God is on the Move

ANDREW: Great to be with you, Dave. Today's a special broadcast for me because I have our entire leadership team here with me today. Hello everyone.

RONALD: Hi Andrew. Great to be with you.

PATRICK: Hi there people.

DAVID: Hi.

ALEX: Hi everyone. It’s good to be here with you.

ANDREW: I'll introduce you to each of them in a minute. But first, you know, if you've listened to our broadcast for a while, you've probably picked up by now, that Living on the Edge is all about discipleship. We wanna help Christians live like Christians. We wanna help you grow closer to God, and that that's what we're all about. You know, in the United States, we do that primarily through this broadcast. We are on about 1100 radio towers here in the U.S.. And of course, on the podcast or on the app or streaming. But overseas, we help Christians live like Christians by investing in pastors and church leaders. In fact, we say a church will rise and fall on the spiritual leadership of the pastor and the strength of its disciples. And so today we're gonna take a quick tour of the world to give you an update on the ministry of Living on the Edge, and how it's impacting pastors all around the world.

Now I know some of you have your finger hovering on your cell phones right now, wondering if you wanna skip this episode or not, or you're wondering if you wanna change the channel from your radio. But I just wanna encourage you, when you hear what God is doing around the world, it gives you an idea of what God could do in your life. God is in the miracle business of overcoming obstacles, and so if you listen, I just think you will receive a lot of great encouragement for your life.

Okay, so let's start the tour. Ronald Raj is with us. And he leads our work in Southeast Asia that includes, Nepal, it includes the Gulf States but also India. And Ronald, you've been in the marketplace for many years, God's called you into the ministry. And you've been traveling all across India. What are you seeing right now? What's impacting the church in India?

RONALD: Well, thank you Andrew, it's such a pleasure to share what God's doing in India, but let me set the context first. Over 1.2 billion people in India still lack access to the Gospel. That's nearly one in six people on the planet. We are the largest mission field on the Earth. India is home to about 2,100 unreached people groups, and this is the context we have in terms of the opportunity, the harvest is really ripe. Now where the church is growing, the pressure is also mounting for us. India ranks number 11 in the world for Christian persecution. Pastors are being arrested, churches are being burned and new anti-conversion laws are making disciple making dangerous. But here's the miracle, God is still moving.

Since COVID, nearly 90,000 pastors and leaders have been trained. And in the next few years, we aim to train over 300,000 more. Through them we believe we'll see about 40 million believers discipled, and 1.2 million new souls added to the Kingdom. I'm honestly not sure if any other ministry has this kind of an impact and a reach like Living on the Edge.

The sense of urgency that we have to move into areas, is amplified in what really happened in Manipur. It was a tragic ethnic and religious conflict. In 2023, a deadly ethnic conflict broke out in Manipur between the Hindu majority Métis and the Christian minority Kukis. About 200 lives were lost. 70,000 people were displaced, most of them Christians. 400 plus churches were destroyed. About 7,000 homes were burned down, and hundred villages were raised to the ground.

And when we see this heart wrenching stories, it kind of shakes the soul. And that's why, I'm so glad and so motivated when the Lord called me to the full-time ministry. It's for a kingdom, cause, a cause that's much bigger than me, my business or my family. And when we respond, we are gonna respond by training pastors who will go and train other leaders who will start training the congregation. Hope is restored, transformation happens. God is glorified, kingdom is built.

ANDREW: Yeah, amen. You know, when I was in India, I was just meeting with a pastor and he just opened up his cell phone, he starts showing me pictures of pastors being beaten and you're like, ‘Wow, this is real life.’ I got another text from another leader who said, these are all the pastors in my network who are in prison right now. It's like 40. So it's just, Living on the Edge is attracted to some of the hardest places in the world, and we're making a difference. And God is doing things through the ministry of Living on the Edge.

RONALD: Absolutely, Andrew. The window is very narrow with the general elections slated for 2029. And several state elections happening between now and 2029, the window of opportunity for us to really openly go out and, share, train, raise, disciple makers is too narrow. So I hope we get the sense of urgency, for us at Living on the Edge and for all our friends and supporters that we need to rise up to this challenge.

ANDREW: Absolutely. Thanks, Ronald. And that brings us to Patrick Kuchio, who leads our ministry in Africa. Now, Patrick Sub-Saharan Africa specifically is highly Christianized, if we wanna call it that. But that doesn't mean it's not without its challenges either. Is that right?

PATRICK: Absolutely, Andrew. In fact, I keep wondering whether J.I. Packer had Africa in mind when he penned that famous quote, that the church is 1000 miles long and half an inch deep. Because I keep wondering, of the 718 million professing Christians out of a population of 2.4 billion people, where is the impact? Did these decisions ever translate into disciples? Your guess is as good as mine. I don't think it happened because if it did happen, then Africa will be miles ahead of every other continent. But currently Africa is home to many contradictions, so many decisions, very few disciples. So much wealth in our natural resources, but abject poverty all over the place. So many leaders, very little leadership. So this is a context that you've accurately described Andrew, about Africa.

ANDREW: You know, I was reading the Wall Street Journal and, a futurist was asked, what is the future look like? And he used one word, Africa. It was interesting because we just heard Ronald talk about in India, this closing window that will be there and they've got 1.4 billion people. But Africa by 2050 will be the only growing continent. It is a strategic opportunity for us to grow disciples in Africa.

PATRICK: Absolutely, Andrew. In fact, it is said by 2050, one out of every four human beings on the planet is going to be African. So there's every reason to invest in this young greening continent. There is revival, there are thousands of young people who gather, like tonight, my daughter is just joining other thousands of young people who are just gathering together for a night of worship and this is happening all over our continent. God is on the move.

ANDREW: You know, in India there's a lot of challenges. I think in Africa we'd say there are challenges, but there are just immense opportunities. We're seeing God do some amazing things in Africa through Living on the Edge. Can you tell us about some of them?

PATRICK: Yes. Andrew. By the grace of God through Living on the Edge, we have equipped over 211,000 pastors across the continent of Africa.

ANDREW: Wow.

PATRICK: And these are pastors who are yearning, they're hungry, they're saying, we know that the challenge Africa is faced with is one of a discipleship deficit. And that if we close that discipleship gap, there will be transformation across Africa. It's interesting. this year alone, we had 45 leaders from 23 different countries gather in Nairobi. And these leaders represent over 800,000 congregations. And all of them, without exception say they are willing to cooperate and collaborate with Living on the Edge. As we help them and equip them to become disciple making churches. That moved my heart a lot, because every other evangelist has gone through Africa and the decisions have been in their millions, but the impact has been very minimal. So yes, God is usually Living on the Edge and we are trusting God, that by 2030, we will have equipped close to 500,000 pastors. Who knows?

ANDREW: Why not? We'll see what God does with that it's, just amazing the opportunities that we've been given in three years. We started from scratch and God has continually opened doors to us. Thank you Patrick. I wanna shift now to Alex and Alex leads our team in the Middle East. Now you should know, however, that Alex is not his real name. We've changed it for security purposes, but Alex, it's challenging in the Middle East to be a believer. Can you tell us why that is?

ALEX: Yes, indeed Andrew. Even in the countries which have, formal Christian existence, Christians become persecuted for their faith. And of course it gets harder and harder if they are, living in, Muslim background countries or countries that don't allow the freedom of worship as, you are used to in the West. I'm lucky that I live in one of the countries which allow the nationals to be, Christians because I was born in a Christian family. But so many other people in the Arab world, especially in the North Africans and, some Gulf countries don't have, this, blessing.

ANDREW: So what happens if somebody becomes a believer from a Muslim background in the Middle East in most Middle Eastern countries?

ALEX: In many of, the countries in the Middle East and North Africa, when their direct family might know that they are changing their faith, they might, uh persecute them, they may kick them out of the house. If it is, a husband or a wife, their partner, even by law, have the right to divorce them because for them, they are an infidel.

The second level of persecution that they face can be from the government if they are reported in some countries or if someone reports them, directly wanting to harm them, they can face, imprisonment for a long time. That can vary from one year to three years to even six years or more, in some countries.

ANDREW: Wow.

ALEX: The third level of persecution that people face is, from the general society or the community. So it's really, a challenge.

But, uh, the most encouraging thing Andrew, is that so many people are taking, faith in Christ as something that they cherish so much as something that is really, valuable and, they pay a very high price for it. In the last, year, I could say Andrew, we have seen, so many churches asking for, training for the pastors, and training for, the leaders, because they want to become disciples. They want to have discipleship material to be able to disciple others.

And it is honestly not only happening, in the, countries which have formal church and Christian existence, but also even in, the underground churches in so many countries like Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and even in the Gulf region, we are seeing so many people are crying for help.

I can say, Andrew, that in, the last year we have seen over, 1700 people trained with the, Romans 12, model of discipleship. We have seen over, 600 people receiving the Art of Survival training. People want to become disciples themselves, and they want to lead their churches to become disciple making churches. We have seen this happening with churches, with, pastors, with leaders who lead formal churches in many countries, and also with pastors and leaders who, lead underground churches in their own homes.

ANDREW: You know, it's just so important to note here, 'cause we've just talked about India and Africa and these just gigantic numbers. But I have to tell you, when you're talking about 600 or 1700 leaders coming together, this is a huge percentage of leaders in the Middle East. There's just not that many of them.

ALEX: That's, very true because you know, if we talk about, for example, the churches, the places where we know that have Bible believing churches from different denominations and different backgrounds are not so many churches. In Egypt, we have a little over 1000 churches in places like, Lebanon we have, no more than 100 churches. In Syria, there are around 70 churches in Jordan. It's about the same in Iraq. In, the other countries that don't have formal church existence like Morocco and, Algeria and Tunisia and Libya, you are talking only about a few thousands believers here and there, and maybe you are talking about, 15, 20 churches in Morocco, 10 churches in Tunisia.

But what you are saying, is really significant Andrew. The percentage of people being affected by this kind of teaching is, is great, and, very encouraging and really shows that we are headed in the right direction to equip God's kingdom for learning more how to become disciples and disciple making people.

ANDREW: You know, when I think about the numbers you just mentioned, I live in Gwinnett County, Georgia. There are probably more churches in Gwinnett County, Georgia than in all of the Middle East. Let's just think about that for a second. And yet God is opening the door to Living on the Edge, to go into these churches that exist to make them stronger. And for those that are underground, we're helping them become disciple makers. As I've mentioned before, we're attracted to hard places. The Middle East is not a place of big numbers, but it's a place that's important. It's close to God's heart, I really believe that.

Let's shift now over to Latin America and David Tamez. David oversees all of Latin America for us, but for our time here we're gonna focus on Mexico. So, David, with all the upheaval with immigration, crime, fentanyl, this, these are all the things we hear,on the news of the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico. There are real struggles for pastors in Mexico, aren't there?

DAVID: Yes, exactly, everything is changing and the news is not encouraging. In Mexico, for instance, pastors and churches are facing many challenges that hinder their mission, including violence and insecurity, which create a fearful environment for their worship services. Additionally, social and political polarization leads to a lack of unity among different denominations, and many pastors struggle with lack of resources and training impacting their leadership and that's why they're looking at our ministry for help.

ANDREW: When we were in Mexico and, listening to one of our leaders there, he said, some of our pastors had to pass gang checkpoints just to get to our training. And that's not everywhere, but this is a real issue for pastors to deal with in Mexico, isn't it?

DAVID: Yes, it's true. And, I'm glad that you're talking about Mexico because I was born in Mexico and it's sad for me to see what's going on, mainly in the border with Mexico and the United States. According to statistics, there are probably half a million refugees living, in despair. And in the midst of this situation is where our ministry and local churches are trying to help.

For instance, there is one in Mexico, a pastor that said, there was a time when I believe my ministry was coming to an end, and I had tried many strategies, but nothing seems to, bring results. I was ready to give up. And I had the opportunity to attend one of your seminars, of the High Impact Church in my city. Thanks to the inspiring insight and practical advice, I have seen a remarkable transformation in our church. These are the kind of testimonies that we are getting every day from churches in Mexico and other countries in Latin America.

ANDREW: I just want to keep saying it again and again. We work with pastors because they're the ones who have influence in their churches and in their communities. And these churches are overwhelmed. And so we come alongside them to help them make disciples.

DAVID: Yes. Our records show that over 29,000 pastors and leaders have been successfully trained across Mexico and other nearby countries, including Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and others. We are aware that, other barriers might come, but we believe that by leading a Christ-centered life, individuals can inspire others to follow. Discipleship is not just about teaching, but about actively demonstrating faith in ways that reflect the love and grace of Jesus.

So I'm here to say that there is hope because our training programs are actually working and making a difference in the countries that we are serving right now. Pastors who used to feel lost and helpless are now confident and full of new and practical ideas on how to lead their churches. We are seeing lives and communities change for the better. Even local churches and border cities are becoming safe places where people can find salvation and hope for their families.

ANDREW: That's just amazing, Davíd. What God does in these difficult places and how he brings redemption and hope. So thank you for what you're doing.

DAVID: Amen. You know, it is hard work. I am convinced that God always chooses his best warriors for the greatest battles. But we know that, with prayer and with, your faithful support, we can change the world one day at a time.

ANDREW: Amen, David. You know, thanks for sharing all the wonderful things that God's doing through Living on the Edge in Mexico and all around Latin America.

Well, I hope our little trip around the world has encouraged you and opened your eyes to the profound ways this ministry is making an eternal impact on believers and church leaders everywhere. You know, by God's grace, we've trained and resourced nearly 440,000 pastors over the last few years. And in the next few years, our goal is to see that number climb to 3 million. And that's where you come in. When you partner with Living on the Edge financially, it is like you are going with us into these communities and churches that are desperate for spiritual nourishment. And you'd be surprised at how little it takes to support these pastors. You know, we've discovered that $10 can provide these church leaders with resources, training, and this much-needed encouragement.

So, a gift of $100 can impact the lives and well-being of 10 pastors. And when a pastor is spiritually healthy, they produce Christians who live like Christians. And then those Christians go out and become difference makers in their communities and countries. And right now, during our Mid-Year match, your gift goes twice as far to help even more church leaders around the globe. So, would you please pray about what God would have you do to partner with us?

Lord, we're so grateful that you have opened the doors all around the world to Living on the Edge. And I pray your great blessing on the ministry as we help pastors become healthy pastors. And we thank you for all of our financial partners who will help us help these men and women all around the world. Amen.