Provoked: Italy - How to Evangelize in a Tough Environment

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00:04

Brothers, what we do in life echoes in eternity.

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I mean, this is what's wrong with the Christian church today. We don't know who God is, and we don't know who we are.

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This is where we hold them. This is where we fight. Officer, you need to repent of your lawless conduct.

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You don't know the law, and yet you pretend to represent it. That's not law enforcement, sir.

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That's being a thug. We will not stop fighting and bothering you all until this monstrous, barbaric practice of legalized abortion ends, and we are teaching our children to do the same.

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God's word says that the shed blood of innocent humans cries out for justice, and mark my words, they will have their day in court.

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Nobody gets saved by being treated nicely. They get saved by hearing the gospel. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

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If we don't open our mouths and commend Christ... We're not loving them, no matter what we're doing with our hands.

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Hello, everyone. You are watching another episode of Provoked. We're so thankful that you're here and listening, if you're watching or listening on iTunes.

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But the purpose of our podcast is to preach the gospel, rescue babies, destroy cultural idols, and defend the faith.

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So I'm here with my co -host, my big bearded brother, Zach. How are you today? Hey, how are you? Doing well.

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Thanks for leading this one. Yeah, we've had a busy summer, so it's kind of hot here, just a tiny bit.

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So the last time that we spoke, it was right before Roe, everything went down.

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Where were you when that happened? I just started sabbatical, so I went on sabbatical

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June 23rd, and I think it was the same day. Yeah, it was the next day, because we went on our family vacation the same...

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We left the same day as you, and so when we found out, we were actually in Las Vegas, because we stopped in Las Vegas before we went up to Salt Lake.

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Right. And so it was pretty surreal. I looked at my phone. It was actually John Barrows' post that I saw that alerted me to it.

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He had a picture of a plane going down, and he was like, goodbye Roe, and I was like, no way. And then I started searching, and it was definitely surreal.

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It was crazy. Yeah, it is. What did you do? Did you just go freak out and start running around the room? I don't know.

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I think I was really pessimistic. Yeah, yeah. And I'm still a little bit – I'm leaning on more of the pessimistic side of it.

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It's such a complex issue. It is. It's just like an onion with so many layers. I'm like, right, minutes up until we started recording,

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I'm dealing with figuring out what exactly is going on here, because now we have judges trying to block what the states are doing, because what did the federal government do?

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They just tossed it to the states and said, now this is a state issue, which it should have always been. Now we're going to let the states determine what they're going to do.

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Of course, in Arizona we revert back to 120 -year -old law 13 -3603, which everybody that's listened to Apology has probably heard so many times, and that's saying that surgical abortions or pills to kill a baby is punishable by at least two years in prison, max five years.

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So now yesterday – well, now we saw Utah have a judge say, no, we're going to block this person giving the baby in the womb the same rights as a baby or a person outside of the womb.

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Then as soon as I saw Utah do that, I'm like, domino effect. So of course Arizona does it.

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Then we got our attorney general saying, nope, we're going to enforce it. Then now we have people calling our abortion clinics like within the past five minutes.

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They're saying, nope, we're going to start killing babies. So I'm going to talk to our attorney general and try to get an appointment just to say, dude, what's going on?

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You're saying this is punishable. Are you going to do it? So we'll see what happens. It's one thing to say, hey, look, this is pushed to the states.

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It's another thing to enforce it. We always knew enforceability was going to take actually law enforcement going to a clinic, putting an abortionist in shackles, chaining up the door.

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Then maybe I'll have a reason to celebrate. But I mean since then so many abortion clinics have shut down.

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So we talked to our friend Jason Storms who's the head of Operation Save America and he's like, hey – he's in Wisconsin, right?

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He's like abortion clinics are shut down, no surgical. So there's a lot to be thankful for. A lot of abortionists are not killing babies right now.

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Thank God for that. I've just – I don't know. Maybe just being on the sidewalk for the past 10 years has hardened me up a little bit.

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Well, you know the reality that it's still happening. So it's not like, okay, it's illegal. But it was a big step in the right direction.

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Oh, it was, absolutely. And now it's back on the states. Now we need good sheriffs and cops and state legislators.

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Yeah, attorney generals that are actually going to enforce it. So we'll see what happens.

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Yeah, we will. It will definitely be interesting to see kind of how it all unfolds. Of course, it's election season coming up and, yeah, it's going to be interesting.

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But it's been fun to see just the other side just losing their mind.

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I have probably been sinful in my joy that I've taken in just seeing – like, okay, it's going back to the states.

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A lot of the people that are freaking out live in like California or New York. You realize you can still have an abortion in these places.

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It's like they don't even realize how it works. But, yeah, that's been fun.

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I mean it was really a victorious just moment. But, of course, we have a lot of work to do. I don't want to be gloating, but it does feel good to have a win.

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It really does. All glory to God. And it gives me hope for our country that perhaps people will be repenting and turning to the

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Lord. It's just in the moment my blood is just boiling right now because standing outside of Dr.

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Eunice's clinic, Camelback Family Planning, Planned Parenthood for years, I mean thousands of hours and preaching thousands of sermons, and then you're like they're stopped.

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It's surreal. And then this judge tries to block it. Now we're calling and they're resuming again.

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So you're like it's deflating, but it's a battle. I mean it's a war. I think we won a battle, but the war is not over.

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That's right. We'll just keep pressing on and pressing forward, so onward and upward.

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Well, if you haven't yet, you've got to become an Apologia All Access member where you can get tons of great content and just hours and hours of lectures.

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So if you haven't done that yet, become an All Access partner with us so we can keep doing what we do here at Apologia and just make

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Jesus known and bring the gospel all over the world. And speaking of, we have a very special guest with us today, someone he actually heard our podcast and wrote us a very nice review.

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His name is Jesse Schreck. He has a podcast called Missions Incorporated, and he is all the way in Italy joining us today.

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It's like 1 .30 in the morning, and we're super thankful to have him on. He is an

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Italian missionary with his family, and so we're going to hear about his testimony and the work that God is doing out there in Italy.

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I think it's going to be cool because we talk a lot about evangelism here in America and some of the challenges and frustrations, and so I'm very excited to hear about what it's like in Italy and just kind of the different nuances.

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I think he gave us some stats. I think there's 60 million people living in Italy. Somewhere between 70 % to 90 % are professing

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Roman Catholic, although he said that many of them don't actually practice. They just kind of identify as a

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Roman Catholic. And then I think there's less than a 1 % evangelical presence in Italy.

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So that's a lot of people, 60 million people, less than a 1 % influence of evangelical influence.

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So there's a lot of—sounds like there's a lot of need there for gospel -driven missionaries.

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Yeah, glad he's there. Jesse, hello and welcome. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, hi.

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Really great to be here. Glad to be able to share some time with you and tell a little bit of my experiences and also the realities of Italy.

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Truly an honor to be on with you guys. Appreciate you both very much. Thank you, and thanks for that sweet review you gave us.

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That was actually right when we had first started and it kind of popped up on my feed. And I was like, oh,

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I was so touched that someone—we joke about, you know, just our parents listening. So it was really encouraging to hear that somebody all the way in Italy was listening.

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So thank you for that. And thank you for just taking the time tonight. So we're just going to start off with that. We just want to hear about your testimony and what brought you to Italy.

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And you can go as far as you want or as brief as you want. You just kind of start and we'll just go from there.

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Yeah. Well, originally I'm from Allentown, Pennsylvania. So up in the

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Northeast. And I grew up not in a Christian home. Parents got divorced.

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I was only seven years old. And so grew up in not a fruitful environment, we could say that.

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And was forced in a lot of ways to have to do things on my own. And I realized at a young age,

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I believed in God and I would pray to God, right? And I would often have my prayers answered.

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But it was out of necessity that I would pray on God because I felt like I had to figure things out. It felt like there was no one there to kind of guide me and tell me what to do and these kinds of things.

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But I didn't have a full understanding of the gospel, that's for sure. And when I was a little bit older, just hitting teenage years,

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I actually found my identity, found my meaning and purpose hanging out with the older crowd. And so there was a lot of drugs and drug dealing and these kinds of things.

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And stayed on that path until I was 17. And that's when I began hearing the gospel actually preached. And I just surrendered my life.

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And for me, it was not some long drawn out process. It was quite instant to the point

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I could try to continue living as I was before. But it really had no point.

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Nothing satisfied me anymore. Doing all the things I would normally do, all the different sinful things had no satisfaction.

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And instead, right away, I had a real hunger for the word of God. So I began devouring the Bible, reading different Christian books, and could not put the

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Bible down in a very real sense. So my life was drastically transformed. But I was also saved in a charismatic church where the gospel was not preached very well.

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And looking back, I see it was actually more of a prosperity gospel at that time, what I was buying into.

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I was actually born again. I'm convinced of that for sure. But the gospel was more of say yes to Jesus, do what he says, and your life will be better.

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And that kind of Christianity, I guess we could call it. But then it was when

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I did a semester abroad when I was 23 years old. So a few years have gone by. 23 years old,

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I did a semester abroad at Saints Bible Institute here in Italy. And it's a small institute that was run by missionaries.

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And it was there that I first encountered the doctrines of grace, began studying things like predestination,

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God's election, and light bulbs just started going off. For a few weeks, I actually wrestled with that. And then all of a sudden, all these light bulbs went off in my mind.

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And I found great relief and great comfort in the actual gospel, what it means to be chosen by God and how he loves us.

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And he pursues us. We didn't pursue him. It was him first transforming our heart, giving us new desires.

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And that's why we don't like our sin anymore. That's why we want Jesus Christ. We can understand who he is, want him for who he is, and come after him.

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So that semester really transformed my life. Number one, the doctrines of grace were clearly taught to me, and that just transformed me completely.

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Everything became alive. The gospel really became alive. The Bible really became alive for me. It was like I was reading the

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Bible with whole new eyes. And shortly after that, I was given an opportunity as well to come back and serve in Italy.

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So I had also learned about the realities of Italy. I met other missionaries for the first time in my life. And in addition, we studied missions, we studied evangelism, and then got to do that.

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We got to actually go on the streets, do mimes and dramas, draw in a crowd, preach the gospel, present the gospel, engage people in conversation.

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And I think it was just made clear to me that it kind of came a little more naturally for me to do that than for other students that were there at that time.

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And I kind of found something that I was good at, something that God enabled me to do and actually ultimately called me to do.

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And I began after that moment just pursuing that semester abroad, pursuing a career in missions.

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And my plan was to go to Costa Rica with the Christian Missionary Alliance. They had it all set up for me.

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They wanted me to go do a year of training there. But I was just so indebted and so grateful to the missionaries there at Saints Bible Institute and to how my life was changed that they gave me an offer to come back and serve for six months.

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And I wanted to do that just to show my thanks, just to let them know I'm thankful for all that I got from my experience with you guys.

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But that six months then turned into it's going on 15 years now or just over 15 years,

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I believe. So it's become a career, a lifetime thing. And that's in short, my testimony, how

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I got saved and then how I got to Italy, learned about the reality of Italy. And then I was actually trained in apostolic church planning by a veteran

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Italian church planning missionary that at that time was here already 35 years doing the work quite successfully.

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And he took me alongside of him and trained me in that task. Okay. Wow. So 15 years has gone by.

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So tell us, what's it like just, you know, everyday life there in Italy? What's it like going out and doing public evangelism?

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How does it differ in your opinion, you know, than here in the States? Yeah, maybe real quick before I go there.

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I should probably mention that I also got married here in Italy. I met my wife in Italy. She's an important part of my life and also the ministry here.

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My wife actually comes from the Philippines. So she grew up in the Philippines. And when she was 17 years old, she came with her mother over to Italy.

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And then we met here when I was already here, maybe seven years or so in Italy.

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Okay. The founder of the mission I was with previously started a Filipino church by accident.

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You know, in the sense he was not intending to start a Filipino church, but a bunch of Filipinos got saved when they were evangelizing down in the south of Italy in a town called

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Reggio Calabria, which is actually in the Bible as well. In the book of Acts, Paul passed through there going on his way to Rome on the boat.

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And he talks about Italian cohorts, right? Yeah. And that's where we got the name.

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Well, our son then is named, we named him Cornelius. And that's how the name came, a practical missions cohort as well, because Cornelius and then the

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Italian cohort, those kinds of things. We claimed it as our own because we're missionaries in Italy and the cohorts originally came from here.

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So, yeah, we met at a conference when that Filipino church was started. The first one by now, probably 30 years ago or so.

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And yeah, the missionary at that time, he realized these guys are really hungry for the word. And they're much more than the average

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Italian when he gets saved. Right. So they're at a faster pace. They come from a different culture, different background, different experience.

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And you can't really mix Italians and foreigners all that much, because it's not like America where we're just a mixed bag, all kinds of different cultures.

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Italians are Italians and they tolerate foreigners, but it's not like they welcome them and want them really.

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So when you have Filipinos in that case, growing faster, being discipled quicker and maturing quicker, they would kind of take over the

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Italian church because there was more of them. And this missionary recognized the importance of doing just a separate church just for the

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Filipinos and then keep the Italian separate. Long story short, that church is now, I think, 13 or 14.

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And they just spread out because they're evangelizing other cities. And then on Sunday, they'll do their church service in the morning and then they'll send others out in the afternoon to lead a church service in another town where there's just a few disciples.

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And little by little, they can get elders trained, a plurality. And then they just continue multiplying like that. And they're all over Italy and they would gather every year.

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Here's where I'm getting at. They would gather every year at our facility that we had in the north here of Italy for their conference, a summer camp.

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All the kids are together, the parents, everybody connecting for a week. They're roasting pig and all that stuff that Filipinos like to do.

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And one year, my wife showed up and I was there and we met there. It was like the light was shining on her when

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I saw her a year and a half later than we were married. And now we're together doing the missions work here in Italy.

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Praise God. How many kids? Two kids at this point. Wonderful. Wouldn't mind more.

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It's a little bit crazy times right now with everything going on in the world. But we'd be happy to have as many as we could because it's a great blessing.

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I'm going to try to guess your age. You're 34? A little higher. 37?

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I'm actually 39. 39. Well, he's got a youthful face. Yeah, I got the young face, which is why

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I intentionally try to keep a beard. Because people think you're like a kid. But the beard helps.

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Yeah, Zach's getting gray in his. Yeah, I'm real gray. I could pass for a 55, but I'm 43.

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It is funny, though, when I see you, Zach, that I have an uncle and you look very much like my uncle. How I remember him anyway.

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I don't see him often, but he's a big guy, beard, and he kind of looks very much like you. I imagine my uncle maybe one day getting saved as well.

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If somebody came to you and just said, hey, what does it really mean to be a biblical evangelist? Or what does it mean to biblically evangelize?

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How would you kind of describe that? Maybe in a way that's focusing on the disparity between American evangelism and biblical evangelism.

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Are you referring, like, if an Italian would come to me and ask that? Anybody. Anybody in the world. What does it really mean to be a biblical evangelist?

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What is successful evangelism? What's effective evangelism? I think it's a great question.

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It's a very, very important question that the church needs to be asking a whole lot more, I think. Because my experience, what

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I've seen a lot happening in America is, number one, evangelism is kind of shunned. It's like a bad word.

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It's like something people don't want anything to do with. And I think that's probably a number of reasons. Maybe not a good understanding of the gospel, but also not a good understanding of what evangelism actually is and how salvation works.

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It all kind of goes together. But it seems to me in the States, a lot of the times evangelism is reduced to inviting people to church, asking them to say a prayer, letting them see your life that has changed, and hoping they'll want to do the same thing.

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It's very generic. It's very dumbed down. Whereas opposed to biblical evangelism is actually a presenting of a message, wanting people who are dead in their sins, who are lost, who are actually enemies of God, whether they realize it or not, whether they admit it or not, who are suffocating the truth, whether they want to admit it or not, presenting a message to them.

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So helping them to see the reality that they fall short of God's glory, that they have sinned, they have transgressed, and there is a holy

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God that they're accountable to, the one who's giving them breath, the one who brought them into this world, and the one who also judged.

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So helping them to see where they stand before this righteous, holy, just God, and then showing them also the solution that God himself provided.

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That most people attempt to get themselves saved by living a certain way, not doing too much bad stuff, not killing anybody, which is the common answer you see here in Italy.

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Well, I didn't kill anybody. I tried to do my best, and I hope one day God will let me in.

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But then they have this whole purgatory thing over here, which is a whole other discussion. But, yeah, so you want to clearly—biblical evangelism would be clearly making these facts known, just presenting it, letting the message go out, but then lovingly, passionately persuading people to come to a conclusion.

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You have to decide to do something with this Savior, Jesus Christ, the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings. And we're commanded to come to Him.

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He invites us to come to Him. He commands us to come to Him. And we're to bow the knee, to surrender all to the one who is actually worthy.

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And we could talk about the importance of the new birth, these kinds of things, all essential elements of biblical evangelism.

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But ultimately, yeah, it comes to that and helping people to understand also the consequences if they don't come to Jesus Christ, if they refuse

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Jesus Christ, if they turn their back to Jesus Christ, if they never bow the knee to the King, that there are consequences.

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So I think if all those elements are there, you have pretty close to what we could probably call fruitful evangelism, that the evangelist has done his job.

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He's gotten the message out. He's with all his heart, with all the energy God has given him, made the message known, persuaded people, let them know the consequences of their actions if they refuse

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Christ. And then it's out of our hands, right? We know that. Biblical evangelism, you understand, you can't actually change a heart.

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You can't convert a person as much as we might like to. Well, it's just out of our abilities.

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That's God's work. That's what He does. So we plant, we sow, we pour water, but the growth always comes from the

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Lord. The actual conversion, the new birth is a work of God. And the beauty of that, though, for the evangelist, knowing that, is that we can rest well at night, and we can honestly say all glory to God.

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If a bunch of people get saved, we can't boast. We didn't do anything different this time that got a whole bunch of people saved. If nobody gets saved, we can't go into despair either, which is usually what happens.

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People either get proud if people get saved because, yeah, I led them to the Lord, I did that, because they don't understand you were just a tool, just a messenger, and God did it.

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Or they go into despair, which usually happens here in Italy, because not a lot of people do respond right now like they should.

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And so you can go into despair thinking you're just not good enough, it's not going to work. And this might be one of the reasons why a lot of people also give up evangelism.

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But, yeah, when you understand that, then you know God has His timing. He's sovereign over it all.

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So, yeah, I'm tempted to just keep going on and on, but I'll stop. You can, you can, because that was absolutely excellent.

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We should cut that up. That was a really good explanation. I really, really appreciate that. That was awesome.

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Yeah, totally. What do you think we fail? I mean, where do you see people doing it?

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How do you see people doing it wrong? I mean, where can we fail as Christians? I think somebody, I think Tony Miano said, we fail to evangelize when we fail to evangelize, and I understand that.

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That it's good just to get out there, but where can we go wrong as evangelists and are maybe with good intentions, but still fail?

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Yeah, well, I think at the heart of the issue of evangelism, really, like the course that I took years ago on evangelism,

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I find it still to be really solid because it got to the heart of the matter, which was understanding the doctrines of grace, understanding the order of salvation, how it all works.

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The average Christian today probably assumes that he caused himself or herself to be born again, because it's not clearly taught, unfortunately.

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So there's just this big haze, and yeah, I'm a Christian. How did it all happen? I don't know. I don't care. But when you understand that the person who puts his trust in Jesus Christ, who turns from his sin and is born again and is saved, precisely for that reason is why he put his trust in Jesus Christ and turned from sin, because he was first born again.

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So getting the order right, I think, is essential. And for that, once that's understood, then it kind of takes all the pressure off of a person, and then he's more likely to actually go and evangelize.

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Because, you know, number one, you understand now how you got saved, and you have nothing to boast about.

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You should actually be really thankful, right? Too often, I think what happens, at least in the States, what I see is Christianity, we lose the essential thing, like what it means to be born again, to be made a new creature and to be walking in newness of life and to be actually saved, to have eternal life and to have the promises of God and all these wonderful things.

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And we get caught up in secondary stuff, right? Which is, I think, a lot of what the charismatic movement is. It's like, that's not good enough, so we need to go find something else, prophecies and visions and all kinds of other stuff.

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But when we keep to the essentials, and we understand that well, and we understand he chose us, and he doesn't do it to everyone.

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Who am I that he would love me that way? That's what really motivated me. So, there's a lot to say about, you know, practicalities to evangelism, how we do it.

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But at the heart of the matter is, when you understand all that, it should move you to want to say something, to want to be a part,

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I think, of what God is doing in others' lives and how he's calling people to himself. So, the big thing for me is that, and I don't think that's well taught, though, and understood.

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And I think you guys would agree, in most churches today, where everything is dumbed down, very generic, and there's not a clear understanding of what the gospel is.

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And consequently, then, evangelism doesn't happen, or it does happen bad, right? So, I think once, if that can be straightened out, and the gospel can be rightly understood, then the other stuff seems to fall into place.

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People naturally want to talk about their Savior. They realize how privileged they are to be known by God, loved by God.

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And those verses, like in the Bible, where Paul says, I think maybe to the Galatians, he says, not just that you are loved by God, but that he actually knows who you are, or something to this effect.

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It's not just like we take for granted that we're actually known by God, right, in an intimate way, and he loves us and cares for us.

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So, but how it goes wrong, I think, is your initial question, right? Yeah.

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So, for me, that's probably the big thing I would say, all that. Just that if the gospel is not well understood, the order of salvation is not well understood, from there, everything kind of goes wrong, because it becomes man -centered, done in the power of man, not trusting in God alone who does it all, really.

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That's good. Right, yeah. It was just making me think of, you know, if you believe in some synergistic, like, salvation, where, like, you reached out to God, and then he came down.

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Ultimately, you believe that you're superior in some way, because you've made this choice, where some other person didn't.

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You know, you had some wisdom that somebody else didn't, or some goodness in you that you chose.

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And so, I think, if you go into evangelism with that mindset, and you're talking to somebody like that, there's almost going to be some sort of superiority, whether or not you're, like, consciously doing that.

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But if you're saying, I made this decision, I did that, that's going to always kind of be there. And so, I think that's where everything can kind of go, not everything, but a lot of times, it can go wonky.

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If, like Jesse said, you don't really understand the holiness of God, the order of salvation, the depravity of man, you know, then you would say some weird stuff.

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I remember when I was very first saved, not really understanding much, I tried to evangelize, and I know

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I said some super weird stuff. I said some crazy stuff. I'm so glad that's not recorded. Yeah, thank

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God. They tell me to run for the hills. That's awesome. I'm guilty as well, yeah.

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So, how many Reformed churches are in Italy? Do you know those stats? Reformed churches?

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No, I don't have a statistic for that. But I do know one of the leading evangelical missionaries in the country of Italy.

28:26

He's been here his whole life, pretty much. His parents were missionaries here. And he knows pretty much everybody. And we're sitting down having a coffee one time, and he told me, so these are his words,

28:35

I won't say his name, but he told me that the amount of believers in the entire country of Italy, so we're looking at 60 million people in Italy, but the amount of believers with a biblical understanding of who

28:46

God is, so understanding even the things that we were just talking about related to the doctrines of grace, for example, these things. So, people with a biblical view of God, in his estimation, just 2 ,000 in the whole country.

28:56

Oh, wow. 2 ,060 million. Wow. Yeah. So, I mean, 2 ,000, we can find that in maybe one or two towns back in the

29:04

States, right? You can get that many with a good view, understanding of God and so on. So, that to me was very revealing.

29:11

And this is a guy, I've been around a little bit in Italy, you know, 15 years, but in traveling, helping different churches,

29:16

I've seen the churches that are literally, the building is the size of some of the bathrooms in churches where we go back in the

29:22

States. You walk in the back door, the only door you walk in, the pulpit, you can almost reach and touch it with your hand.

29:28

Very, very small, you know, 10, 15 people max can kind of fit in there. I've seen a number of those.

29:33

And so, when he tells me there's 2 ,000, I kind of believe it because of that 1 % or so that are evangelical, counted as evangelical, within that, you have anything and everything that's not

29:45

Roman Catholic, basically. So, in some estimations, they're counting even Jehovah Witnesses there,

29:50

Mormons. For sure, they're counting Charismatics, Pentecostals, all kinds of different things with who may or may not have a good understanding of the gospel.

29:58

So, it's really a mixed bag. 1 % is just like the number they throw out there. So, it's probably smaller if they're counting.

30:06

I say it's kind of like Coke Zero, you know. It says it has less than 1 % sugar, so they can call it zero.

30:12

We're less than 1 % and we're pretty much, to me, it just means we're zero. It just means there's a lot of work to be done. There's a lot of people to be reached.

30:18

Yeah. So, there's so many believers, and even listening, who will listen to the show, who are in hard environments, right?

30:26

Like you are, I guess. How would you encourage them to evangelize when you go out?

30:32

I know that, and we can talk to you about it a little bit. I kind of want you to explain how you go about evangelism on a weekly or monthly basis.

30:39

How would you encourage them in the face of really a lot of what

30:44

I'm assuming is apathy, resistance, people not bending the knee to Jesus?

30:52

How would you encourage them to carry on? What encourages you?

30:58

What keeps you going when you see? I don't want to use the word fruit because we throw that fruit word around very idiotically,

31:08

I think, a lot. But just not a lot of results, you know, as far as people coming to the Lord. Now, the gospel will always produce results.

31:15

So, it hardens one to judgment, softens one towards salvation. But, you know, how do you keep going?

31:23

Before you start, though, I want to just have you add, you know, just touch on what it's like, too, to be in a place where it's dominated by Roman Catholics because they use a lot of the same lingo.

31:35

You know, a lot of them, I'm sure, as you go into it, have this understanding that they are saved.

31:42

Just like we were in Salt Lake, which is basically... Salt Lake City, which is kind of like Vatican City, but for Mormons.

31:47

And you go in and they're saying Jesus, they're saying, you know, a lot of the same verbiage. So, just as you're explaining that, maybe you could even touch on the challenges that come with approaching somebody who says, oh, yeah,

31:59

I know God and I'm a Catholic. Maybe address what she just said first. Sorry, we gave you a lot. That's okay.

32:05

And then I'll get back to my question. Yeah. Yeah. Both really good questions, though, I think.

32:11

So, yeah, dealing with the Roman Catholic context, right, there's an important theologian over here in Italy, Leonardo De Chirico.

32:22

I've seen him on a YouTube video for a Ligo New Year conference a few years back. He was there. He's an important figure.

32:30

And he actually wrote a book recently called Something to the Effect of Same Words, Different Meaning. Right. And his whole focus is always...

32:37

He even has a whole network of teachers and things that come and always focused on teaching evangelicals what

32:45

Roman Catholics actually believe. Right. And so he pretty much... He's doing pastoral ministry, but he dedicated a lot of his ministry also to educating evangelicals on Roman Catholicism.

32:56

But that's the big problem, is the words. So you say God, it means something different to an

33:03

Italian person in Italy. You say grace, it means something different. Graces are things you earn in Italy.

33:09

And if you need more grace, you go and you do certain things. You light candles. I even heard stories of a church in the southern part of Italy where if you lick your tongue across the entire floor, you earn certain graces and things like this.

33:21

There's crazy stuff out there. My two -year -old does that. Yeah. I don't know if they still do that with the

33:27

Corona stuff going on. And then, yeah, walking upstairs on your knees, you know, all those kind of things still linger in Italy.

33:36

But, yeah, the terminology is something... I did a message last Sunday, actually, just on 1

33:42

Corinthians 13, 13, those three words, faith, hope, and love abound. And the most important of these is love.

33:50

And so we have some helpers that are here now for the next month serving, and they're going to be working with us in evangelism and doing a variety of different things.

33:57

But I wanted to help them also grasp the reality that when they say faith, when they say hope, love, all these kind of things, they literally have...

34:04

The world has an understanding of those terms, right? We as Christians have an understanding, a biblical understanding of those terms.

34:10

And then I pointed out even Roman Catholics have an understanding of these terms as well. All three of us, all three groups see that differently.

34:18

So it is really important, because when you are engaging, they can nod their head, they can agree. But in reality, they're understanding something different, right?

34:27

So that can be really frustrating, but you have to, as a missionary, be mindful of that stuff, plan for that, and take extra effort also to explain biblically what terms mean when you use them.

34:39

But to the point, though, the other challenge together with that... So everybody's Roman Catholic, but nobody really is.

34:44

And you can kind of imagine the people as being like abused children or something like this.

34:50

If you can imagine. Like an abused child is just skeptical of everything as he gets bigger.

34:56

He's a little standoff, he's not trusting, right? And so when you talk about things like this, you can kind of joke, like if you need to clear a room, just say the name

35:07

Jesus or start talking about gospel. And people just disappear, like they just have a bad taste in their mouth, unfortunately.

35:13

Because what they've been taught and what they've understood is a workspace religion. It's very heavy.

35:19

You never arrive at anything. It's just this never -ending burden. And they still have the weight of sin. And it's got hypocrisy there.

35:27

It's got pedophile stuff, terrible things going on. Also within it, it's a business, like the biggest money -making thing in all the world.

35:35

I mean, so there's a lot of baggage when it comes to evangelizing

35:41

Italians and a Roman Catholic here in Italy, where it's all Roman Catholic. Have you,

35:46

I think, did you hear John MacArthur's church through the years has been like, and I don't know if it was like a particular period of time, but I heard this outrageous statistic that 75 % of grace community churches converted

36:01

Roman Catholics. Have you heard that? I didn't hear the statistic, but I have heard him over the years comment how a number of Roman Catholics in that area converted to Christ.

36:12

Have you heard his sermons on Catholicism before? No, I haven't. Oh, man. He does not pull punches, but they're pretty powerful.

36:20

But yeah, I think they deal with evangelizing Roman Catholics on a daily basis over there in LA, because the demographic, of course, is religiously primarily

36:29

Roman Catholic too. Wow. I didn't know that. So I interrupted your question.

36:34

Sorry. No, it's okay. So go back to yours. It's fine. You're my little sister. You can do that. Thank you. Sorry, Jesse.

36:41

Hopefully that wasn't too confusing. No. Yeah, yeah. You know, our whole thrust here is, and you've got a great podcast too.

36:48

I think God designed you for that. Your podcast does really well, Jesse. But I think you would agree that both of our podcasts, all we want to do is help the church evangelize pretty much.

36:59

Evangelize the abortion clinic, and it all has to do with the gospel dissemination, right? All has to do with the

37:04

Great Commission. Go out and proclaim the gospel to all the nations. So we want to encourage and try to facilitate that in the lives of our brothers and sisters.

37:14

So I just want you to kind of speak to the people or to our brothers and sisters in hard situations as you are, not that there's any easy situation, but I think

37:23

I kind of look at the globe with different soils. It seems to be in a certain geographic location, the gospel seed plants and bears fruit more rapidly than others.

37:36

And I don't really understand all that. A lot of it's a mystery. It's kind of, we're looking at it from a finite perspective.

37:44

But you said it yourself, 2 ,000 believers in the midst of 60 million unbelievers.

37:51

So how do you keep going? Because as you know, there's a high turnaround rate in evangelism.

37:59

People will come out, they'll get cussed out, they'll deal with confrontation that they're not normally used to dealing with, and they'll go right back home.

38:09

So how do we stay in the fight when it's difficult? Yeah, really, really great, great question.

38:17

And I think any seasoned missionary in the country of Italy would tell you it's all grace.

38:26

Really, right? If they've actually made it past four years, take into account in Italy, missionaries, they come, full -time missionaries, and the statistic is within just four years, 90 % of them leave the country of Italy.

38:41

Wow. They had enough, they didn't get results they wanted to see, and they're out, in a real sense, even before they really got started.

38:48

So it takes a long -term approach, and I'm tempted all the time to give it up in Italy.

38:54

I mean, for the amount of labor we do here, the amount of evangelism, the amount of everything, you would expect to see something much more significant, usually, in other countries.

39:04

For example, with the ministry I was with before, they would do trips also to the Philippines, and Filipinos here in Italy would go back to the

39:11

Philippines. And there was a joke among us that basically, in the Philippines, you can walk into a bar, put the

39:16

Bible on the counter, go to the bathroom, come out, and you've got a Bible study already happening, 10 converts. It's really quick and easy, right?

39:23

Here, it's not that way. Here, we're dealing with hard ground. As you mentioned, the soil here is, I compare it to a hard, rocky ground.

39:31

So even when we talk about evangelism, in a certain sense, we almost have to do pre -evangelism in Italy.

39:38

We do evangelism, of course, but they're very standoff. They think you're a Jehovah Witness.

39:44

If you talk anything about God or Jesus right away, they classify you as a Jehovah Witness or a Mormon, right? And so, yeah,

39:51

I lost my train of thought for a second. You're saying you kind of have to like go about it a different way. Yeah, pre -evangelism, you really have to build a bridge.

39:57

The soil is not ripe soil, right? So generally speaking, so you have to dig it up.

40:03

You just have to get them thinking again and considering God and realizing it's Christ or it's chaos.

40:08

And we have a good example for us now in the world with everything going on that I think it's a little easier to see.

40:14

There's a lot of chaos. And the one thing everyone has in common is they're trying to get Christ out of the picture, get

40:19

God out of the picture, and the chaos is the result. So I think it's a ripe time. But yeah, to the point though, yeah, we have to dig up rocks, stir up that soil, and then drop in the seed, and then bring the water, and then later comes the harvest.

40:34

But what would I encourage those in that kind of situation? Come visit

40:39

Italy, maybe. Spend some time with us. Because I've met a lot of people that after time in Italy, they go back and they feel like it's a walk in the park wherever they are.

40:46

Unless you're being persecuted somewhere, Italy is a place to kind of make you feel happy when you get to where you are.

40:54

Because it's easier. Everything's easier. But no, I heard a quote from Paul Washer not too long ago.

40:59

A friend shared it with me. And he talked about, I don't remember exactly, but he mentioned that all over the earth, there's indigenous evangelists, pastors, and stuff going day by day, doing the work of the

41:11

Lord, manning their post, being faithful to the Lord with what they have. They're unknown.

41:17

They're not seen. Nobody has any clue who they are or what they're doing. But God sees them.

41:23

And He's with them in that. So that encouraged me a lot when a friend shared that with me. Because we're unknown here in Italy.

41:29

I'm really shocked that you guys actually reached out to have us on as well. I mean, we're just in the trenches over here.

41:34

Nobody knows. We're very small. But we're doing the work of the Lord, and we remember that. It doesn't matter who pays attention or who's aware.

41:43

We have a task to do. We have a post to man. And we just need to fight the good fight and finish our course. So, in short,

41:49

I think that would be my exhortation, my encouragement to anyone feeling that lack of fruit, perhaps, or the results that they desire to see, wanting to give it up.

41:58

Stick with it. It could be, you know, we could speculate and get into it. Maybe there's other stuff going on, sanctification, or maybe

42:03

God's calling you elsewhere. All those are real possibilities. But if you know where you're supposed to be and it's still really hard, just stick with it.

42:09

Just keep going. Don't give up. And seek the Lord for the grace, the energy you need to do what he called you to do.

42:17

And that's how I go at it. It's grace alone. And the Lord gets me up in the morning, keeps me going, even when

42:23

I don't see results. And a lot of people pray for me. And I know that is also what makes the difference. Absolutely.

42:29

Well done, good and faithful servant. So, I think success in evangelism is just sheer faithfulness, regardless of the results.

42:38

Because, you know, like 1 Corinthians says, we're not in charge of results. One plants, one waters.

42:44

But Paul says, but they're nothing because God causes the growth. So, we can't even say we did anything.

42:52

Right. We just plant the seed and are faithful. And God is glorified in that.

42:57

And I think when all is said and done, the true heroes of the faith are going to be people that we would have never known about or expected who just manned their posts and did it.

43:07

Because success is not popularity. It's not having everybody know your ministry.

43:13

That can really mess people up. As somebody once said, it's much better to operate a ministry in obscurity than popularity.

43:21

Because when people know you, you can mistakenly believe the press and it can corrupt you.

43:29

I've seen so many guys, they get a little bit of a spotlight on them and it just spoils them because they let it get to their head.

43:38

And now they're rushing after praise rather than sticking with faithfulness. So, that's awesome, man.

43:46

What do you do? Because I'll tell you one thing, I've been in ministry for 25 years total.

43:53

And I just wanted to throw in the towel too. And I'll tell you right out, and I've been tempted in different ministry positions to throw in the towel.

44:01

But what keeps you going? Why do you keep going? Why don't you throw in the towel?

44:09

Yeah, well, I did mention I am tempted, you know, likewise, yeah, to give it up.

44:15

Go do something where people appreciate you. There's all kinds of things you can do, right? You definitely make more money.

44:21

You can do all kinds of different things. But no, I just have a strong sense to the calling aspect.

44:26

And maybe that sense of calling isn't so strong or common nowadays, I think.

44:32

Because I think people like to transition all the time, a lot, right? I'm kind of like an old soul, old school in a sense.

44:39

And if God has called me to do something, I'm going to keep at it by His grace until He makes it extremely clear not to, right?

44:46

And that could happen at any time. But I wake up with a conviction. Number one, like today, thinking back over my life and my testimony,

44:54

I should be dead. I already know that. And so it's good when I get to tell my story a little bit, overdosing, blacking out, these kinds of things.

45:03

And a number of my friends did die of overdoses and stuff. So I shouldn't even be here to begin with. I'm in bonus time.

45:08

And it's good to remember that. And I have the calling of the Lord to something to fulfill.

45:14

And you can entertain the ideas. The grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Go somewhere else. Do something. And that's all true.

45:21

But for whatever reason, I can still be content, even in a context like this, where I don't see as much as I would like to see, right?

45:30

And I think that's just because God has called me to be here and to stick around. And, you know, listening to folks like yourselves and Jeff and the others over there at Apologia is also very encouraging.

45:42

And since the pandemic began, I've been listening even more, considering different views of the end times and things like this.

45:49

And I think I've transitioned. But I have a more optimistic view of the future.

45:56

So I can look at Italy the way I have till now and almost in despair. I see the realities of it. You know, it's almost impossible.

46:02

Nothing could ever change here. It almost is worth giving up. But when I have an optimistic approach and I understand the gospel and the work of God is far greater than we can imagine in this world.

46:12

I have a little hope that I do my part. I'm laying a foundation for something by God's grace. He's allowed us to form a ministry.

46:18

We have a very specific task. We don't get lost in all the other stuff that comes later. And we see churches started.

46:24

And then from there, they can continue to grow and expand and do a variety of different ministries. Maybe one day do abortion stuff like you guys do a lot of.

46:30

Which, by the way, isn't nearly as big of an issue over here. Interestingly, the Roman Catholicism, I think, has had a certain level of morality over here where that's really shunned upon.

46:39

It happens, but it's more in the dark. It's not so fragrant. Is abortion legal in Italy?

46:47

I wish I knew the technicalities. I know people that have had it done.

46:56

So it must be legal, but it's not nearly as easy to do as I think it is in the

47:01

States. It's like buying something from the grocery store, basically. It seems so easy over there. Over here, you really have to jump through hoops, and it's shunned upon.

47:09

So it's not right there. But in any case, just to have that kind of vision, I think, is helpful for the long run and to keep going.

47:17

Knowing that it may feel insignificant most of the time, a lot of the time.

47:23

But if you understand the bigger picture, you can do your work, lay a foundation, leave something for those who are going to come after you.

47:29

And they can continue building upon it. And then you don't have those feelings of wasting time or wanting something else.

47:36

You realize it fits in God's plan. This is my role. I accept it. And we go, and we do it.

47:41

And you can do it with thankfulness, with joy, and gladness. And the Lord carries us forward.

47:48

That's awesome. So encouraging, too, just to hear the light of the gospel in a place that really, really needs it.

47:58

And you're just being faithful. You've been there for 15 years. So I just encourage you to keep going. And I pray that the

48:03

Lord sends you more laborers that way, too. And hey, maybe provoked. Well, maybe we could go out one day.

48:09

That's so funny. I was thinking about the same thing. It would be amazing. It's funny, though, because you think about Italy. I've never been to Italy, but I always picture it as a beautiful place, good food, all these things.

48:22

And you don't picture hard evangelism. But now after speaking with you, I realize how difficult it is and how needed the gospel is over there.

48:31

So we can be praying for you specifically now. And I hope that our listeners do as well. And if you could please tell them where they can find your podcast and how people can look you up and support you and your family, we'd love to do that.

48:46

Yeah, sure. Well, you have my personal invitation as well. If you guys ever want to come out and experience the real

48:51

Italy, the ordinary everyday life of Italy as well. We see pictures of Italy, right, in the States and the movies and things like that.

48:58

That's film, right? Real Italy is very, very different. And there's a whole lot to that, maybe for another time.

49:05

But yeah, if anybody wanted to know more about the ministry that we're doing and the stuff going on here in Italy and different even ways to serve or to get involved.

49:13

We do have a number of avenues of involvement for people to come on a short term trip, a vision trip, become a long term missionary, commit to a two, three, four year term, serve full time over here.

49:24

Lots of different avenues of involvement, teaching English as a second language. And all that you can learn more about at practicalmissions .org.

49:31

Practicalmissions .org. And what's your podcast? Podcast is Missions Incorporated, which, you know, it's kind of developing.

49:39

It's changing. It started originally as my mentor told me, you know, you should you should write all this stuff down that I'm teaching you and and the church plant that we're doing.

49:48

Write it all down. Write a book. But I just didn't have time to write. You know, we're more than busy, more than we can handle. And so I just began.

49:54

I learned how to podcast real quick and just turned on a got a cheap microphone, turned on a thing and started recording stuff just to give exhortations to our ministry partners, keep them updated.

50:02

But as time goes on, it's developing a little more to the point I'm doing a little more intentional with exhortations towards Christian living missions, evangelism, these kinds of things.

50:12

And then sneaking in updates and things like that along the way. And it's showing people different news and things going on here that that's helpful to know for for ministry partners.

50:21

Yeah. Well, praise God. Praise God. We should go out next year. Let's do it. Lord willing, that'd be awesome.

50:27

That'd be good. We could do some street evangelism, get that recorded. And we do a lot of work out there.

50:32

Yeah. We should talk about it. Yeah. Well, keep us. You're definitely welcome. Yeah. Thank you, brother.

50:38

We're near. We're near Venice. If you if you've seen the photos of Venice with the boats, the gondolas, those things. So we're up there in that area.

50:44

Yeah. Suffering for Jesus. Yeah. But then you get there. Exactly. It's the same thing. It's like Hawaii.

50:50

You know, we've got our church plant in Kauai and everybody's like, oh, yeah, you're really suffering. But Kauai is extremely difficult to plant a church and evangelize.

50:58

I heard I heard someone from the church there. Was it on with you guys or the or the other guys at Apology?

51:04

I don't remember, but I heard some of the testimony and it made me think a lot of the realities here. It is very similar.

51:10

Very similar. Yeah. Because in everybody's mind, I think, oh, it's like paradise. But then the everyday reality is very different.

51:15

You got people licking floors, bar floors over there. And just think, it was so funny,

51:20

I was talking to a lady a couple of months ago who came out of a cult. And in this cult, what they would do, they didn't have any preaching.

51:30

They would sing the same 10 songs on Sunday. But when you walked into the cult, oh, yeah, they didn't believe you.

51:36

You could go to the doctor whatsoever because you just had to exert faith. But whenever you walked into church, everybody would kiss them.

51:45

Everyone would kiss one another on the mouth. So you'd be kissing guys wives, you'd be kissing the kids, everybody, grandparents, aunts, uncles.

51:54

Did they go to the dentist? If they didn't go to the doctor, then there's probably some bad breath. But guess what happened? They really started to think about whether or not this is a legitimate faith system when everybody started dying of COVID.

52:04

Oh. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. All of it. Well, you just went from, like, beautiful Italy to the cult.

52:12

Sorry. That does remind me, though, that reminds me of a time here in Italy. We're helping out. We had an evangelism group and we're helping out a little church in the southern part of Italy.

52:20

And they still used one cup for the wine and they would pass it around. Oh, boy. And, you know,

52:26

I think in America, if you have, you can have a cold sore, I think is what we call it. Sure. Right.

52:32

Maybe on your lip once in a while you get a cold sore. In Italy, they call it herpes because it's technically a form of, like, herpes.

52:38

Yeah, it is. And I remember the one time I was a young missionary and they're passing the cup around.

52:43

The guy passing it around, he had on his lip, right? And then

52:48

I look at the cup and there's, like, some chunks floating. And it was a terrible situation. What do you do?

52:53

Like, everybody's watching. Do you pretend? It was a bit awkward, you know. I'd be like, nope.

53:00

I have to go to the restroom. I'll take this cup with me. Or you do it by faith. Yeah. You pray to God as you do it.

53:06

Oh, man. Yeah. But, yeah, it kind of, just a final thought maybe, too, is the average

53:11

Italian, thinking of the evangelical church, having no idea what it is, they actually do think we are a cult. So, I walk around here understanding that the average person thinks

53:21

I'm some kind of cult leader. Yeah. They know I'm a missionary and an evangelical. So, you kind of, it's, yeah, because the churches are so small, they're so scattered, and they're terrified to go into one because they don't know what to expect.

53:32

They're thinking maybe a goat gets slaughtered in there or, you know, it's a huge, huge step for an

53:38

Italian person to actually go and visit a church, right? Probably a big difference.

53:43

We're in the States. There's still a culture. It's understandable. Sure. To go frequent the church, hear something.

53:48

Nobody cares. No one's going to hassle you. You can go in without fear. Over here, that's one of the big obstacles,

53:54

I think, that we have, too. Yeah. And we're small in number. So, when you're small in number that, you know, and you're considered a cult, it's kind of, yeah.

54:02

It's intimidating. Exacerbates the difficulty of the situation. Take that for granted here. That's for sure.

54:08

Oh, absolutely. Well, stay in touch with us. We'd love to have you on. Maybe follow up and hear how everything's going with, you know, your ministry and your family.

54:15

So, maybe in three to six months or something, we could have you back on. That'd be great. Yeah. We'll seriously be talking about coming out.

54:22

But we appreciate you. Appreciate your wisdom and your maturity. I can just see in you a really hardened, in a good way, maybe conditioned soldier for Christ.

54:32

Just everything coming out of your mouth. And that's the good thing about difficult, hard soil, difficult environments, is it produces just a strength in the individual.

54:42

And I definitely see that in you. And so thankful for you, brother, your family and everything that you're doing.

54:47

And it will definitely be in our prayers, and I pray we can build our relationship with you and move forward.

54:53

Yep. Yeah. It's been a pleasure. Really appreciate you guys. Thank you. Well, thank you. And thank you, your wife, for allowing you to come on here in the middle of the night and hopefully didn't keep her awake in the babes.

55:03

But thank you again. And we hope to hear from you soon. Yeah, we'll start at like 1130.

55:09

Yeah. Next time we'll do it. So you're not. Not 1 .30. Okay. That'd be helpful. God bless you, brother.

55:15

God bless you guys, too. Take care. Thank you. Ciao, ciao. Wow. That was super encouraging.

55:20

Yeah. So, so much in that. It'd be great to... I really want to break up a lot of what he said, because there's so much maturity and wisdom in that.

55:29

Right. And just really the heart of what I feel like our show is, too, of just getting the gospel out there in the everyday and the challenges that come and real life, you know, what it's really like.

55:41

It's not just, you know, what you see on somebody's camera or YouTube or whatever, just the day -to -day, the hard, you know, just trudging along like a good soldier.

55:52

But, but it's encouraging to hear just what God's doing out there. And I was really shocked to hear that it's that hard in Italy.

55:58

I did. I had no idea. Yeah. I didn't know nothing about it. And he was talking about not understanding the legality of abortion.

56:05

I'm going to go research it just for fun and see what's up with that. But it's also good, like you were talking about early in the week, just giving our brothers and sisters who don't necessarily have a platform, a platform, right.

56:16

Nobody knows about them, but they're hidden gems doing the work of the ministry faithfully every day in a hard environment where they don't see a lot of, you know, they don't, we all want to see people come to Christ.

56:33

We all want to see favorable reactions or favorable responses to gospel communication.

56:39

We all do. Of course. So it's hard not to see that, but it's awesome that his theology is so strong and solid.

56:46

I've heard a lot of post -millennialism coming out of him. His eschatology is biblical and, you know, that's what really the pillars of his theological system and his devotion to Christ really what keep him going.

56:56

Yeah. That's what we got to have or we're not going to last. Right. Speaking of being seen the fruit.

57:02

So I just wanted to ask for a prayer for my best friend, Libby, you know, Libby. I've known her since I was seven years old and she just called me on the way over and her dad is dying of cancer.

57:12

So if you could just be praying for him, his name's Ron, but Libby one day, maybe on another show, we can, if she ever wants to share her, her testimony, that was what, that's been such an encouragement in my life because I've known her since I was seven years old.

57:26

And then I got to see her get saved after I was saved and just a radical transformation.

57:34

Like, you know, you don't always get to see it. You share the gospel with people and you hope, and then you see some people come to Christ, but you can't really tell if there's regeneration there.

57:44

And with Libby, it was just one of the most radical changes that I like got to visually see

57:51

God just completely wreck her and then flip her upside down. Like even just the strength in the

57:57

Lord. She texts me, you know, dad's not doing well. And just her responses are so, she's so strong in the

58:05

Lord. The Lord has just changed her heart. So it's such an encouragement. And I just wanted to encourage our listeners, like, if you have that loved one that you think isn't saved, like just keep sharing the gospel with them, keep loving them because God does save.

58:18

And... Yeah, the word will do its work. Exactly. One direction or the other. Absolutely. So yeah, pray for Libby and her family and for Ron too, but thanks to all of our listeners.

58:28

I hope that you all were encouraged by Jesse. And you know, if you're just listening to us, we just appreciate you.

58:37

And we just encourage you to share the gospel this week. You know, like Jesse said, you're at your post.

58:42

What does Votie Bauckham say? You can't be on all places of the world, but you sit on the wall that God has placed you right now.

58:49

And whether you're a mom at home, you've got little ones to share the gospel with and neighbors and people from church, you could be hospitable.

58:57

And sometimes I feel like as moms, and I'm not saying like everybody does this, but I feel like for me personally,

59:04

I can get so wrapped up in the day -to -day changing diapers and all the different seasons of childhood that you kind of have this thing in your head of like, well, this is my work here.

59:15

This is the most important work, which it is. I'm not saying it's not. But also like that doesn't mean mom can't share the gospel.

59:21

That doesn't mean mom can't talk to somebody at the grocery store and teach your kids part of your homeschool curriculum or whatever.

59:28

You can do a gospel presentation, but don't count yourself as not being able to do it or that it's not important work because it is.

59:37

It's super important work. It's super important work for you to be able to articulate the gospel and to be able to share that with not only your kids, but teach your kids how to do it too.

59:47

Well said, sister. Well said. We love you guys. Thank you for listening. And yeah.

59:53

Oh yeah. ReformCon. I meant to say that. ReformCon. Don't forget to plan for that. We're going to have Dr. Durbin there. Oh no, he's not a doctor.

59:59

Not yet. Dr. White. A lot of doctors. Kevorkian? No, that was the guy.

01:00:04

He'll be there too. Which is... You raised him from the dead. Super weird. All right, guys.