody's gone to be with Don Terry Triplett in El Salvador.

We had missionaries in Venezuela, Gary and Patty Heine, who were just so influential, who again, spoke to us in the right moment, helping to nurture that call, to understand the call and really discern the voice of God and what that meant for his call to us to serve as missionaries.

What were some of the, you had the questions about the call you talked about.

Were there some questions you had specifically that you remember?

And how did your parents nurture that call?

You know, Heather and I had the opportunity to travel with us last year.

One of the interesting things as we traveled was, is parents would say, my child is called to be a missionary, but I'm not for it.

I'm, you know, I'm not letting them go.

They need to stay in the United States.

So your parents obviously nurtured that call and they fanned that flame that was in you.

You had these opportunities with our spiritual, you know, parents that went, you know, that went before his in miss how.

Did they nurture it?

How did some of the questions maybe you had, because I think probably people listening in probably had the same questions, and maybe they're struggling letting or giving the green light for their kids to go to the field.

Right?

You know, well, there's a couple of things from my side.

My parents both wanted to serve as missionaries and sought the call, but the Lord never, they never felt the release that God was calling them to serve cross culturally.

They just embedded themselves in the local church, serving there, but even doing so, they involved themselves before they had children in, in the youth ministry there and helping raise money for Speed the Light.

First church in Alabama ever raised thousand dollars at that time.

And you know, so when later as a teenager I expressed a call to missions for my parents, both I felt like they, they were always so supportive and just felt that they knew that it wasn't right for them but that God was going to call one of their children.

Wow.

And so just, they just helped nurture that and were supportive so many ways.

Melinda's parents were equally as supportive.

But you know, there came that time where it was time to leave and it's like, wow, you know, can't you serve here somewhere?

Is that there's some great church that, you know, somewhere that needs you to pastor.

And, and yet ultimately came down the statement where her mom, I remember when she told her, she said, you know, I'd rather you serve Jesus on the other side of the world than to be here in backyard and be out of God's will, you know, so, so those kinds of things are just, I think, realities for all of us.

But God puts those people in your life to help you nurture and discern the call.

I think it's important that we talk about the call of God.

And again, years ago we did, we talked about it much more than we do now.

And I'm thankful to see an emphasis again of really helping young people to understand that there is not just a, a general call, but there's this vocational call to full time ministry to be a pastor, an evangelist, a missionary.

And that we're given a lot of emphasis today in the sins of God to, to talking about what, what does that mean?

And discerning and nurturing that, that call of God.

Yeah, my dad would, he'd frequently say when I was getting ready to leave, he said, you know, there's a fertile field here in Wally Ford, West Virginia.

You know, I mean, and that was, he said it tongue in cheek, I think, in the first few times I left.

But you know, the, you know, as you leave, that continually leaving, I think sometimes people think it gets easier.

I think it actually probably gets harder, you know, I mean, each time you leave and he would start saying, you know, there's a fertile field here in Wally Ford, you could, you could just be you, you could be, be there for that.

So, so Larry, as you, you lead Europe, share just a little bit about what, what that means to be a regional director for Europe.

And then how are you investing in the next generation of leaders and those called into missions?

Yeah, I mean such a great question, great opportunity for us to, to talk about that.

You know, we again, we talk about the call of God so much, especially with young people today.

I think it's important that we are investing in the next generation by, you know, giving them the opportunity to receive a call from God just in the same way that we did, whether that be through the local church, through missions experiences, trips and opportunities.

And I'm thankful for the local churches today that, that once again are not just sending their kids to summer camp.

You know, it's amazing how many hundreds of students feel called to ministry called the missions, even at a summer camp.

And yet we never see those numbers make it to the field today.

Even the National Youth Department, Austin Westlake, John Zick, these guys are giving so much emphasis to the called initiative, being able to help with district youth directors are speaking into the lives of young people and we're coming alongside of that.

Someone's got world missions, whether it be Europe or other regions, to again help nurture the call.

Some young people grew up in a large see expressions of the call manifested through the local church ministry or through missionaries.

I grew up in a small church where I felt called to missions, but I really never knew how to get there.

I never knew what the pathway was.

And so I, I love the emphasis again today that we're seeing with Sims God Youth, National Youth Department with Sims God World Missions.

This collaboration again, even a good friend of yours and ours, Jacob Jester, who's working so hard to help build bridges, to talk about that so we can invest in the next generation of leaders.

But I think is a, is a region for us.

We're working really hard to have conversations with people to say if God would call you, would you be open to saying yes.

And again, being able to nurture that call through opportunities like you know, of course, missions trips, but internships, having conversations about what would it look like to serve, you know, these virtual missions trips.

We just finished a weekend we call 8:35 weekend.

One of our initiatives in Europe is lose yourself from Mark 8:35 where Jesus said it calls us to lose ourselves for him and the sake of the Gospel.

Whoever wants to save his life will lose it for me and the sake of the Gospel.

And so we drive the lose yourself theme.

It works really well because in Europe we have so many young people who come to backpack and find themselves.

And so for us, we love to challenge students in their call to say, why don't you come lose yourself for Jesus and the sake of the gospel.

But we just had a weekend, we called it at 8:35 weekend.

30 students, you know, between the ages of maybe 18 and 30 who came and in some way shape or form feel a call to missions.

But, but again are trying to process that call.

And we spent three days together just sharing with them of course about Europe, but beyond that about other regions, about what it means to serve not only in a short term trip, but to, but to live cross culturally, to present the gospel incarnationally, being embedded in a culture.

And we talk so much through their questions and help them processing that.

And out of that number we, we saw about 16 of them that said, you know, I have a, I have a.

After these conversations, we have clarity in our call.

We, we feel very clear that what God's calling us to do, where he's calling us to serve.

So again, it's not just A, B, C or D. I think it's all of the above.

And working together both with Sims, God World Missions, some as a God usa, local churches, anything we can do to say we're going to invest in these leaders who are called to missions.

That's a good word, A good word.

And my love, obviously it's the Clarity podcast I love.

Anytime we, we're providing clarity for people to know and taking away those friction points.

Right.

I think that some of the times you just don't know.

You don't.

I didn't grow up.

My dad was a railroader.

My mom was, you know, a stay at home mom.

I, I didn't grow up in a ministerial family.

Great people love Jesus, but even for me, it was super hard for me to figure, like, where do you start?

What are the first steps?

And sometimes those friction points can be so much you just can't overcome them.

You just need somebody to guide and direct you on that path for sure.

So, Larry, we're going to talk in a little bit, just a little bit more about collaboration, but before we get there.

So I know the first few years that I served in missions, I served in Burkina Faso, man, I learned a lot of lessons.

It impacted me deeply.

But your first few years were in the Canary Islands.

So how did, how did that time impact you?

What are some of the lessons you learned?

And how did God Meet you in that season.

You know, first of all, if I look back on those years for us, I think one of the greatest treasures that Melinda and I, we still hold on to today was we knew we were called, but, you know, we prove the call by.

By living out, you know, that call in the first term on the field, there's this affirmation that takes place that, you know, you call, but then, you know, when tough times come and you start having some adversities and.

And you hit the wall, you don't run because, you know you're there because that's where God's called you to be.

And so when I look back over those lessons we learned in that first term, one of them that I'll never forget is just being reminded that the Lord really did call us there.

It wasn't just a desire or, you know, we didn't just throw a dart on the map and say, this is where we want to go, but it really was God leading us step by step, to be there.

I think on a practical side, there's so many lessons we learned.

First of all, we had to win their hearts.

You know, the national church, we were there to collaborate with them, to help them plant churches, and nobody cared that we were from America, and nobody cared what ministry experience we had, what churches we had been a part of.

So, you know, just like everybody, you start at zero.

You know, you bring your story into their story, especially as we partner with national churches around the world.

You've got to win their hearts.

You've got to show them in the beginning.

I'll never forget, first general council I was at, there was a.

A conversation about the Bible school and some things that they wanted to do, and they said, hey, why don't we put the new missionaries on that committee?

And immediately, a guy sitting right across the road from row from me stood up and he said, no.

He said, they can give us their money, but we don't want their voice, you know, wow.

And.

And I remember thinking in that moment, well, what are we doing here?

You know, and it was so hard.

But after our first term, when we came back, that same pastor walked up to me and he says, I'm sorry for the way that we treated you.

He said, we realized that, you know, he said, I didn't think you were going to come back.

He says, but you did.

And he says, we.

We see that you won our hearts and that you really want to serve with us.

And from then, everything changed.

Doors of opportunities opened, all because time to build the relational capital we weren't driving our agenda.

We were there to add value to what the national church desired to do, what their vision was.

And, you know, I think other practical lessons that other missionaries would tell you that were probably common for us too, such as learning language and culture.

There's just no substitute for that.

You know, you can't really present the gospel cross culturally until you can present it in the heart language and through the cultural lenses of the people you're ministering to.

And, and you learn that during your first term as much as we, we, we hope that, you know, we can be super effective in the first year or two.

It, it takes a first term, second term before you begin to see the fruits of that.

So the learning language, culture were just a huge lesson for us.

Just relational investments come before ministry.

Those kinds of things in our part of the world were extremely important.

Just that incarnational living, you know, that we could talk about this all day, but just embedding ourselves in the culture with the people that we served with, spending time with lost people, not just hiding out, being with other missionaries, but making sure that, that, that, that we invested, of course, in our relationships with our colleagues.

But more than that was, was to build relationships and friendships with Nationals living out our faith, being a reflection of Jesus through incarnational living.

So those things are all so, so critical.

I think just one last thing that comes to mind is our kids.

You know, we thought it was about our calling and what we were going to do.

And you know, as I look back now over the years, especially the first term, the impact that it made upon our kids and their calling and where they're at today in life and where they're serving, those first years were so impactful for them too, because they, they were part of the calling with us.

It was a family calling.

They served, they were part of the church plants that we were involved in.

So just so many things God does that it's just hard for you to anticipate.

But like you said, these are definitely lessons that are, that are learned in those missions that shape first few years.

And it's, it's nice to know that even regional directors have went through, you know, went through some of those common challenges.

Larry, that tension point you talked about, the pastor who said, you know, we didn't think you were going to come back.

You know, there's, if you look at percentages, it ranges depending on who's keeping the statistics of people that don't come back.

How did you get over that tension point?

Just because my assumption is, you Had a very productive ministry, the U.S. before you got to the field.

You itinerate, that's productive time.

Right?

You get to the field.

At least for me, it didn't feel so productive.

It just felt like I was grinding away.

And then you get back to the States, you get this productiveness again.

And then you feel like, hey, maybe I should just stay here because I'm productive again.

How did you overcome that tension to come back?

And then you said how much it meant to the people you were there to serve and partner with.

So how.

Because it is, there's a lot of people that struggle in that tension time of just saying it might just be easier for me to stay.

Well, you know, I, I think that not to sound super spiritual, but the, the, the simple answer really is the call.

The call is what drives you.

For sure.

I think it's true for a local pastor in a church, because in the US it's easy to go look for another opportunity, start over somewhere.

Same would be true in missions.

But you know, for all of us, we are where God calls us to be.

And it's a call that sends you there, it's a call that keeps you there.

And so for us, we knew that that's where we were called to be, what we didn, how much favor we would gain by coming back.

But the Lord knew.

And that was a part of again, just obeying the call, realizing that we gave it our best, and believing that the second term would be better.

And it was, I mean, just having opportunities to do so many things that we would have never dreamed of.

It really fast forwarded because of that faithfulness in that first term.

And so, you know, I think you and I, we especially member care and with some of our regional leadership, we talk a lot about resilience.

We talk about maybe hitting that 10 year mark before you really begin to see the effectiveness.

And again, that's very general statement, but just something about it, the longevity in ministry, that obedience in the same direction and trusting the Lord to go before you.

And he does.

And so I'm just so thankful we did because in the moment you're so close to it, you feel the emotion of it, but it's that call that drives you.

Yeah.

And Dr. Alan Tennyson, he talked about that cumulative effect.

And you talk about 25 years, you get the benefit of that 25 years of cumulative effect in day, you know, they, they talk in sports, stacking days.

And as missionaries, we stack days too.

Right?

You know, there's spiritual days, there's, you know, they're those long obedience, the same direction.

Those are those obedient days, but we're stacking days and the, the blessing that comes with it.

Wouldn't it be easy just to section off?

So, as regional director for Europe, what are some of the current realities of establishing the church?

Right agwm Our goal is to establish a church among all peoples everywhere.

So what does it look like today in Europe from somebody listening in and they're thinking, I don't know what the challenges would be in Europe to establish the church.

Well, first of all, I just want to say I'm so thankful to be a part of atwm.

And I don't say that in a patronizing way.

I'm thankful that I had the opportunity to, to grow up in a sims of God church.

Not everybody did.

But to, to understand, looking at it from this side, to realize that there are a lot of pathways for people to fulfill their call.

But, and someone's got a world mission is, is such an incredible opportunity for all of us to be a part of something so much greater than who we are individually and to, and to serve the Lord where he calls us.

I, I think it's one of the great things in our movement obviously is, is our commitment to, to make sure that we again evangelize the world.

We take the gospel to places where Jesus has never been preached.

And so when we talk about challenges to establish a church, I, I think in Europe we have similar challenges that we would have globally in every region.

And that is simply to bring the gospel to places where it doesn't exist.

I think we can take for granted many times that just because historically, you know, in Europe especially, we look back 200 years ago.

We have church buildings today that are empty.

We have church buildings that have been converted into bars today.

You know, and it's easy to see buildings and just think, you know, well, well, the gospel's here and, and yet it's, you know, we don't even talk about it being post Christian anymore.

We talk about it being pre Christian.

Because the reality is in Europe, you know, most Europeans don't know someone who knows someone who knows someone who would, who would know a believer.

And so we're we all across Europe, many places less than 1% evangelical born and been believers.

2% would be the max in places, but many, many places just a fraction of the population that would ever know about Jesus.

And so, you know, we face those, those same challenges to, to again bring gospel access.

We don't focus on lostness because there's lostness everywhere we focus on gospel access.

And the reality is I, I think we're living in a moment where once again we're actually seeing young people today who are rebelling against their parents faith and meaning their parents faith was, was atheism.

You know, it was, I don't believe in God.

And so it's amazing to see the hunger among young people, especially today that, that really does pierce this darkness of, of secularism, of apathy, of you know, self idolatry, materialism.

And today are just searching for spiritual things.

And so we see those challenges, but we also see the realities that today our primary work of church planting among the unreached, among the least reached, least engaged of Europe is all about gospel access.

So it's a big deal for us.

Yeah, good word, good word.

I, you know, I remember Heather and I, we went to language school in France and so we went to the embassy in the united, in Washington D.C. and through all that process, you know, the guy was, it's a long story, I won't tell it all, but one of the things he said, he said, you know, we have more bars than we have churches in France and we want it to stay that way.

And you know, I, and I thought, man, it really, I was young and I thought, man, that's a strong statement.

But it was true.

You know, when we got there there was a lot of bars and not a whole, there were church buildings but not people in the church buildings.

And it was, yeah, interesting, interesting insight at the embassy.

So, you know, even that in France, you know, when those, we had the attacks a couple years ago, there were several things that happened all at once.

Months in Paris area and a lot of the hashtags you saw everywhere was don't pray.

Religion got us into this mess in the first place.

You know, and it's, it's this attitude of the gospel just being so perverted that, you know, I don't need God, I don't need the church because they, they have such a misconception of who God is and misconception of the church because of the way the gospel been perverted throughout the, the centuries.

So it's just a tremendous opportunity for us to once again be able to bring gospel access to places where it's a gospel desert.

People don't know Jesus, they've never read the Bible.

There's never been a church established that would preach the gospel.

And, and so we're excited about these challenges.

On top of that, Aaron, one thing that I think is very important is we have always received refugees and immigrants into Europe, but we're living in unprecedented moments where diaspora populations of people who come to Europe for a better life, for, for seeking asylum status, whatever it may be, are so open to the gospel.

In fact, our, our commitment, of course, is reaching Europeans, and that's who God's called us to.

And that's what we're going to do.

And we're committed to our national partners.

But even our national partners are saying we're seeing people come from closed countries where we could never go to, that are now living among us, including Buddhist, Hindu, priority peoples, to say, how can we reach them here in Europe?

And what's amazing is they're just so much more open to the gospel, open to spiritual conversations, conversations of faith, than they would be in their host cultures.

And so whether it be on a university campus, whether it be through an international church, whether it be an expression of a national church that has a heart to reach diaspora peoples.

We're seeing unprecedented numbers of Muslims, Hindus, even from Buddhist nations who are coming to know Jesus.

But reading the Bible, they're having conversations about dreams they've had, visions they've had.

And so it's just a wonderful moment for us to lean into again seeing this pre Christian Europe that we've been praying for for so long to bring gospel access to places and see churches planted where they never existed, but also to reach people who are with us for a time period that will be able to go back to their host cultures.

And, you know, they think they're going to take wealth back, but what they're really going to take is the gospel back.

So it's such an exciting time for us.

Oh, man.

For sure.

Larry, you mentioned we're not focused on lostness, we're focused on gospel access and planting the church.

So that's casting vision.

Right.

So you're casting vision for a large group of, you know, in general, missionaries or type A personalities, driven people, but you're casting vision.

So what have you learned in these few years of casting vision and clarifying it and as you mobilize a large group of, of type A personality people that, that towards moving in the same direction?

Yeah, I mean, we can complicate this conversation.

There's a lot of, you know, rabbit holes to go down, but at the end of the day, it's some of the similar basic leadership lessons that we would talk about.

I think it starts by hearing from God.

You know, we can't fabricate vision.

Yeah, we shouldn't fabricate vision.

It's it's not healthy.

I, I do believe one thing we've learned as missionaries that is applicable not only on the field outside the U.S. but even in the U.

S is God does have a fingerprint for, for a vision of any local church, whether it be in Missouri or California or New York or, or of course, in other regions around the world.

And so it's important that first and foremost we hear from the Lord before we start casting vision, that we really, we.

We feel the pulse and the heartbeat of God.

And what is that contextualized vision for a country, maybe a region, but for a country, a city, and I would even say for a local church, for a community.

And, and if we don't start there, you know, we, we create a lot of sideways energy because, you know, vision.

We talked over the years, we've always looked up to visionaries, but anybody can have a vision, you know, and, and it's easy to throw out all these ideas and vision and projects and here's where we're going.

But I think if it's not grounded first and foremost, and this is God's plan, God's will, God's vision for that's, that's unique and contextualized for my city, for my church, or for the calling, the place where I am, then I, I think again, we could just have a lot of missions drift even from the beginning, before you ever get out of the gate.

So I'd say hearing from God's church, just so critical for us as missionaries and even, even for those of us, you know, who, who have served in the U.S. i think secondly, just the vision's got to be portable.

And again, it's a simple leadership lesson, but even you and I were part of a meeting today, and, and even part of the conversation we talked about is what, what are we missing?

And we, it's.

It has to be portable.

Yeah.

You know, we get these long vision statements, mission statements, core values, and, and what's sad is we expect people to, to quote them.

And pastoral staff can't even quote them.

You know, missions, organizational leadership can't quote them.

So it's important that we, we own it in a way that it's portable.

We can communicate it through cascading communication.

And that, that vision is not watered down, it's not adulterated, but it's just a portable vision that's very clear, I think, to, you know, like Jim Collins.

Good, great book.

Deeply influenced my life early on in ministry.

And part of it was that the vision, the calling, we have to stay focused on that.

I think the longer we serve anywhere, any ministerial role, especially in missions, it's just easy to have missions drift.

We can begin to do too many things.

There's always going to be need more need than we have time or resources to meet.

So it comes back to again, clarifying that call, just bringing clarity to casting division and mobilizing the teams, making sure we're staying on point, we're staying on mission.

That's, it's just, it's just critical for us too.

We work in hubs, we work in teams.

I think it's funny, when we first went out in missions, we were.

Individualism was very, it was promoted, very strongly celebrated.

It was celebrated, you know, and it was like just spread you guys out and you know, when you do that there's, I don't know, a mentality many times that maybe we can do more.

But the reality was we were, we were not as effective as we are now.

Working in teams, sending people out in teams, learning in context of teams, you know, and learning in the, in the context of, of collaboration, working together.

So today that is such a high priority for us to say.

That said, it's not just about vision casting, but it's how do we mobilize, how do we, how do we accomplish what action steps are necessary to be able to, to see that collaboration become a reality and not just a part of a vision but, but a sustainable life giving church plan.

Yeah.

You know, Larry, throughout this, our time together, you've talked about hearing the voice of God and hearing the call call and it's, it's phenomenal that that's impacted your life in such a way.

I think there has been a drift, probably even not only answering the call, but helping people understand what the call is and.

Right.

And being able to discern, you know, that discernment.

I think that comes through spiritual maturity and over times it's something, you know, it's, I've been challenged with in the last year or so.

How am I, how am I helping others discern the call and walk in that and, and be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and at the same time continue to be obedient to what he's, what he's asked us to do.

So one of the other words you've, you've mentioned a few times is collaboration.

So you know, collaboration.

It's one of my, I love collaboration.

It's great word.

What I do know, it's messy.

In my opinion it's, I shouldn't say no.

In my opinion it's messy.

It's challenging to practice.

You know, I mean, it's challenging.

It's a, we want to collaborate, like, but in this, when we, you know, it sounds really good and I can put it one of my, you know, my core values.

But then collaborating.

What are some lessons you've learned about collaboration and, and is it always messy or is there ways to.

Maybe it's less messy.

Yeah, I'm, I'm in the same camp with you.

I think it's always messy.

And part of that is just the definition and especially when you look at it through, through cross cultural lenses, you know, of what are the expectations culturally, you know, if you contextualize conversations.

Again, we, we operate in so many different cultures around the world.

You know, you got even just between high context, low context, you know, direct indirect communication.

There's just so many moments for misunderstanding there between the collaboration conversation.

But I think it is a great word and it's something we are committed to.

For me, I would start by saying it's, it's probably a lot like coaching, you know, when we've all gone through, you know, mentoring, coaching opportunities, whether we were on the receiving end or on the, on the, you know, giving in, coaching in.

But you, you never start coaching without, you know, some agreed upon measurements, you know, agreeing what are our river banks?

What are our defined objectives in this coach, coach, coachee and mentoring type relationship, you know, what's our shared objectives?

But I think defining those is the foundation of collaboration and even taking time.

I was on the phone with my son today.

He's serving us missions, doing some wonderful things with church planting and, and talking about some conversations he had.

And I said, those are, I mean those are exciting.

I said, but make sure you put it in writing, you know, and you, and you send the document and say, hey, does this document represent what, what we talked about in our conversation?

Because there's just so much room there even, even in the same culture, speaking the same language, but even more so with the multiplicity of cultures and, and languages and, and cultural lenses, but making sure that, that again we define those objectives.

Otherwise we can, we can, you know, talk all day about collaboration, talk about partnership.

But, but, but we're not achieving anything unless, unless we can define what those goals are.

And, and I think out of that I would say it this way, that the common interest, the shared objectives is what necessitates collaboration.

Okay.

You know, we don't start by saying let's collaborate.

We, we start by defining that and establishing those objectives.

Riverbanks and then from There, you know, the next step is, well, how do we accomplish it?

Well, you know, it's going to necessitate that we collaborate together, that we work together.

So those are, those are I think important things in our, in our conversation as we, we help to navigate that.

I think too, you know, it's a big conversation, but we can, we can, we can have so many great statements, but how do we measure the behaviors of our collaboration?

You know, it's important to make sure that, that our behaviors are in alignment with our values or in alignment with those objectives.

And so it's, it's just important that along the way that as we collaborate, I think that we have moments to stop and pause and measure and assess.

How's the collaboration going?

Sometimes collaboration can have a sunrise and a sunset.

Maybe it's not forever.

Maybe we collaborate on a project.

You know, we used to always put people on committees and those committees never died.

And so I, I think today we do better with groups.

Yeah, they have a sunrise and a sunset because they have a, they have an objective and collaborate together to accomplish that.

And sometimes that collaboration can come to, hopefully it, it not only bears fruit, but it comes to a place where maybe the collaboration needs to be ended because we accomplished the goal or it moves on to a deeper level of collaboration, you know, but ultimately I, I think more than a buzzword, it has to be something that helps us to accomplish, you know, what, what those shared objectives are, those measurable results and, and then being able to reevaluate, you know, what is, what does the next level of collaboration look like?

Yeah, I love that and I love that idea of putting, it can be time bound.

You know, I think that's one thing in the church and sometimes as leaders, visionary leaders, you know, we're great at starting things, but I think it also takes a great leader to be able to, to say, as you said, there's a sunrise and sunset on this and being okay with that, you know, I mean, and having those conversations and you know that and it's, it doesn't mean that.

And as you said, it accomplishes objective and you can have a great relationship and walk away from it.

It doesn't mean there has to be tension.

But I think I love what you said, having those conversations in the beginning so that, you know, it's, I think it takes some of the awkwardness out of it.

You know, if you wait till close to the end, then it, you know, it of can feel like a high school breakup, which is not, not, you know, at least my High school breakups weren't the best, but it, it doesn't have to be that way.

For sure.

For sure.

So, last question I have for you.

What question should I have asked you?

You know, I, I, one thing we haven't really talked a lot about, but because I would say probably the majority of your audience is, is, is based in the US and especially understands our movement, who we are.

I think it's just important that they hear from us as regional directors, not only myself, but every region, from our executive leadership team, from our executive director, John Easter, and so many others, how grateful we are for the US Church, for the Antiochs who have invested in us.

I know many times it can almost feel so romantic about what missionaries go and do, but we know, we know and we talk about it often.

If Antiochs are not strong to send us and to support us and to nurture the call to perpetuate that call and opportunity among the next generation, we, we know this is not an effort just of AGWM or of any one region.

We, we believe that God's allowed us to all be a part of the Semblance of God movement, which is again, not the Kingdom of God, but it is such a great part of the Kingdom of God.

And, and so I just would hate to miss the opportunity to just reemphasize again a lot of the conversations that we've talked about today.

The things that we, that we get to do, we really do get to be a part of it and, and see some incredible things that God allows us to do to bring gospel access.

It's impossible for that to happen without the Antioch, without our districts, our ministry networks, the local churches that get behind us.

And day in and day out, we pray for missionaries.

But we want, we want the audience to know today.

We pray for the local ch, we pray for our siblings of God USA leadership.

And we're just so grateful that we get to collaborate together and in those defined objectives of what we do and bring clarity to that day after day so that we can again bring gospel access before Jesus comes.

We still believe Aaron Jesus coming back and we believe his words that I will build my church.

We believe he meant what he said.

And, and we're going to work while it's day and just thankful we get to do this together.

Amen.

Amen.

Larry, we pray for us.

I would, Father, thank you for just the opportunity that we have to serve you.

Thank you for, for people who feel called to marketplace ministry and what incredible opportunities to take the gospel into places.

Lord, where People need access to the gospel.

And we're so grateful for our institutions that train people to do that.

We're also so grateful for those who feel called to vocational ministry.

The U.S. we pray for a multiplication once again of of students, young people who would feel called, whether it be through our summer camps, through our local churches, to be a part of of planting the church in the U.S. we pray, Lord, that you would meet every need among churches that are hurting for staff or looking for the right staff members.

But we also pray for sons and daughters that you would call, Lord, to cross cultural ministry, to not only be missional, but to take the gospel as we serve in missions, cross culturally and contextualize the the message of the gospel in the language and in the culture of people, Lord, who deserve to hear it.

Because you're worthy.

We believe, Lord, that one day we will all be around the throne, as Revelation 5 and 7 says, worshiping you.

But we know those prophetic words are not fully represented yet among the nations.

So Lord, Lord, while it's day, use us.

Use us as a movement.

Use us as a cooperative fellowship.

Use us, Lord, in in our areas, our regions, with our national partners, with the world Sims God fellowship.

Just pray, Lord, that you would help us to feel the gravity of the call of God upon our lives and the importance of us nurturing that call in the next generation.

Thank you for Aaron, Lord, for the reach that that he has through this incredible podcast.

The audience and we're just grateful today.

We thank you, Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.