Keep sharing good news without ads.
Missionary Dan Herman
Alright, good evening. Welcome back tonight to our little journey to Ireland, a little bit. So I'm sure we'll hear about some ministry in Ireland here in just a few minutes. We're going to first sing a song that comes from Ireland, at least the tune does, number 374 in your hymnal.
So we'll have a couple songs this evening, we'll give the missionaries as much time as possible. And both of them have an Irish connection. Now I don't know if Be Thou My Vision, the tune, comes from the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland.
I'm sure when the tune was written, there wasn't the two sides. My guess is, from what little I know of Ireland, it probably came from the north, but that's just a guess. From an optometrist. Have you and Jim been kind of hanging around too much?
Okay, well let's turn to 374 and let's stand as we sing, shall we? Be Thou my Vision. Father, that High King of Heaven, and that our victory is won in Christ our King, our Lord. We thank you that because of his merits, we shall, by your grace, reach Heaven's joys.
We thank you for the joy of this song and for the prayer that it contains. Father, we thank you for the burden of heart that you've laid on Dan and his family to go to Ireland and to minister the gospel there.
And Father, the need is great. It's far greater than we might even think. And I pray that as we hear about that tonight, we would be burdened to share in a prayer, work of prayer and ministry through this ministry for the people of Ireland.
Father, bless our time together. Challenge us with the presentation this evening. And we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, thank you. You may be seated. So just a reminder that after the service, we'll have a finance committee meeting.
Just wanted to remind the men of that. Tonight, we get wrapped up in what we're doing and it's easy to kind of forget that and slip out. So the other song that has an Irish connection is number 20 in your song supplement.
It's the mission song, Facing a Task Unfinished. On one level, you might think, well, it doesn't have anything to do with Ireland. Frank Houghton, as I recall, was with China Inland Mission. I think that's right.
But the connection is that the refrain that's added to these words was written by Keith and Kristen Getty, and they did the tune to that part, too. So the main music for the text, the stanzas, is a familiar tune to us.
The church is one foundation, yeah. But then they added the refrain. And they're from Ireland, and I'm assuming Northern Ireland. That's an assumption. But anyway, so this is not an unfamiliar song to us, so let's sing it together.
Facing a Task Unfinished, number 20 in your supplement book. Facing a task drives us to our knees. Unfinished rebukes our slothful ease. We who rejoice to know the solemn. This morning in the morning service, I mentioned these Baptist believers in Nigeria who were captured about a week and a half ago, kidnapped and held by belligerents.
I saw a report today after I got home from church and so forth that the captors have killed two of those 60 people within the last 24 hours. So that remains a serious and dire situation. I was reminded of that even singing this song, that the task is indeed unfinished, that there are those who hate Christ and yet need Christ.
So let's remember them in prayer. So again, we met Dan this morning, Herman, and heard a little bit about his testimony, heard a good challenge to remind us of the privilege and opportunity we have to share the gospel with others.
And I want to remind you about the love offering that we're receiving for him, that there's a little tray on the side as you leave. If you didn't have a chance to give, you might want to do that on the way out.
And whatever is put in that plate will go to him. So basically the rest of the time is yours, Brother Herman, so you can come and use it well. Well, thank you for having me come and share our story and hopefully minister to you at the same time.
We're excited about being here. My name is Dan. My wife's name is Jean-Anne. Her first name looks like it has Jean-Anne in it, but it actually is the long spelling of Jean. It's the French way of spelling it.
Last name is Herman. So I jokingly say that I am married and I am Herman. There you go. All right. So I have an information packet for you, one per household. So if I can get two strong men to help me hand these out.
All right. Jim, he looks pretty strong. And anybody who cuts grass must be strong, right? All right. So if you're here as just a single person, grab one of those two. And also I'll pass around a sign-up sheet here.
If you would like to receive our e-mail updates, we're going to send those out. We've been sending them out six times a year, and they're nothing really long, only about two minutes long. And what we'd like to do is to have put in there a gospel conversation that we've had over the last month or so, and then a prayer request and praise.
So it's nothing extremely long, but if you'll sign your first name and last name and then your e-mail. If your e-mail bounces back, if I have your phone number, I can text you and say, hey, your e-mail didn't go through.
But if you do have an e-mail that has, like, a 1, an I, or an L, if you can make that very specific, that would be helpful so that that goes through. So this is our story. We have three parts to it. Our ministry in Ireland, part number two is our spiritual journey, and then our team of partners.
So this is how it all began. Back on December 12, 2018, I was sitting in my vehicle there in the parking lot of Edward Jones. And so I had been in full-time paid ministry for about 22 years, doing a variety of ministries, and I'll share that with you later.
But for this period of my life, God had me in the financial industry. Before that, I was at TD Ameritrade as a stockbroker for people's individual accounts. They would call in. I would place the trades for them.
And then I became a financial advisor with Edward Jones. So as I was sitting in my car here, you're self-employed with Edward Jones, with commission, I was praying, God, what do you want me to do next?
And basically it was, what subdivision should I go into that have money that I can help them invest so that I can make money as a financial advisor? But as I prayed that prayer, just a generic prayer, I said, God, what do you want me to do next?
And at that time, God began to lead me to get back into full-time vocational ministry. And it was so evident at that time. I took out my phone and I typed it into the date. I was like, I really feel like God wants me to get back into full-time ministry and vocational ministry.
But one month before that, I was thinking about Luke 10, verse 2, which says, And he, Jesus, said to them, The harvest is plentiful, but the labors are what? Labors are few. Therefore, do what? Pray. That's like, you know, do a seminar, do a message.
He says, pray. God, Jesus Christ says, Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labors into his harvest. So I was following a white truck with an ear of wheat. And many times I've been to conferences and you'd see like an ear of wheat and they have this verse there.
So it reminded me about praying for labors. So at that point, as I was driving, like, Lord, send forth labors, help them to respond. May the loss come to Jesus Christ. And then a couple of weeks later, as I was driving again in Omaha, I was thinking about Isaiah 6, 8, which says,.
And I, Isaiah, heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send? Who will go forth? Then I said, Here I am. Send me. So as I was driving, I just said to the Lord, Lord, if you want me to get back into full time paid vocational ministry, I am more than willing to do that.
And I had done it for about 22 years. And then for six years I was doing ministry outside of being a pastor or something like that. And so some guys, they do 20 years in secular work, secular ministry, and then they become a pastor or a missionary or something like that from 40 to 60 or 70.
And I just thought the Lord had a flip flop for me. I was always willing to go back into full time paid ministry. I just didn't know if that's what God wanted me to do. So at that time, I continued to pray at Elmwood Park in Omaha.
So we had seven kids and we were in ministries that we didn't make a whole lot of money. And that's kind of typical. But with Edward Jones, the two guys that had recruited me from TD Ameritrade, they told me that after 10 years they were making $200 ,000.
So if you're making $50 ,000 a year, that's pretty good. These guys are making four times the amount. And so I told my wife, I said, as we do this, you know, be able to provide for our family and a home and church and missions.
And so now I'm going from a conversation of $200 ,000 back down to being in full time ministry. And so then I began to tell her family. And beginning with my wife, she's the redhead there. She always prayed for a redheaded child.
And guess how many we got? None. So if you have a prayer request, you may not want to ask her to pray for you. I'm just kidding. So but our oldest is Carol. And then we had Audrey. She married Caleb and then Daniel, Stephen, Nathan, Autumn and Sophia.
And then we have four grandkids and three are listed there. But after much prayer, God led me to resign from Edward Jones Investments on December 27, 2018 to pursue full time vocational ministry. How many days after Christmas?
Can you imagine Christmas break telling your wife that you're going to resign from your job or you're making $45 ,000 at the time? And I told her, I said, well, Edward Jones wants me to work 70 hours a week.
They don't want me to go look for a ministry. And so the only thing I could think of was dating. I said, it's kind of like when you're dating. It's like if you're interested in this girl here, you have to stop dating this girl here.
And I was reminded of my grandfather. He said dating is a lot like getting pickles out of a jar. If you try to get two on a fork at the same time and pull them out, you lose them both. And so I was like, all right, we need to get rid of Edward Jones here.
And I resigned. But it was very hard, exciting, scary all at the same time. And the biggest step of faith that we've ever taken, and this biggest step of faith that we took was in the beginning years of our, in our 50s, in our early 50s.
And so sometimes people think, well, I'm older. God doesn't have anything else for me to do. But God has a will for each of us. And we just have to find out what the next thing that he wants us to do, if he's wanting us to move on.
But the comforting verse in the Bible in whatever ministry you're in, either full-time vocational or you are at a secular job and you're ministering there, is Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Trust the Lord with all your heart.
Don't lean on your own understanding, not just on your own thinking, but in all your ways, all your ways, acknowledge him, talk to him, read his word, talk to other people, and he will make straight or he will direct your path.
So that is extremely encouraging. Well, then I began to pray after I had resigned. Lord, do you want me to serve here in the United States or a foreign country? And I was in Omaha. And so I know I didn't tell anybody.
I kind of thought, well, maybe the Lord will just make it easy on me, and I'll minister in Omaha, right? Wouldn't that be great? Not fruit basket upset. My wife could continue to work at the Christian school where she's at.
Kids could go to the Christian school. We could stay at the same apartment we were living in. And so as I prayed and said, God, Omaha, Nebraska, United States, or even foreign missions, the Lord laid on my heart foreign missions.
And it's something that it's when you talk about this, you get into the leading of the Lord. And sometimes we make it really complicated to try to explain it. But, you know, obviously Satan tempts us.
When we say no to Satan's temptation, the Holy Spirit leads us, right? If we do wrong, the Holy Spirit convicts us. So how does the Holy Spirit lead you? Well, I think most people at times have been directed in their thinking to give somebody $20 or $100, right?
And it keeps on coming back to your mind until you finally go and do it. And you say, hey, Jim, God's laid on my heart to give you $100. And he's like, wow, praise the Lord. And it's something that until you do it, it just keeps on coming back to your mind.
And so that's the way this was. Foreign missions just kept on coming back to my mind. Didn't have peace about doing anything else. And then I began to pray, what country? And the same thing happened. The Lord continued to bring to mind Ireland, and specifically the Republic of Ireland.
So Ireland is here with the green part is Northern Ireland, mostly southern. On a regular map, the southern part kind of goes up like the number 6 above Northern Ireland. So they don't call it Southern Ireland.
They call it the Republic of Ireland. Now, the green part, Northern Ireland, is 85 Protestant, which would be Presbyterian Anglican, the Church of England. And the yellow part, the Republic, is Catholic.
What percentage? Same amount, 85%. So it's just flip-flop. And in this yellow part, the Republic of Ireland, only 0 .5%, half of 1 are evangelical, and Baptist would even be smaller than that. So it is very much an unreached people group.
You would think, well, they're Catholics. They know about Jesus. They know about the resurrection. Well, my wife was Catholic growing up until she was 15, and she didn't have a personal relationship with the Lord.
And so they know about Jesus Christ, but they do not have the true gospel. They haven't been told that. And so God is directing us to go and do that. How do you get to Ireland? Well, if you're here in the United States, in Illinois, you would fly up to Quebec, to Newfoundland, that's how they pronounce it, and then take a hard right, and there's Ireland.
So if God called you to be a missionary halfway up into Canada, what would you think? That is going to be very, very cold, right? But because of the ocean effect, it doesn't get really cold. But when it would normally be snowing, guess what it's doing instead?
It's raining. So how many of you love rain? Anybody here love rain? All right, we've got one person here. You're coming with us to Ireland. But Ireland has beautiful landscapes. These are the Cliffs of Moher.
And I could see a teenager, if the tide was right, jumping off this one here. But over 30 ,000 castles are castle ruins, beautiful edifices. This one here, the rent is really cheap. Anybody here like to rehab homes?
Come over to Ireland and turn some of these into bed and breakfast. And then stunning cathedrals built by the Catholic Church. But because of the sins and indiscretions of the priests and also their orphanages, they found a mass grave at one of the orphanages there in Ireland.
So it's like we're against abortion, but they didn't claim all the babies and children out in those graves. And so when the people found out about that, they were very, very upset and frustrated with the Catholics, the administration there, the pope and the bishops and things like that.
But they also have millions of sheep, about 4 million on average. And they mark them on their backs with paint for herding purposes and mating purposes. And the sheep do get out in the road. So if you ever come over to Ireland and you rent a car, which I would not suggest, but if you do have the guts to do it, remember to drive on what side of the road?
The left side, not the wrong side. That would be offensive. It's the left side of the road. And watch out for sheep because sometimes they do get into the road. And if you're not careful, you might get into an accident.
What kind of an accident? A bad accident. So be very, very careful. The skies are completely covered by clouds almost half the time. It rains up to how many days? 225. Wow. Days of the year is compared to Rochester and Buffalo at 167, Portland's at 164, and Seattle's at 149.
So if you like rain, move to one of those cities. If you love rain, come to Ireland with us, all right? And you have the Auburn hair going for you, so that's good. So Jean-Anne and I had the privilege of visiting Dublin, Ireland, in August 2019.
And we both have ancestors from Ireland. And so Jim, he went to a website today and actually found out that they're specifically in Northern Ireland, Antrim. And so he printed out some stuff for me. So thank you very much for that.
But the green portion of their flag represents the majority Catholics on the island, the orange side the minority Protestant, and the white middle part the desired peace between them. Did Jesus Christ ever say that he was going to bring international peace?
Yes or no? No, he said, I came not to bring peace but a sword. And they talk about the gospel and how the gospel divides even families. But when you receive Jesus Christ into your life, you receive the peace of God which passes all understanding.
So that's the peace that we're going to bring. Now here's a frustrated teenager holding up the green, which represents the Catholics, and the orange, which represents the Protestants. And the Troubles was a violent conflict between 1968 and 1998, 30 years in Northern Ireland.
And it was between the Protestant Unionists, the Loyalists, who were they loyal to? Basically England. They were loyal to England, who desired Northern Ireland to remain a part of the United Kingdom. Because some of their parents came over from Scotland, England, Wales, and they had them as children there in Northern Ireland, kind of like the Dreamers here in the United States.
And so the 85 Protestant don't want to leave Northern Ireland. But the Roman Catholics, the Nationalists, the Republicans, they wanted Northern Ireland to become a part of the Republic of Ireland. And I can see their point.
Because if you have a King James Version Bible and you open it up, it says King James, King of England, and what? Ireland. Back in 1611, England was coming over there, even before then, and raiding Ireland, and taking things from it, and sending it to England and to Europe.
And so basically Ireland wants England to go home. Now did anybody else in the world ever want England to go home? Yes, all over. They were called Great Britain. But India didn't want them. China didn't want them in Hong Kong.
We didn't want them here in the United States. So when you think about it, you're like, why are they still there? So 3 ,600 people were killed, and more than 30 ,000 were wounded before a peaceful solution was reached.
How did they kill people? They would pack a car full of explosives and drive it into a Catholic-designated area in Northern Ireland and detonate it, blow it up. And then they would send it into a Protestant area and fight back.
And they were killing each other just with these car bombs. The peaceful solution is this. England has said that if you in Northern Ireland vote that you want to become a part of the Republic, you can.
Is that ever going to happen? 85 Protestants going to vote to become a part of the Republican? No, not at all. So what is probably going to happen? With any peace treaty, why do you have to have a treaty if everything is going fine?
They're probably going to go back to war, especially now after Brexit. So there's a possibility that while we're there, war could break out. Hopefully not the weekend that you guys visit. But the many in Ireland have turned their backs on God for a variety of reasons.
And they try to find hope and satisfaction in drugs, drunkenness, and immorality and materialism, similar to here in Illinois. And it made us very sad when we discovered that the Republic of Ireland is one of the lowest populations in Europe that understands the gospel and how to respond to it.
It's by God's grace that we're saved through faith and what Jesus did for us on the cross. And it's not of our own doing, but a free gift from God. Amen? I found this picture of this Irish girl, and my wife said, wow, that looks a lot like me when I was a teenager.
So I didn't want to feel left out, so I found a picture of a guy that would look like me when I'm like 90 years old in Ireland. So my first point of business over in Ireland is get a little green hat.
But salvation in Jesus Christ is not a result of our own good works, so that nobody can boast of what they've done. As I said, in short, half of 1%, that's 0 .5%, has responded to the gospel in the Republic of Ireland according to the Gospel Coalition.
So that's one person for every 200 people, or a half a person for every 100 people. But compared to the United States, those who have responded to the gospel can be as high as 35 according to Wheaton College in Illinois, where your pastor and his wife grew up when they were younger in the Lombard area.
And that's 70 people for every 200 people according to Wheaton. So, for example, if you had a room of 200 people, you could probably fit easily 200 people here standing up, and if you say, all right, those who responded to the gospel in the United States, please stand over here on your left, my right.
So it'd be 70 people out of 200. You say, all right, those who responded to the gospel in the Republic of Ireland stand over here. That's what it would look like. And so this slide here is a reminder to me and a motivation to me to understand that sometimes God wants people from the United States to leave what's convenient, comfortable, and familiar and go to the ends of the earth, not only to Ireland, but to other places where Christ has not been heard.
And maybe there's somebody here tonight that God wants you to go to some other country and be a missionary yourself. So our passion is to serve the Lord in the Republic of Ireland with ABWE, Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, and existing Irish churches.
Now, a few years back, the Republic got this great idea that they're no longer going to allow missionaries in, and if you want to come to Ireland to work in a church, you have to get a minister of religion visa, and you have to be hired by an existing church over there in order to come and work at that church.
So that is the only way to get in there to do this full time. And to get a work visa over there is extremely hard also. The law over there to get a work visa is they have to first offer the job to an Irish person, then to a European, and then anybody else.
So it's very hard to get a job over there. And if you want to start a business, you have to bring a million dollars over to start a business over there. So to get in, the missionaries are partnering with existing Baptist churches that ABWE is vetting.
So a missionary over there is vetting them, and they have to want us, and we have to want to be a part of their ministry. And they will also need to want to be a thriving ministry, also a ministry that wants to plant a church 30 minutes to 40 minutes away.
So that's how we would get in to do that. And there are three kinds of Bible-believing churches worldwide. You see them even here in the United States, those that are thriving, those that are maintaining, and those that are dying.
There are two churches in the GRBC in Omaha that died over the last couple years. And so it's very sad as a missionary to try to call churches. You've got a list of churches, and you try to find out their website.
No website. That's the first indicator that that's not a good situation. No website. If you're a plumber and you didn't have a website, people think are you really in business or any type of business.
And so people want to go to a website and see what you guys are all about. You guys do have one, so that's great. But then you find their phone number, and you call, and it's beep, beep, beep. It's been disconnected.
Very sad. Somebody went into that town and planted a church. They had gospel conversations. They had Bible studies in their home. And then they rented a small facility, and they started a church there.
And then they saved up enough money to build a building similar to this. I was talking to Mrs. Dean this morning. She was here back in the beginning. So it would be sad if at some point this church gets down to about ten people.
Very, very sad. But sometimes what happens is churches, they just want to maintain. I just want to sing three songs, maybe four songs, have the pastor speak for 25, 30 minutes, and do nothing else and leave.
And if everybody has that type of thought, then a church eventually will die. But as one of the pastors at Brookside Baptist Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin, we saw God grow the church from 300 to 700 in seven years as we focused on evangelism, trained discipleship, and guest assimilation for God's glory.
And so it's not about the numbers, but the 400 new people that came to the church at Brookside, we were able to disciple them and equip them, and they in turn were able to share the gospel with other people.
So they are souls for Christ. And so we were in a small building. We had three services, and the Lord helped us to be able to build this newer facility, and we saw many people come to know the Lord. One of the things that I did as an assistant pastor there is I was in charge of the discipleship class during Sunday school.
We went over 20 topics. We took two weeks per topic. And so anybody who was new to the church or a new believer, if they had never been discipled before, they could come to that class and get grounded because during the church service, our pastor was going through Ephesians or Romans or 1 John, and it was like we were in that book for a long time.
So if somebody is a brand-new Christian, not everything about prayer is in Ephesians. And so we would have them go to this Sunday school class before church. Then during the summertime, we would shut down the discipleship class, and we'd have evangelism training for 14 weeks.
The program that we used was Evangelism Explosion. We taught it during Sunday school, and on Wednesday night for one hour, we'd take a group out of three or four, and we would show them how to do that by just knocking on a few doors around the neighborhood and do a questionnaire.
And most of the time, the teams each gave the gospel to one household, just either brief for two minutes or one hour or more. And so it was great to see people equipped in giving the gospel. Then once they were done with that training through the discipleship and evangelism, we would encourage them to go to another adult Bible fellowship group.
So this was really helpful and foundational for many of our people. And we put together a plan of 30 things, three which I just showed you, that we would offer our guests to assimilate them into our church.
So our mission statement is to see God's work thrive in Ireland by multiplying disciples, multiplying churches, and missions movements by God's grace and for His glory. A missions movement would be this.
So if I went over to Ireland and gave the gospel to Jim, and he got saved, discipled, counseled, and trained, and he says, you know what, I feel like God wants me to go to Afghanistan to be a missionary.
That would be a missions movement, according to ABWE. And we do this by God's grace, with His help, and for His glory. And we'd love for you to come and see Ireland and be our special guest if possible.
On the back of the prayer card that we handed out, it says, you know, come to Ireland and be our special guest. How you would do that is our phone number is going to change. But if you'd like to come over for a week or two and have a place to stay for free, just email us there.
And our email is not .com, it's .cc. That's how ABWE put it. So if you send it to .com, it will not come to me. So send it to .cc, and we'd love to have you be on a first-come, first-served basis. But our goal in Ireland is to share Jesus verbally and in written form to as many people as we possibly can, and to disciple everyone that God brings to us, and to plant churches as God leads for a total of 10 years or more.
How do we plan to start this? Well, we plan to do this by God's grace and for His glory by meeting people while doing the things that we enjoy and inviting them over or going out. When I've talked to the missionaries in Ireland, I say, what do you guys do?
Do you guys do vacation Bible school, AWANA, door-to-door? What do you guys do? And they say, well, they see you as a cult coming from America. They won't let their kids, children, typically come to those things.
So what we do as missionaries is we just get involved in some of the things that we enjoy doing, and we meet people. And then we show them Christ's love and pray for them. And so we can do that even here in America with the people that we work with or things that we get involved in.
And as people share their concerns, we can pray for them right then or pray for them later, show them Christ's love, and then asking them about their worldview and their religious background. One of the questions that I ask many people, if I have more than a five, ten-minute conversation, I'll ask them, so if you don't mind me asking, what's been your spiritual journey?
And it's great to listen to people's spiritual journey, and they'll share it with you, whether it's been negative or positive, whether it's been spiritual, even maybe satanic, they'll share it with you.
And by asking them if we could share with them how we received eternal life. So if you listen to somebody share their spiritual journey for 30 minutes or 10 minutes, then when they're all done, you say, hey, do you mind if I share my spiritual journey?
And that's when I'm going to give them the gospel. And then also you can share with them the story of hope. The story of hope is something that ABWE put together because their missionaries were coming from different colleges and seminaries.
Some of them were trained well in evangelism. Some of them were not trained very well at all. Some of them had materials to use. Some of them didn't. So ABWE missionaries got together, and they put together what's called the story of hope.
And the story of hope begins with 20 events that follow the Bible's redemptive story. And it comes in a free phone app like this called The Story of Hope Condensed. I actually went through these 20. I actually had 23 pictures and stories that I went through with the children today in a children's church.
And so it's something that you can use with any age. And it also comes in a pocket-sized version like this if you don't have an app for your phone. And then when people show interest, we continue with this booklet and share God's plan to bring hope and eternal life.
So this one has 40 lessons in it. It's about 15 minutes each. It has a passage of Scripture that you go to and answer five questions per story. And so this would be great for churches to do. And we have a lot of Bible studies for edification.
And Vacation Bible School is geared towards kids. This would be something that would be geared toward adults. And some churches, they meet on Sunday night. Some are doing small groups in various GRBC churches.
I think it would be great if, you know, I'm not saying that you guys have to do this, but just as a thought, what if once a month, the last Sunday, we were to tell our people, hey, if you can invite somebody over to your house or go over to Jim's house, and we're going to do this and invite lots of people to Jim's house.
And just once a Sunday, once a month. That would be awesome. Then we continue with the Way to Joy to share about God's path to true happiness and a life full of meaning and purpose. So this one has 10 lessons in it, so it's some follow-up material.
ABWE has put these together in 20 different languages. So if you wanted to even start a Hispanic gospel Bible study, you could do that through them. So it's ABWE, specifically Good Soil. I had the privilege of sharing the story of hope with Jamal, Moses, and Nico in Baltimore.
I was at a seminar for missionaries with ABWE, and the very first day I went to the back, and I saw this guy helping out with water. And so I walked back there. I wanted some water. And I said, hi. I said, my name's Dan.
What's your name? He says, my name's Jamal. I said, hey, thanks for bringing the water out here and helping us out this week. And he says, hey, no problem. I said, what's your name? Jamal. I'm like, hey, great.
Nice to meet you. I said, how long have you been doing this job? Eight years, eight years working there at the Hyatt. I said, do you want to do this for the rest of your life, like a career? He goes, no, I want to get into nutrition.
And so I was drinking my water. I was about ready to leave. And as a good Baptist, I was about ready to say, hey, well, I'll pray for you about that. But instead of just kind of saying that and walking away, I just said to him, I said, hey, do you mind if I quickly pray for you about that?
And he said, sure. And so I just said, God, I pray that Jamal gets a job in nutrition and thank you for his work here and bless him in many great ways. In Jesus' name, amen. I mean, it was like less than 10 minutes, 10 seconds.
Guess what happened the rest of the week? Every time he saw me, he would wave at me. And my wife, my wife, she would say, hey, there's Jamal. He's waving at you again. So I was upstairs on Friday and I was like, Lord, give me an opportunity to go through the story of hope with Jamal.
And so at nine o 'clock at night, right here, there was a round table. And Jamal, he walks by, he's waving at me again. I said, hey, Jamal, can you come here a second? I said, hey, once you're done with work, if you have 10 minutes, I would like to show you something for 10 minutes.
And I said, if you listen to me, I'll give you five bucks. I've done that before with people. I'll never pay for them to pray the sinner's prayer, but it's like I'll take somebody out for a steak dinner, right, pay 20 bucks to give them the gospel.
So I was like, hey, for your time of 10 minutes, I'll give you five bucks. He goes, really, you'll do that? I'm like, sure. He didn't know what I was going to say. And then Moses sat down next to him and he said, hey, he's going to give me five bucks if I listen for 10 minutes.
Moses said, will you do that for me? I said, sure. And then Niko, he sat down on the other side. I'm like, hey, I can share the gospel with three people at one setting. I'm like, hey, Niko, I'm going to share something with these guys for 10 minutes.
I'll give you five bucks. He goes, I'm in. So we went around to the other side where Niko was at because he was the least interested. And I took out my phone and started going through the story of hope.
Come to find out, Jamal was a Christian. Moses and Niko did not want to respond to the gospel. That would have been a perfect setting if I lived in Baltimore to follow up with an evangelistic Bible study with them at a coffee shop or at their apartment or wherever.
During COVID, I put together this YouTube landing page, The Truth About Eternal Life. And then I put together a 22-minute video, What the Bible Says About Eternal Life, as a follow-up for people. And I also put it labeled on the back of our booklet here, this booklet I put together back in 2006.
And so if you didn't get one of these or if you want more, there's actually a guy in Omaha that prints these out for me, folds them, and sends them to me for free. So praise the Lord for that. So we've given out one of these to almost every person in every church that we've been a part of.
Not to collect dust, but to give it out to a lost person. But right now, I've been teaching in churches a very helpful message on how to share Jesus without fear. And if you didn't get the notes for that, because we were only able to get through about three-quarters of it this morning, you can come up here and get that also.
Or if you would like the PowerPoint of it, I can email that to you also. But in addition to the ministries mentioned, Jeanette and I have served in the past in the following ways. We're asking God to open up many opportunities for us in Ireland.
So some people kind of know our past. They know of all the different things that we've done. Some people, we're brand new to them, and they're like, you know, are these guys fresh out of college? What have they done?
Do they know what they're doing? So we don't say this in any type of, you know, pat on the back. I want to say this in humility, but just to let you know, kind of like as a resume, these are the things that we have done.
But my wife and I, she was a Christian college teacher at Northam Baptist Bible College when Dr. Ola was there. Then she's been an elementary ed teacher now for six years, and we've done homeschooling also.
But also a ladies Bible study teacher, evangelism explosion trainer, individual discipler. She's done CEF, Sunday School, Wanda Kids for Tooth, and Vacation Bible School. For me, I've been a teaching pastor, an assistant pastor, Christian school administrator, Christian college teacher, and dean of men at Northam Baptist Bible College, evangelism explosion teacher trainer, men's jail ministry coordinator and teacher, Dalton Children's Sunday School, couples Bible study, individual discipler, counselor, Vacation Bible School, Wanda Kids for Tooth.
So those are some of the things that God has directed us to do over the years, not all at the same time, praise the Lord. But part number two is our spiritual journey, similar to your journey of coming to Christ.
But my wife was born in Huntington, New York, Long Island, and grew up in a Catholic home. So having a Catholic background and red hair, she will really fit in well with the people there in Ireland. And she responded to the gospel at age 16 while attending Word of Life camp in Scroon Lake, New York.
So she grew up in a home that was going to Catholic church frequently every week. And actually when her parents got saved, they started going to a Baptist church on Sunday morning, and they go to the Catholic church on Saturday night.
So they're doing, you know, double duty. And before my wife was saved, she was like totally frustrated. And then the Catholic priest told my father-in-law that he should not be going to the Baptist church, but he was learning more at the Baptist church.
So that was his last Sunday at the Catholic church. And so they came to Christ and influenced their children in the things of the Lord. But she's always been supportive and serving in all the ministries that God has led us to be a part of.
And she is supportive and will be serving in her ministries in Ireland. So this is our wedding picture. Sometimes people say, who are those two people? And that was my wife and I way back when. So we rented a vehicle.
But you're like, you look nothing like that anymore. I'm like, I know I say that every morning when I look in the mirror. I'm like, you're not the guy that I grew up with. But I was born in Peoria, Illinois.
My dad worked for Caterpillar. Grew up in a Christian home. Went to church whenever the doors were open. And I responded to the gospel, as I said this morning, at a young age in DeKalb, Illinois. And when we made the decision to follow Christ, we prayed something like this at the time.
So I always like to have the gospel presentation in here and the gospels seen in a sinner's prayer here. But Lord Jesus, I know eternal life is a free gift. It's not earned by my good works. Amen? That is the difference right there of all the religions in the world.
They say, do good works, whatever we say, to get into whatever heaven they say. But this is how Christianity is totally different. And then I understand I'm a sinner. I can't save myself from eternal destruction.
I believe you died on the cross, rose from the grave to save my soul. I place my trust in you for my salvation. Lord Jesus, forgive me, cleanse me of my sins, and save me. I am willing, with your help, to turn to you from sin, with the Holy Spirit's help.
I accept the free gift of eternal life. Thank you for saving me and preparing a place in heaven for me. In Jesus' name, amen. So Jean Ann, she graduated with a certificate in Bible from Word of Life, which is where she came to know the Lord at the camp and went to the Bible Institute for a year.
And then she has a degree in early childhood development that she got at Bob Jones. Then she came up to Northland and got a degree in elementary education. So I'm glad that there was no guy that snatched her in all those other places.
So the Lord preserved her for me. Praise the Lord. But I graduated with a major in youth ministry and Bible with a minor in New Testament Greek and communications. Then I began working on a master's in biblical studies.
Our sending church is Gretna Baptist Church in Gretna, Nebraska. And our missions agency is ABWE in Harrisburg, PA. ABWE is making a difference with over 1 ,000 missionaries right now in over 70 countries.
So if they weren't doing a very good job with their missionaries, the missionaries would not stick around and use their services. So they help out in a variety of ways. And they've planted over 5 ,000 churches over the last 94 years since August 1927 with their national partners.
And for those that are curious about exploring missions, they can go and visit abwe .org. So if you'd want to do a one-week mission, short-term, mid-term, or long-term mission, you can call them up and fill out whatever application online that they would direct you to.
So people would ask us, well, why would you go and serve in Ireland? You were a financial advisor on your road to potentially making $200 ,000, and now you're going to churches on deputation and raising missionary support.
Why would you be such an idiot to do that, right? That's what some other financial advisors would be saying to me. But one of the greatest gifts that God gives to each of us is what? Our potential. And one of the greatest gifts that we can give back to God is to fulfill our potential.
Pastor Bice and his wife, Chris, they are seeking to serve God and live up to their potential. Could Pastor be doing something that would be a little bit easier, maybe make more money? Yes. But this is what God wants him to do, and he's living up to his potential.
And you need to find out what God wants you to do or continue to do. But if you're not doing what God wants you to do, find out what he wants you to do, maybe talk to your pastor, and then pray toward that end and go do what God is laying on your heart.
But at the end of our lives as believers, many of us will ask three questions. Did I live my life with meaning and purpose? So if you are at a job right now, even though it may be a hard job, you can live out your life with meaning and purpose by the relationships that you're developing there, and you can talk to those people at times at work if it's allowed.
But you could also ask some questions and maybe meet with them on a Saturday or a day off, and you can build a relationship with them and share the gospel with them. Also, number two is, did I influence others for Christ, or was life all about me?
Was it at all about Jesus Christ? And then, did I glorify God and make him look great, or was it all about making myself look great? So in Daniel 12, verse 3, the prophet Daniel heard the prophecies from God's messenger about future eternal rewards.
Now, this verse is tucked back in the 12th chapter of Daniel, maybe a while since you've read Daniel 12, but this verse here has motivated me over the last 25 to 30 years. I had read through the Bible at various times, but I kind of skipped over this verse.
I didn't really know it was tucked back in there, but it has been very motivational to me in one specific way. It says,. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.
So is this an eternal reward? Yes, it is. For how long? Forever and ever. Then what does it say? It says that the reward is that we're going to shine like the sky and the stars. I don't know all that that means, but I do know stars reflect light, and when we're giving the gospel here, we're reflecting God's glory.
When we get to heaven, we're going to be reflecting God's glory. But it may mean more than just that. I don't know specifically. But it says to do two things. It says to be wise and to turn many to righteousness.
How do you get wisdom? You get in God's Word and you apply it to your life and you live it out. That's wisdom. And then he says, Don't just sit on your wisdom. Get up and do something with your wisdom.
Go and talk to people. Turn many to righteousness. Now, all we have to do is speak, and the Holy Spirit is the one that will convict them and convert them. So he's the one specifically that is turning them, and it's turning them to righteousness.
It's not their righteousness. It's Christ's righteousness, and we evangelize them. We give them the gospel. We disciple them. We counsel them. That's turning people to righteousness. But the word that bothered me or challenged me the most in this verse, what word do you think it was?
Anybody? The word many. How many is many? Many is a whole lot. Are you ever done with this verse? It's like, oh, I'm 70. I'm done. Now, frankly, being involved in ministry for many years, I could say I have turned a few to righteousness, and I'm like, I'm done.
But, and I probably wouldn't be here tonight, but because this verse says many, my job is not done until I die. And God wants me and you, individuals, to turn many to Christ, and not just your pastor and his wife, everybody here.
This is what he wants us to do, and if you do that, he says you will shine like the sky and like the brightness of the stars. Turn many to righteousness. Wouldn't it be awesome if, it wouldn't be awesome that you passed away, but let's say you pass away, and you're being lowered there into the grave at the cemetery, and somebody puts a gravestone there where you lie, your soul will be in heaven.
But what if on your tombstone it said your name, and it said he or she turned many to righteousness by God's grace and for his glory? Wouldn't that be interesting? Wouldn't that be amazing? Wouldn't it be exciting that somebody that knows you would say that was a person that we saw turn many to righteousness?
So second, Jesus promises disciples and other believers in Mark chapter 10, he says,. Some people say, well, if I become a missionary, I might have to give up my house, give up my land, give up my cars, and go to another place, and I'm not going to be able to see my grandchildren as much, won't be able to see my children as much, and that would be very difficult.
And where do I stay? Well, what does God say? If you give up for him to do what he wants you to do, he's going to give you a hundredfold, a hundred times as much. Last night I stayed in a beautiful home of a church member here.
I don't own that home. That's where I stayed last night. I had to leave my wife and my kids, but I also got to meet your pastor and his wife and become friends with them. And so as you give up things for the gospel, you will also receive blessings from God.
But I could have left this out, but you know what the next verse says? Anybody know what the next verse says? It's not very exciting, the first part of it. This is what it says, with persecutions. And the exciting part, it says, In the age to come eternal life.
So if you were to ask your pastor, have you ever had any persecutions in ministry? What would the answer be? Yes. There are trying times that happen because people are not always led by the Holy Spirit and they do mean things at times.
So it's not always easy. Third and lastly, Jesus encourages his disciples not to worry about their needs by saying in Matthew 6, Therefore, don't be anxious, don't be worried, saying, What shall we eat?
What shall we drink? What shall we wear? For the Gentiles, the lost people, the unbelievers, they seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
Make this your primary concern. And all these things, the food, the drink, and the clothing, will be added to you. So coming up here in December 27th will be three years that I resign from Edward Jones as a financial advisor.
And guess what? For the last three years, I have had something to drink, I've had something to eat, and I'm wearing clothes tonight. Amen? Has God provided? Yes, he has. So some of you may be thinking, God wants me to go do this, but is he going to take care of me?
And yes, he will. You have to step out in faith. Part number three is our team of partners. So we're inviting, we're ready to go, and we're inviting others to partner with us in impacting the world for Christ.
And every believer must do his or her part to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the end of the earth. So the Bible says, go into all the world and preach the gospel. You're like, well, how can I do that?
I live here in Illinois. Well, you can pray for missionaries. Everybody can pray that's a believer. And some people, God wants them to go. And some people in some churches, God wants them to give. And that's how it can be done.
But if the Lord wills, our prayer and goal is to be fully funded by February 28, 2022, and then to apply for our visas. So for what people have verbally told me they're going to help us with, we're at about 33%.
So praise the Lord for that. And for one year, we weren't able to get into churches. So we're at 33 doing this in churches for a little bit over a year. Now, some people say, well, that's coming up.
So what if you're not fully funded by that time? Well, if you introduce me to a millionaire tomorrow, guess what? We'll be fully funded, right? 100 ,000 a year, boom, it's done. Or it's churches or other individuals.
But if it comes February 28 and we're not fully funded, I am not going to cry, and I am not going to quit, right? I am not a quitter. I think most of you are probably not quitters either. But I will continue to pray, and then I only need to do one other thing.
You know what it is? Change this slide, right? It'll now say August 31, 2022. Six more months to get the job done. But those who partner with us make a significant difference in the lives of many people, and God will greatly reward them.
It's an opportunity for our partners to have spiritual fruit credited to their account in heaven, according to Philippians 4. When you give in the offerings on Sunday, and that money goes to the pastor and other ministries and missionaries to do work and spiritual fruit takes place, Philippians 4 says that that spiritual fruit that they did is credited to your account in heaven.
Do you believe that? Are you giving money on a Sunday morning for the budget, or are you doing it for spiritual fruit that's credited to your account? It's an amazing principle if we really understand it and buy into it.
But we're asking friends and family and churches and others if they would pray about partnering with us. This partnership has two parts, our part and our partner's part. Our part would include serving for our partners as their hands and feet in Ireland by helping plant and strengthen churches.
Number two, by sending them ministry update emails six times a year, as I had mentioned. And if you didn't sign up and you would like to, find the clipboard and sign up, please. And I actually have about 600 emails on our email list right now, so praise the Lord for that.
And then also by praying for them and their families. So as I send out an email, if you have prayer requests, send them back to me, and we do pray for our partners. So our partner's part would include this, reading our email updates and praying for us.
If you get an email update from a missionary, he probably put about three hours into thinking what he's going to say, editing it, and sending it through MailChimp. Three hours, that's how fast it takes, or that's how long it takes.
For most updates and our updates, it's only going to take two minutes to read. And actually, just as a secret, MailChimp allows you to know who actually opened up your email. And so encourage your missionary by opening up his email and reading it for two minutes and praying for them.
They put time into it. And then also making a monthly financial commitment, if possible, and God allows. So there are some churches that can take us on right now. Some of them may be down the road, and there may be some individuals that could take us on or down the road.
And then number three is by being an advocate for this ministry by introducing us to other individuals or other churches of like faith and practice. So we believe God's glory and his plan are worth it, right?
Amen? Is God's glory worth it? No matter what happens, God is glorified by our obedience and our faith, no matter what the results are. And we believe the unbelieving lost are worth it, right? They need to hear the gospel.
I got saved when an evangelist came when I was five years old in DeKalb, Illinois. And I am so glad he spoke. But he didn't live in DeKalb. He had to leave his town and go and speak to us there in that town.
And so the unbelieving lost are worth it. I am so appreciative for Al Northrup speaking that night. And then we believe this ministry in Ireland is worth it. 0 .5%. It's very much an unreached people group.
So we'd love for you to join us and to be a part of our team and ask God about partnering with us. And to join our team of partners, just please complete the ministry partner information half sheet that I gave to you in our information packet at the beginning.
And then also please visit our website, servinginireland .com. Some people have asked me if I want to give individually to your ministry, how can I do that? If you go to our website, there's a tab on how to support them, and you can read that.
So thank you for listening, and may God bless you in many and great ways. And I don't know if you have any questions or comments or suggestions that would be needed here for the entire congregation. I will be in the back at the exit there if you want to talk to me afterwards if you have an individual question.
But is there any question or comment, idea, suggestion from anybody here? Just quickly. Yes, sir. They mostly speak English with an accent. They do have Gaelic, which would be over on the western side, closer to the United States.
But it's just a very small sliver around the coast, and it's with older people. If I do come in contact with them, I would probably use an interpreter that knows Gaelic really well, just like a preacher would use an interpreter.
So to spend many, many years to learn their language, I don't feel like would be the best use of my time. But when you go over there, if you listen to the missionaries speak on YouTube or whatever, they sound just like me.
They sound like Midwesterners. And when you go over to Ireland and you're spending money, they don't want you to talk like an Irish. They look at it as you're making fun of them. It would be similar for you to go down to Texas and try to talk like you're a Texan.
And then all of a sudden you say a couple words that are not Texan. And they're like, you're not from around here, are you? And you're like, no, I'm not. And they're like, well, don't try to talk like us.
Right? That's what they would say here in the United States. That's what they do over in Ireland. They just talk like an Englishman. So we will have to train our ear toward what they're saying and also use the language that they use.
So they don't call them lawyers over there. Guess what they call them? They call them solicitors. That's a lawyer over in Ireland, a solicitor. So you have to learn their language of what words they use for certain different terms.
But did that answer your question? All right, good. Anybody else? Great question. And you can talk to me afterwards also. Anyone else? All right, great. Pastor. Dan, appreciate that presentation. Very well done.
Gave us a lot of information, a lot to digest, and it's very helpful. The fact that there weren't any questions means you answered a lot of questions. So I've got one for you. I'll talk to you later about that.
Well, very good. So do greet him as he leaves tonight, and we'll have a word of prayer and be dismissed and let you spend some time talking to Dan. We'll let the finance committee do our thing and do the other things we have to do before we go home tonight.
Okay? So Heavenly Father, we do thank you for this opportunity to gather tonight for a hearing of this ministry in Ireland that's intended and desired. We do pray for Dan and his wife. We pray that you would bless them in the deputation ministry.
And thank you for how you've trained them and used them in the past and prepared them for this stage of life. We pray that you would speed them on their way, that the door to Ireland would open fully for them, and the support would come in completely for them as well.
So Father, provide and meet those needs. And bless us here in our mission field and give us eyes to see that which you've given us to do. Help us to be faithful in the doing of it and to be investing in eternity with our time and resources here in Sterling.
So thank you, Father, for this day and the blessings of it. Bless us now as we go our separate ways, and I pray that you would use us as we walk with you this week. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, you are dismissed.
