October 10, 2025 • 47 mins
Forget the old map of mission. We sit down with Rev. Dr. Joseph Handley Jr., President of A3 (formerly Asian Access), to unpack how the gospel is moving through a polycentric network of churches and leaders—where sending no longer flows from “the West to the rest,” but from everyone to everywhere. Joe shares how A3’s cohort model develops leaders in small, practitioner-led communities over two to three years, multiplying local ownership as alumni become faculty and movements take root in context. If you’ve ever wondered how to partner without paternalism, this is a masterclass in empowering local and contextual leadership.
We trace why South Korea and Brazil became global mission engines, the role of Pentecostal experience in explosive growth, and what happens when worship, deliverance, and close-knit community meet real needs in places that already acknowledge the spiritual realm. Joe makes a compelling case for integrating justice and evangelism—no false dichotomies, just the holistic pattern we see in the life of Jesus. We also tackle faith in the public square: how younger leaders in Asia are stepping into civic life with moral clarity, avoiding partisanship, and choosing witness over culture-war.
Technology enters the picture with surprising hope. Joe shows how AI translation, voice syncing, and transcript-to-article workflows can elevate local voices, bridge language gaps, and accelerate collaboration across borders. The thread through it all is simple and challenging - - get in the game! Whether you bring decades of pastoral wisdom or a week to mentor rising leaders, there’s a place at the table for you.
You can learn more about the A3 mission through their website and you can buy Joe's book and connect with him through social media.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brian Stiller (00:10):
Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360.
I'm your host, Brian Stiller.
Podcasts, by their nature, areglobal.
But given that I live inCanada, it may imply that our
interest is seeing the worldonly from a Western point of
view.
My hope is that as you listen,it'll be informative about the
(00:31):
world, at least in other placesin which many of us live.
And that's why I want to meetmy guest today, Joe Handley.
His world is beyond theconfines of where many of us
live.
He takes us into the Asianworld where the advance of the
gospel is beyond what I haveever imagined.
But it isn't just its advancethat grabs my attention.
(00:56):
It's what comes from that worldback to us in the West.
Joe Handley heads up A3, orformerly known as Asian Access,
a network that equips church andmarketplace leaders across
Asia.
There's a new word coming intofocus as the Global Church
thinks and strategizes about howmissions operate.
(01:18):
It's called polycentric, whichis a new way of thinking about
leadership, an idea he'll helpus understand.
And thanks to you for being apart of this podcast.
As you listen, when youconsider sharing this episode
with a friend, and if youhaven't, please hit the
(01:38):
subscribe button by joining theconversation on YouTube in the
comments below.
Now to my guest, Joe Handley.
Joe Handley, thank you so muchfor joining us on Evangelical
360 today.
Joe Handley (01:54):
It's great to be with you, Brian.
Thanks for having me.
Brian Stiller (01:57):
Joe, I was raised in a generation ahead of you,
and for us in our church,missions was central.
Those who went as missionarieswere our heroes.
But life has changed.
We have gone through thepost-colonial era, the Cold War
ended, the economic resurgenceseemed to catch the whole world.
(02:24):
There's been the rise of Asia,and now we're living in a time
of AI and all of those kind ofintellectual properties that are
changing the world.
At a time, Joe, when secularismseems to dominate, at least in
the West.
And so I'm just delighted tohave you here today to talk
(02:48):
about missions because peoplehave misconceptions, they have
ideas on while the gospel isdiminishing in its impact
globally, which isn't true.
The activity of missions is nolonger around as it once was.
Well, it's different, I'm sure,but it's still around.
So having you today is really aprivilege and will be an
(03:10):
interesting conversation formany of people who follow our
program, and I trust for othersthat'll be introduced to us
through this.
So thanks, Joe.
Well, we'll get into that, butI think it's it's good for
people to know who you are,where you come from.
You had up a mission to Asia,which I'm reminded four billion
of the eight billion of thepeople of the world live in the
(03:33):
area that you are concentratedin.
So give us a bit of abackground to Hugh and what what
makes you tick.
Joe Handley (03:40):
Oh, great, Brian.
Fun to be with you today, andthank you for the opportunity.
I grew up in SouthernCalifornia and was born and
raised in a Christian family.
I have a very eclecticbackground, though.
My parents were from FourSquare Church, a Pentecostal
church.
They had gone to Bible collegeand met here in Los Angeles.
(04:03):
And then I grew up in thatecosystem until I was nine years
old.
When I was nine, my my dad leftthat church.
He was a lay pastor and he wentfull-time into business and did
quite well.
We went from a Pentecostalchurch to a Quaker church.
And so a completely differentatmosphere, as you can imagine.
(04:26):
And then I went to a Baptisthigh school.
So I was getting anamalgamation of theology as a
young kid, you know.
And during during high school,I felt an incredible call to the
work of Christ, to fall into orto run into pastoral ministry
(04:47):
and into mission.
Yeah, it was it was one ofthose fire and brimstone
services where there was apreacher up front giving us a
call to come forward anddedicate our, you know, not our
life to Christ, but our ourcalling, you know, to be a
witness, a minister of thegospel.
And my heart was thumping, Iwas sweating, and I knew I was
(05:11):
supposed to go forward, but Iwas terrified because I was
deathly afraid of publicspeaking.
And so I avoided it like theplague.
I went the opposite way.
I played Jonah until I was incollege.
I went to a what was then asmall Christian school called
Azusa Pacific University.
(05:32):
And a friend of mine invited meon a mission trip.
And that mission trip turned mylife upside down.
Prior to that, I just wanted tobe a wealthy Christian business
guy and give money away.
But serving in the streets ofMexicali, just across the border
here, God did something in myheart, and it completely
(05:55):
revolutionized my perspectiveand life roadmap.
While I was in college, I metthis young lady who's now my
wife.
We got married and have beenmarried 35 years.
We have three children and twograndchildren.
Um, and our life has been ajourney into mission.
(06:15):
Even at our wedding, we had allof our family lay hands on us,
and the officiating ministercommissioned us as ministers of
the gospel as a couple.
And we have been living thatlife of mission ever since.
I was invited to volunteer forthat program that I went on
(06:37):
originally and ended up workingat Azusa Pacific University for
10 years.
Uh, six months in, they askedme to start the Office of World
Mission.
And it was quite a journey.
I didn't know a lot about whatI was doing, but learned on the
fly, kind of like throwing intothe, you know, the swimming pool
and learning how to swim onyour own.
(06:59):
But I did have a lot ofmentoring in that process, a lot
of wise counsel, a lot of goodpeople to run beside me.
And it was a remarkablejourney.
After 10 years there, Godcalled me to a church in what's
called the South Bay of LA.
It ended up being one of thetop 100 churches in America,
(07:20):
according to a book for missionsin its day.
We're still members of thatchurch, and they ended up
sending us out to what wascalled Asian Access, but now we
call it A3 because we'restarting to work outside of
Asia.
So that's a little bit of myjourney, Brian.
Brian Stiller (07:38):
Okay, Joe.
But the world of missions haschanged.
It began back in the late 1700swith William Carey and then
mission boards of all kindssending hundreds and hundreds of
thousands of missionariesglobally.
And that's kind of the pictureof missions.
(07:58):
We go from North America orEurope or even elsewhere to
full-time vocational life.
Is that the way missions isconstructed today?
Joe Handley (08:17):
There still is that aspect of mission.
Like my wife and I, we stilloperate on that principle.
We raise support for what wedo, in addition to leading the
mission I lead.
However, there's been somedrastic changes.
In 1994, I believe it was, mywife and I took a leave of
absence and moved to Istanbul,Turkey to study what the
(08:42):
dynamics were in the kind ofemergent church of that era of
Turkey's development.
And I interviewed every Turkishpastor and most of the mission
leaders.
And what I noticed that yearwas a significant shift in the
center of gravity.
Prior to that time, I felt mycalling was mobilizing as many
(09:06):
as I could to the uttermostparts of the earth.
But after that year, I realizedthat the global church was
growing faster than at least theAmerican church and probably
the Western church.
And so that created a massiveshift in my perspective.
And so I shifted from a sendingparadigm to a partnership
(09:32):
paradigm where you comealongside and give your best to
indigenous Christian leaders,pastors and mission leaders from
the majority world who aredoing the work of ministry on
the ground.
That doesn't mean the oldparadigm is lost.
It's still important.
(09:52):
And so what I call it today iswhat is a strategic sending.
So instead of sending boatloadsof people like you talked about
in the past, I prefer to sendfewer people that are doing more
strategic things and spendingthe bulk of my energy and time
(10:12):
on empowering nationalmovements.
And so that's that's a big partof that shift that's been
happening over the last, oh,maybe 20, 25 years or so.
Brian Stiller (10:24):
So when you say empowering, what uh what does
that look like?
Joe Handley (10:29):
So it's different in different context.
For A3, we do cohorts thatequip leaders in small
communities.
You come alongside 10 to 20leaders at a time over a two to
three year process and investyour life in them.
We recruit practitioners andnot academics, at least rarely
(10:52):
academics, people that arepastors or on the ground
practitioners, even in business,to invest their lives over the
course of a week or so,sometimes a weekend, in the
lives of key leaders.
Brian Stiller (11:07):
And just so you take you you're you are taking a
group of people to a certaincountry to work with 10 or 20
people.
Is that help me understandthat?
Joe Handley (11:18):
That's correct.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So let's say, let's say I'mrecruiting you, Brian.
You're a seasoned leader in thechurch, and you worked in the
church in in Canada for a longtime, worked in the Evangelical
Alliance.
You'd be the exact kind ofperson that people would be
looking for.
I was in China years ago, andmy colleague said to me, Joe,
(11:42):
please send us seasoned veteranpastors.
We have no spiritual fathers.
And you look in the West today,people love you know, young
people in skinny jeans up front,speaking and you know, talking
and writing.
But in the global church,Brian, they want guys that look
(12:04):
like you, people with white hairor people like me that have no
hair, with a little more scarson our you know, backs and a
little more history behind us.
They love that experience.
And so I would recruit somebodylike you, Brian, to go to say
India and invest your life in 10to 20 leaders for an entire
(12:26):
week.
You would live together in thesame guest house or resort
center, depending on thecontext, and you'd be life on
life mentoring as well asteaching.
And the teaching would be moreshort segment teaching, um,
maybe 20 minutes, 30 minutes,and then dialogue and
(12:46):
collaboration and small groupsand learning from each other.
And that life on life learningis powerful.
So that's just one example.
There are many other means ofdoing that empowerment.
Some do short-term missiontrips, some do longer-term stays
in academic institutions.
(13:07):
In A3's case, we do this lifeon life mentoring kind of
collaborative learning communityspace where we'll recruit
somebody like you who willinvest a week of your life or a
couple weeks of your life toempower younger indigenous
leaders.
And then what happens iseventually that cohort turns
(13:33):
into another cohort and convertsinto a third cohort.
And by the time we get to athird cohort, some of our alumni
become the faculty.
So when the day and age comeswhen, Brian, you might not be
able to travel, one of the localleaders is then teaching on the
(13:54):
ground.
By the end of two or threecohorts, probably half of our
faculty or practitioners aredoing the teaching that are
local.
They're alumni of the A3community.
So that's a little snapshot ofhow some of missions has
changed.
Brian Stiller (14:13):
Joe, you use an interesting word called
polycentric.
Poly meaning many and centricmeaning center.
But what is though what dothose two words pulled together
mean to you as it relates tothis conversation we're having
on World Visions?
Joe Handley (14:29):
So it's interesting.
I did my my dissertation onthis subject, Brian, and
polycentric has become a popularterm in the mission circle
today.
If you were at the lastLausaune Congress, there was a
significant portion of it kindof dedicated to the idea of
polycentric mission.
In fact, the way they designedthe entire process for
(14:53):
developing at Lausaune 4 was apolycentric, you know,
multi-country, multi-regionapproach to mission.
Well, when I looked at thispopular new thread, which I'll
describe in a second, I realizedit's actually not a modern
idea.
It's been happening from earlyon in Christian growth.
(15:17):
But we have this idea thatmission was typically from the
West to the rest.
So that we'd be sending peoplefrom Europe to reach the
unreached nations of the worldor from the Americas to reach
the world for Christ.
So the difference is movingfrom the West to the rest, which
(15:41):
has been kind of the theme ofmissions in the 20th and 21st
century, to from everyone toeverywhere.
So now today we havemissionaries that are going from
Brazil to the Muslim world.
We have missionaries comingfrom Korea all over the planet.
(16:01):
You have indigenousmissionaries from India, like
south of India, serving in thenorth, where there's more
unreached people groups.
So that's the big idea ofpolycentric mission is it's from
everyone or everywhere toeverywhere, rather than from one
center to another.
(16:21):
It's polycentric, coming frommultiple centers to reach
everywhere on the planet.
And what's interesting ishistorically the idea of from
the west to the rest was reallynever true.
It had a lot of energy afterWorld War II, of course.
But if you look at the historyof mission, we have studies
(16:46):
showing that Indians were goingto other parts of India early
on.
We have Africans coming toAmerica and then going back to
Africa long before the modernera of what was themed the West
to the rest.
And so the idea of polycentricmission is this concept that now
we have people going fromeverywhere to virtually
(17:09):
everywhere.
Brian Stiller (17:10):
So you have countries like Brazil and Korea
and South Korea that are sendingenormous numbers of people, as
I understand, all over theworld.
Joe Handley (17:21):
That's correct.
You know, the Brazilian andKorean mission force for the
last 20 plus years has been someof the strongest on the planet.
America still dominates, theUnited States still dominates in
sending vast numbers.
But if you look at thepercentage based on population
and church growth or churchstatistics, the volume of people
(17:47):
percentage-wise coming fromBrazil, Korea, and India is
surpassing that of the UnitedStates.
Brian Stiller (17:54):
Let's pick up South Korea.
Why has South Korea been such adominant player in the current
world mission movement?
Joe Handley (18:03):
What an exciting story Korea has been.
And a lot of it was birthed outof a sense of poverty and a
(19:00):
sense of kind of pulling up yourbootstraps and moving forward
with this enormous spiritualresurgence.
And so this really dominatedthe South Korean scene for
decades.
And they became one of thefastest growing churches on the
planet for quite some time.
And in that ecosystem, theycaught this idea of reaching the
(19:25):
world for Christ.
And so if you go almostanywhere in the world today, you
will find either Koreanmissionaries or Korean
businesses that are operating asmissionaries.
It's a remarkable thing that'shappened in the history of
mission overall.
Brian Stiller (19:42):
And what about Brazil?
Why has Brazil become such akey player in this movement?
Joe Handley (19:48):
I think similar dynamics.
I'm not as aware of thebackstory on Brazil.
With Korea, you know, I knowpeople like Young Hun Lee who've
educated me.
Brazil, though, also has verysimilar dynamics.
A country that was, you know,struggling, that has become a
part of the BRICS, BRIC, youknow, emergent economy that's
(20:13):
growing rapidly.
And the gospel spread in Brazilremarkably.
And, you know, a lot of this,Brian, comes from the
Pentecostal wave.
Most of the growth of thechurch today is from the
Pentecostal movements in theplanet, charismatic and
Pentecostal movements.
And so those movements have anenormous drive behind them.
(20:38):
This spirit-led influencereally compels you.
And honestly, I have to saythat's true of myself.
When you asked me about how Igot called into ministry, there
I was sitting in one of thosepews with a remarkable fiery
brimstone kind of preachersaying, God has called you.
I think that kind of spirit hascaptured a lot of Latin
(21:02):
America, and Brazil is justleading the pack.
Brian Stiller (21:06):
That that begs the question, doesn't it?
In in our Protestant world, andthat's where missions has, in
our experience, has been bedded.
Then you have this Pentecostalcharismatic movement that starts
the beginning of the 1900s, andwe have this enormous growth of
(21:27):
evangelicals which composeswhich includes Pentecostals.
It goes from what 90 million in1960 to over 650 million today.
What is there in as a as amissiologist, as somebody who
lives in the world ofstrategizing for mission, what
(21:47):
is there about this newunderstanding of the Holy Spirit
that has been so critical inthe explosion of missions and
the polycentric kind of missionsthat you've described?
Joe Handley (22:00):
But I would say that people today are looking
for more of an experience.
What is lacking in a lot of uhdynamics of the world today is a
technocentric reality, amanagerial spirit.
And what Pentecostalism brings,what the charismatic movement
(22:22):
brings, is an experience thatgoes much deeper than what you
can get in a managerial kind ofatmosphere.
So when church became a littlebland or a little boring, or a
little like, what does that meanto me, or a little too
academic, the experiences of thePentecostal movement are
(22:46):
profoundly moving for people.
And it's it's even, you know, Iwould say there's a spiritual
dynamic to it beyond what notjust a mechanistic thing.
That there is something thatburns in the hearts of people
worldwide.
And when you look at themajority world in particular,
(23:07):
this is a world that believes inthe spirits.
You don't have to, you don'thave to convince them that there
are demons or you know, weirdthings that happen in the
planet.
Whereas in the West, mostpeople don't believe that stuff.
And so you have a group ofpeople that are already
believers.
(23:27):
And when they walk into achurch atmosphere or they meet
somebody with a power dynamic ofeither casting out demons or
releasing people from their painor their challenges in life, it
has a profound impact on them.
And then the community sectionof that is what builds on it.
(23:52):
So the church community becomesthe vibrant life-giving force.
Let's say you're from a brokenhome or you're from a poverty
instriction, uh poverty-infestedarea where you have very little
community, that that communityof believers becomes your
(24:13):
family.
And so between these twodynamics of family and a
powerful experientialatmosphere, you have a potent
force to draw from.
To that other question aboutpolycentrism.
What this has fueled is avibrant, fire-filled communities
(24:37):
around the world that arefervent for Christ.
And they start hearing thegospel message, and it's not
just another bland, you know,five spiritual steps to this and
ways to improve my marriage,and you know, all the how to use
the Bible to enhance mybusiness.
Rather, there's a clear,clarion call that I am to make
(25:02):
disciples of my neighbors andthe world.
And so I think that's a littlebit of what's behind what you're
asking me about.
Brian Stiller (25:11):
Joe, I notice that also within the same
context of missions, which hasas its core the winning of
people to follow and serve JesusChrist.
There has been the uh the addeddimension of serving those who
(25:35):
are who are poor, the issues ofinjustice.
I mean, tens of thousands havesprung up to deal with the
(25:56):
justice and poverty issue.
So, how do those that the thethe focus on justice and
poverty, how does that integratewith this more internal
spiritual redevelopment of anindividual and their confession
of Christ?
Do those mix easily or are dothey find themselves in
(26:19):
divisions one against the other?
Joe Handley (26:22):
Great question, Brian.
You know, I would say in theWest, particularly in the
Americas or North America, thedynamic has been more of a
division.
And we allowed the kind ofemphasis of the social gospel
and some of the liberaltendencies of academic theology
(26:45):
to influence us to where weseparated those two.
And you had a whole sector ofthe church that would only focus
on evangelism, discipleship,and church planting, and a whole
other section of the churchthat was only focused on the
social gospel, reaching out tothe poor, doing justice, doing
(27:06):
mercy.
And it's fascinating.
When you get outside of the USor North American context and
perhaps other contexts, butmostly outside of those two, you
see something completelydifferent.
What I see when I'm meetingwith majority world leaders is
(27:27):
an integrated gospel.
And they they can't even fathomthe idea that evangelism should
be separate from the work ofreaching the poor.
For them, it's hand in glove.
It's just naturally fittingtogether.
They look at the Bible, thewords of Jesus, the life of
(27:48):
Jesus, and the whole trajectoryof Scripture.
And for them, it's all anintegrated, holistic picture.
They don't see the separationthat we've created here in
America anyway.
Perhaps it's true in Canadawhere you're at too.
But they they just completelydon't even understand this
(28:08):
concept of why would you divorcethese things?
They need to be holistic.
The way you reach yourneighbors is the intersection of
evangelism with caring forthem.
You know, the way you reachpeople is reaching out in the
poor community, being an agentfor justice, but doing so with a
(28:32):
vibrant, dynamic relationshipwith Christ that is sometimes
quiet, but oftentimes verbal.
And you're sharing your faithalongside of your witness to the
community.
And for the majority worldchurch, I personally believe
they're more biblical than wehave been.
And we've allowed these thingsto separate us.
(28:55):
In essence, they should beintegrated.
So I think we have a lot tolearn from the the world outside
the global church.
Brian Stiller (29:04):
Joe, as you and I sit here today, I'm a little
older than you, but we have thehistory of our own evangelical
tradition where where faith andpolitics have have no kinship.
There's a great divide.
Render under things that areCaesars and under God the things
that are God's.
That's been our mantra.
(29:25):
Now, today we are living in anage where there seems to be a
mixing of the two.
Now, you're an American, and Idon't want to get into the
American political issue per se,but as I as I travel the world
and as you do, we realize thatthere is a new interest among
evangelicals as it relates towhat we call the public square,
(29:49):
which is which is politics,which is civic matters.
As a missiologist, as you leadthe this large mission in In
Asia, which is, as I saidearlier, is one half of the
world's eight billionpopulation.
What sense are you making ofthe evangelical mission world
(30:14):
and the indigenous missions ofthe countries that you are a
part of?
What sense are you making ofthis interest and sometimes an
alignment of faith and politics?
Joe Handley (30:27):
Great question.
I think when the majority worldchurch or the global church
that I, at least the ones Iserve, you know, where the
countries I'm in, they like tosee this integration from what
we were just talking about intothis public leadership space.
And especially the nextgeneration.
(30:48):
They are tired of either theconfluence of politics with
religion or the separation ofthem.
And let me unpack that a littlebit.
They are very concerned aboutthe confluence of religion and
politics when it becomes oneparticular faction of the
(31:14):
political dynamic.
And so when you're just alignedwith one political party per
se, then what kind of witness isthat to the rest of the world
or to your neighbor across thestreet?
I'm thinking of right down thestreet from me is a home.
There's two homes, literallyacross the street, just around
(31:36):
the corner from me.
On one side of the street is amassive, you know, American flag
and Trump banner.
And just on the opposite sideof the street is a rainbow
coalition banner.
And it's as if these two sidesare, you know, fighting one
another.
And I like to ask myself, whenJesus asks me, who is my
(32:02):
neighbor?
How do I answer that questionwhen I have both of these folks
as my neighbor?
And I think when you look atthe majority world church, they
want to see a public leadershipthat is, you know, advocating
for the things of Christ,advocating for morality and
(32:26):
justice at the same time,advocating for the needs and the
situation of the poor, as wellas advocating for biblical
standards of lifestyle andmorality.
They have a more integratedapproach and they want to reach
both sides.
And so when I look at myneighborhood and I ask that
(32:50):
question, who is my neighbor?
When I think of publicleadership, I realize that both
those people are my neighbor.
That God has called me to lovethe Trump supporting community
and to love the LGBT community.
And I do that, I try to do thatthrough a vibrant witness for
(33:14):
Christ.
And in the midst of both, thereare times where you have to
stand up for biblicalprinciples.
And there are things on eitherside that you can either
criticize or compliment.
And I find that my friends inplaces like Sri Lanka or Nepal
right now, where there's beenmassive political mechanisms and
(33:38):
social unrest, they want to seethe gospel embedded into the
public leadership space.
And so I have youngergeneration leaders I work with
that are actually entering thepolitical fray, trying to create
either new parties or join aparty, but try to do so in a way
(34:02):
that will be infused withbiblical standards and the
gospel message.
I don't know if that's whatyou're after, Brian, but that's
that's what I'm seeing outthere.
Brian Stiller (34:14):
Are you finding again Asia tends to be your your
your big backyard?
Is are those interests do theydo they end up in battling in
culture wars?
Or is there a real emergence ofof true a kind of heroic
(34:38):
leadership that doesn't allowitself to be trapped on one side
or the other?
I'm fishing for some kind ofanswer that talks about the
engagement maybe differentlythan what we're seeing here in
North America.
Joe Handley (34:57):
I think it is different, Brian.
I I don't think in many casesthey don't dive into the culture
war.
Rather, they just try to be thelight of Christ and the salt of
society in the midst of thepublic space.
That said, that same spirit isnot true everywhere.
There are countries where theculture war dynamic is is
(35:21):
present outside the you know USand Canadian atmosphere, for
sure.
Brian Stiller (35:26):
Let me cycle back into the the the nature of
agency ministry.
You you lead a remarkable NGO.
And if evangelicals are good atanything, they're good at being
entrepreneurial.
Coming up, they have a theyhave a C, we see a problem, we
we create an answer to it.
We have a uh a need over here,and we build an agency to
(35:50):
respond to that.
And so you have around theworld, I don't know, hundreds of
thousands of agencies and NGOsand ministries that are under
the evangelical tent.
Given that, do we go our ownway or are there new evidences
of partnership that that you seeemerging in a in a very uh
(36:11):
poly, to use your word, a verypolycentric world?
Does does polycentrismstrategic in ministry does it
involve in partnership, or doeseverybody go their own way doing
what's right in their own eyes?
Joe Handley (36:24):
Yeah, great question.
I I think we're in a day andage where people long for
collaboration.
And part of the spirit ofpolycentric leadership is this
idea of working together so youget rid of inefficiencies.
One of the challenges of theentrepreneurial, you know, uh
mantra is that if you just keepstarting new things, you're
(36:49):
overlapping with other people,at least sometimes.
That doesn't mean thereshouldn't still be
entrepreneurialism.
I still think there's a placefor it.
But it's probably wise to do alot of homework before you start
something up and find out arethere other people in this space
and are they doing a good job?
(37:10):
And the spirit of mission todayis a spirit of collaboration.
There's a drive both within thecircle, the circles that I swim
in are the WEA and the Lausannemovement.
I'm in those circles a lot, aswell as the Pentecostal World
Fellowship.
And what I'm seeing is a realinterest in more collaboration
(37:35):
and a concern that our effortsare are overlapping and creating
a lot of inefficiencies thataren't necessary.
So are we wasting money,Westing Kingdom money, doing the
same thing in the same space?
Why don't we work together?
And so I think this interest incollaboration is just starting
(37:58):
to really build momentum.
It's been around for a while.
The partnership movement wasbegun probably around the early
70s, around the originalLausanne Congress.
There was a big drive to haveconsultations for unreached
people groups and collaborativeefforts in different countries.
(38:18):
And that's starting to infuseeverywhere you go.
When, like right now, A3 isgrowing significantly in the
central part of Asia.
And most of that is with thealliances.
So the the Evangelical Alliancein that those parts of the
(38:38):
world are really robust.
And they want to see this kindof collaboration, at least from
what I can tell so far.
We're we're just two years inwith that part of our venture.
But that's that's an ek exampleof this ecosystem of a desire
for more collaboration, morepartnership, not wasting money
(39:00):
and kingdom time and effort.
Brian Stiller (39:03):
Joe, you've been serving for some time and uh in
a key area.
With the world changing, AI isnot just on the it's not just on
the horizon any longer.
It's in our back pool or in ourkitchen.
What what are you looking to?
(39:26):
What are you hoping for?
What are you seeing signs of asyou see this polycentric notion
become more dominant in worldmissions?
Joe Handley (39:38):
Yeah, so the onset of AI is quite remarkable, and I
know a lot of people are afraidof it.
I I personally am trying toleverage it.
I I think that any tool can beused for bad or good.
And AI has the same kind ofpotential in my estimation.
So, for instance, let's say I'mtrying to dialogue with a
(39:59):
colleague in Japan, and noteverything I express in English
is fully getting through.
Well, I can use AI to come upat least with some semblance of
Japanese.
In fact, we just recently did abig celebration for a
90-year-old leader in ourmovement from Japan.
(40:21):
And there were three Americanleaders, including myself, that
did a video for you know ourfriend, because we couldn't be
there.
And somebody put our video intoan AI framework, and I came out
speaking flawless Japanese, andmy lips were synced to the
Japanese, and it sounded likeme.
(40:45):
I could not believe it.
I mean, I mean, it's a littlescary too.
I understand the fear outthere, but the potential of that
for the kingdom is enormous.
And I think that the churchshould be ahead of the curve,
not behind it.
Why do we often come inreactionary modes and follow the
(41:07):
course of the rest of theworld?
Why are we ahead of the curve?
And so my my theory is let'sleverage this power for the
gospel.
And that's just one littleexample of things that people
can do all the time.
I'll give you another example.
A call like this one, Brian.
I now set up calls with mycolleagues from around the
(41:29):
world, and I have a transcriptthat is built off the call.
And I can convert thattranscript into a blog, into the
voice of my colleague.
And this is a colleague whoseEnglish is not their first
language, and they're notwriters, they're not readers and
writers, but they are happy todialogue with me on a Zoom call
(41:52):
or a call like this one withRiverside.
And we record it, it convertsit into text, and I can then
generate something in theirvoice and their tone, and I send
it to them for edits, and it'sa remarkable way to share the
wisdom of the world.
And so these are just twolittle stories: the one of the
(42:16):
video and the one of theinterviews with my friends, that
can be used for the gospel.
Why not use them?
So that's my theory on some ofthat.
And in a polycentric world,these things just help us.
You know, they're theirresources or tools that can help
us get along, help us betterwork together, help us better
(42:38):
serve our communities.
Brian Stiller (42:40):
Joe, this has been a very rich and fascinating
conversation.
And as we land, I'm thinkingabout people who are in
somewhere in our generations.
I don't want to be caught inone age or another, but I'm
thinking of people who havetheir career, who have children
(43:02):
or grandchildren, and who listento you and ask the question,
what can I do?
So as a uh as a missionstrategist and a executive of
mission, what would you say to aperson as they listen to us
now?
Joe Handley (43:20):
Get in the game.
So step out and step into theworld of mission, whether it's
your local community or theworld.
If there's an opportunity toget in the game, do it.
I I'll never forget, you know,it's a little bit of my story,
is I feel like most of us in theworld, at least in the American
(43:41):
church, were taught a paradigmof church that is come, sit, and
listen.
And so every week we come, sit,and listen.
And that's all we do.
But when you step out and getin the game, your life can
change.
Just like I did taking thattrip with a friend to Mexico
(44:06):
years ago, it turned my lifeupside down.
I went from a shy, quiet kidthat is afraid of public
speaking to somebody the Lordhas used in multiple places
around the world, preaching thegospel in front of crowds that
most of my friends can't believeit because I was so afraid of
(44:26):
public speaking.
And your life will becomealive.
Once you step out into thejourney of faith and really live
out the gospel, the come sitand listen paradigm is way
boring.
And I think if you step intothe zone of local outreach,
(44:51):
reaching your neighbor, going tothe ends of the world on a
short-term mission trip, it willenergize your life and your
faith.
And I'm I'm just convinced ofit because I'm a product of it,
and I've seen it happen over andover again.
Why continue to sit in the sameboring place day week after
(45:14):
week when you can be right inthe thick of the playing field?
And God needs you.
You know, He doesn't need us inone sense, you know,
theologically, but He has calledus.
And we are His emissaries andHis ambassadors to the world.
And so whether you live inToronto or Tokyo, there's a
(45:38):
place for you that God has toserve in your community or in
your nation or beyond.
And once you step into thatspace, I can't tell you you'll
be in for the adventure of alifetime.
Brian Stiller (45:52):
Joe, thanks for joining us on Evangelical 360.
Joe Handley (45:56):
What a joy to be with you today, Brian.
Thank you for the opportunity.
Brian Stiller (46:01):
Thanks, Joe, for joining me today.
Your expansive view of theworld helps lift us from
personal and nationalpreoccupations to see how the
Spirit is engaging the world inthis message of Jesus from
Nazareth.
And so thanks to you for beingpart of the podcast.
Be sure to share this episodeand join the conversation on
(46:27):
YouTube.
If you'd like to learn moreabout today's guest, be sure to
check the show notes for linksand info.
And if you haven't alreadyreceived my free book and
newsletter, just go toBrianstiller.com.
Thanks again.
Until next time.
Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360.
I'm your host, Brian Stiller.
Podcasts, by their nature, areglobal.
But given that I live inCanada, it may imply that our
interest is seeing the worldonly from a Western point of
view.
My hope is that as you listen,it'll be informative about the
(00:31):
world, at least in other placesin which many of us live.
And that's why I want to meetmy guest today, Joe Handley.
His world is beyond theconfines of where many of us
live.
He takes us into the Asianworld where the advance of the
gospel is beyond what I haveever imagined.
But it isn't just its advancethat grabs my attention.
(00:56):
It's what comes from that worldback to us in the West.
Joe Handley heads up A3, orformerly known as Asian Access,
a network that equips church andmarketplace leaders across
Asia.
There's a new word coming intofocus as the Global Church
thinks and strategizes about howmissions operate.
(01:18):
It's called polycentric, whichis a new way of thinking about
leadership, an idea he'll helpus understand.
And thanks to you for being apart of this podcast.
As you listen, when youconsider sharing this episode
with a friend, and if youhaven't, please hit the
(01:38):
subscribe button by joining theconversation on YouTube in the
comments below.
Now to my guest, Joe Handley.
Joe Handley, thank you so muchfor joining us on Evangelical
360 today.
Joe Handley (01:54):
It's great to be with you, Brian.
Thanks for having me.
Brian Stiller (01:57):
Joe, I was raised in a generation ahead of you,
and for us in our church,missions was central.
Those who went as missionarieswere our heroes.
But life has changed.
We have gone through thepost-colonial era, the Cold War
ended, the economic resurgenceseemed to catch the whole world.
(02:24):
There's been the rise of Asia,and now we're living in a time
of AI and all of those kind ofintellectual properties that are
changing the world.
At a time, Joe, when secularismseems to dominate, at least in
the West.
And so I'm just delighted tohave you here today to talk
(02:48):
about missions because peoplehave misconceptions, they have
ideas on while the gospel isdiminishing in its impact
globally, which isn't true.
The activity of missions is nolonger around as it once was.
Well, it's different, I'm sure,but it's still around.
So having you today is really aprivilege and will be an
(03:10):
interesting conversation formany of people who follow our
program, and I trust for othersthat'll be introduced to us
through this.
So thanks, Joe.
Well, we'll get into that, butI think it's it's good for
people to know who you are,where you come from.
You had up a mission to Asia,which I'm reminded four billion
of the eight billion of thepeople of the world live in the
(03:33):
area that you are concentratedin.
So give us a bit of abackground to Hugh and what what
makes you tick.
Joe Handley (03:40):
Oh, great, Brian.
Fun to be with you today, andthank you for the opportunity.
I grew up in SouthernCalifornia and was born and
raised in a Christian family.
I have a very eclecticbackground, though.
My parents were from FourSquare Church, a Pentecostal
church.
They had gone to Bible collegeand met here in Los Angeles.
(04:03):
And then I grew up in thatecosystem until I was nine years
old.
When I was nine, my my dad leftthat church.
He was a lay pastor and he wentfull-time into business and did
quite well.
We went from a Pentecostalchurch to a Quaker church.
And so a completely differentatmosphere, as you can imagine.
(04:26):
And then I went to a Baptisthigh school.
So I was getting anamalgamation of theology as a
young kid, you know.
And during during high school,I felt an incredible call to the
work of Christ, to fall into orto run into pastoral ministry
(04:47):
and into mission.
Yeah, it was it was one ofthose fire and brimstone
services where there was apreacher up front giving us a
call to come forward anddedicate our, you know, not our
life to Christ, but our ourcalling, you know, to be a
witness, a minister of thegospel.
And my heart was thumping, Iwas sweating, and I knew I was
(05:11):
supposed to go forward, but Iwas terrified because I was
deathly afraid of publicspeaking.
And so I avoided it like theplague.
I went the opposite way.
I played Jonah until I was incollege.
I went to a what was then asmall Christian school called
Azusa Pacific University.
(05:32):
And a friend of mine invited meon a mission trip.
And that mission trip turned mylife upside down.
Prior to that, I just wanted tobe a wealthy Christian business
guy and give money away.
But serving in the streets ofMexicali, just across the border
here, God did something in myheart, and it completely
(05:55):
revolutionized my perspectiveand life roadmap.
While I was in college, I metthis young lady who's now my
wife.
We got married and have beenmarried 35 years.
We have three children and twograndchildren.
Um, and our life has been ajourney into mission.
(06:15):
Even at our wedding, we had allof our family lay hands on us,
and the officiating ministercommissioned us as ministers of
the gospel as a couple.
And we have been living thatlife of mission ever since.
I was invited to volunteer forthat program that I went on
(06:37):
originally and ended up workingat Azusa Pacific University for
10 years.
Uh, six months in, they askedme to start the Office of World
Mission.
And it was quite a journey.
I didn't know a lot about whatI was doing, but learned on the
fly, kind of like throwing intothe, you know, the swimming pool
and learning how to swim onyour own.
(06:59):
But I did have a lot ofmentoring in that process, a lot
of wise counsel, a lot of goodpeople to run beside me.
And it was a remarkablejourney.
After 10 years there, Godcalled me to a church in what's
called the South Bay of LA.
It ended up being one of thetop 100 churches in America,
(07:20):
according to a book for missionsin its day.
We're still members of thatchurch, and they ended up
sending us out to what wascalled Asian Access, but now we
call it A3 because we'restarting to work outside of
Asia.
So that's a little bit of myjourney, Brian.
Brian Stiller (07:38):
Okay, Joe.
But the world of missions haschanged.
It began back in the late 1700swith William Carey and then
mission boards of all kindssending hundreds and hundreds of
thousands of missionariesglobally.
And that's kind of the pictureof missions.
(07:58):
We go from North America orEurope or even elsewhere to
full-time vocational life.
Is that the way missions isconstructed today?
Joe Handley (08:17):
There still is that aspect of mission.
Like my wife and I, we stilloperate on that principle.
We raise support for what wedo, in addition to leading the
mission I lead.
However, there's been somedrastic changes.
In 1994, I believe it was, mywife and I took a leave of
absence and moved to Istanbul,Turkey to study what the
(08:42):
dynamics were in the kind ofemergent church of that era of
Turkey's development.
And I interviewed every Turkishpastor and most of the mission
leaders.
And what I noticed that yearwas a significant shift in the
center of gravity.
Prior to that time, I felt mycalling was mobilizing as many
(09:06):
as I could to the uttermostparts of the earth.
But after that year, I realizedthat the global church was
growing faster than at least theAmerican church and probably
the Western church.
And so that created a massiveshift in my perspective.
And so I shifted from a sendingparadigm to a partnership
(09:32):
paradigm where you comealongside and give your best to
indigenous Christian leaders,pastors and mission leaders from
the majority world who aredoing the work of ministry on
the ground.
That doesn't mean the oldparadigm is lost.
It's still important.
(09:52):
And so what I call it today iswhat is a strategic sending.
So instead of sending boatloadsof people like you talked about
in the past, I prefer to sendfewer people that are doing more
strategic things and spendingthe bulk of my energy and time
(10:12):
on empowering nationalmovements.
And so that's that's a big partof that shift that's been
happening over the last, oh,maybe 20, 25 years or so.
Brian Stiller (10:24):
So when you say empowering, what uh what does
that look like?
Joe Handley (10:29):
So it's different in different context.
For A3, we do cohorts thatequip leaders in small
communities.
You come alongside 10 to 20leaders at a time over a two to
three year process and investyour life in them.
We recruit practitioners andnot academics, at least rarely
(10:52):
academics, people that arepastors or on the ground
practitioners, even in business,to invest their lives over the
course of a week or so,sometimes a weekend, in the
lives of key leaders.
Brian Stiller (11:07):
And just so you take you you're you are taking a
group of people to a certaincountry to work with 10 or 20
people.
Is that help me understandthat?
Joe Handley (11:18):
That's correct.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So let's say, let's say I'mrecruiting you, Brian.
You're a seasoned leader in thechurch, and you worked in the
church in in Canada for a longtime, worked in the Evangelical
Alliance.
You'd be the exact kind ofperson that people would be
looking for.
I was in China years ago, andmy colleague said to me, Joe,
(11:42):
please send us seasoned veteranpastors.
We have no spiritual fathers.
And you look in the West today,people love you know, young
people in skinny jeans up front,speaking and you know, talking
and writing.
But in the global church,Brian, they want guys that look
(12:04):
like you, people with white hairor people like me that have no
hair, with a little more scarson our you know, backs and a
little more history behind us.
They love that experience.
And so I would recruit somebodylike you, Brian, to go to say
India and invest your life in 10to 20 leaders for an entire
(12:26):
week.
You would live together in thesame guest house or resort
center, depending on thecontext, and you'd be life on
life mentoring as well asteaching.
And the teaching would be moreshort segment teaching, um,
maybe 20 minutes, 30 minutes,and then dialogue and
(12:46):
collaboration and small groupsand learning from each other.
And that life on life learningis powerful.
So that's just one example.
There are many other means ofdoing that empowerment.
Some do short-term missiontrips, some do longer-term stays
in academic institutions.
(13:07):
In A3's case, we do this lifeon life mentoring kind of
collaborative learning communityspace where we'll recruit
somebody like you who willinvest a week of your life or a
couple weeks of your life toempower younger indigenous
leaders.
And then what happens iseventually that cohort turns
(13:33):
into another cohort and convertsinto a third cohort.
And by the time we get to athird cohort, some of our alumni
become the faculty.
So when the day and age comeswhen, Brian, you might not be
able to travel, one of the localleaders is then teaching on the
(13:54):
ground.
By the end of two or threecohorts, probably half of our
faculty or practitioners aredoing the teaching that are
local.
They're alumni of the A3community.
So that's a little snapshot ofhow some of missions has
changed.
Brian Stiller (14:13):
Joe, you use an interesting word called
polycentric.
Poly meaning many and centricmeaning center.
But what is though what dothose two words pulled together
mean to you as it relates tothis conversation we're having
on World Visions?
Joe Handley (14:29):
So it's interesting.
I did my my dissertation onthis subject, Brian, and
polycentric has become a popularterm in the mission circle
today.
If you were at the lastLausaune Congress, there was a
significant portion of it kindof dedicated to the idea of
polycentric mission.
In fact, the way they designedthe entire process for
(14:53):
developing at Lausaune 4 was apolycentric, you know,
multi-country, multi-regionapproach to mission.
Well, when I looked at thispopular new thread, which I'll
describe in a second, I realizedit's actually not a modern
idea.
It's been happening from earlyon in Christian growth.
(15:17):
But we have this idea thatmission was typically from the
West to the rest.
So that we'd be sending peoplefrom Europe to reach the
unreached nations of the worldor from the Americas to reach
the world for Christ.
So the difference is movingfrom the West to the rest, which
(15:41):
has been kind of the theme ofmissions in the 20th and 21st
century, to from everyone toeverywhere.
So now today we havemissionaries that are going from
Brazil to the Muslim world.
We have missionaries comingfrom Korea all over the planet.
(16:01):
You have indigenousmissionaries from India, like
south of India, serving in thenorth, where there's more
unreached people groups.
So that's the big idea ofpolycentric mission is it's from
everyone or everywhere toeverywhere, rather than from one
center to another.
(16:21):
It's polycentric, coming frommultiple centers to reach
everywhere on the planet.
And what's interesting ishistorically the idea of from
the west to the rest was reallynever true.
It had a lot of energy afterWorld War II, of course.
But if you look at the historyof mission, we have studies
(16:46):
showing that Indians were goingto other parts of India early
on.
We have Africans coming toAmerica and then going back to
Africa long before the modernera of what was themed the West
to the rest.
And so the idea of polycentricmission is this concept that now
we have people going fromeverywhere to virtually
(17:09):
everywhere.
Brian Stiller (17:10):
So you have countries like Brazil and Korea
and South Korea that are sendingenormous numbers of people, as
I understand, all over theworld.
Joe Handley (17:21):
That's correct.
You know, the Brazilian andKorean mission force for the
last 20 plus years has been someof the strongest on the planet.
America still dominates, theUnited States still dominates in
sending vast numbers.
But if you look at thepercentage based on population
and church growth or churchstatistics, the volume of people
(17:47):
percentage-wise coming fromBrazil, Korea, and India is
surpassing that of the UnitedStates.
Brian Stiller (17:54):
Let's pick up South Korea.
Why has South Korea been such adominant player in the current
world mission movement?
Joe Handley (18:03):
What an exciting story Korea has been.
And a lot of it was birthed outof a sense of poverty and a
(19:00):
sense of kind of pulling up yourbootstraps and moving forward
with this enormous spiritualresurgence.
And so this really dominatedthe South Korean scene for
decades.
And they became one of thefastest growing churches on the
planet for quite some time.
And in that ecosystem, theycaught this idea of reaching the
(19:25):
world for Christ.
And so if you go almostanywhere in the world today, you
will find either Koreanmissionaries or Korean
businesses that are operating asmissionaries.
It's a remarkable thing that'shappened in the history of
mission overall.
Brian Stiller (19:42):
And what about Brazil?
Why has Brazil become such akey player in this movement?
Joe Handley (19:48):
I think similar dynamics.
I'm not as aware of thebackstory on Brazil.
With Korea, you know, I knowpeople like Young Hun Lee who've
educated me.
Brazil, though, also has verysimilar dynamics.
A country that was, you know,struggling, that has become a
part of the BRICS, BRIC, youknow, emergent economy that's
(20:13):
growing rapidly.
And the gospel spread in Brazilremarkably.
And, you know, a lot of this,Brian, comes from the
Pentecostal wave.
Most of the growth of thechurch today is from the
Pentecostal movements in theplanet, charismatic and
Pentecostal movements.
And so those movements have anenormous drive behind them.
(20:38):
This spirit-led influencereally compels you.
And honestly, I have to saythat's true of myself.
When you asked me about how Igot called into ministry, there
I was sitting in one of thosepews with a remarkable fiery
brimstone kind of preachersaying, God has called you.
I think that kind of spirit hascaptured a lot of Latin
(21:02):
America, and Brazil is justleading the pack.
Brian Stiller (21:06):
That that begs the question, doesn't it?
In in our Protestant world, andthat's where missions has, in
our experience, has been bedded.
Then you have this Pentecostalcharismatic movement that starts
the beginning of the 1900s, andwe have this enormous growth of
(21:27):
evangelicals which composeswhich includes Pentecostals.
It goes from what 90 million in1960 to over 650 million today.
What is there in as a as amissiologist, as somebody who
lives in the world ofstrategizing for mission, what
(21:47):
is there about this newunderstanding of the Holy Spirit
that has been so critical inthe explosion of missions and
the polycentric kind of missionsthat you've described?
Joe Handley (22:00):
But I would say that people today are looking
for more of an experience.
What is lacking in a lot of uhdynamics of the world today is a
technocentric reality, amanagerial spirit.
And what Pentecostalism brings,what the charismatic movement
(22:22):
brings, is an experience thatgoes much deeper than what you
can get in a managerial kind ofatmosphere.
So when church became a littlebland or a little boring, or a
little like, what does that meanto me, or a little too
academic, the experiences of thePentecostal movement are
(22:46):
profoundly moving for people.
And it's it's even, you know, Iwould say there's a spiritual
dynamic to it beyond what notjust a mechanistic thing.
That there is something thatburns in the hearts of people
worldwide.
And when you look at themajority world in particular,
(23:07):
this is a world that believes inthe spirits.
You don't have to, you don'thave to convince them that there
are demons or you know, weirdthings that happen in the
planet.
Whereas in the West, mostpeople don't believe that stuff.
And so you have a group ofpeople that are already
believers.
(23:27):
And when they walk into achurch atmosphere or they meet
somebody with a power dynamic ofeither casting out demons or
releasing people from their painor their challenges in life, it
has a profound impact on them.
And then the community sectionof that is what builds on it.
(23:52):
So the church community becomesthe vibrant life-giving force.
Let's say you're from a brokenhome or you're from a poverty
instriction, uh poverty-infestedarea where you have very little
community, that that communityof believers becomes your
(24:13):
family.
And so between these twodynamics of family and a
powerful experientialatmosphere, you have a potent
force to draw from.
To that other question aboutpolycentrism.
What this has fueled is avibrant, fire-filled communities
(24:37):
around the world that arefervent for Christ.
And they start hearing thegospel message, and it's not
just another bland, you know,five spiritual steps to this and
ways to improve my marriage,and you know, all the how to use
the Bible to enhance mybusiness.
Rather, there's a clear,clarion call that I am to make
(25:02):
disciples of my neighbors andthe world.
And so I think that's a littlebit of what's behind what you're
asking me about.
Brian Stiller (25:11):
Joe, I notice that also within the same
context of missions, which hasas its core the winning of
people to follow and serve JesusChrist.
There has been the uh the addeddimension of serving those who
(25:35):
are who are poor, the issues ofinjustice.
I mean, tens of thousands havesprung up to deal with the
(25:56):
justice and poverty issue.
So, how do those that the thethe focus on justice and
poverty, how does that integratewith this more internal
spiritual redevelopment of anindividual and their confession
of Christ?
Do those mix easily or are dothey find themselves in
(26:19):
divisions one against the other?
Joe Handley (26:22):
Great question, Brian.
You know, I would say in theWest, particularly in the
Americas or North America, thedynamic has been more of a
division.
And we allowed the kind ofemphasis of the social gospel
and some of the liberaltendencies of academic theology
(26:45):
to influence us to where weseparated those two.
And you had a whole sector ofthe church that would only focus
on evangelism, discipleship,and church planting, and a whole
other section of the churchthat was only focused on the
social gospel, reaching out tothe poor, doing justice, doing
(27:06):
mercy.
And it's fascinating.
When you get outside of the USor North American context and
perhaps other contexts, butmostly outside of those two, you
see something completelydifferent.
What I see when I'm meetingwith majority world leaders is
(27:27):
an integrated gospel.
And they they can't even fathomthe idea that evangelism should
be separate from the work ofreaching the poor.
For them, it's hand in glove.
It's just naturally fittingtogether.
They look at the Bible, thewords of Jesus, the life of
(27:48):
Jesus, and the whole trajectoryof Scripture.
And for them, it's all anintegrated, holistic picture.
They don't see the separationthat we've created here in
America anyway.
Perhaps it's true in Canadawhere you're at too.
But they they just completelydon't even understand this
(28:08):
concept of why would you divorcethese things?
They need to be holistic.
The way you reach yourneighbors is the intersection of
evangelism with caring forthem.
You know, the way you reachpeople is reaching out in the
poor community, being an agentfor justice, but doing so with a
(28:32):
vibrant, dynamic relationshipwith Christ that is sometimes
quiet, but oftentimes verbal.
And you're sharing your faithalongside of your witness to the
community.
And for the majority worldchurch, I personally believe
they're more biblical than wehave been.
And we've allowed these thingsto separate us.
(28:55):
In essence, they should beintegrated.
So I think we have a lot tolearn from the the world outside
the global church.
Brian Stiller (29:04):
Joe, as you and I sit here today, I'm a little
older than you, but we have thehistory of our own evangelical
tradition where where faith andpolitics have have no kinship.
There's a great divide.
Render under things that areCaesars and under God the things
that are God's.
That's been our mantra.
(29:25):
Now, today we are living in anage where there seems to be a
mixing of the two.
Now, you're an American, and Idon't want to get into the
American political issue per se,but as I as I travel the world
and as you do, we realize thatthere is a new interest among
evangelicals as it relates towhat we call the public square,
(29:49):
which is which is politics,which is civic matters.
As a missiologist, as you leadthe this large mission in In
Asia, which is, as I saidearlier, is one half of the
world's eight billionpopulation.
What sense are you making ofthe evangelical mission world
(30:14):
and the indigenous missions ofthe countries that you are a
part of?
What sense are you making ofthis interest and sometimes an
alignment of faith and politics?
Joe Handley (30:27):
Great question.
I think when the majority worldchurch or the global church
that I, at least the ones Iserve, you know, where the
countries I'm in, they like tosee this integration from what
we were just talking about intothis public leadership space.
And especially the nextgeneration.
(30:48):
They are tired of either theconfluence of politics with
religion or the separation ofthem.
And let me unpack that a littlebit.
They are very concerned aboutthe confluence of religion and
politics when it becomes oneparticular faction of the
(31:14):
political dynamic.
And so when you're just alignedwith one political party per
se, then what kind of witness isthat to the rest of the world
or to your neighbor across thestreet?
I'm thinking of right down thestreet from me is a home.
There's two homes, literallyacross the street, just around
(31:36):
the corner from me.
On one side of the street is amassive, you know, American flag
and Trump banner.
And just on the opposite sideof the street is a rainbow
coalition banner.
And it's as if these two sidesare, you know, fighting one
another.
And I like to ask myself, whenJesus asks me, who is my
(32:02):
neighbor?
How do I answer that questionwhen I have both of these folks
as my neighbor?
And I think when you look atthe majority world church, they
want to see a public leadershipthat is, you know, advocating
for the things of Christ,advocating for morality and
(32:26):
justice at the same time,advocating for the needs and the
situation of the poor, as wellas advocating for biblical
standards of lifestyle andmorality.
They have a more integratedapproach and they want to reach
both sides.
And so when I look at myneighborhood and I ask that
(32:50):
question, who is my neighbor?
When I think of publicleadership, I realize that both
those people are my neighbor.
That God has called me to lovethe Trump supporting community
and to love the LGBT community.
And I do that, I try to do thatthrough a vibrant witness for
(33:14):
Christ.
And in the midst of both, thereare times where you have to
stand up for biblicalprinciples.
And there are things on eitherside that you can either
criticize or compliment.
And I find that my friends inplaces like Sri Lanka or Nepal
right now, where there's beenmassive political mechanisms and
(33:38):
social unrest, they want to seethe gospel embedded into the
public leadership space.
And so I have youngergeneration leaders I work with
that are actually entering thepolitical fray, trying to create
either new parties or join aparty, but try to do so in a way
(34:02):
that will be infused withbiblical standards and the
gospel message.
I don't know if that's whatyou're after, Brian, but that's
that's what I'm seeing outthere.
Brian Stiller (34:14):
Are you finding again Asia tends to be your your
your big backyard?
Is are those interests do theydo they end up in battling in
culture wars?
Or is there a real emergence ofof true a kind of heroic
(34:38):
leadership that doesn't allowitself to be trapped on one side
or the other?
I'm fishing for some kind ofanswer that talks about the
engagement maybe differentlythan what we're seeing here in
North America.
Joe Handley (34:57):
I think it is different, Brian.
I I don't think in many casesthey don't dive into the culture
war.
Rather, they just try to be thelight of Christ and the salt of
society in the midst of thepublic space.
That said, that same spirit isnot true everywhere.
There are countries where theculture war dynamic is is
(35:21):
present outside the you know USand Canadian atmosphere, for
sure.
Brian Stiller (35:26):
Let me cycle back into the the the nature of
agency ministry.
You you lead a remarkable NGO.
And if evangelicals are good atanything, they're good at being
entrepreneurial.
Coming up, they have a theyhave a C, we see a problem, we
we create an answer to it.
We have a uh a need over here,and we build an agency to
(35:50):
respond to that.
And so you have around theworld, I don't know, hundreds of
thousands of agencies and NGOsand ministries that are under
the evangelical tent.
Given that, do we go our ownway or are there new evidences
of partnership that that you seeemerging in a in a very uh
(36:11):
poly, to use your word, a verypolycentric world?
Does does polycentrismstrategic in ministry does it
involve in partnership, or doeseverybody go their own way doing
what's right in their own eyes?
Joe Handley (36:24):
Yeah, great question.
I I think we're in a day andage where people long for
collaboration.
And part of the spirit ofpolycentric leadership is this
idea of working together so youget rid of inefficiencies.
One of the challenges of theentrepreneurial, you know, uh
mantra is that if you just keepstarting new things, you're
(36:49):
overlapping with other people,at least sometimes.
That doesn't mean thereshouldn't still be
entrepreneurialism.
I still think there's a placefor it.
But it's probably wise to do alot of homework before you start
something up and find out arethere other people in this space
and are they doing a good job?
(37:10):
And the spirit of mission todayis a spirit of collaboration.
There's a drive both within thecircle, the circles that I swim
in are the WEA and the Lausannemovement.
I'm in those circles a lot, aswell as the Pentecostal World
Fellowship.
And what I'm seeing is a realinterest in more collaboration
(37:35):
and a concern that our effortsare are overlapping and creating
a lot of inefficiencies thataren't necessary.
So are we wasting money,Westing Kingdom money, doing the
same thing in the same space?
Why don't we work together?
And so I think this interest incollaboration is just starting
(37:58):
to really build momentum.
It's been around for a while.
The partnership movement wasbegun probably around the early
70s, around the originalLausanne Congress.
There was a big drive to haveconsultations for unreached
people groups and collaborativeefforts in different countries.
(38:18):
And that's starting to infuseeverywhere you go.
When, like right now, A3 isgrowing significantly in the
central part of Asia.
And most of that is with thealliances.
So the the Evangelical Alliancein that those parts of the
(38:38):
world are really robust.
And they want to see this kindof collaboration, at least from
what I can tell so far.
We're we're just two years inwith that part of our venture.
But that's that's an ek exampleof this ecosystem of a desire
for more collaboration, morepartnership, not wasting money
(39:00):
and kingdom time and effort.
Brian Stiller (39:03):
Joe, you've been serving for some time and uh in
a key area.
With the world changing, AI isnot just on the it's not just on
the horizon any longer.
It's in our back pool or in ourkitchen.
What what are you looking to?
(39:26):
What are you hoping for?
What are you seeing signs of asyou see this polycentric notion
become more dominant in worldmissions?
Joe Handley (39:38):
Yeah, so the onset of AI is quite remarkable, and I
know a lot of people are afraidof it.
I I personally am trying toleverage it.
I I think that any tool can beused for bad or good.
And AI has the same kind ofpotential in my estimation.
So, for instance, let's say I'mtrying to dialogue with a
(39:59):
colleague in Japan, and noteverything I express in English
is fully getting through.
Well, I can use AI to come upat least with some semblance of
Japanese.
In fact, we just recently did abig celebration for a
90-year-old leader in ourmovement from Japan.
(40:21):
And there were three Americanleaders, including myself, that
did a video for you know ourfriend, because we couldn't be
there.
And somebody put our video intoan AI framework, and I came out
speaking flawless Japanese, andmy lips were synced to the
Japanese, and it sounded likeme.
(40:45):
I could not believe it.
I mean, I mean, it's a littlescary too.
I understand the fear outthere, but the potential of that
for the kingdom is enormous.
And I think that the churchshould be ahead of the curve,
not behind it.
Why do we often come inreactionary modes and follow the
(41:07):
course of the rest of theworld?
Why are we ahead of the curve?
And so my my theory is let'sleverage this power for the
gospel.
And that's just one littleexample of things that people
can do all the time.
I'll give you another example.
A call like this one, Brian.
I now set up calls with mycolleagues from around the
(41:29):
world, and I have a transcriptthat is built off the call.
And I can convert thattranscript into a blog, into the
voice of my colleague.
And this is a colleague whoseEnglish is not their first
language, and they're notwriters, they're not readers and
writers, but they are happy todialogue with me on a Zoom call
(41:52):
or a call like this one withRiverside.
And we record it, it convertsit into text, and I can then
generate something in theirvoice and their tone, and I send
it to them for edits, and it'sa remarkable way to share the
wisdom of the world.
And so these are just twolittle stories: the one of the
(42:16):
video and the one of theinterviews with my friends, that
can be used for the gospel.
Why not use them?
So that's my theory on some ofthat.
And in a polycentric world,these things just help us.
You know, they're theirresources or tools that can help
us get along, help us betterwork together, help us better
(42:38):
serve our communities.
Brian Stiller (42:40):
Joe, this has been a very rich and fascinating
conversation.
And as we land, I'm thinkingabout people who are in
somewhere in our generations.
I don't want to be caught inone age or another, but I'm
thinking of people who havetheir career, who have children
(43:02):
or grandchildren, and who listento you and ask the question,
what can I do?
So as a uh as a missionstrategist and a executive of
mission, what would you say to aperson as they listen to us
now?
Joe Handley (43:20):
Get in the game.
So step out and step into theworld of mission, whether it's
your local community or theworld.
If there's an opportunity toget in the game, do it.
I I'll never forget, you know,it's a little bit of my story,
is I feel like most of us in theworld, at least in the American
(43:41):
church, were taught a paradigmof church that is come, sit, and
listen.
And so every week we come, sit,and listen.
And that's all we do.
But when you step out and getin the game, your life can
change.
Just like I did taking thattrip with a friend to Mexico
(44:06):
years ago, it turned my lifeupside down.
I went from a shy, quiet kidthat is afraid of public
speaking to somebody the Lordhas used in multiple places
around the world, preaching thegospel in front of crowds that
most of my friends can't believeit because I was so afraid of
(44:26):
public speaking.
And your life will becomealive.
Once you step out into thejourney of faith and really live
out the gospel, the come sitand listen paradigm is way
boring.
And I think if you step intothe zone of local outreach,
(44:51):
reaching your neighbor, going tothe ends of the world on a
short-term mission trip, it willenergize your life and your
faith.
And I'm I'm just convinced ofit because I'm a product of it,
and I've seen it happen over andover again.
Why continue to sit in the sameboring place day week after
(45:14):
week when you can be right inthe thick of the playing field?
And God needs you.
You know, He doesn't need us inone sense, you know,
theologically, but He has calledus.
And we are His emissaries andHis ambassadors to the world.
And so whether you live inToronto or Tokyo, there's a
(45:38):
place for you that God has toserve in your community or in
your nation or beyond.
And once you step into thatspace, I can't tell you you'll
be in for the adventure of alifetime.
Brian Stiller (45:52):
Joe, thanks for joining us on Evangelical 360.
Joe Handley (45:56):
What a joy to be with you today, Brian.
Thank you for the opportunity.
Brian Stiller (46:01):
Thanks, Joe, for joining me today.
Your expansive view of theworld helps lift us from
personal and nationalpreoccupations to see how the
Spirit is engaging the world inthis message of Jesus from
Nazareth.
And so thanks to you for beingpart of the podcast.
Be sure to share this episodeand join the conversation on
(46:27):
YouTube.
If you'd like to learn moreabout today's guest, be sure to
check the show notes for linksand info.
And if you haven't alreadyreceived my free book and
newsletter, just go toBrianstiller.com.
Thanks again.
Until next time.
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