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The Role of Equipping
118 Plays9 months ago
In this episode of "Let's Talk Diaspora," hosts Bud and Rebecca are joined by Tom Hearon from Global Gates. Tom discusses the crucial role of equipping in reaching nations through the diaspora. As the director of the internship program called Pathways, Tom sheds light on his experiences working among diaspora communities, particularly Muslims and Hindus.
The conversation explores the significance of preparation and training for those looking to engage in cross-cultural ministry. Tom emphasizes the need for equipping individuals to understand the diverse worldviews and cultural contexts of people they aim to reach, whether it's Muslims, Hindus, or others.
The discussion also touches on the unique aspects of Pathways, including its long-term commitment, international focus, and annual capstone mission trips.
Listeners are encouraged to explore more about Pathways and connect with the program through the website www.globalgates.info/pathways.
Tom recommends his ebook, "Sharing the Gospel with Our Muslim Cousins," available on Kindle, as well as insightful YouTube video "How to Share your faith cross-culturally" and "The Seed and the 4 Soils AV"
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Global Gates
00:00:02
Speaker
Are you a pastor, ministry leader, or volunteer? Perhaps a stay-at-home parent, business executive, or college student. Do you desire to see the nations come to faith in Jesus Christ? Let me tell you something fascinating. Something that is happening in our lives that's never happened before. The nations are coming to us.
00:00:23
Speaker
Yes, where we once had to travel across the world to share the gospel, the nations are now coming to North America through means of business, tourism, university study, and more. The world's most unreached people groups are coming to us. The next best question to ask?
00:00:42
Speaker
How do we reach them with the gospel?
Who is Tom Herron and what is his role at Global Gates?
00:00:44
Speaker
I want to introduce you to a missions organization called Global Gates. Global Gates exists to reach the ends of the earth through Global Gateway Cities. You too can be involved in this mission from wherever you are. Simply go to globalgates.info for more information.
00:01:12
Speaker
Welcome to Let's Talk Diaspora. Today, Rebecca and I are joined by Tom Herron. And Tom is going to be talking to us about the role of equipping in reaching the nations in and through the diaspora. So welcome, Tom. Thank you very much. I appreciate you inviting me to be a part of this program today.
00:01:37
Speaker
Tom, tell us a little more about yourself, like where you are now, where you've been, just a little more of who you are.
00:01:48
Speaker
Well, thank you. I live with my wife outside of Austin, Texas and have been with the organization called Global Gates since 2016. And one of my roles has been to work among the diaspora people here in this city, Muslims and Hindus particularly.
00:02:14
Speaker
Before coming to Global Gates, I was a missionary with the International Mission Board. We had served in South America and Europe, particularly Argentina, Brazil and Italy, and had done some work in the home office area also in Richmond, Virginia. But I've been excited to work with Global Gates here for the past several years.
00:02:40
Speaker
Well, today we're talking about preparing to work among the diaspora and training opportunities and those kinds of things. Is that something that you are a part of now? Can you tell us a little bit about what you do with Global Gates?
What is the Pathways Internship Program?
00:02:54
Speaker
Yes, one of my primary roles with Global Gates right now is being the director of our internship called Pathways. Global Gates Pathways is in its fifth year right now, and we have had about 48 people who have come through Pathways during these five years. It's an exciting experience to see adults, both young adults and somewhat median age adults,
00:03:24
Speaker
become equipped and learn how to share the gospel with people who come from all around the world and have now become our neighbors.
00:03:35
Speaker
Pathways is an internship that has brought people just straight out of college and who find themselves at a different stage in life and they're able to start considering who these new neighbors are who have become, who have come to them and are dressed differently, talking different languages, have other religions, and they recognize that these people have a spiritual need and we as Christians have the obligation to go to them with the gospel.
00:04:06
Speaker
Tom, there, there may be some people who think, Oh, I don't, I don't need a clipping or someone doesn't need preparation to just, uh, share with their neighbor who may be Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or Sikh. And I would say that there is a need for equipping.
00:04:25
Speaker
But maybe just share with us what role does Pathways fit in that idea? Because obviously there's varying levels of equipping. I could just train someone a gospel tool and they could share with their neighbor. But to what level do you see Pathways fulfilling a need for the greater body of Christ and equipping them in cross-cultural ministry?
What challenges arise in cross-cultural evangelism?
00:04:50
Speaker
You know, I think that people have had that concept of, you know, it really ought to be easy to share the gospel with people. But at the same time, we are hesitant to do so.
00:05:04
Speaker
because we don't know what kind of responses people are going to give. We don't know their history, where they have been in relationship to the church and the gospel, and that's when they come from the Western world. They may have been raised with parents or grandparents who are Christians, and today they may have grown up in the church but have no longer be attending.
00:05:32
Speaker
And so we try to share the gospel, but oftentimes get discouraged in that. And that's talking to people who have grown up in the Western world where we are from. When you take a cross-cultural situation, there are many different things that need to be considered in sharing the gospel.
00:05:56
Speaker
When you talk about who Jesus is, you question, have they ever heard of Jesus? And you also question if they have heard of Jesus, how does he figure into their religion or their experience? Do they know the same things about him that I know and have either accepted that or rejected that? Or is it an entirely different Jesus that they may have heard about than the ones that we would like to introduce them to?
00:06:24
Speaker
And so there's a lot of need for preparation for people to hear the gospel, experience it, and come to love it. And it takes quite a bit of time. I don't know whether you've ever talked about what is called the Engel scale of evangelism on your podcast or not.
00:06:47
Speaker
Ingle scale evangelism shows that when a person hears the gospel, it often takes many different experiences with the gospel for them to believe it, to receive it, to know that this is a truth that is meant for them.
00:07:05
Speaker
And so they have a whole lot of working, you know, emotional and mental and intellectual ways of having to work through this before they know whether this is for them. That's even when you're talking about someone who comes from our Western history. But when you begin to talk with someone who comes from a Muslim or a Hindu background,
00:07:33
Speaker
You recognize that these are people who are going to sacrifice a great deal if they give up their own religion, the religion of their fathers, of their families, the religion of all of their culture and their language group, and to take on the Christian faith.
00:07:53
Speaker
And so it takes time to work with them, and it's good to be prepared so that we understand where they're coming from and how we can best present the gospel in a way that they're going to receive it well.
00:08:11
Speaker
Tom, I hear you and I'm firmly with you in that the gospel is the primary piece for us as we go out with missions. What are some of the other training topics that if you're preparing to go out on mission for Christ that you might cover in pathways or do we need for training?
How can cultural expressions aid gospel sharing?
00:08:31
Speaker
Well, there are a lot of different things that we do and we do talk about specifically what the gospel is because so many times when we
00:08:41
Speaker
Growing up here, I'm an American. I grew up in the South of the United States. I live in Texas now. I've been in churches in many different parts of the United States. And even as you go from region to region in the United States, you get a different cultural baggage that goes along with church and religious experience and expression. And we need to understand when we're telling the gospel,
00:09:09
Speaker
Just what the gospel is, does it always include churches with tall columns and in Babistries and pews and things like that? Is that an essential part of the gospel message? Or is it just a cultural expression of the way we do it?
00:09:27
Speaker
In Pathways, we help people to understand what the gospel is. One of the stories that we use is a book called The Story of Reality, where Greg Kochel really introduces the story of the gospel and how it develops and how we should understand it. I think this is an excellent tool that we're able to bring to our interns for them to understand it better.
00:09:58
Speaker
Can you give kind of an outline of some of the other topics and things that you discussed through Pathways? Yes, we do quite a bit of things. I don't know if you're familiar with a drawing called Four Fields, but Four Fields is an outline of how
00:10:20
Speaker
the gospel is developed
What training does Pathways provide?
00:10:22
Speaker
in community and how it's promoted into new areas. Four Fields talks about how we identify a people group and we enter into that community with the gospel. It's how we share the gospel and spread the message around.
00:10:45
Speaker
It talks about how there is growth and discipleship that takes place and how the people begin to gather as a church or a body of believers. Another element that's involved and fulfills is leadership development.
00:11:00
Speaker
And we've identified ways that the gospel continues and is used in all of these, or rather how we're able to teach in all of these areas. One of the things we do is we talk about, we use the book Experiencing God by Henry and Richard Blackaby.
00:11:27
Speaker
where we talk about learning to see where God is at work. We use the book Stubborn Perseverance by James Nyman. So we understand what is a church planting process look like? How can we expect the church to develop and grow and what the disciples need to be able to do in that process?
00:11:50
Speaker
Tea for Tea training with Ying Kai and Steve Smith, their writings and their their witness is an important thing for us. Another thing that we do is we talk about how to do research and mapping
00:12:08
Speaker
But I know you're very familiar with the website upgnorthamerica.com since that is your product. And we go to that and we help people understand who are the people groups that are around us. So where are these people located and how can we best understand them? We help people to understand zero to one methodology. How do you move from zero believers in Christ to finding that first
00:12:37
Speaker
insider who is going to receive Christ and begin to have the passion to reach their own people with the gospel. We want people to understand worldviews and honor and shame versus power and fear or guilt and innocence worldviews.
00:13:00
Speaker
Hope people will understand these things and begin to want to reach out and look for more information about these different worldviews because it's all important. Then we talk about different religions, especially Islam and Hinduism and
00:13:19
Speaker
an apologetic that's used within these religions, and how we can share the gospel specifically with people who come from them. In the Muslim religion, we want to explain the gospel using what we call the Qurbani plan of salvation, which is a way of combining the one
00:13:42
Speaker
the Bridge illustration in Romans 623, along with the sacrifice stories that are known to Muslim people and are also found in our own Old Testament. And we put these things together in an illustration. It helps them walk through to see how God has provided a way for all of us to be saved.
00:14:04
Speaker
We discuss different videos and books that are available and telling about Muslims who have come to Christ and different studies that are available on the Islamic religion.
00:14:20
Speaker
For Hindus, we look at satsang, which is a Christian expression that's in Indian friendly cultural setting. And it's an exciting kind of a thing. We use their songs, but they worship Christ and worship Jesus. But it's in a cultural setting that Hindus are comfortable with.
00:14:48
Speaker
And so we begin to teach people how to use these developed skills that are capable of sharing the gospel among Indian, Hindu, and Muslim people.
How does mentorship work in Pathways?
00:15:05
Speaker
so many different things that are going on in our training. I may be going a little bit deep with some of this or too broad without time to be able to go into each one of these very deeply.
00:15:22
Speaker
I think you've done a great job, Tom, of just giving a snapshot. And again, as you hear this, this is an exhaustive, Pathways is really exhaustive. That explanation was just a picture of that. But a question I have, Tom, is I think a lot of people understand that there's sometimes a disconnect, especially among the Western Christian between the mind
00:15:44
Speaker
the heart and the hands, meaning if I just communicate knowledge, my head grows and it may never get to my heart, which means it never gets to my hands. How in Pathways do you help facilitate that movement from head knowledge to your hands where the interns are actually doing the work of a missionary? This is one of the neat things about our Pathways program that people
00:16:12
Speaker
Our interns are shepherded.
00:16:15
Speaker
In their city in their field by a local coach or mentor someone is going to help them be accountable for sharing the gospel for for building relationships and building bridges of relationship with the people group that is theirs and so as the as they work alongside their coach and the coach who will have some kind of a vision for
00:16:45
Speaker
This is what the community of your people group looks like here in this city, in this area. We're going to help you get to them and reach with them and answer questions. And so there's a bit of hand holding that goes on there, but not too much and not too long. It is a sense of we want to prepare you so that you're able to go out.
00:17:08
Speaker
But we're also here for you as you need to come back. And then our pathways meets two times a week on Monday and Tuesday nights. We meet together by Zoom for three hours each night.
00:17:23
Speaker
seems like quite a long time, but it goes quickly with all the different materials that we have to share. And then as we hear back from each one about, okay, what have you done this week? Who have you talked with? Who are you praying for? How deeply were you able to go in sharing the gospel?
00:17:41
Speaker
with your people. So we do follow up and build these relationships and help people go deeper that way. What do you feel like sets Pathways apart or makes it different from other training pieces and training programs that organizations and churches are doing?
00:18:11
Speaker
I think one of the things that is different is, one, it's a long-term commitment. This is not a weekend commitment. Come and learn to tell your testimony and share your faith. And then we're going to send you out. We'll never talk about this again.
00:18:27
Speaker
And that's what happens in so many of our churches with our evangelism training. But this is a time where we're saying, we want you to build relationships. And in these relationships, we want you to bridge into the gospel and find what is the way that they are going to be able to hear this gospel well.
00:18:48
Speaker
I think one of the things that sets us apart is a very in depth training and experience. We're able to, you know, team you with other people who have like who are working with your very similar people group, maybe in a different city. But because we're meeting together on Zoom, you're able to share insights and skills with one another.
00:19:18
Speaker
This is fairly much pretty much a national and even has been international approach to training. We've had people up in Toronto, Canada.
00:19:30
Speaker
had people in California and in North Carolina and various other places who come together together with our people who are in Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth on a Zoom call. And so we're able to talk with people across the entire nation and build relationships.
00:19:53
Speaker
One of the things that sets us apart too is that we are focused on going overseas and we will have a trip every year, what we call our capstone mission
What are the capstone mission trips?
00:20:05
Speaker
trip.
00:20:05
Speaker
and for three weeks we've gone to South Asia and have, you know, gone work within a church planning movement that's taking place over there. We've gone out, we've seen, we've met Muslims who have been converted to Christianity and who are now out sharing their faith and being active and bringing others to belief in Jesus Christ.
00:20:35
Speaker
and they're seeing churches established. We've met people who have been persecuted, suffered for their decision to receive Jesus Christ. It's a tragic situation that they do not have the freedom.
00:20:54
Speaker
to make a decision for Christ and live freely with that decision. But they pay the cost and the price for that and we're able to see them as brothers and sisters in the faith. Many different things about our program that are unique and different and give us some great
00:21:19
Speaker
a great way of being able to present a new tool to people within our churches here about how to spread the gospel globally. Tom, I'm pretty familiar with Pathways.
00:21:38
Speaker
I went on the trip to South Asia with the group and can just testify just how God worked through that and how God uses pathways to mobilize people to the nations and also equip them here to reach the neighbors who are from Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jewish backgrounds. When we think of the diversity of cultures, religions, the diversity of skills, even that you shared,
00:22:05
Speaker
How, how can pathways deliver like quality mentorship and instruction on such a wide variety? Is it, is it just you, Tom sitting in front of a camera or what, how do you pull this off?
00:22:18
Speaker
This is one of the unique things that we offer too, that we bring in men and women who are excellent resources and who live around the world and who come in to instruct us and teach us. We have had men from Pakistan and from India call in and be able to tell us their story and how God is
00:22:46
Speaker
is working among the people where they are and how we can partner with them where they are. We have had current missionaries and former missionaries who speak to us about spiritual warfare, who speak to us about
00:23:06
Speaker
gospel sharing, growing the church, and church planning movements that have taken place, and what it's like to mentor others. I'm far from being the great expert in all of these fields. As a matter of fact, I'm more of a facilitator of others who come in and who bring great experience.
00:23:33
Speaker
And we've been able to use people who have had many years of experience working among these people and have seen God do a deep work of transforming lives
00:23:50
Speaker
and growing his church among the nations. And it's been an exciting experience, and I'm glad to be a part of it. But as I say, I'm really a facilitator and a guide of this program, and God is working through many others in presenting his ultimate plan.
00:24:15
Speaker
What are some, who are some of the students that are coming through their program? Or who are some students that you would think would be ideal to come through this program? Where do they need to be in their life? What's God doing their lives? Maybe you can give us some examples from classes, the students that have come through, but also students you could see coming through that may have not yet come through the program.
Who participates in Pathways?
00:24:40
Speaker
We have had some great students who've come from many different places.
00:24:44
Speaker
We've had some people who came out of a church in Las Vegas and came down to move to Houston to be able to start working in a church and, you know, working among a people group down in Houston. We had a couple that moved from the north of Virginia to come down and they moved down to Houston. We've had a couple, we have a couple in our group right now,
00:25:11
Speaker
who recently married in New York City and moved down to Houston to be able to live there and to work and to be a part of this program. But again, this does not require that people be college graduates or that they be seminary students or that they move physically into a Texas city.
00:25:39
Speaker
a couple that are living in North Carolina now. The husband is working full-time and not particularly a part of our program, but the wife is. And they've adopted the Hindu people group and their city of Charlotte, North Carolina. And so they're able to work there. We have a young man who
00:26:09
Speaker
I was in Peoria, Illinois, and he moved to Detroit where he could be around the Muslim people and work with our missionary there. But then he got married to a woman in Bangladesh and has moved to Bangladesh and is living there now. And God is using them to spread the gospel and to share, you know,
00:26:37
Speaker
to grow his church over there. So this is something that is taking place in many different places, happening in many different places, and we're able to be facilitators of the work that God's doing.
00:26:56
Speaker
And for our listeners too, we've had two Pathways graduates on the podcast. So from several episodes back, we had Angie and Fort Worth. And then this third season, we had Blair who's currently living in South Asia.
00:27:14
Speaker
That's right. There's a couple of ladies who have been wonderful in their work. I've had a chance to work alongside them, both in instruction and in international travel as we work together in South Asia, in India, and in Pakistan, Bangladesh,
00:27:35
Speaker
and just to see how God has taken the things that we've been able to instruct them in and give them skills in to be able to do the work there. Talking about skills, I'd like to say that one of the things that we like to instruct people in is Bible story.
00:27:56
Speaker
You know, we in our churches have often relegated the Bible stories to a children's ministry.
00:28:07
Speaker
When you're a child, then you learn to talk about David and Goliath, and you learn to draw the pictures of Noah in his ark, and you think about Jesus and feeding the 5,000. And then when you become adult, you just think these are all just stories for children.
00:28:27
Speaker
And we forget that God used these stories, stories about creation, stories about saving men and women from the flood, and stories about raising up a king like King David.
How effective is Bible storytelling in evangelism?
00:28:46
Speaker
And we forget that these are stories that build character and show what God is doing among people and how active and powerful he is.
00:28:56
Speaker
And we tell when Jesus told stories, he told the story of the seeds and the good soil and how the farmer went out to sow the seeds. But when his disciples said, why do you always teach him stories? He actually said, I tell stories so that those who want to hear and are able to listen and receive it, they are going to be the ones who receive it and the others will not.
00:29:26
Speaker
In other words, I'm sifting to see who is interested, who is capable of hearing, who has a heart for the things of God, and who does not. Through Bible storying, we have an inoffensive way of finding out where God is at work. And so this is a tool that we teach, a tool that we use readily.
00:29:50
Speaker
And I've seen men and women come to Christ because of their interest in these stories. And they were able to show them the plan of salvation through the Corbani drawing, the Corbani sacrifice plan of salvation and draw this out for them. And they said, yes, that's the salvation I need. That's the God that I want to know. And so that was in Pakistan.
00:30:20
Speaker
and two muslim men named muhammad prayed to receive christ at the same time and wanted to receive this jesus and so god is at work around the world and we need to to recognize that he wants to use us and prepare us to take the gospel to the people who have never heard it we don't prejudge we don't know where the good soil is only god knows where the good soil is and uh and we pray we
00:30:49
Speaker
plant the good seed, we cast a good seed out there and see where it germinates and where it bears fruit. And so this is our plan and what we do to train people to go out and to teach and to share, telling their story and telling Jesus' story so that the gospel can grow.
How can one join Pathways?
00:31:12
Speaker
Tom, if somebody wants to be a part of Pathways or learn more about Pathways, how best can they do that?
00:31:20
Speaker
I would like to recommend that they look for, that they go to the website, www.globalgates.info slash PathwaysTX. That's globalgates.info slash PathwaysTX. And at that website, you'll see information about pathways and the training that we provide. You'll find an interest application and you can
00:31:49
Speaker
you know, fill that out. It's a very brief application because it's just saying, I want to know more. And then we'll, when we know where you are and where you would want to work, we'll find, we'll get you the application that you need and have a phone conversation with you. I'd also like to recommend that people look for my, my ebook on Kindle. The name of that book is How to Share Your Faith Across
00:32:17
Speaker
Excuse me, the name of that ebook is sharing the gospel with our Muslim cousins, sharing the gospel with our Muslim cousins. It's on Kindle, and you can find that on Amazon.com. And then if you wanted to look at a couple of my YouTube videos, how to share your faith cross-culturally,
00:32:39
Speaker
and the Seed and the Four Soils AV. That would be two videos that you can find on YouTube. How to Share Your Faith Cross Culturally and the Seed and the Four Soils. And we'll be sure to put those in our show notes, those contacts, as well as these resources so everyone can check those out.
00:33:05
Speaker
As we wrap up, Tom, I just want to ask a question for clarity for our listeners. You mentioned you serve on staff with Global Gates. Pathways is housed inside Global Gates. Does someone have to join Global Gates to go through Pathways?
00:33:23
Speaker
Actually, we have not required that people be a part of Global Gates to go through pathways. We have seen ourselves as a ministry that trains people who are able to serve in many different capacities in many other organizations. And so this is a
00:33:43
Speaker
And so, no, you do not have to be a part of Global Gates to go through pathways. You're able to be trained in pathways and then be free to serve as God would lead you and direct you. But I'm sure Global Gates would also be happy to entertain anyone who would like to join. No doubt about that.
00:34:06
Speaker
We just don't want to make it exclusive, have not made it exclusive to this point, I'll say, for people who are in or have already been a part of Global Gates. But we recognize that it is an important thing that people should do, serving someplace. Where is God leading you? And we can be a part of providing that opportunity and training for people.
00:34:31
Speaker
Yeah. Thanks, Tom. I can say firsthand to our listeners, I've interacted with many pathways interns have served as a mentor for some people. It's really high quality equipping that's action oriented. It prepares you to serve unreached people groups in the diaspora.
00:34:52
Speaker
But that translates very, very well to people who are now currently serving overseas, who's went through pathways. So it's a recommendation from myself personally. And so as Tom mentioned, you can find all that information on the website that will be in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening to Let's Talk Diaspora. Tom, thanks for joining us. Thank you very much for the invitation today. It's been a joy to be with you and Rebecca today, bud.