• 00:00 Intro
• 01:00 It’s just what you do
• 02:51 Motivated for the long-term
• 12:09 The sacrifices of long-term missions
• 19:39 Burnout on the field
• 30:26 Making the needed changes
• 35:35 A warning and advice
• 38:22 The lies we believe

It’s just what you do

My parents’ generation taught them to “Keep your head down. Be silent. Be faithful. It’s not about you. Have a very industrious work ethic.”

It wasn’t about the individual. It was about doing the right thing.

It’s just what you do. You do the right thing.

Motivated for the long-term

I’m motivated by my calling. God called me to go where there is no church. And doing that is what I find strength and joy in.

Jesus said, He who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for service in the kingdom. So just keep going.

It’s not about if this is “aligned with who I am.” Who I am is a child of God who follows Him and does what He wants. It’s not about me. In the current physiology, that’s a negative thing because people don’t have a strong root in their identity, so they really need to “find” that. Whereas the stronger you are in your identity in Christ, the more you can say, “What does God want me to do, and I’ll do that.” There are no other options. That’s who I am, therefore that’s what I do.

How do I keep going over the long haul? Because I know it’s what he’s called me to do, and I delight in doing what he wants. And I’m in him, and until he tells me to do something else, this is what I’m doing.

We don’t want to be doing something just because of momentum. We want to ask, Lord, what do you want us to do? We want our ears to be open to that.

For men, a career change is a frightening thing. Especially a married man. If you shift your career and it fails, what are you going to do? Become a janitor? That can lull you into doing the same thing until the bills are paid and the kids are out of college. How are you gonna get hired when you’re in your 50s and 60s? Those are the kinds of things that are in the back of men’s minds. They don’t necessarily say it, but that’s something that can skew their ability to listen to God and follow him.

What is realistic? How can I find a sense of peace and contentment in what I’m doing?

You have to find contentment. You’re going to have a lot of things in life that you don’t like. It’s not about whether you like it or not; you have to do them.

The sacrifices of long-term missions

God is sovereign, and he redeems the bad things that happen to us.

One of the sacrifices of long-term cross- cultural work is loneliness, especially for men.

I remember my kids saying to me, dad you need friends.

Was I intentional about building relationships that weren’t strictly contingent on worker ministry?

Sometimes we feel like if we’re just hanging out with friends it’s not “intentional,” it’s not “ministry.” 

Think about the things that really do impact your ministry, how you treat people, your connectedness to the Lord, loving him, and loving people.

You’re gonna have people in your life for a short period of time, so just go all in. Make the most of what you have.

Burnout on the field

Burnout is Chronic stress over time, from which you can’t recharge; your recovery time is not enough. Over time, you have a gradual depletion until it reaches burnout. You’ve crashed.

Over a two or three-year period, I found what I was doing was stewing on things, and that adds to the chronic stress. Because you’re stewing you don’t have a break you can stew on it 24/7.

You’re not taking it to the Lord in prayer. You’re not saying, look, this is an untenable position to stay in. You have to find equilibrium; life is up and down. It’s not about life balance. That’s not realistic.

I kept taking on more and more things, and at some point, I realized I was burning out.

One of the vicious cycles of burnout is that you take on things to compensate for the areas you’re failing in. It’s like a coping mechanism.

You take something new on to have a success in that to compensate for the failure in this other thing. But the reason why you’re failing is because you’re taking on too much. But then you take on more.

You get to a point where your judgment is wrecked.

People’s experience of you is dropping the ball, disappointment, not following through on your word, and it just piles up, and it becomes a monster.

It’s not just, oh, I’m tired because last week was tough, or I have this one thing that’s really nagging me. No, there’s a lot of stuff that’s been piling up over time.

My dad knew that was what needed to be done and that it was the best thing for the family. Whatever he was feeling was going to result in the family losing faith, being anxious, you can imagine.

You’re going to need to express your feelings more often if your identity isn’t grounded in Christ. Being solid in your identity in Christ can abate the need for having to get so much affirmation all the time about everything.

Our identity in Christ strengthens our resilience in the face of challenges. And as a byproduct, you don’t necessarily need to say everything you’re feeling if you’re not feeling that great, because you fall back on, who am I in Christ.

Making the needed changes

I was concerned about really losing it, being down for the count. This wasn’t just burnout, like I need to take a break, this is like, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to mentally recover. It’s that bad.

You can get a physical injury, and you limp for life; it was that kind of thing, mentally and emotionally. My capacity in energy level would be truncated. It would be shot. It’d be taken down, and I wouldn’t be able to recover.

When COVID hit, I was sitting in the backyard. Thanking God that I don’t have to do anything. I’m just watching the weeds grow. Literally watching the weeds grow. I’m not having the ability to think or think too much of anything.

For the next three summers of going back to my home country, I intentionally did a home assignment in a way that gave me margin during my week.

Every year, there was a progressive increase in my capacity to think better. But it took a solid three years to feel like I was back.

My knee-jerk reaction is to help, which is fine, but not when you’re burning out.

A warning and advice

If it’s a man, I scare them. I said look, dude, if you do this, you’re going to be out. You’re not gonna be able to be here doing what you want to do. It can damage your health to the point where your ram level is no longer 100% it’s like 70% and it stays like that for the rest of your life.

You need to think long and hard, are you gonna take this seriously and get healthy, or not?

If your spouse is burning out, you need to make sure you’re making choices that help them. You make the sacrifice, so your spouse can get what’s needed.

The lies we believe

Statistically, the stress level for cross-cultural workers is way higher than for the average person.

“The original 1967-1970 study found that if a person reached a level of 200 on the scale in a single year, the cumulative stress would have long-term implications. In fact, they discovered that fifty percent of individuals who reached this level were hospitalized within two years. The consequences included heart attacks, diabetes, cancer, and other serious illnesses. If a person reached a level of 300, they were almost sure to end up in the hospital. In 1999, Christian doctors Lois and Larry Dodds of Heartstream Resources began to study the levels of stress on the mission field using a modified version of the Holmes-Rahe Stress Scale. First-term missionaries were found to have scores peaking at a whopping 900, while veterans maintained 600-plus year after year. Remember, according to the research, people with a score above 200 were likely to have severe, long-term health problems within two years. The evidence clearly demonstrated that the “normalcy” of the missionary lifestyle is three times higher than the average “danger level” of stress.” – The Mind of a Missionary page 292

Spiritually, in the background, there’s the grace of God to enable us to do what we are called to do.

Things that are in our control are whether we are aware, whether we are trying to overcompensate for our feelings of failure or inadequacy, or whether we are not fulfilling our calling? And are we taking on other things to make us feel better about ourselves, without really being conscious of that?

Are we dealing with the cognitive dissonance of the underlying failure feeling because I’m not fulfilling my calling? Does that just sit in the back of your mind unconsciously and nag?

We have no idea the level of cortisol shooting through our bodies because of the level of stress we have on the field. And it’s not just the amount of stress, but it’s the inability to recover from that stress that is the problem.

If you’re really struggling and you feel like you’re burning out, you need to talk to somebody who has responsibility in your life who you will listen to, so you can make some changes to help you get better.

Whatever I’m anxious or worried about to make sure I’m taking that thing specifically to the Lord in prayer. Be really honest with God about what you’re stressed about and how you need help, what change you need, and bring that to the Lord.

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:00 Hearing about missions
• 07:55 Missions in the 1970s communism
• 15:00 When Communism fell
• 18:44 When prayers are answered
• 23:42 The lack of awareness today
• 32:04 Longevity on the field
• 38:24 Building resilienc
• 42:00 Confirming your calling

Hearing about missions

I’ll never forget George Verwer talking about the word “dichotomy,” how there is a dichotomy between what we say we believe and how we actually live it out. And then he challenged us all to go out and get involved in missions.

At the end of the summer of 1969, there were five of us left, and we went out one last time distributing Bibles. And we were arrested one time. That summer, I was arrested 11 times. And that last time we were given a five-year sentence in prison.

In our cell was a big, burly man we called “the bear” who, in a fit of rage, had killed five people with an ax. As we shared the Gospel with him, he wept for his sin. I’ll never forget him saying that in Islam, there is no forgiveness for sin; there is only the weighing of your good deeds against your bad deeds. He said, “I know going to hell. I have no hope.” As we shared the Gospel about Jesus dying for our sin, and that there is forgiveness before God, he wept for his sin.

Six months later, that city was struck by a massive earthquake, and that prison was flattened. I’ve never forgotten his tears and God’s sense of timing.

For ten years, I worked in Vienna building smuggling vehicles to smuggle Bibles behind the Iron Curtain.

Our team gave my wife and I a double sleeping bag as our wedding gift.

Missions in 1970 communism

It was all a very confrontational time between the West and the Communist countries.

We didn’t talk politics; we talked Jesus.

The evil one is out to destroy. And when you think of the communist countries, it was all about the Church, and the Bible was seen as enemy number two; number one would be America and the West.

The Bible and the Church; anything Christian was seen as the primary enemy.

It was illegal to educate a child under 18 years old about anything from the Bible or the Christian faith.

Christians learned to live a double life: the public life and their private life. There was no trust.

There were Christians and pastors who were prepared to live secretly and preach the Gospel secretly.

Most of the leaders of the Reformed Baptists had been in prison for eight to 20 years. Many of the leaders would live in total secrecy. They had no public identity at all and would live in hiding their whole life so they could lead their church.

Sunday school material was illegal.

When Communism Fell

When governments began to loosen up, we went out with our teams and began preaching the Gospel openly on the streets.

We had done a lot of work in Romania. We said, “Now there is openness. We are going to go out and take Bibles openly and preach the Gospel.” So we sent team after team there.

As I look back on that, I didn’t realize what I was sending people into at the time.

We always said, “When is it time to preach the Gospel?” It’s time to preach the Gospel when things are breaking open. You need to strike while the iron is hot.

When prayers are answered

We had been praying for what all that God would do over all those years. We were fasting and praying regularly for the believers in Eastern Europe. When everything broke open, we said, Ok, are going to trust the Lord?

It was an amazing time. It was a book of Acts time.

It’s a time when you have to watch what the Holy Spirit is doing and be prepared to get involved, even when it means some danger.

From 1983 to 1989, we were smuggling 40 to 60 thousand Bibles at one time.

We wanted to see the Lord moving.

God was moving. God was giving us opportunities that were just mind-boggling. When everything broke open, we needed to be prepared to move.

1989 was the first Love Europe campaign. We bought five old buses for next to nothing and sent teams all over Eastern Europe. It was a book of Acts time.

Albania had been declared a fully atheist country.

We were out distributing Bibles, and people were flocking in to get them.

The Lack of Awareness Today

There is so little awareness of what God is doing around the world. There is such self-centeredness in the church.

What we are doing in our mission organizations around the world is super, but I don’t understand why there isn’t a bigger impact on the church.

It’s our responsibility to share with our churches back home what God is doing around the world. What God is doing in China, Iran, or North Africa. We need to know that and be prepared to get involved to send our young people to get involved in what God is doing around the world.

There is too much superficiality in the church today. There is a huge need for discipleship, which takes people beneath the surface and looks at what God is doing around the world.

We need to be reminded that we are not living in a nice, comfortable world where everything is going great. We are living in a war.

The fall of the communist governments did not mean that Satan is not vanquished.   

Some of those very churches we used to smuggle Bibles into are now becoming complacent.

We have very little understanding of what God is doing around the world, and no sense of responsibility.

The church in the West is consumed with pragmatism. Pragmatism says that the value of a thing is seen in its results. It’s a results-oriented approach to see what God is doing.

The problem with long-term commitment is pragmatism, which measures everything by its results. Well, if there are no results, what’s the value of it?

We were smuggling Bibles for 25 years and never had the opportunity to share the Gospel except for the few times when we were arrested.

You have to look at what God is doing in the long-term. You can’t be preoccupied with the immediate issue at hand. You have to be faithful to what God is doing in the long-term.

You have to be prepared to get involved where it’s taught.

**Polycarp was the pastor of Smyrna, not Ephesus

St Ignatius’ advice to Polycarp in 110 AD

“Focus on unity, for there is nothing better. Bear with all people, even as the Lord bears with you; endure all in love, just as you now do. Devote yourselves to unceasing prayers; ask for greater understanding than you have. Keep alert with an unresting spirit. Speak to the people individually, in accordance with God’s example. Bear the diseases of all, as a perfect athlete. Where there is more work, there is much gain. If you love good disciples, it is no credit to you; rather with gentleness bring the more troublesome ones into submission. Not every wound is healed by the same treatment…the time needs you (as pilots need winds and as a storms-tossed sailor needs a harbor) in order to reach God. Be sober, as God’s athlete; the praise is incorruptibility and eternal life.”

**The Great Persecution from 249-251, under Emperor Decius, created the Lapsarian Controversy over whether or not followers of Jesus who denied their faith in order to preserve their lives should be welcomed back into full fellowship with the church.

The problem with friendship evangelism is, when do you actually share the Gospel? You spend all your time building relationships, but you never actually get to the point of sharing the Gospel.

What we need is people who are willing to suffer for the Gospel.

Longevity on the field

To stay long-term in the field, you need perseverance and endurance.

We need to learn how to persevere through the tough times. I went through depression. I went through burnout. I went through a major division in our mission team. I went through all kinds of problems with our children. One of our adopted girls was selling herself out of the back of a car in Germany. What takes you through to perseverance in those times? You need to know your calling, and you need to know you are in a battle.

The call to a particular ministry might end, but not God’s call on my life to minister.

Over the years, you need to learn how to increasingly move back into your primary calling.

There is little follow-through to help leaders know what to do next after they no longer have their leadership positions.

Sometimes, once leaders lose their position, they feel like they have been abandoned.

Building resilience

The key to resilience is having the attitude of a growing, developing person.

One problem we face in missions is that we can squeeze our people dry like a sponge.

You have to have a long-term attitude.  Who do I want to be in five years? What do I want to do in ten years’ time? How do I need to develop? Develop myself. Develop my giftings. Develop my calling.

If you believe God has called you to long-term missions, you need to develop your gifts and calling.

You need to ask, How is God moving me? And if you’re married, you also need to ask, “How is God moving my wife?”

Confirming your calling

In my church in the West, there is no sense of the need.

Part of knowing your calling is knowing how God has gifted you.

Calling also means confirmation from your leaders and the people around you. People see that your calling is being confirmed.

There were some people whom we felt God was calling them to leave. But there were far more people left who we felt could have had a valuable ministry.

I would appeal to them and say, “This is not the time to leave. This is the time to move and get involved.”

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:00 Called by the need
• 05:55 Learning to evangelize
• 12:00 Language and evangelism
• 20:05 How to gauge success
• 24:00 How things are changing
• 34:16 The Nine Studies

Called by the need

There was this one statistic that caught our attention the most: how many inhabitants there are per Christian worker. Normally, there were five to 10 thousand people per Christian worker, until we came to the Arab world, and the ratio was 1 million to one. So that was our decision.

There were very few Muslims Background Believers around, so we all tried our best to share the Good News. Frustration was rare, very, very, very rare.

We tried to share our lives as radically as we could with those we wanted to reach. Which meant that we would live as simply as possible to be on the same living standard. Through that, we were able to build very deep trusting relationships. But still, by and large, openness towards the Gospel was far, far lower than today.

Arabs are very polite; they may think a lot of things, but don’t tell you right away.

Learning to evangelize

For poor people, where things hinge on whether you make it through the next day or not, there is zero patience with young believers for theories.

It was challenging, but challenging in a very good way.

One thing that unnerved me as we tried to share the Gospel in the beginning was to see that there were people who were very willing and open to listen to me, and they couldn’t understand what I was trying to say, even though my Arabic wasn’t that bad. They couldn’t understand the concepts I was trying to get across.

As you try to share the Gospel with people who are radically different from you in culture and lifestyle, step by step, you get stripped of the cultural additions that you carry with you from your church background until you only have the Gospel left over.

About 80% of what I thought I needed to be communicated had to go.

We had a rule on our team; we were forbidden to read books about Islam and instead had to go out and ask Muslims questions. We had dozens and dozens of questions that we would go around and ask Muslims.

What does it help me if I am a specialist in the Quran and official Islam, if my neighbors have maybe 10% of my knowledge about the Quran and actually follow totally different principles and rules, and are more concerned about the evil eye and the latest blessing or cures put upon them?

Language and evangelism

When you come into a new culture, you should just assume that what is going on is neutral and not evil. You can judge later, but not in the beginning.

We do very well listening and observing carefully and sharing the Good News in a way that speaks to the heart of the people in their way of thinking and in their culture.

In the West, if you want to be respectable and convincing, you need to be intellectual and calm; this is the exact opposite for Arab Muslims.

There was quite a percentage of people who never made it to a level where they could touch Arabs on a deep heart level, language wise. Which limits you very greatly. Today, I sense that the focus on language is actually dropping big time.

Sometimes the most unlikely people have a big, big impact.

How to gauge success

First, I have to admit that the lack of fruit was, on several levels, emotionally a major challenge.

We often would say our biggest emotional enemy is discouragement. It was not easy, I have to admit.

I would take every little  step that someone took towards Christ or every little baby step in discipleship as success, no matter how small it was.

Generally speaking, I think about fruit in three deletions The width is the number of those who come to faith. The depth is the depth of changed lives; the fruit of the Holy Spirit. I don’t count biblical knowledge, but I count changed lives. The length would be how long the whole thing lasts. I don’t know how it is today, but in our days, 80% of believers returned to Islam.

These kinds of stories of changed lives bring me to tears.

How things are changing

Because there are increasing numbers of Arab Muslims coming to the Lord, our role changes and our focus changes. I will never say let’s stop evangelizing, but the role of discipleship and healthy discipleship becomes really important.

Sometimes I feel like we have a little bit of a lack of respect for the Arabs around us. But now, with an increasing number of MBBs, I think we cannot just continue to work in the way we used to. The focus has to be to encourage, to empower, and to support Muslim Background Believers to go forward and share the Good News and start churches.

MBBs have to deal with massive issues in discipleship, spiritually speaking, but so do we, by the way.

There is the deep-seated mentality of, “Oh, they are not there yet, let’s keep them low. Let’s not encourage them to do anything or to take responsibility, essentially not leadership.”

I consider myself far beyond average when it comes to language and culture understanding, and Islam, and I still think that a well-equipped MBB will be 100% more fruitful than I will ever be.

He said to me, “Do you know what, I am a believer since the end of the 80s and I’ve met dozens and hundreds of foreign missionaries, you are the first one who actually trusts and respects me.”

I have been terribly disappointed, but that can never stop us from giving trust and respect to MBBs.

Distrust is almost like an atmosphere, like a blanket over the region, and there are reasons for it, but it kills discipleship.

Trust is contagious. If I trust and show trust, it changes the person in front of me already. We want to openly talk about it openly with MBBs, how destructive distrust is. And you can’t make someone else trustworthy, but you can yourself be trustworthy.

It’s important not to gossip, but I it’s also important to never listen to gossip.

The Nine Studies

I got a hold of a book called “From Creation to Christ.” It explained that instead of trying to give your Gospel presentation like you’re used to doing, why don’t you do it the way the Bible does it; start at the very beginning and go to the end.

There are so many things missing in for the Muslims, that if we don’t build carefully step by step then they will miss out.

I liked the book, but 50 studies were way too many. I thought maybe three or four studies would work, I ended up pushing it to nine studies. I chose stories that are in part already known to Muslims so that we start on common ground.

We can’t really share the Good News about Jesus Christ without laying the foundation of the Old Testament. It was a great tool in our hands to help us share the Gospel in a way that makes sense for Muslims.