This message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. At the end, we will give information about how to contact us to receive a copy of this or other messages. Alright, well let's go ahead and start. What is your favorite baseball team? No. Yeah, I'm glad that's not true, so let's... Okay, all right. Can't blame me for trying. All right, so what are some of the unique trials or cultural barriers that Zambians face in evangelizing and sharing the gospel? Yeah, I think the best way to describe it would be that Zambians generally are very interactive. It's, as opposed to a large extent, the way it is with you here in the USA, that you can strike up a conversation with a stranger and they don't feel as if you are invading their privacy. And talking about religion is also just like talking about the weather. And consequently, they don't feel as if you're about to trap them when you begin to speak about salvation, about the Bible, about heaven, and so on. And then also, we come from a background where the reality of God is not questioned. So you don't need to try and convince anybody that God exists. That's a taken. Rather, you are trying to show that their basis of acceptance of God is wrong. and trying to challenge that. So in terms of challenges, it's not so much the issue of trying to talk to people. It's more the fruit of that talking to people. That when you begin to show them that the basis that they have for trusting in their well-being in eternity is wrong, then you begin to cross paths with them, the doors begin to shut. But even when I say that, It doesn't normally mean animosity. It simply means, look, clearly that's what your church believes, but where I go, this is what we are taught. I think that would be the main issue. So we live in a day of opportunity back home for which we definitely are very grateful. The only other addition that I would make is that The age factor matters a lot in our culture. So if you're a young person, evangelizing an older individual would be a lot more difficult. especially if you're going, because in evangelism, you are really teaching. You are saying to a person, this is what the Bible says, consequently, this is what you ought to believe. This is what the Bible says, therefore, if you believe this, it's wrong. An older person with a 10 year gap, for instance, will feel as if you're looking down on them, and that's just a cultural thing. Attitude. So we tend to, when evangelizing, we tend to know, okay, that's the age bracket there, therefore these would be the right people to do that work. But if it's older people going to young people, that's very different. They are quite willing to listen and to be corrected. Very good. Okay, this question says, besides congregating for sermons, are your people burdened to pray for events in the world? And there's two other related questions. Are any persecuted for faith in your area and what are the greatest needs of your people? So are your people burdened to pray for events in the world and then persecution and greatest needs? All right, with respect to the wider world and what is happening there, we are at the mercy of the media and the information they are beaming over to us. And consequently, most of what we hear is the Middle East crisis. That's what we mostly hear. And consequently, when we are praying in church for what's happening in the outside world, we're primarily praying for the persecuted church, especially in the Middle East. It's fairly rare. to hear actual prayers for, say, Australia, Canada. We don't pray for Canada either. Yeah, so it's what the world screams about through the media, and I suppose it's the same here. There's a way in which the media pipes information about Africa that would almost make everyone think that, for instance, that the Ebola crisis had spread right across Africa, when in actual fact it was in a little corner somewhere, and consequently we were also praying for that little corner as much as you may have been doing. In terms of persecution of our own people, most of it is related to the conversions that take place in families. In other words, a lot of Zambians, at least 80% would consider themselves to be Christians, although most of them would not be. And consequently, they belong to a family church. And when a young person in that family turns to Christ and then begins attending, for instance, our own church, it's a little like the way it is with Islam when someone abandons Islam to Christianity. And consequently, there tends to be a lot of pressure on the young people to come back to the family church. Thankfully, it doesn't last long, and also, it's rarely physical. It's more emotional, psychological, and in due season, when they see the fruit that is being born by the individual who has professed faith, they tend to relax because they can see that the person is clearly becoming better rather than getting worse. I think the other would be more in workplaces when ethically Christians refuse to do what is wrong. especially in terms of cooking up figures and so forth, in obedience to the supervisors. So it's at that level that they tend to suffer quite a bit. But again, once they've braved the storm, in due season, people realize, look, this guy won't do it, forget it. And therefore, the situation becomes better. And then what are the greatest needs of your people? In our own church, we largely have young professionals who are just getting married, raising young families. The level of employment is fairly high, and so it's more the, I guess, the Western mindset that is beamed, especially through the television screen, that seems to suggest to them that if they can only have more and more of the world's wealth, then they will be more fulfilled and so forth. that tends to be a dangling carrot that takes them. running for years and in the end just losing out on the opportunities that are there for them to do much more for the Lord and for the wider kingdom work. I think that to me would be the major issue with respect to our own people. Most of them are first generation Christians. and consequently don't have a background that would enable them to know, for instance, how husband and wife ought to be relating to each other, because they never saw it in their parents, at least in terms of the biblical way. Or simply how to raise kids, they never saw it in their parents. So if you were to really pray for them, it's also in that respect that they may, at least the current generation, because we're now having children who are seeing and therefore having role models. But the current generation that the Lord will enable them to do things right so that the next generation then has the example to build upon. Very good. Okay, this question asks, when we face trials and struggles, do we still have the light or are we liars and the truth is not in us? Just say the first part again. When we face trials and struggles, do we still have the light or are we liars and the truth is not in us? Well, that now is related to the subject that I handled. First of all, the Apostle Paul makes it clear that whoever seeks to live a godly life will be persecuted. It doesn't say might be. it will be persecuted. There is inevitable suffering that's going to come to anyone who seeks to walk in the ways of God. The Lord Jesus Christ at the end of his, the Beatitudes, also speaks in similar terms, that blessed are you when you are persecuted for righteousness sake. And even James in his very first chapter, I'll just quickly quote this one, clearly makes the point that we ought to welcome trials that come our way as believers. And it's not because God is opposed to us or that we are living in darkness, it is because God sends them to make us stronger in our faith. He says, count it all joy, my brothers, in verse two of chapter one, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. And then in verse 12 he says, blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him. So really the teaching of the Bible is the exact opposite. In fact, Jesus says, woe to you if all men speak well of you. because that's what they were doing to the false prophets. So really, trials do not suggest that your walk with God has gone wrong. It might, in fact, be suggesting that your walk with God is something that is pleasing to him. And with many other examples in the Bible, I mean the example of Job, for instance, God even boasts about him, saying there's no one I have on earth like him. And yet, I'm pretty sure all of us would not want to go through what Job went through. So, there you are. What about struggles with sin? Is struggling with sin a sign that you're not walking in the light? Again, I dealt with that in the last message because it's something that as Christians we need to hold in a healthy tension. On one hand, the fact that God does not want us to sin. He wants us to grow in Christ-likeness. He wants us to be holy and godly in all we do. But at the same time, and I need to emphasize that, at the same time is the fact that the work of sanctification is an ongoing work. No one has arrived. And the more you grow in godliness, the more conscious you are of sins that never bothered you so many years ago when you began your Christian life. you will be struggling with those issues at any one point in your life, and that does not mean that you are in rebellion against God, or you are not in a relationship with God. All it means is that the Lord, by His Spirit, has now shown his torch in that corner of your life and wants to mold you after his image in that area. And so he's showing the cobwebs there so that you can begin dealing with those issues. What are some key perspectives in reaching Muslims with the gospel? Yeah, with respect to Islam, we probably are in the same bracket because there are very few Muslims in Zambia compared to professing Christians. It's a growing number, but most of them would have been Asians. And because Asians tend to live a secluded life from everybody else, the Islam hadn't crossed over to a large extent into the non-Asian population. However, in the more recent past, there's been a greater deliberate effort to reach out to the non-Asian population, especially through schools. through medical facilities, and generally the approach is if you are a Muslim, it's free. If you are not, you pay. And of course, people are poor, so they convert outwardly to Islam so they can benefit from the free services. So in that sense, Almost everyone I meet when I'm just doing normal evangelism in the neighborhood. My greatest challenge with them is not here's a Muslim, what do I do with him? My greatest challenge is here's somebody who thinks he's a Christian, but he's not. How can I convince them that they are not Christians? So my knowledge of evangelizing Muslims is that is from reading, and I suppose most of you, that's exactly the same, rather than the fact that I have handled them so often that I've now developed some experience in seeking to evangelize them. And generally, therefore, if I could just give you a one word answer, rather a one or two sentence answer to that question that seems to obviously be available even to you the moment you begin reading is the fact of the genuineness of our faith. the sharing of who Christ is and what he has done in bringing me into a relationship with God. Now, the moment I speak like that, I'm opening a Pandora's box because that's not Islam. And consequently, questions begin. And it is in now simply answering those questions that I'm constantly pointing to Christ. I find that the few times I have had an opportunity to witness or evangelize, that's been the way doors have opened, rather than me immediately making a target of either the Koran or whatever is particularly Islamic. So how would serving look for a young family? I'm assuming serving in a church is probably the context of the question. Well, back home, our church has a lot of ministries. I can speak in terms of children's ministry, which is varied into about three sections. We run a school. We also run Bible clubs, about 10 of them in different parts of the city. We also have a vocational Bible school so that every holiday, For an entire week, we invite children from everywhere. And then we have youth ministry, which is also divided into three groups. There's the younger, the middle, and the older. And they don't just have meetings, but we have adopted a park in the neighborhood where on Saturdays they then evangelize at the park itself. And then we also run camps for each of these three categories. In fact, two camps, one in April and the other one in June. in December, and then for our senior youth, we run a conference in July. Then we have outreach in the AIDS world through what we call a hope ministry. Then we run a public library, we run a bookshop, we run a publishing ministry which also produces the magazine he was referring to. We run a marriage enrichment ministry which runs a Facebook page with about, I think now it should be 13,000 people on it. We also do seminars regularly and so forth. So there's so much in terms of avenue for our people to save the Lord. On Sundays, for instance, we try to encourage our members, it's almost abnormal not to come to church in the morning, but to form teams and go out and preach in schools, in orphanages, and also in prisons. and then they come for the evening service. So there's so many places that they can serve, and we don't think in terms of serving as families, simply because almost all our members are first generation Christians. They would be like the only one in their own home who's a believer coming to our church. I was speaking about there's some of us now who are first, second generation, but most of our people are fairly new. We do encourage them to serve as couples for those that have become married since, They marry fellow believers and are able to work together. And we really encourage them to serve together. But it's totally according to their gifts and the way in which they're able to apportion their time in the midst of the many other demands of life and living that they have. but otherwise there is more than enough work for all our people in our church. All right, would you, in a nutshell, like to tell us how you came to faith in the Lord? In a nutshell? Okay, a coconut shot. Yeah, yeah, it's always a joy to speak about the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. I was brought up in a church-going family in what is called the United Church of Zambia. If you've heard of David Livingstone, the founder of Zambia, missionary body that he came through to Central Africa was an interdenominational one. So when they began churches, they did not have a denominational title to them, so they became the United Church of Zambia. So my great-grandfather was a missionary in one part of Zambia and established one of their mission stations. So that's the family that I grew up in. But looking back now, a lot of the wider family were just religious. It had become like a family church rather than that they had put personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. As I was coming towards the, oh yes, let me rewind a little bit. My mom died when I was nine years old. In Africa, we've got the extended family system where when a thing like that happens in a family, at the funeral, the wider family discusses what you're going to do with the children. And consequently, the normal thing is that if it's the mother that has died, then the mother's sister is next in line to take the children, raise them up, and then hand them back once they've gone through the difficult teenage years. So my mom's immediate elder sister took us and took us through that period. My elder sister was the first one to come back to dad's home and that was when she came to university and she began, she was invited to a Baptist church and got converted there. So when I was now coming the following year back to dad's home, I found a completely different sister. Not that previously she was a mischief, but you could tell there was personal faith. There was something different. By the time we came back, dad had become an alcoholic, which you can to some extent understand. He had lost his wife, and in quotation marks, he had lost his children as well, for at least five years. So from having a wonderful family around him, suddenly zero. And so by the time we were coming back, he was an alcoholic, he had sold almost anything that was saleable, and home was miserable. But I found my sister there, full of joy, singing God's praises in the middle of this gloom. And that's what spoke to me, I knew she was different. and it made me realize that at the same time a friend of mine had just become converted and we were to meet in due season. So what he did is to avoid me misleading him back into the ways of mischief, he wrote me a letter. in which he shared with me what had happened to him. That he had just become converted and this is what had happened. And it was a gospel message. It was the first time the gospel went beyond my defense mechanisms. It hit me like a blow. I was sitting in dad's home then, as I said, I just come back and seen all this. And I remember thinking to myself, this guy is right, but I think what I just need to do now is change friends from these bad friends and also commit myself a little more to church going. Every Sunday I should make sure I go to church. So for about three to four months I tried that and I was a miserable failure. Totally failed. So four months later I'm thinking, you know what, let me read that letter again. There's something I've missed there. So I went back, read the letter, and it was again simply calling me to pray to God through Christ to save me from my sin. So that morning, I knelt by my bedside. Well, first of all, I thought there must be some prayer, so I went into my sister's bedroom, ransacked it for some prayer. something with a prayer on it, and finally found a tract which had a little prayer at the end of it, I thought, good. Went back to my bedroom, knelt down, prayed through it once, nothing. Prayed through it a second time, nothing. Threw it away, and then just really prayed from my own heart. And that's how the Lord saved me. Now, I was expecting that the skies would open up, there would be a bright ray coming into the bedroom, and so nothing like that happened. But one thing I recall was that the heavy burden that I had was lifted. And I did not realize the, the impact that that moment would have on the rest of my life. But yeah, since then the Lord's been gracious and I've seen his grace. Very good. When you are elderly, it's qualified, 83. Okay, all right. and not in good health. You're a widow living on a small income. Does God expect you to be able to serve as much and work as hard as younger Christians? I think the obvious answer is no if what you mean is physical activity. Because clearly, you don't have that capacity anymore. And you don't even have to wait for the age of 83. I'm already finding that my capacity to retain information is waning pretty quickly. And I'm nowhere near 83. So clearly, the Lord expects us to serve him in a way that fits where we are and how we are. And it's really an overflow of our work with him. So, I mean, you have individuals who are, you know, physically challenged, and most of their service may simply be in praying for the needs of the world and the Christian church. That service already that you are having there. And so my encouragement to anyone, whether you are old or young, is learn to sit with your church leaders and simply ask the question, what can I do? And that doesn't mean once you get your answer today, depending on your circumstances, changing, you can again say, is there something that I can do? Sometimes it's simply opening your home to young people, to students, to come and have time there. The very fact that they're having this context is in itself a service, and it may be other people who are younger and stronger that could be doing the catering, but there you are, you have provided a home where something could happen. And so that's really the answer that I would give. If you think in terms of being active, Obviously it changes, but if you're thinking purely in terms of different ways of serving, we can all save the Lord the way in which a body serves. Different parts do different things. Tell us a little bit about your family. Yes, the Lord's blessed me with a wonderful wife. Her name is Felistas. which is a derivative of felicity, which simply means joy. We met when I went to work in the mines after I graduated from university. Although she had also grown up in Lusaka, which is where I also grew up, we only met about 400 kilometers north of Lusaka in what is called the Copper Belt, which is where a lot of mining takes place. She had gone to study as a nurse, and in due season studied as a midwife, and remained there, and then I went there to work in the mine. So in the same church, the Lord knitted our hearts together, and we got married. We got married after I became a pastor, so I was called to Caboata Baptist Church, but we were already engaged, and from there we got married. God has given us three children, two boys and a girl, and then we've adopted another three in the African extended family system. You don't sign any papers. Don't stand before any judge, but they are your children. And they come from the wider family due to social economic situation that have occurred there. The eldest that we have adopted, the father died when she was three years old. And when the mother was remarrying, you remember what I said, you sort of sit together and talk. So that's how she was sent to the grandparents, and then from there, she came to us. Then the next one, the mother died when she was three years old, and then the dad became an alcoholic. And she then was looked after by her grandmother first, who died, then moved on to the father's youngest sister, who died. and then moved on to the father's eldest sister, who came to America to study for a master's, and then that's when she came to us. And she's been with us for over 13 years, so she's our next one. And then the last one was adopted. The father and mother died within about two to three years of each other. when he was in his early teens. And consequently, the family said, the wider family said, you know, you raise him up, so he's our last born. And we have our own biological three, if I was to talk about what all these are doing, the oldest is now married, and we have two kids, or rather two grandchildren from there. If the second one were twins, we would be in the same bracket, but not quite. Then the next one lives with another friend. They are in the church, another elder's daughter. They sort of live together. And then the next is the boy who's in our home right now, so my wife isn't alone, they're together. The next just finished architecture in Cyprus, but is still there winding up and should be coming home soon. And then there's a girl who graduated last week, and some of you may know Vodi Bokam, he's come to work in Zambia, so she's working with him currently. And then we have the last boy who's still in university. So that's the wider family, and that's all this white hair you're seeing here. It's in raising them up, but they're wonderful, wonderful. I'm very grateful to God for each one of them. How is your family involved in your ministry? Yeah, my wife is a real suitable helper. She's a born evangelist, at least a born again evangelist. That's what preoccupies her. We moved into a new area recently, two years ago, and she's made her presence known in the entire neighborhood. So we went door to door introducing herself, and people would say, yeah, yeah, yeah, we know the new pastor who stays there. Yes, I'm the wife, and so on. So, but largely it's been in terms of raising the family at home. That's been a great help. She's got a job outside the home as well as a nurse, but in terms of just making sure that there's sanity with the children while I'm running all over the country and the continent and the world. So she's been a great help. Our own children, in due season, as they have come to repentance and faith in Christ, have found a place of service within the life of the church. The eldest one, we do a lot of church planting, we plant about six different churches within Lusaka itself. So the, The most recent church plant, which was in June, is where they've now gone. So that's where they are saving with their husband. The next one, the girl is involved in another ministry that I didn't mention. I remember I mentioned quite a number of ministries. One of them is campus outreach. Lusaka is, is like the, I call it the maker of education in Zambia, that is M-E-C-C-A. That's where a lot of colleges and universities, private colleges and universities are. And consequently, young people from right across the whole nation gravitate to Lusaka for their education. And our church deliberately targets these campuses for outreach. When any campus is about to open, we participate in welcoming the first years, reaching out to them before they fall into wrong hands. And then on Sundays, we have one or two buses that go around to pick them up for church. And then we also have special events for them. So this girl is very involved in that. Our son, the eldest son, I honestly don't know where he got this gift from, but he's a musician. Neither my wife nor myself have anything to do with music. I was passing here looking at this guitar and going, wow, it looks good. I wish I knew how to play it. But he loves music, he plays the guitar, so he's currently the one who leads the music ministry in the church. The next guy is in Cyprus at the moment. He's a media fellow as well, so when he's around, he's part of what happens in that corner, all the recordings and uploading things and so on. That's where he seems to have found his niche. And then my daughter, I've just told you, she's currently serving one of our African Christian University members of staff. That's Dr. Vodi Bokam. So that's where she's spending a lot of her time volunteering. You know, he arrived with seven kids, all between the age of about three and five. So she basically spends all her time there and just comes home for weekends, volunteering to just help in that way. The last one is unconverted, so if you could continue praying for him. He's still very much thinking that happiness is out there and yeah, the rest of the family is quite burdened for him. So those would be the various ways in which each one of them seems to have found a place for Christian service. Very good. You might know that Pastor Conrad did a interview on Thursday, I think it was, and that has to do with the next question, but I'm assuming that since you're gonna be talking about Africa, tomorrow in Sunday school, you might be talking about some similar things maybe that you did on the interview. Is that a safe assumption? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I will. Okay. Well, there are many other good questions. We've been going at this for about 50 minutes or so, so I think that we'll kind of wrap up there. And so I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you coming and spending this time with us. Thank you. All right. Well, let's pray together. Father, we thank you so much for your people. We thank you for your servants. We thank you that you raise people up. And Father, we thank you that you are the God who calls us into fellowship with you through your Son. And Father, we thank you for our dear brother. We pray that your good hand would be upon his family while he is gone. Father, we know that he has a heavy travel schedule. We pray that you would be near his family and take care of them. We pray, Father, for his youngest son. Father, many of us know the burden of an unconverted child and Father, we pray for this young man and we pray that the things that he has heard growing up would dawn upon his own soul and that you would be pleased to open his eyes to see the beauty and the glory and the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, we now pray too that as we go our ways, the remainder of this day, that we would walk in the light. We pray that we would glorify you. We pray, Father, that we would think about the things that we've heard, that by the power of your Holy Spirit we would put them into practice and apply these things. Lord, we pray that you would prevent us from just being sermon listeners who could simply say, yeah, that was a good sermon. Father, we pray that we would be doers of your Word. And we pray that you would help us in that. And we ask that you would meet with us tomorrow. We thank you for the Lord's Day. And we pray that you would come with power and glorify your son. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. To receive a copy of this or other messages, call us at area code 775-782-6516 or visit our website gracenevada.com.