World Evangelism Podcast

Empowering Churches with Balanced Mission Strategies

• W. Austin Gardner • Season 1 • Episode 29

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How can we effectively bring the gospel to a city as vast and diverse as Delhi, India? In this episode, we tackle this question head-on by exploring the critical need for a well-rounded mission strategy rooted in Acts 1:8. We delve into the importance of diverse ministries, from medical missions to printing, while placing a significant emphasis on church planting. We also discuss the necessity of supporting missionaries personally and choosing the right individuals, ensuring a holistic approach to spreading the gospel worldwide.

Moreover, we'll break down the essential concepts of "church" and "church planting" in the context of missionary work, advocating for extensive, multi-year training for pastors. You'll hear why starting ministries in major cities is crucial, but so is supporting rural areas for a balanced approach. We also touch on the dangers of mission fads and the importance of sustaining a comprehensive strategy. Tune in to be inspired by updates on current projects, including new book releases and invitations to speak at family conferences, aimed at empowering you to fulfill your God-given calling.

Thanks for listening. Find us on YouTube, Substack, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

W. Austin Gardner:

Welcome to the World Evangelism Podcast. I'm excited to have the opportunity to talk to you today. Our country of the week is India, and it's the week because, honestly, india is so large it's being prayed for, and today my special emphasis with you is on Delhi. I've been to Delhi several times and had good friends working there, and I don't know if you know this, but the population of Delhi is 32,394,000. That's approximately three times the state of Georgia all the population of the state of Georgia, three times over in one city. What a great need for the gospel there is in the city of Delhi in India, and Delhi is like a center of power and finance for the country. I did find out on Operation Whirl, which you know I love and I go there often and challenge you to do the same. I found out that there are up to 400,000 Christians, maybe in the country or in the city, but as far as the religious makeup, 2.2% are evangelical. 2.2% are evangelical. Do you understand that 74.3% are evangelical? Do you understand that 74.3% are Hindu? The Hindus believe there are up to 300 and something million gods that they worship and so we ought to be brokenhearted for them and the need to get the gospel to them.

W. Austin Gardner:

Now I have deviated from my original plan for the World Evangelism podcast, not because I'm not going to be bringing you books and people from history, because I definitely want to continue to do that at different times. Well, I thought today I would talk to you about developing a mission strategy for your church. If I were the pastor, what would I be thinking and how would I go about making a mission strategy for our church? Now I'd like to start with Acts, chapter 1 and verse 8, because to me that's a very impactful verse and I will share it with you again in another podcast in the future. But in Acts, chapter 1 and verse 8, the Bible says it says in Acts, chapter 1 and verse 8, it says in Acts, chapter 1, verse 8, "you shall receive power that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth". And that word both means like together and at the same time. So every Bible-believing church, every group of believers, we ought to be thinking about reaching our local area, our national area and the entire world. We should reach our Jerusalem, which is the city you live in, supposedly let's just say it that way and then the country you live in, and then Samaria, the countries to the north If you're an American, like I am, that'd be Mexico and Canada and the Caribbean and so on as that and then all the way to the uttermost. There ought not be a place that we leave untouched. There ought to be in our mind that we would get the gospel to every part of the world if at all possible. So every way that anybody is trying to get the gospel of the world, I believe, is a good way. They're great and we shouldn't think poorly of them.

W. Austin Gardner:

Now I am going to be overly emphasizing church planting, but without a doubt the medical field has been greatly used historically. My hero missionary was Bill Wallace. He's the guy that God used to get me in. He was a surgeon in China Well, a doctor. I'm not sure he was a surgeon, I think he was, but he was a doctor there and God used him greatly. We also know that William Carey, when he went, took a printer with him. He had a man whose full-time job was basically printing. William Carey was busy translating and he was busy printing the ministry. So every ministry we could possibly have in every way ought to be considered a great ministry. I don't think any church ought to be putting down any other form of ministry, any form that would get the gospel to the world.

W. Austin Gardner:

But we all have to decide who and what ministries that we will support individually. Because I believe you can individually support a missionary from where you are. You can personally take them on. My wife and I support missionaries directly and I would challenge you to consider doing the same thing. But your church and as a pastor, you are looking at it and saying who do we support? And you're going to have to decide that. And I would just like to remind you that home office people are important. So in no way am I going to put down anybody involved in trying to get the world the gospel, get the gospel to the world. But you can't do everything, so you have to choose carefully what you will do. You can't do everything, so you have to choose carefully what you will do.

W. Austin Gardner:

I one time had a missionary come and he presented his work in our church and we didn't take him over for support. And the very next time I saw him he said well, you didn't like me, did you? And I said no, I liked you very well, I thought you was a fine man and I like your ministry. He said well, you didn't take me on. I said you know, I like a lot of things and I go to Walmart but I can't afford to buy all of them. I like a lot of things and I go on Amazon but I can't buy all of them, and so you have to be intentional about the ministry that you're going to try to accomplish in your church.

W. Austin Gardner:

Now, before I go any further, can I just say you ought to be supporting the man and not the ministry. Sometimes I run into people and they're like we're supporting a missionary in Peru, but if he were to change from Peru to another country, then we wouldn't like that. But you ought to find people that you believe in, because world evangelism is about the people God uses to do that, and I would like to remind you that a lot of the early missionaries traveled, pray and hide was in like three countries and greatly used in all of those, and they're all not be in your mind. Well, you know, a man leaves this country, he's made a mistake. When an American pastor changes one church to another church, we don't think he's a heretic or a bad person or ran from the ministry. We just accept that God dealt with him and led him to another place. So I'd just like to suggest that to you Now.

W. Austin Gardner:

My personal goal, my suggested missionary objectives for you that I would challenge you to think about, is who's training men? I think that is far more important than winning souls, far more important than starting churches, far more important than children's homes and camps and other ministries although all of them, I've tried to make clear, are very important. But who's training men? Because our goal and we've talked about that on the Thursday podcast our goal is to train men, and so as you train men, then you can start more churches, you can have children's homes, you can have camps, you can have any and everything because you're training men. So my goal was always to support man trainers, people who are training other people to do ministry. I don't mean training them to be Sunday school teachers, I mean finding and training people. So Bible colleges, in my mind, become a very viable means of support, somebody you ought to really think about, because it's through the Bible colleges that many people will be trained and do the ministry.

W. Austin Gardner:

The second thing I would challenge you to look at training men and then planting multiple churches, ministries that go about planting multiple churches. I am a firm believer in church planting. A church is there long after the ministry is gone. I have been gone from some churches in Peru almost 25 years and they are still going and God is still using them and God is still doing great things there, and so I just want to challenge you to think about who's going to start multiple churches. I think I've probably discussed this with you, but I'll do it again over and over so you can understand it. You know, if you don't train men, you will limit how many churches you can start. So you know, to be honest, it's not too impossible. When you meet the man that tells you he started a thousand churches last year, you need to think seriously about that. That's an equivalent of starting three churches a day. Now he may say my team started and I would take that totally differently, but you've got to realize how long does it take to start a church from zero and get it up to self-sustaining?

W. Austin Gardner:

Again, you define terms. What does the word church mean? When you say the word church, what are you talking about? What are you talking about? Are you talking about two or three people got saved to meet under a tree? Are you talking about self-supporting, self-propagating and self-governing? What are you talking about? Are you talking about people that are organized together into a body? You have to define the word church. You have to define every word. There are going to be people that are going to train folks and get them trained in 12 weeks, and so you're going to need to stop and say wait a minute, let's get those terms defined, because when you're dealing with missionaries, we could all be saying the same thing and totally the opposite.

W. Austin Gardner:

When I say church planting, I certainly don't mean a thousand churches in a year. When I say man training, I mean multiple years invested in the training of a man in an ongoing ministry to train men. I don't mean six weeks of courses. I don't mean one year of courses. In America, very few of us would take seriously a pastor who got saved and six weeks later he could be a pastor. He'd got saved and six weeks later he could be a pastor. He'd get saved and six weeks later. Or he'd get saved and one year later he could be the pastor. We take that quite seriously. So I am for training men. That's what I would teach you, what I'd motivate you to think about. I would motivate you to think about planting multiple churches and the way you can do that. I would tell you that four years is almost impossible to get a church going. Anybody that's ever started a church knows it's a long, hard pull. But if you start churches and train people and you put those two together, you can be starting multiple churches while you're still training all of your men. So I would challenge you to support man training, multiple church planting missionaries.

W. Austin Gardner:

Then I'd like to say that typically the best way to get started is in a key city. You know you want to be in a larger place. Paul would walk past cities entirely and going to another place to get the ministry started. And so when you're doing the ministry, you're going to have to bear in mind that we're going to be leaving some places and not starting churches. So I believe you ought to go to a big city, a major city. I believe it was DL Moody that said the water flows downhill and the cities are the mountains. The cities are the mountains. So I would challenge you to go to a major city or support missionaries in a major city.

W. Austin Gardner:

Now parentheses. Let me just say that alongside that main missionary I'm supporting, I would love to support anybody helping with rural ministries. I grew up in a rural area. I mean I live 10 miles outside a city that's never reached 2,000 in a population and I live 10 miles from there. My nearest neighbor was a half a mile away. I want people who will reach those areas, I think a key man in a key city and alongside of that, somebody with a ministry trying to reach out into the villages and the countryside to help start churches. Now I want to say to you that you're going to want, as you're supporting, missionaries, you're going to look for key men. You want to look for key men. Now what do I mean by that? You see, one man is going to be starting more than one church and he can have other men that might not would accomplish as much if they weren't working with him. I'd go looking for the key man that I could support. So I want somebody in key cities that has key men and I want to help them get the key tools. I would like to help them get everything they need and, by the way, that means printing and radio and television and everything else. I have for a long time stressed men, media and materials, and I would strongly suggest that that ought to be what we consider as we go along.

W. Austin Gardner:

Now we don't want to fall for the fads that come into the mission world. You got to kind of look at them and see through them. I'm all for all of them, by the way, you know the 1040 window and all of those that we have had at different times. The truth is that you could pretty well look at the world and know that's where the world's population lives. I'm for that Okay, and I'm for getting those key fads. I think they can be good, they can serve a good purpose, but I would like to challenge you to realize that you're going to have fads where only support nationals and then only support Americans and only support this, and maybe you want to slow down and have a balanced ministry. Go into the mission world and look at the whole world and see what you can do to help get the gospel around the world.

W. Austin Gardner:

Now I've just gone over three little points that I've tried to make today. One we're supposed to be doing both. We're supposed to reach the Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and the uttermost together and at the same time I've also tried to go over a little bit of a missionary philosophy. You know that, all of the philosophy, everybody. I've also tried to go over a little bit of a missionary philosophy. You know that, all of the philosophy, everybody. I am for language schools, obviously. I am for church planters, I am for mission homes, I am for printing ministries and you ought to be also Anybody in every way doing anything to get the gospel of Jesus out ought to thrill our hearts. But because I have a limited pocketbook and a limited amount of resources, a limited amount of time, I have to kind of pick and choose where I will put the majority of my emphasis.

W. Austin Gardner:

As we are building a church, I've tried to suggest to you today that you train men, that you train men and you support people who train men. That's a good thing for Bible colleges and for pastors who have local Bible institutes and are training people. I would look for people that are planning multiple churches and then I would look for people that are not in the little town. Sometimes a guy goes to the small city and honestly it'd be like working in a city of a thousand in America. You're just not going to have as much impact. Not as many people. There's a lot of, and we need that. So don't leave thinking, no, he doesn't think we ought to do that. That's not what I'm saying at all. And then I would like to challenge you not to go with the fads. Don't go with the fads. Fads come and fads go, and different people say different things, and so be quite careful that you don't go with the fads that come along.

W. Austin Gardner:

Well, I am very much enjoying the opportunity to talk to you and spend time with you, and I'd like to challenge you to share this podcast with other people. I am currently in the process of adding to and rewriting a little bit of Are you Called, and I hope that it'll be more of a help. Then I have my book on the fulfilling marriage. I just got invited to preach Wow, I can't get that cleared in. I just got invited to preach a family conference just from a pastor who got the book, and I'm grateful for that opportunity. And then the new book is out now. The new book is out From Pain to Praise Pain to Praise. You can get it on Amazon and I just hope that the message will be of a blessing to you. I really, from the bottom of my heart, want to help people and challenge people. My goal is to inspire missions and empower people to do what God's called them to do. Thank you so much.