Interrupting my flurry of thoughts, Dave taps me on the shoulder and pulls a chair up across from me, “Do you have a moment? I wanna’ talk to you” he asks.
“Yah, of course,” I reply, not nervous, but not sure what this is about, I’ve never really talked to Dave before, one on one. My full attention is given to Dave, because he likes his intensity to be matched. Beyond that, I’m always eager to glean any amount of wisdom he has to share, so I listen closely. Sitting firmly across from me with his elbows on his knees, the 8th degree black belt sets the tone with his concentrated stare.
He says—“Level with me. I know that you know the Gospel, but can you bring it?”
The answer is automatic, “Yes”
“I mean can you really bring it?”
Again, “Yes”
“Can you bring it in front of a hundred people?”
My confidence grows, “Yes”
“Can you bring it in front of a thousand people? Thousands of people if need be?”
In my head the difference between a thousand and a hundred people seems very small, “Yes”
“Then you’re my man!” The back and forth ends with his confidence expanding before I can really think about what he’s actually talking about, but then he begins again, “Two weeks from now on the 19th we’re going to be putting on a whole production. We’re going to do dances, skits, testimonies, and then afterwards we’re going to have one of the top dance crews in the nation perform after us…This event could draw thousands, but I need someone who can bring the Gospel. I need someone who can bring it, and isn’t afraid to get personal with the people.”
Excitement began to flow into my veins, as well as a gratitude for the opportunity.
“I’m not going to be there—I’m going to be in Guatemala,” an easily stated and remembered fact that Dave reminds me, “but son, have you had any experience with fasting?”
“Yes”
“How much?”
“I’m fasting today”
“Good, I want you to really pray and fast before the 19th. Ask the Lord what He wants you to say, because this is one of the best ministry opportunities I’ve seen in 27 years—The impact of this thing could be huge!“
Dave leaves the conversation, and the next day he leaves the country.
Our whole squad waffles, skipping many beats, because getting excited about ministry can be hard after being in a rest bereft environment for so long. Dave took some of the pressure off, and he knew how to lead us well. Still, our squad is tired, and we needed some wind in our sails. Trying his best, Dave moved to rejuvenate our spirits, but we had to choose to work for God ourselves.
Up until this point, our squad’s ministry had been to enter the schools, talk to 20-40 kids/young adults, for about 20-40 minutes, play games with them, and then move onto the next classroom. Most of our squad had been doing this kind of ministry for a while by now, including my team, Stay Salty, which had been speaking with students in schools since Zimbabwe. Our past experiences in schools were wrongly informing our present situation, and I think our squad began to work less from passion and compassion and began to adopt a more mechanical operation towards the Filipino individuals. This was dangerous.
Lukewarm missionaries might be more devastating to the Kingdom of Heaven than lukewarm Christians.
Dave and Pastor Oscar, the leaders of this ministry, recognized our lack of enthusiasm early on, and told us to preach the gospel with boldness. “These people want to hear the Gospel from you! They know that you’re missionaries, and they expect you to tell them about Jesus!”
Later that day, Jack and I visited 7 classrooms, and we told them that Christ was the only true life you can have before or after the grave. Pastor Oscar affirmed me in my preaching, and said it was impactful to the Filipino students. However, Dave addressed our squad again, saying,
“If I were a doctor and you came to a convention to hear me speak about my breakthrough research in biology, and I stood up and gave a speech about ‘tic tac toe’ what would you think if you were a biologist in my field that came to hear me speak about my expertise?” Silence followed. “You’d wonder why I wasn’t talking about Biology! Give these people the gospel! It may be weird to come straight out with the Gospel, but that’s what these people want and expect.”
From that point on every classroom I entered I made sure that someone preached on God’s Love, Our Sin, Jesus’s rescue mission to mankind, and the fact that they had to choose to accept Christ as Lord and Savior to be saved.
Personally, I might be able to talk to 140 kids by moving from class to class in one day, so I made it an imperative priority to tell them the Gospel! 140 people hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ on a good day! I’d take that. Not to mention that if my whole squad were doing this we might be able to reach far more. No where else was I able to go into classrooms, and preach the gospel outright, with such boldness, and no where else was the structure of our ministry so well developed that we could personally address so many.
Eventually, after many personal battles and squad mates leaving, we found our passion, together, the squad unified, and we decided to pick up our heads.
A committee labeled the “Discernment Team” was given the task of praying about what the night of the 19th would look like, who would speak, and any other details that needed to be added or amended to the program. These individuals asked God about His will concerning every part of the program, and that included the salvation message I planned to give. Even though Dave asked me to speak, the discernment team wanted to hear if I should be given privilege of speaking. All in all, it was a humbling experience to come under the authority of my peers, especially since I felt the opportunity had already been given to me. It rubbed me the wrong way, but that was my pride coming out. If the duty fell to someone else I was afraid they wouldn’t be able to deliver what these people needed, and when I looked in the mirror I began to see my perfectionistic tendencies spilling over into ministry. Ultimately, I needed to trust God with whatever was going to happen.
Offering opportunity up to the Lord, I let go.
A week before the 19th I had an opportunity to preach to the local congregation at Moriah Baptist Bible Church, and God used me to speak about His sufficiency. Soon after this, the Discernment Team were excited to share with me that they wanted me to the end of the night of the 19th by presenting a salvation message and leading an altar call.
After hearing this news, I was excited, and I spent time reading, praying, fasting, and looking up other sermons to give me a good background on how to present the Gospel well. However, the words weren’t coming to me. Hours painstakingly passed by, but progress was minimal. Verses and outlines came together, but they seemed awkward and contrived. What was this?
Last Sunday I gave a pretty comprehensive talk on the sufficiency of Christ over anything this world could offer, but when I sat down to write a simple salvation presentation nothing came to me.
Eventually, I slowed down, and listened to what God was saying. Agendas for preaching and presenting were swept aside, and I began to realize the neglected relationship between myself and God was a glaring sore spot in my life. That day’s progress was blocked, because God wanted me to have relationship with Him. I wanted an end product, but God wanted my heart, He wanted more of me, He asked me about my intentions, about things in the past, and He began to chip away at things that I had let roam to far into my life. Conviction grew. Later that day, another team was listening to a podcast, and the topic was being a servant of God. The speaker posited the question, “Are you okay being a servant of God? Because that’s about as high as any human can go.” Tenderly, God was showing me that, even though I’m out here doing this missionary thing, I was still acting out of my flesh. My whole life was comprised of climbing ladders of performance in school, work, art, music, and many more, but now it seemed I was climbing the Christian ladder, making it as far as a missionary speaker/pastor could. However, I was serving my own gains, and I was calling the shots, using God when necessary for my own means. I wasn’t following Jesus, we were going the same way, so I walked with Him until His mission conflicted with mine.
Being my own god wasn’t working out for me. God had to be God, and I had to be His servant. I stopped striving so much, and I trusted the Holy Spirit to give me words.
On the Friday before the big production at the plaza, we visit a school and do a dress rehearsal in front of hundreds of kids. The day grows long and fatigue catches up with me in the heat. Unable to do much else, I motion to take a nap, and wake up with very little time before we head to another school. Emotionally drained, I wasn’t fully there, and zombie-like, my team and I enter into the classroom. High school girls scream as Jack & I enter the room, but that is part of the routine now. We play games, and finally Jack asks his team if anyone that wants to share the Gospel. Inside the Spirit leaped, and waged war against my drowsy body.—Not knowing entirely where I was going with this, I began.
Classroom in the Philippines.
It felt like all my training before the race. That first step you take when starting to run or that jump headlong into the pool when you begin to swim: heavy, difficult, cold—uncomfortable. Adopting Nike’s slogan, I “Just Do It”, because I know that there’s something better on the other side of the discomfort and pain.
Shaky, I begin, but then pin drop silence follows. An Attentive audience is captivated by the Word being spoken. Unraveling before them was the gift of the Gospel. Some don’t care, but some do care. They see their need for Christ, and I tell them how they can begin: “If anyone would like to have a relationship with the God who sees you, knows you, cares about you, and has a plan for you—if you would like to know the kind of love that lasts through pain and suffering, and was proven by the cross on calvary—please pray this prayer with me, and submit your life to God”
It was quiet, and I hear myself praying to God. Every word is being listened to and repeated quietly. Most are saying nothing, but there are hushed mutterings from the sides of the classroom. We come to the end, and my team wraps up our time with some information about our ministry and an invitation to come to us with questions or to spend time with us at our ministry’s church.
All of us go back to our ministry site, and later that day, Carla comes up to me. Carla is one of the girls from that class I spoke in, but she’s also involved with the youth at our church. She thanks me for speaking, and proceeds to tell me that more than one of her classmates accepted Jesus Christ as their savior for the first time that day. Altogether, I’m left stunned. Drowsy, incoherent, weak Stephen, who didn’t have it together that day led people to the Lord!?
Later that day we pray over a woman and she’s healed, and I can’t help but feel that God is showing off. It doesn’t rely on me at all. God’s Spirit is doing all the work, and I’m just sitting back and enjoying the ride.
Filipino Cultural Dance at the plaza. March 19
24 hours later, the day of the show is here, and we hope that it goes well. We’ve advertised, told people, practiced, prepared, prayed, fasted, and the production begins at 6pm. Skits and dances start our night off, and then we move into personal testimonies. Throughout the night I think about 6 different people pray for me and the word I’m going to preach. There’s a little bit of nervous energy, but I get up there, I give a little of my heart, a lot of God’s heart, and I hope it goes well. This is what we’ve been praying and fasting about for the last two weeks, so I’m confident that God’s Word will return to Him with a full harvest. Talking into the sound system, I lead a sinner’s prayer, and I see people pray it in the crowd. Afterwards, Pastor Oscar leads an altar call, and about 30 people rush to the front. There are more out there though.
God’s Word was preached.
God moved.
God did it.
His word did not return to Him empty, and it didn’t depend on me.
Salvation Message March 19, Bulacan, Bulakan Plaza.
