Everything the early Christians experienced in Rome and Jerusalem, these people were now living through in Indonesia.
People in our audience had lost their homes not to hurricanes, but to hatred. They had built churches and seen them bombed to rubble. They had been deserted by friends and family. And the more suffering they endured, the deeper their love for Christ grew. Like the apostle Paul, they found it a privilege to share in the sufferings of Christ.
There was a graduation ceremony, and David Platt was the guest speaker. We found out that things worked a little differently than at an American seminary graduation. To receive a diploma, these people had to plant a church in a Muslim community, then bear witness as five new believers were baptized.
Needless to say, we forgot all about Louisiana and our own challenges. We had a new set of heroes. The ceremony recognized two planters who hadn’t made it—they were martyrs to the cause of the kingdom of God, and while they didn’t receive a seminary diploma, they were now receiving a crown of glory. It was incredibly moving.
Was there a message in all this for me? I felt certain there was, at this crucial point in my life. I had faced a little bit of adversity, and Jesus wanted to know if I was really ready to take up my cross and follow him—out of my range. The three of us felt inadequate and humbled.
We flew home, and I was delighted to be back with Kandi in Spartanburg; I had so much to tell her. But there was also a lot of work to be done. Dr. Wilton had a plan for Rob and me in the church.
I was glad to help, but I didn’t look at it as valuable experience for me personally. After all, I wasn’t going to work in local churches; I wasn’t the type. My spiritual gifts and talents, along with my unique story, seemed to suggest I needed to be an itinerant preacher, somebody who traveled and spoke. I’d now done that in Southeast Asia, as well as any number of places in my own country. Life on the road as a revival preacher seemed like my destiny.
Now Dr. Wilton told me what he had in mind. “Robby,” he said, “I’m going to give you a crash course in everyday church ministry. You’ve learned a lot of information in seminary, but you’re about to learn by doing.”
The plan was that I’d work in a different area of ministry every week, shadowing the staff member who handled that part of things. The church had a senior adult pastor, and I took a week to work with him. I’d never thought about the specific needs of an aging congregation. I really enjoyed that week.
Then came outreach visitation. I visited the homes of membership prospects, people who had expressed an interest in our church. Making those connections was enjoyable, and I could see the skills required in making a good impression on a church visit.
The associate pastor took me with him to visit the hospitals one week. The music minister showed me how much was involved in preparing to lead worship through song—more than I had ever imagined. The week for college and student ministry was a great week.
I began to realize that I enjoyed all of these things. And what came across clearly was that the connections I made, for example, with the teenagers and college students, were connections I really wanted to build on. The word for that is relationship.
Suddenly a new truth was driven home for me: a traveling preacher doesn’t have relationships with that kind of durability—he moves along like the wind, from place to place, never lingering. And we need people who do that—people good at scattering seeds, while others water and tend. I was looking at a ministry in which I’d never see the full harvest.
Wow. This was one of those times when I felt my whole understanding of myself changing and rearranging, much like when Tim LaFleur had explained to me that faith was not about my strength, but God’s.
A local church is an outpost of the kingdom of God, and it’s all about the fields and their ripeness. The church sows, it reaps, it nurtures. I realized how much I wanted to see that in others, even as I was seeing that growth in myself. I wanted to be a disciple who makes disciples.
Spending those weeks in local church ministry helped me understand the power of what is done through personal relationships that endure over time. The body of Christ finds and uses its gifts to build up one another. My particular part in that might be to proclaim God’s Word, but I would be proclaiming it to listeners I knew personally and cared about. I could preach to their needs. I could minister to them, face-to-face.
There was something else. I saw firsthand how powerful the love of a church fellowship can be. For three months I learned about these ministries and made new friends. The people at First Baptist were receptive and incredibly loving to us at such a fragile time in our young marriage. We’d lost everything. What were we going to do?
We were going to learn dependence upon our heavenly Father and the power of his forever family, the church. We needed to trust him to provide for us. Kandi no longer had a seminary job. We had school loans and other financial responsibilities, and just a few hundred dollars in the bank. I had a few preaching invitations here and there, but we had no other source of income. I remember the two of us getting down on our knees in the trailer, committing ourselves to
