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The Cadence Way - We Shape
47 Plays4 months ago
What does discipleship look like in the military community? Duncan and Suzanne Forbes talk about their experience in pastoral ministry and now overseas ministry in mainland Japan.
Learn more about Cadence: https://cadence.org/
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Transcript
Introduction and Focus on Military Gospel Sharing
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to In Cadence, where we talk about what it looks like to share the gospel in our lives with the military community. Join us as we talk about what God is doing in the lives of our service members and how we can be a part it.
Meet Duncan and Suzanne Forbes: Military Ministry in Japan
00:00:24
Speaker
Well, hey, welcome to the Cadence podcast. I'm Dave Hutchings, and I'm here with Brian Klager. And we've invited a wonderful couple from one of our ministries in Japan japan to join us today, Duncan and Suzanne Forbes.
00:00:39
Speaker
ah We're delighted to have you
Duncan's Journey: Army to Cadence Ministry
00:00:41
Speaker
guys. And you guys have been on an amazing lifelong journey of following Jesus. And who would have thought that at this stage of your life, it would have led you to the far edge of the world, working with sailors and Marines.
00:00:56
Speaker
And um would you tell us just a little bit about yourselves and how you guys got connected with Cadence? So I was i was raised in in Rhode Island, grew up and ended up after high school, joined in the Army and ended up after my boot camp in Schweinfurt, West Germany.
00:01:18
Speaker
As a young soldier, i was I was alone, kind of out of my element. I had actually just become a follower of Jesus a year before I left for boot camp. And so very new in my faith and and kind of struggling when I got there and, uh, met a guy at the, uh, post exchange.
00:01:35
Speaker
Uh, we're looking at video, uh, cassette tapes and he invited me out to this place called the hospitality house. And, uh, that was my first exposure to, to cadence.
00:01:46
Speaker
Uh, and, uh, it was, it was an incredible thing. Uh, I went out there and, uh, It was a community of people who were loving God and loving each other. ah were gathering together for meals, gathering together for ah for times of study and and in in just fellowship together as we as we did life together in the military.
00:02:07
Speaker
And that was that was the seed that got planted for me because I i look at those as some of the most transformational times of my life.
Suzanne's Passion: Hospitality as Ministry
00:02:14
Speaker
ah The couple of years I spent with Brad and Debbie Elgin, the directors of the house there ah in Germany.
00:02:20
Speaker
And so upon returning to the States, i I ended up going to Bible school and getting into church ministry. um I met Suzanne in...
00:02:30
Speaker
Yeah, we met in the mid 90s. And when Duncan first introduced the concept of a hospitality house to me and shared, shared just what what it looked like, what the scope of it was, I was just blown away. I had grown up in a hospitality mindset.
00:02:46
Speaker
My family always invited people over. That was always something we did. But to think of doing it as ministry was just, I i think I looked at them and said, sign me up. I'm i'm in on that.
00:02:58
Speaker
And so it's definitely been a passion for us. It's how we've shaped our marriage and how we've shaped our, just our whole family is having hospitality as ministry.
Path to Full-Time Ministry in Japan
00:03:08
Speaker
So the previous 17 years, 18 years, we were in a little town called Postwell, Washington, right next Naval Base Kitsap.
00:03:16
Speaker
where we actually had a chance to you know to live out ah ah the cadence philosophy within the local church. um we ah We would always have sailors and their spouses over for meals and in holidays.
00:03:29
Speaker
um But it was it was something that we were kind of, you know it was a portion of our ministry and not our full ministry. And we are were yearning to to step full force into ah into serving with with cadence.
00:03:44
Speaker
And so we waited till our children were grown. We have three grown children ah now. And ah so we ah once we got the last one, graduated from high school, we felt it was time to move forward.
00:03:57
Speaker
And so in 2023, we we stepped into full time ministry with Cadence and ended up here in Yukosuka, Japan.
First Encounter with Cadence Hospitality
00:04:10
Speaker
Okay, I need to interrupt and rewind, pun intended, for a moment. You're at the post exchange to PX, which if you're not associated with the military, that's basically the ah the American store on an overseas installation.
00:04:25
Speaker
Do you remember what what kind of tape you were looking for? Yeah. So I might be a little OCD. And so I was I come across a sale rack of of cassette tapes um and cassette tapes for those younger view yeah listeners are are what we what we used to have before MP3 files and downloads and all that stuff.
00:04:46
Speaker
ah So I was looking through the cassette tapes and I started finding Christian music. And so I started sorting out all the Christian music ah into a separate area in the bin. And a young, a young, another young soldier walked up and stood there watching me for a little bit.
00:05:01
Speaker
And finally, he looks at me and goes, are you a Christian? And I was like, yeah, I'm a Christian. Are you a Christian? And he goes, yes. And we were just so excited to meet another Christian. And so then he, his name was Daryl and Daryl started, im sorry, I'm getting little excited here. Daryl started started sharing with me about this place called the hospitality house that he'd been to once.
Importance of Community and Faith in the Military
00:05:21
Speaker
And he just started describing just this incredible place of community and and in in in faith and and just, you know, ah powerful relationships. And so, So, so we actually, and we, he was like, let's go now.
00:05:35
Speaker
And so we, yeah we actually just walked out of the exchange, walked the front grate, hopped in a cab and went out to the hospital house and grant, you know, in the, the Schweinfurt house was only closed one day a week.
00:05:47
Speaker
And it was that day. ah but But we turned around, we turned around, we're like, we're not that's not going to stop us because Daryl had sold me. I mean, he'd only been once, but he sold me on this thing.
00:05:57
Speaker
Um, and it was such an easy sell because what he was describing was everything that my heart was yearning for. and, uh, you know, just, you in a place where I felt lost and alone and overwhelmed and out of my element where I felt my faith was under attack, where I was yearning for, for relationship with other believers and a place to grow,
00:06:17
Speaker
um Everything that he was describing just was all that. And so so, yes, we went back the the next night and and we pretty much, yeah I'd say that Daryl and i pretty much lived out there whenever we could. we We would stay in the bunk room. We would we would do a lot.
00:06:34
Speaker
We'd do everything we could to be in that fellowship every every single moment we could.
The Unique Draw of Military Ministry
00:06:41
Speaker
I love that story. And it's, it's so powerful and it's so profound when you're in like the far corner of the world on your own and not sure if you're going to find connection, community, relationship, faith, those things are kind of out there hanging and you're wondering, am I going to find this? Is this going to be part of my story or not?
00:07:03
Speaker
And, um, But I think it's something that's common for all of us. We all yearn for that. We long for that. And you find yourself in a place that's so exposed and reveals that desire in such a strong way, like you're compelled and you can't hold yourself back from it. You've got to chase after it. And I think that's one of the beautiful things about military ministry that is such a compelling environment that um people are already feeling the draw to this type of community and why it's so important to cultivate that in any of our Christian communities, because we have that desire um in our hearts, put I think, put there by the Lord.
Cadence's Five Distinctives
00:07:43
Speaker
And ah and then especially in the kind of situation you found yourself in that you guys are in now, you now get to cultivate that kind of community. And we really talk about this in Cadence and we've been doing this series. We're talking through the Cadence way and we've got kind of five distinctives that tell us about um sort of guide what we actually do ah intentionally in the context of military ministry and in our communities.
00:08:07
Speaker
And that really is that we stay. The military is a mobile community, but we stay and we plant ourselves. We're in a posture of service. ah We shape disciple making community is what you're talking about.
00:08:20
Speaker
ah We send people out as they get moved by the military on mission, living for the Lord. And then we strive. We stay focused on one thing, and that is the military community. um So, Brian, what which one are we getting after today?
00:08:34
Speaker
Yeah, we're we wanted to focus on We Shape ah with you guys. it It really exemplifies the way you um run your ministry. um The idea of We Shape within the Cadence way is that Cadence staff are experts in creating and soating sustaining biblical life-changing fellowships within the military community.
00:08:55
Speaker
And that is a distinctive of who you guys are as people and how you do ministry. So just tell us, what does that look like for your hospitality house and your community?
Creating and Sustaining Fellowship
00:09:05
Speaker
I think within our community, we have a lot of structured time together. We have a regular weekly meeting. We do holidays. We do ah lots of structured, scheduled time that we can like plan a calendar out um throughout the year.
00:09:21
Speaker
But then we have a lot of pop-up times that happen. And some of that is things like I've got a you know cooking team that comes in on Friday, and we have some pretty deep discussions while we're mashing potatoes or while we're making cookies.
00:09:35
Speaker
And, you know, and sometimes it's a very vulnerable time, you know, the women are going, I'm really struggling with this while my husband's away, or I'm struggling with my parents, they're coming to visit and they want to do this, this and this and, and how do I discipline my child?
00:09:49
Speaker
And so we've had some really, really deep discussions. just while, you know, scooping cookie dough out of the bowl and putting it on the tray. And then we've also had quite a few just pop up um pop-up Bible studies, I would say, pop-up social times, pop-up times of fellowship,
00:10:08
Speaker
um Hey, let's meet for sushi. Hey, let's, let's meet here for a worship night. Hey, I'm willing to host. If you guys can catch a train, I'll host and meet at our house.
Military Life: Quick Bonds and Spiritual Growth
00:10:18
Speaker
um We've had lots of movie nights that are just pretty last minute. Let's do a movie night and talk about it tonight. Let's, let's have a discussion about what, what we're watching, what we're consuming, what media we're taking in and,
00:10:33
Speaker
and how that impacts us while also laughing at the jokes on the screen or things like that. Yeah, one of the things that that we find in the military community is that people are often willing to jump into relationship rather quickly.
00:10:46
Speaker
You might be a Marine that's only here for six months or ah you're here a contractor. we have some contractors that come that are, you know, you know even shorter than that or a two-year rotation or a three-year rotation. So so people are are desiring to to step in community, you know, and they're willing to do it rather quickly. And so so as we open up our lives, I mean, it's, you know because, you know, it's about, you know we want to share the gospel in our lives. And so when we open up our lives and invite people in, we invite them into ah relationship. We also invite them into a chance to grow in their faith.
00:11:22
Speaker
And those, you know, as su Suzanne was saying that, um you know, some of that is the structured things where we, we have Bible studies and, and, and other, and other events going on.
00:11:33
Speaker
And some of it is the unstructured. You know, I think for my personal self, I go back to my time in in Germany when I was a young man.
Opportunities in Running a Hospitality House
00:11:42
Speaker
know, one day I was down in the bookstore because back then, know, the many of the Cadence houses had Christian bookstores.
00:11:48
Speaker
And I was getting myself a soda and Brad Elgin walks by me and and says, hey, Duncan, what are you doing with your money? And, you know, I'm a year and a half into my faith right now and never, ah never had anybody tell me about um how my money affects my faith and and how my faith affects my money.
00:12:08
Speaker
And so he sat and told me about tithing for about 15 minutes and then walked away. And I was left with a lifelong burden to say um this, you know this resource is from God. I'm supposed to be giving back my first fruits, honoring him. And it changed and it changed my life. And so I think there's a lot of instances like that where we have ah these kind of organic things.
00:12:30
Speaker
Chances to to disciple to to to grow to to work with with young men and women or actually older men and women to that that are that are just a product of of.
00:12:45
Speaker
of the environment of inviting people in and having them be part of our lives. I mean, you've been shaped by that kind of community. um And then you've shifted to pouring that out, but you did that in church ministry for a while. So coming back to Hospitality House, what makes that unique? What what are some of the standouts that you've experienced and the unique opportunities that are provided in shaping biblical community out of your home?
00:13:11
Speaker
I think some of it is having it out of our home, a hundred percent, you know, having, having it here in a way that we can shape and we're not just introducing it into programs or introducing it into other other things that are offered by the local church. And, and I love the local church and I love the ministry that it does, but Sometimes, you know, as a big group, you can't necessarily go as deep. You can't have that authenticity that you can have when you're sitting on someone's couch, crying your eyes out because your baby just won't sleep through the night or, you know, things like that. You just you just don't necessarily get that in a big church setting. And I think that's one of the ways we have really enjoyed it here in in our home, having that, being able to set the tone,
00:14:00
Speaker
Having, you know, being able to have boundaries within, you know, like, no, this is our space within the building. Don't come in here. But when we're in here, we are all
Desire for Connection in Military Life
00:14:07
Speaker
family. We are all um we're together and we are a community and we love each other um and and nurture each other and allow other people to step up. There's times where we're not the ones answering the questions when somebody's got a question. We know, our goal is to train up other people to disciple other people.
00:14:25
Speaker
The military is a hard life. it's and it's different than It's different than any other nine to five job that's out there. And so they they are therere in a difficult situation ah right now here in Yukoska. mean, Yukoska has 25,000 military independence stationed here.
00:14:43
Speaker
ah we' you know We're a good sized slice of America in the middle of a foreign culture. And the U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet is the front line right now. um with a lot of the tensions that are happening in the world.
00:14:57
Speaker
Um, these men and women are, are, are sailing into some very difficult, uh, situations and, you know, and it's a high stress job is difficult.
00:15:09
Speaker
Uh, and then when they get back, they're in Japan and you know, you, you, well, it might be fun. And, you a lot of people go, yeah, it's like, Oh, Tokyo and, and Disney and, you know studio Ghibli and all these things that, you know, you're going to see a shrine.
00:15:27
Speaker
It's, it's all really neat until you walk out the gate and there's not a single thing that looks familiar. And, um, you're in, you know, you're, you can't read the street signs. You can't, you know, you, you, you, you go into a restaurant and you're pointing at pictures to, to, to figure out what you're, what you're ordering. Um,
00:15:45
Speaker
know, and there's just, you know, you've got a barrier between you and the, you know, and the place you live. And, you know, you kind of hit a wall sometimes where you're like, I'm done with seeing kanji, you know, I'm done with hearing, you know, Japanese. I'd i' like, I'd like a place where, where it feels normal and feels like home.
Community Outreach and Transformation Stories
00:16:04
Speaker
And so, so the, ah you know, one of the things I think that's, that's very different about the community out here is that people are really searching for connection on a, on a, on a very regular basis, because back, back home, sometimes you don't always get that because you're like, you're, you're comfortable there. You have, you have your friends, you have your family, you have, everything's familiar.
00:16:23
Speaker
Whereas oftentimes, you know, in the military, you're not somewhere friendly and familiar. um And so we, we, ah we often, I, I see people coming out ah to the house searching for that.
00:16:37
Speaker
And then we find it They get excited about it. And this is one of the things I love about, you know, you thinking about discipleship. um We have the ability to to make people evangelists on ah on a level that is incredible, because when they when they come out here and they experience Jesus in the community here.
00:16:59
Speaker
they get excited. And so I think yeah we had a ah young man who was on the the USS Ronald Reagan. And every single week he was bringing new people in. Every single week, it's like, here's my buddy from this ship. Here's my buddy from the ship.
00:17:12
Speaker
And one night he introduced me to one of the guys and we were talking a little bit. one of the questions I love asking is, hey, you know, what's your faith background? Where are you coming from? and and And for the first time my life, I heard something that was just unusual. He goes, I'm a follower of Odin.
00:17:29
Speaker
I'm like, Odin? He's like, yeah, the Norse gods. And I'm like, OK, never heard this before. You know, you've watched too many Marvel movies or something. ah But but he you know, but he was really I mean, he was like, yeah, this is a sincere belief I have, you know.
00:17:42
Speaker
And I was like, OK, what's that involve? I mean, you know, and basically it's just I get to i get to grow a beard in the Navy is one thing. And two, um like you know if I die in battle, I go to Valhalla. like, okay, that it doesn't sound like Odin requires much of you or gives you much.
00:17:58
Speaker
um So i ended up making ah an appointment to have coffee with him the next week. And over coffee in the Starbucks, yeah know we we unpacked, you because he he walked away with a lot of questions about who Jesus was and what was you know what it what it what the Bible was telling him, with the with the you know what his friend ah from the boat was telling him. And so We sat down, I answered all his questions in the middle of Starbucks on base. you know he He prays to receive Jesus as a savior. And, um and we literally only had a couple more weeks with him and then poof, he's gone.
00:18:30
Speaker
But he took, he took that seed of faith. He took his, his brand new faith and and now he's living it out in, in, in a different context, you know, which goes into the, we send a part of the, of the cadence way. But he, you know, he, he's still walking his faith and that, you know, I keep in touch him as best I can, but it's, it's, it's interesting to see how the, you know, the,
00:18:51
Speaker
the people in the community become, you know, it's, it's not just, you know, this is, cause this is the thing, you a lot of times I think that a lot of people go in churches in America, they're like, that's the paid professional.
00:19:03
Speaker
You know, that's the pastor. He's the one that does the stuff or, or those are the elders. They're the one that our people get a vision for the fact that this is, this is about all of us together, that we're, we're all living this faith together. So from, from the guy that's, you know, sharing with his friends, inviting his friends to,
00:19:20
Speaker
um we right So we had a prayer night. we ah the The lighthouse here ah just celebrated its 30th anniversary as a building. 1994 is when it got completed being built.
00:19:32
Speaker
We had a night of prayer to rededicate the building. And at the end of the night, we're like, we're missing a whole bunch of people. Where'd they go? We found them downstairs in the basement praying together.
00:19:44
Speaker
And there were all these women, they were sharing and they were crying together and they were praying together and and just having this deep relationship. And they actually said, we need to be doing this more frequently. I mean, didn't have to come from me They were like, we we want this.
00:19:59
Speaker
And so they actually established a a regular. So one of ladies says, hey, I walk every morning. Who's going to join me and walk and pray? And so they walk and they pray. and they share and they do life together and they're growing in their faith. And then,
Sharing Life and Faith Beyond Church Roles
00:20:14
Speaker
uh, the ladies also established a, uh, uh,
00:20:16
Speaker
a quarterly, we're doing a quarterly women's prayer brunch and different women get to provide the breakfast, you know, different themed ones. We've had an Australian themed one. We've had a Filipino themed one.
00:20:28
Speaker
Next one up is going to be a Colombian food and having just, you know, they get to shine. They get to share some of their culture. They get to share that. And then we spend time praying together and maybe learning a little bit. We've had verse mapping and ah prayer journals. We've done some different tasks within it, but focused on prayer.
00:20:48
Speaker
ah love it. Love hearing these stories. um I have one more question as we kind of wrap up here. Duncan, you just kind of mentioned the idea of like, some sometimes people look at this and, oh, you're the professional ah hospitality. You're the professional missionaries or it If someone's listening to this podcast and they just they like to use their home for inviting neighbors over, friends over, they're not on military base, but they've they've got just this inkling to do hospitality.
00:21:17
Speaker
What are some tips you would give them for how then you shape and how you're a part of discipleship and transformation in in using your your home? Not as the professional, but just everyday people. do you have any tips for them how to do that?
00:21:33
Speaker
I would say that, you know, being authentic and not trying to just put on a i a show or not trying to have the house doesn't have to be spotless. The house doesn't have to be immaculate. You don't have to be dressed in your finest clothes and being curious about people, inviting your neighbor over and being curious. Like Duncan said, what's your faith background? Starting with some of those questions. What's your What's your family background? How you know how can we be plugged in together as neighbors, as church you know people that attend the same church?
00:22:03
Speaker
How can we do life together and not be about like, look at these amazing desserts I made or look at, you know, I ordered this fancy thing. It's not all about that.
00:22:13
Speaker
Those are delightful things to have as a part of it. But that is not what people are really yearning for. They will gladly eat a graham cracker out of the pantry if they feel heard by you.
00:22:26
Speaker
And that, you know, so the the idea of um hospitality in my mind is is seeing the stranger and making them not a stranger. You know, seeing the outsider and making them feel welcomed in in and part of the inside group. and And that to me is the...
00:22:46
Speaker
if you can just open your eyes to see, because most people, they, they get caught up, they get caught up in, in their, their friendship groups and their family and, and all these things. And, and so they don't notice these, these people that are on the outside.
00:23:01
Speaker
And so to open up your eyes and just see, you know ah You know, since COVID, I really believe that our world is more isolated than it ever was before. People have withdrawn back into their homes and into their, you know, into into the, you know, the the core of their, you know, their lives. And they're they're not venturing out. And I think people are feeling isolated and alone. And right now is a very easy time.
00:23:24
Speaker
to open up our eyes and see how these people feel on the outside and disconnected. And so, so to invite them in, mean, I, I, I, I go back to, know, the, the, the cadence tag tagline, the scripture that drives us, which is, you know, I was delighted to share not just the gospel, but my very life with you, you know, and that's Paul talking to Thessalonians, but this is us talking to everybody that walks through our door We want to share our life with you. We want to get to know you. We care about you. We love you.
00:23:55
Speaker
um And it's not hard to do that. We just have to be, as Susie said, curious um and compassionate. We have to we have to to to open our eyes and see and invite the stranger in.
00:24:07
Speaker
And then in the midst of that, to share the gospel, ah to to to talk about how the gospel relates to every single facet of someone's life. Because the good news of Jesus is just that it's good news that affects everything I do.
00:24:22
Speaker
Um, from where they, like, as Brad taught me is the way I handled my money to, as I was talking last night with a guy on our couch about, about his wife and, and, and how he was, you know, he, you know, he hurt her and how he was going to handle that.
Advice on Hospitality and Discipleship
00:24:37
Speaker
And like, you know, cause what's more, what's more part of the gospel than forgiveness of sin?
00:24:42
Speaker
You know, um, you know, it's, it's just all these things related. So to, to, To be back, you to be anywhere and just say, I'm going to use, I'm going to use my home. It doesn't have to be perfect. it doesn't have to be great. It doesn't you know doesn't have to be big. It doesn't have to be fancy because what really matters at the core of it is that sharing our lives together because that's what people really are responding to.
00:25:08
Speaker
That's great. That's a beautiful picture of it. We appreciate you guys just even painting the picture of what that looks like. um It's fun to see a full come full circle for you, Duncan.
00:25:19
Speaker
um The way the Elgin's poured into you and now you get to pour into others. And so we just love that you guys are are investing in shaping in other people's lives.
00:25:30
Speaker
um For any of you that are listening to this, and maybe it's your first time hearing about Cadence, if you want more information, you can go to cadence.org.
Resources and Contact Information
00:25:38
Speaker
If you got questions, you can email info at cadence.org.
00:25:42
Speaker
And we would love to answer any questions or get you connected with any ministry around world.