Preparing missionaries for the rigors of foreign missions service is an important and often neglected task. The sending and support role of the local church is, after all, bigger than financing the mission. In today’s program, Bro. Matthew Stahlman tells us about his efforts to help the church do a better job at preparing men for foreign missions service through the Beyond Borders Missionary Training Camp. Additionally, we talk about the homeschool curriculum that he’s recently launched to inform another generation of young people about the historical, geographical, and religious layout of the world that Christ has called the church to evangelize. Bro. Stahlman is really passionate about the Great Commission and he’s fervently and thoughtfully doing what he can to help churches and families do their part to obey our Lord’s parting command. Beyond Borders - bbmissions.org Impact Geography - impactgeo.org Your feedback is welcome. You can email Bro. Lee at greatcommissionconversations.com. 

My guest today is Bro. Matt Stahlman. I’ve looked forward to talking with Bro. Stahlman about some of the resources he’s been developing in the realm of missionary preparedness and global missions awareness. But in this first segment, Bro. Stahlman relates the background out of which these resources have been birthed, both from his personal experience and from twenty years of missions thinking and observation. Bro. Stahlman’s transparency about his family’s experience in foreign missions deployment afforded us an opportunity to address some territory that hasn’t been previously addressed on the podcast. I think it was both interesting and helpful. Your feedback is welcome. You can contact Bro. Lee by email at [email protected]. 

Today, Bro. Thomas Irvin and I pick up where we left off in the first installment of our conversation concerning his family’s first year on the field of Uganda. I ask Bro. Irvin about some of the day-to-day challenges that commonly put a strain on newly transplanted cross-cultural workers, but we also talk about the weightier considerations of functioning in a very different political and governmental environment than what we’re accustomed to as Americans. We finish the conversation discussing how the ministry has taken shape in this first year and what is on the horizon for his labors among the Ugandan people. Your feedback is welcome. You can contact Bro. Lee at [email protected]. You can find Thomas Irvin's podcasts and prayer letters at plenteousredemption.com. 

Transitioning to a foreign mission field is a big deal for any family. That first year is especially critical with so many dramatic adjustments being made. On the program today to talk about the first year on the foreign field is my dear friend, Thomas Irvin. Bro. Irvin was one of my first guests for the podcast, a program in which we tackled the subject of deputation. Since that time Bro. Irvin had deployed to Uganda in East Africa, and he’s recently reached the one-year milestone in this new field of service. This is the first part of a two-part interview on The First Year, with Missionary Thomas Irvin.  Your feedback is welcome. You can contact Bro. Lee at [email protected].

On today’s program we pick up exactly where we left off last time recounting how the Lord’s dealing with Cody concerning African missions dove-tailed with the Lord’s work in my own life forming a missionary partnership for the country of Zimbabwe. I hope the program is a blessing to you. This is part two of a two-part interview with Cody Rich on our Missionary Partnership to Zimbabwe. Your feedback is welcome. You may email Bro. Lee at [email protected].

Our family made our entry into Zimbabwe at the end of March this year, and we were accompanied by the Cody Rich family, also from our home church back in Tennessee. I’ve referenced Bro. Cody a few times in describing my call and deployment to this land because our stories have been providentially intertwined over the past few years in relation to African missions. Bro. Cody and his family spent twelve weeks with us here in Mutare, Zimbabwe before returning to the states to commence their deputation travels in view of returning to Zimbabwe to labor along side us. Before Cody and his family headed back to the states we took some time to talk over how the Lord put missions in his heart as a young man and how Cody’s heart for missions intersected with mine at Cornerstone Baptist Church. This conversation is a more personal, less formal interview than usual. I hope you will rejoice with us and pray for us as we rehearse what the Lord has done and is doing to get the gospel here to Zimbabwe. This is the first segment of a two-part interview with Cody Rich on our Missionary Partnership to Zimbabwe.  Your feedback is welcome. You can reach Bro. Lee by email at [email protected].

My guest today is Pastor Adam Summers of Faith Baptist Church in Chelsea, Michigan. Pastor Summers leads a church that is involved in many of the staple efforts that we would expect to find at any missions-minded church: local outreach efforts, an annual missions conference, a concerted program of missions giving, etc. But he's also leading Faith to get involved in some more creative, less common ways that helps the entire church family to personally and intentionally own the responsibility of getting the gospel to the world.  Your feedback is welcome. You can email Bro. Lee at [email protected]. 

There are a multitude of useful evangelistic methods at the disposal of the foreign missionary. Some are perhaps more effective in certain places than others. When we go back to the practice of Christ and the apostles we find the bold, straightforward public proclamation of the gospel message in whatever venue might have been available. While there are some places where this is outlawed or impractical, there are many other places where it still works… if we will just try it. My guest today is Bro. Dana Vogelpohl. Bro. Vogelpohl has served in the country of Scotland for the past ten years or so, and for the length of that time he’s taken up this simple apostolic method of public preaching in the High Streets of Glasgow. In our conversation today we discuss conversion and call to foreign missions, he recollects a trial that his family endured while on deputation, and we discuss his mission efforts in post-Christian Scotland with special emphasis on street preaching. Your feedback is welcome. You can email Bro. Lee at [email protected].

We all know that prayer is a critical part of world missions. The command of Christ to His disciples was that they pray the Lord of the Harvest that he might send forth laborers into His harvest. That text in Matthew 9 and the subsequent selection of the apostles in Matthew 10 sets forth a pattern that has been repeated time and again over the history of the church. My guest today is a man that has taken prayer for missions seriously for a long time and now His prayers to the Lord of the harvest has resulted in his call to the foreign mission field. Bro. Tony (we’re withholding his last name for security reasons), pastored in the midwest for the last eighteen years before being called of God to take the gospel to the Middle East. Bro. Tony relates his call to foreign mission, including the important part that prayer played, and then he and I discuss Biblical principles of missions and prayer and some of the instances where these principles have played out over missions history.

Today, I continue my conversation with Bro. C, who has labored in a majority-Muslim country in southeast Asia for the last seven years. In my estimation, he’s not only a good missionary, he’s one of the most consecrated Christians I’ve had the privilege of knowing. In today’s conversation, Bro. C. helps us to count the cost of missionary preparation and then proceeds to answer some questions about some of the adversity that his family has known since deploying in foreign missions service. But stay tuned to the end, because he tells the story of a man he calls Paul, a beautiful story of what missions is all about. We conclude the conversations with Bro. C’s vision for his work going forward. Your feedback is welcome. You can email Bro. Lee at [email protected].