Reaching Austin: An Interview with Dr. David Bernard

When we launched the podcast in 2017, we knew that we eventually wanted to interview Dr. David Bernard, the UPCI General Superintendent. We have both read and referenced many of his writings over the years and his books played an important role in Bryce's journey of faith.

When we began to discuss evangelism and discipleship, we knew this was the perfect time to reach out. Thankfully, Bro. Bernard was gracious enough to join us for what turned out to be an incredible episode. We cover a lot of ground in this episode but our main concern is with evangelism and discipleship. We discuss the incredible growth of the church in Austin, TX under Bro. Bernard's leadership, as well as the importance of intentional multicultural outreach.

Be sure to pick up a copy of Dr. Bernard's incredible book, "Reaching Austin". Available wherever you buy books or directly from Pentecostal Publishing House: https://pentecostalpublishing.com/products/reaching-austin

David K. Bernard is the general superintendent of the United Pentecostal Church International, which has 5.3 million constituents in over 42,000 churches in 232 nations and territories. He founded New Life Church of Austin, Texas, out of which 16 additional churches were started under his leadership. He is also the founding president of Urshan College and Urshan Graduate School of Theology. He earned both a master's and a doctor of theology degree in New Testament from the University of South Africa, a doctor of jurisprudence with honors from the University of Texas, and a bachelor of arts magna cum laude in mathematical sciences and managerial studies from Rice University. He has written 30 books and 10 booklets that have been published in 40 languages with a total circulation of more than a million copies. In addition, he has traveled to over 110 nations and territories on six continents. He and his wife, Connie, have three children and six grandchildren.

Please take the time to reach out on social media and let us know your thoughts or send us an email at [e-mail].

If you would like to support our show, use the "Buy Us a Coffee" link on 2pentecostals.com to send a donation. We won't actually be using that for coffee but for an editor, which will allow us to produce and release weekly content.

Thanks for listening to 2 Pentecostals and a Microphone!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome back to Two Pentecostles and amicrophone. I'm so glad that you chose
to listen to us today. Thisis a very special episode where we got
to interview our Bishop General Superintendent DavidK. Bernard. In this episode,

(00:21):
we kind of cover the gamut aswe continue our discussion in our series on
discipleship and disciple making and how toeffectively apply that to the local church,
and more specifically, with this episode, we talk about Brother Bernard's latest book

(00:45):
and kind of a testimony to discipleship, and that is his book, Reaching
Austin. It's a great interview.I know that you're going to enjoy it.
I got a lot out of it. I am almost certain that you
will get a lot out of it. Once again, I just want to
thank Brother Bernard for allowing to comeon to our our podcast. Um,

(01:10):
Jared and I we're just we're justhumble podcasters in a scene of many many
podcasters. I'm so grateful that hetook the time to come on to our
podcast. I hope you enjoyed thisepisode. On Two pinecostals and a microphone.

(01:32):
Well, uh, welcome everybody,two pinecostals and a microphone. Welcome
Brother Bernard. Welcome, brother Bernard. Really good to be here, really
honored and thankful to have you.Yes, thank you so much for coming
on. We uh, we startedthis about five years ago and then we

(01:56):
decided that we wanted to have youon the show at some point, so
we hope that you would say yes, and we're gratefully you did. Yeah.
Well here, I am for suregreat. But Bryce actually, UM,
his story, I think he mighthave met you at one point.
But his story kind of ties inwith a lot of your your books and

(02:19):
your ministry, UM when he cameinto the church. So uh, it's
a really important part of his story. Yeah, we met at the Indiana
Young Minister's event last year. Actually, UM that you spoke about. UM.
But I grew up Baptist and UMvery staunch trinitarian and very anti uh

(02:47):
anything spirit led UM, very mucha cessationist. UM. But some things
started to change when I met mywife, who grew up Pentecostal in this
movement, and she h she didn'twant to leave, but I was.

(03:07):
I was determined to convert her tomy side. But but there was there
were some things that happened and Iasked her one day I was like,
have you ever heard of David Bernard? And she she hadn't actually, so
that was almost like a win forme. I was like, well,

(03:28):
she doesn't even know the leaders ofthe church, so so here we go.
But I ended up buying one ofyour books, which is the Oneness
of God, and I just pouredinto it. And I remember the very
beginning, starting off praying Lord justchanged my wife, you know. And

(03:50):
then as I read more and moreand then referenced all your scripture references and
the Word of God, and itjust began to speak to me, and
I just my prayer changed to Ijust want to know you God, I
want to know who you really are, and slowly transformed me and here I

(04:11):
am. That was the condensed versionof it. But yeah, it was
a ten year period. Well Ido believe God answers the prayers of his
sincere seeker. Yeah, absolutely,so. Yeah. I think there was
some some talk of um, I'llnever speaking tongues or something like that,
but I told my wife that atone point, yeah, she would just

(04:33):
have to deal with it. Right. Well, I told my wife that
if she wanted to marry a preacher, she's married the wrong guy. So,
uh, you know, we neverknow. Yeah, sure, we
never know. Um never say never. So we wanted to talk to you.
We're in the middle of a serieson discipleship and evangelism and we I

(05:00):
really wanted to talk to you aboutReaching Austin specifically. And you've had other
books on the topic, like growinga Church. But there's a lot to
be said, I'm sure from differentperspectives, and our perspective here at our
home church. We both attend BrotherLarry Earwood's church in Seymour, Indiana.

(05:24):
We're in a small town. It'svery culturally diverse, but it's a seventy
year old church. Next year isour seventieth anniversary and we're kicking off a
fundraising for a new church building nextyear, so it's it's still growing.
But a seventy year old church isa very different thing than a new church

(05:46):
plant. So how do the lessonsthat you've learned in Austin with a new
church plant, how can we applysome of those to a seventy year old
church. Well, let me giveyou a little background. You mentioned my
newest book published this year called ReachingAustin, and it's the story of how

(06:09):
my wife and I went to Austinin nineteen ninety two started a church in
our home and built it up toapproximately a thousand constituents plus sixteen daughter works
with an additional thousand constituents. SoI served as senior pastor for eighteen years
until I was elected as a generalsuperintendent. So that's a full time position.

(06:30):
So I had to resign from thechurch in two ten. So yes,
you're right that trajectory is somewhat differentthan an older established church. However,
I'd make two points. First ofall, I tried to examine I
examine some principles by which we startedthe church, and I think the methods
may be different from church to church, or city to city or community,

(06:56):
but the principles remain the same.So the other book that you growing a
church, the subtitle is seven appostLike Principles, and so I do believe
those will translate to any church.So that's the first point. The second
point is Austin is a very liberalcity and it's a postmodern city. In
fact, the subtitle of my bookReaching Austin is establishing an Apostolic church in

(07:20):
a postmodern city. But we facedmany cultural issues such as homosexual advocacy,
transgenderism. We faced those years agobefore they were really issues in the larger
culture, but I think even smallertowns and more traditional churches or older churches

(07:45):
are now facing those issues. SoI would say that our experiences in Austin
do translate in the sense that everybody'sfacing some of those issues that we're cutting
edge thirty years ago and twenty yearsago now their mainstream right. And so
I do that. I believe theprinciples will work. But I also believe

(08:07):
the US as a whole, inNorth America as a whole, is now
in what I would say as apostmodern culture, culture that doesn't accept absolute
truth. And so every church,large and small, traditional and you know,
small town and big city increasingly we'reall facing that because we have a
culture that's informed by the Internet.So you're not so isolated, and you

(08:33):
you know, for better or forworse, you know, each town and
each churches doesn't shape its own localculture merely as much as it used to,
because we're all so interconnected and we'reall affected by what happens all over
the nation and all over the world. True, that's true. I think
we're seeing that in Seymour, wewere in a small town, probably twenty

(08:56):
thousand, maybe a little more.I wouldn't you count all of the undocumented
immigrants, because I know our ourstatistics are off, so maybe twenty five
thousand, um. And our communityis more and more Hispanic, um,
more and more diverse in general.But we have a lot of Guatemalan immigrants,
a lot of Honduran Haitian immigrants,and so the face of our our

(09:20):
town is changing. Like like youmentioned the culture, Uh, it's starting
to reach out into rural Indiana,which I'm sure, like you said,
you saw in Austin twenty or soyears ago. All right, So we
had some specific questions I think onh on some of the numbers. We
were we were looking over reaching Austin. We were reading parts of it,

(09:43):
and it looks like you went throughsome phases of um obvious, I guess
phases of growth. And I know, like with our church, and I
know this is going to be thecase for a lot of churches that they're
established. It's a little um,it looked so fast. Those are those
are phases that are defined over years, but they still looks very fast compared

(10:05):
to a church has been there forseventy years. Already, So Rice,
what are some of those statistics thatwe were looking at. You know,
I was just really impressed because I'vebeen I was involved with a daughter work
of our church as well, andit was probably established sometime in the eighties

(10:28):
as an independent church and then somewherein early two thousands became a UPCI church.
But um, but then, youknow, it just seems they've only
they haven't grown much. And I'mjust we were we were kind of talking
before the interview just how how itis very fast and very impressive. But

(10:54):
I know, I mean just Ibelieve like by nineteen ninety six averaging one
hundred and twenty five too, youknow, you have one hundred and seventy
seven regulars one hundred and ninety peakand just and then I guess thinking like
a a large church when you werea small church was so remarkable to me.

(11:20):
And the mentality have I think thebiggest problem we have in our church
specifically is getting everybody involved. Andyou know, some people just want to
just to come to church and experienceanything and then leave and go home.
But and a lot of the peoplethat are involved in ministry are the same

(11:41):
people that were kind of recycling fromministry to ministry. Well, let me
make some comments here. First ofall, we can't really compare church to
church, one set to another,because communities are different, churches are different,
the diamonds are different. For example, in Austin, one of the
things that helped us was a continualinflux of move ins from different parts of

(12:07):
the country, especially the two coasts. And there were some help in the
sense of people who are already Apostolicor already UPCI moving to town looking for
a church. But more significantly thanjust that, when you have such a
dynamic situation where people moving in,they are more open to new ideas.
They're not so connected to their cultureor their religious tradition. For example,

(12:33):
one of our key families moved thefirst year. They were Catholic, but
they had received the Holy Spirit inthe Charismatic movement and they had even encountered
the UPCI. So when they movedto Austin, they made a conscious decision
instead of looking for a Catholic church, We're going to look for spilt for
spirit filled church. So even thoughour church is very small, just getting
off the ground, there was anopenness toward us. So, you know,

(12:56):
a more static town, you won'thave those same dynamics. So that's
just one illustration that we can't reallycompare ourselves to others. I do think,
yes, we can look at exampleslike New Life Austin, and that
can encourage us or motivate us.Well they did this, we can do
something. But I don't think itshould be in a judgmental sense or a

(13:18):
negative sense. It can be inan encouragement or inspirational sense. So that's
my first comment. My second comment, I told you about seven principles.
All seven are important, but youcould have the first five and be a
great church but still not a growingchurch. The last two will help define

(13:39):
a great church that is growing froma great church it's not growing. And
those last two a personal care andpersonal involvement. You must be intentional.
It has to start for the pastorthe fast or spouse. It has to
be embraced by the leadership team,no matter how small it is, and
then it has to permeate the cultureof the whole church. Where there's a
culture. Personal care, every individualis important, every contact, every visitor,

(14:03):
every regular, every absentee, everynew convert. You know what is
your strategy for each of those kindsof people. There needs to be an
intentional strategy for reaching and retaining andministering to all these different strata and demographics,
being intentional about ministering to various ethnicitiesand languages, being intentional about ministring

(14:30):
to the various age groups, andfinding out where you're you're weak and having
a strategy to strengthen those areas ofweakness. And so that's the personal care.
The other one is the personal involvement, which you touched on, and
that is creating a culture where everyonewho regularly attends the church is expected to
be involved to participate in some way. Now, you're not going to have

(14:52):
a one hundred percent because some peoplejust don't want that. And as a
church grows, you're going to havepeople on the fringes that they're com coming
to a church. It's of thenice size where they have good music,
good programs, good preaching, butthey don't have to do anything to make
all that happen. So you know, you're not going to have everybody that

(15:13):
is willing to serve. But ifyou preach, teach, cast vision,
and create entry level opportunities and createan awareness that this is the mission of
the church, that the goal ofthe church should go back to Ephesians four
eleven through twelve. Many times inour Western culture, I think it goes
back to the Middle Ages, theRoman Catholic Church, the idea of the

(15:35):
priests do all the ministry, thepeople just observe, they listen. In
fact, they're not supposed to interpretscripture. The church does it for them.
And in the Middle Ages they couldn'teven understand the service. It was
in Latin, and they no longerinstid of Latin. But that doesn't matter.
Your job is just to be apassive recipient, not to participate.

(15:56):
And so there's still a lot ofthat residual effect of the sharpest thinks between
clergy and laity that we translate,Well, the preachers are supposed to do
all the work, and we cometo church and maybe we pay our ties
and maybe we sing, but thepastor's supposed to win souls or you know,
the pastor's supposed to counsel everybody andpray for everybody. Well, we

(16:17):
have to shift that. Ephesians foreleven and twelve indicates the ministers are to
train the people the saints, butthe saints are supposed to do the work
of ministry, and when everybody hashis or her place of service, then
the body is edified or the bodygrows up, and so that takes for
many people. That's a change ofthinking. And if you have an old

(16:40):
established church, that can be achange of culture. Let me give you
an illustration the medium sized church ofall kinds in North Americas right around seventy
five. That means half the churcheshave less than seventy five and weekly attendants
half have more. Well, Ithink that's no coincidence because if you use
a church aditional pastoral model where youhave a full time pastor, pastor's wife

(17:04):
and they do the counseling, theydo the visitation, they go to the
hospitals, they do the preaching andteaching, they do all of that.
They do the organizing of the variousministries and the various activities. They're in
charge of all that. Well,about the most that one person can handle
is about one hundred people in attendance. Beyond that, you just don't have

(17:25):
the time or the energy or theexpertise to do that. So unless you
change your model to one of everybodyparticipates and team leadership and delegation, you
know, you may have a hundredon occasion or one hundred fifty on occasion,
but you're going to bounce up anddown and you're going to hit that

(17:45):
ceiling of one hundred or a littlemore because you'll never be able to grow
unless you change the paradigm of thechurch. So I do believe that participation
is a vital component for continued growthof the church. Whatever side you are,
right, I think early on toI mean I could be wrong,

(18:06):
but based off just reading reaching Austin, it was this emphasis on discipleship,
and because I felt like when Ifirst came into to the Tybernacle here and
Seymour, Uh, that was oneof the things that our church lacked a
little bit. Um. I seenthat we wanted to get as many people

(18:27):
in the door as possible getting baptized, um, filled with the Holy Ghost.
But then they were kind of leftto their to their own after that.
And we are making the shift nowto a discipleship model, I feel,
and we're progressing in that way.Um. I think we're just trying

(18:48):
to stir the ship, turn itaround a little bit in a way.
And it's it's been a it's beena slow process, but I think you
touch a vital point that most churchesneed to hear and probably most churches need
to improve. So in addition tothe what I call creating a culture of

(19:10):
personal care and a culture of personalinvolvement, in the middle of that,
you could add a culture of discipleship. So where the thought is, we're
all disciples, we're all lifelong learners, we're all in a process. So
when you get the Holy goes,that doesn't mean you've arrived and you don't
need to do anything. Or ifyou've been in church ten years you know

(19:30):
all the rules and you dress theright way and you pay ties, well,
then you're good. There should bean idea we're all growing, we're
all learning, we're all followers.So once you so, then you know,
let's look at it from a letme approach it from another angle.
If you want to grow consistently,you got to do three things. You

(19:51):
got to attract visitors, You've gotto convert a significant number of those visitors,
and then you've got to retain asignificant number of converts. I think
most upcior Aposolic churches are very focusedon attendance. We have events to try
to get people to come we trackour attendants. We know our peak attendants
or our record attendants. That's veryimportant to us. We know our average
tenants. That's all commendable. Butif you have lots of visitors but no

(20:15):
one's getting the Holy Ghost, thenyou're not really growing. So then we're
also focused on the second point.We know how many people receive the Holy
Ghost last year or in our lastrevival, or you know, we keep
records probably of everyone baptized, everyonereceived the Holy Ghost. That's a weekly
emphasis. That's great, but ifthose people don't stick, then you're not
going to grow. And so here'sthe weak point. How do we retain

(20:37):
our converts? Many times we don'thave a strategy. And when I talk
to pastors, they can tell mewhat their tenants was, They can tell
me how many received the Holy Ghost. But if I ask a question like
this, of everybody who received theHoly Ghost last year, and let's exclude
out of town visitors or visitors fromother Aposolic churches that may have come to
a revival service, let's just lookat nial members of everyone who received the

(21:02):
Holy Ghost laste in your church,how many are still in your church a
year from now? A year later. Now, well, many pastors can't
even really give me a percentage ornumber, and those that do might say
ten percent or twenty percent. Inthe history of New Life Austin, the
retention rate was something like fifty percentor more. Now that would include children

(21:25):
in youth that were already coming tochurch. But still think about that.
So let me give an illustration.Let's say for a church a fifty or
one hundred, if twenty five peoplereceived the Holy Ghost in one year,
that would probably be considered a goodnumber for say a church of one hundred,
right, I'd be pretty significant.Well, let's say your retention rate

(21:45):
is ten percent. That means ayear later there are only two or three
people left. Well, you're growingby two or three people, but what
are the chances in that same yearyou've had two or three people move away,
stop coming to church, or die. Very likely, So even though
you have a great revival that everybody'sthankful for it, you're not going to

(22:06):
grow. But let's say you havethat same revival, you have a fifty
percent retention rate. Well, ayear later there's twelve or thirteen people.
Well, even if you lose twoor three Let's say you net ten.
Well, a church of one hundredadds ten people, that's ten percent growth
in ten years. You will double. If you have fifty people, you
double in five years. So withthat illustration, the same revival with a

(22:32):
low retention rate has a stagnant churchyear after year after year, but with
a good retention rate has a churchthat doubles in five to ten years.
And that's really was the secret ofNew Life Austin is the retention rate.
And there are a lot of thingswe could say about that if you want
me to elaborate, but I'll justsay this one thing. I've found that

(22:52):
a good discipleship curriculum not just forquote new converts, but for everybody who
comes move ins faithful saints, becauseagain it's a culture of discipleship, not
a culture of winning new converts,a culture of all of us. And
the Pentecostal Publishing House a couple ofyears ago produced a series four modules called

(23:17):
Elements. They're very professionally done,great writing, great graphics of video clips
to supplement them. Well, whatI did is I sat down with the
team and I explained what we didin Austin. I explained our strategy and
gave them an outline and they solicitedthe writers and the artists and so on,

(23:37):
and then I helped edit the material. So basically, Elements is based
on the discipleship curriculum that we usedin New Life Austin to establish people.
We also have Elements for children.So if a church is looking for what
I'm talking about, trying to shiftto a more discipleship culture, I highly
recommend that you take a look atelements and elements for children. That could

(24:02):
be an important component of assimilation andretention and therefore church growth. Okay,
great, I think we are usingElements for children in some capacity. I
believe good. So you mentioned earliersomething about multicultural outreach and evangelism and being
intentional about that, and that wasactually on my list of questions. We

(24:26):
are being very intentional. I thinkwe're being intentional about it. It feels
like we are. We're reaching theHispanic community very effectively. We just got
a new Spanish pastor about them amonth and a half ago, two months
ago, and I think they're upto go about ninety people in that congregation.
We have some Spanish speaking people inour English congregation as well. We

(24:48):
have interpretation for those services. Wehave an outreach every Thursday for kids called
eld Refugio the Refuge, and thereare I think we average maybe sixty to
eighty kids on a Thursday night,mostly Hispanic. But we are wanting to
reach out to the Haitian community andwe have I think we need to have

(25:11):
five full time Haitian members. Nowthey all speak English as well, but
we have probably five or six familiesthat have been attenders on a irregular basis
and they none of them actually speakEnglish very well. They speak maybe a

(25:32):
little Spanish, very little English andof course Creole. So we are Brother
Wilkerson, Danny Wilkerson from Multicultural Ministriesis coming in in October to help us
launch more fully and outreach to theHaitian community which is growing in our town.

(25:52):
And we're gonna helpefully be able tohave some interpreters and going forward after
that. But what would your advicebe to a church that wants to be
more multicultural, wants to more closelymirror the makeup of their community demographics,
but but doesn't really know where tostart. How important is it to be
intentional? You never feel ready,maybe, but where do you start?

(26:17):
Right? Well, it sounds likeyou're doing the right things, but let
me make the case for it.And sometimes there are people immediately object in
there. So you're just trying tobe politically correct and you're launching on a
liberal bandwagon. And I say,no, that's not the point. We're
not trying to be politically correct.We're trying to be biblically correct, right,
So we're trying to reach our community. We're trying to reach souls.
That's the Great commission. And ifwe're willing to send missionaries around the world,

(26:41):
well what happens when a significant groupcomes to our own neighborhood. Are
we not willing to go across thestreet or across the town, you know.
So to me, it's a matterof fulfilling the Great Commission, which,
after all, Jesus said to goto all nations. Well, in
the Greek it's f nos, whichis not limited to countries, but it's

(27:02):
from where we get the English wordethnicity, so you know. So my
thought is this, And some peoplesay, well, you know, you've
got other groups that do that reachthem. Well, I'm happy for any
other apisolitic group that reaches anybody.But as the UPCI, I can't say,
well, we're going to delegate achunk on our community for somebody else
to reach, We're not going toreach them. I feel like, if

(27:25):
we're going to be the church,we have to reach everybody at least make
a good faith effort. And so, in other words, I would like
for our church to represent the demographicsof our community. And then eventually the
leadership and the ministry of the churchneeds or represent the demographics of the church,
and which is a process. There'sa timelag for that. And so

(27:48):
there's a twofold strategy. One isI think we should make each of our
churches multicultural, inhospitable, open toeveryone. I used to say when I
was a pastor, and aw,I know one church can't reach a whole
city, and so I want topartner with other churches. However, if
anybody that lives in our metropolitan area, if they were to walk in the

(28:10):
church, I want them to feelwelcome and I want them to be able
to think. You know what,I could see myself being a member here.
I could see myself singing in thechoir one day. I could see
myself ministering one day. I wantthem to have that feeling. I don't
want them to say, well,I would have to go to another church
across town to feel comfortable. Thatto me is not right. So that's
the first strategy, but recognizing thatnot everyone will be one that way.

(28:36):
Some need a more targeted focus ontheir own language or ethnicity. So in
addition to making every church welcoming ina hospital and opening open, we should
intentionally recruit people of minority groups,whether it to talk about language or ethnicity,
are demographics of town and try toplan churches in minority communities, not

(29:03):
at all as a segregaistist type move, but as a way of multi pronged
ministry, so it doesn't have tobe either or so. In Austin,
for example, the largest ethnicity,of course was Caucasian, which which was
me so it was relatively easy toattract fellow people of the same ethnicity and
language. But the second largest demographicmay be close to a fourth of the

(29:27):
city maybe a little more now,was Hispanic. So the first thing we
did, of course is trying tobe open and welcoming to Hispanics. And
you know, we were very successfulbecause most Hispanics come from an immigrant background,
first, second or third generation,and they come because they want to

(29:48):
assimilate to the larger culture, eventhough they value their culture distinctives. They're
coming to America because of some positivethings work and so forth, and so
they're they're open to coming to anEnglish church if they understand least some English.
But at the same time, thereare many first generation immigrants it didn't
understand English. And we'd have somecome and even get the Holy Ghost,

(30:11):
but they couldn't really learn. Andso I realized, we have got to
go the second mile. We've gotto start a Spanish speaking church. So
over the course of time, Ithink over twenty five percent, probably twenty
seven percent of our main English speakingcongregation was Hispanic because they knew English and
preferred English. But of the sixteendaughter works we established during my time there,

(30:37):
six of them were Spanish speaking.So it wasn't either or it was
both end and I think that's anillustration of what we should strive for now
other ethnicities, So each one isdifferent. So many times, like we're
very successful with Asians as well well, many times the family was bilingual,

(31:00):
maybe the spouse was an English speakingor the children used were English speaking,
So we didn't we did start oneKorean daughter work, but mainly for the
Asian demographics, we didn't need tostart a daughter work in their language because
they wanted to come as a familyto the English speaking church. But instead

(31:21):
we might have a Sunday school class, an adult Sunday school class, or
a home fellowship or a periodic socialin their language. So like for the
Filipinos, they wanted to come tothe main service, but we had a
Filipino ministry. Now, in somecases you have a strong Filipino immigrant community,
you might actually want to start aFilipino daughter work, but in our

(31:42):
case it never progressed that because theEnglish speaking church ministered effectivity to them.
But by having a targeted Filipino ministrywhere it say once a quarter we would
have a Filipino social and then weat different times we would have an adult
Sunday school class using Tagalog, whichis the their majority language, and then

(32:04):
they would form friendships and that sufficeto make them feel valued, wanted,
connected, and every once in awhile we'd have a Filipino potluck dinner where
the whole church participated. But theFilipinos felt like our culture is being celebrated
and valued as part of the biggerchurch. So there are different strategies to

(32:25):
reach different ethnicities. But the mainpoint I do believe is to be intentional.
So when I say intentional, youhave to preach it. You have
to teach it, you have tocast vision, and then you have to
find practical ways to make people feelwelcomed, valued and affirmed. That makes
sense. I was reading in abook or Revelation where it says chapter seven,

(32:47):
verse nine, this vision of heavensays people from every nation, all
tribes and peoples and languages, standingbefore the throne and before the lamb.
And that is if we want tohave you have it on earth. That's
that's what it's going to look like. So that's what it would be.
Yes. Yeah. And a greatway is All Nations Sunday, which is
recommended in October, where you makea point to say, let's invite someone

(33:13):
of another ethnicity, let's invite animmigrant, and then maybe say if you're
from another country originally where you yourtraditional national dress, and we'll have flags
representing the nations, and maybe we'llhave a potluck dinner. What we did
in Austin is we would announce apotluck dinner, but the only people could
come, were people of another nationalityoriginally or someone who brought them, and

(33:38):
then all of them could participate.And that was a great time because it
becomes a good excuse to invite afriend or maybe someone you're you go to
the gas station or the grocery storeand you're seeing someone of another ethnicity.
You don't know really how. Youmay may have small talk, maybe friendly,

(33:59):
but this beas she used to say, Oh, by the way,
our church is having all nations Sunday, and my pastor asked if we knew
anybody from another country to invite themor would you like to come as my
guests, And we're going to havedinner free dinner after church, and you
know we'd love to have you.Well, that becomes a good reason.
And many immigrants are wanting ways tomake friends in American society. They're wanting

(34:23):
ways to get more involved, andthe church can be a great way.
Yeah, we're finding that. Ithink that's been our experiences anymore. Yeah,
for sure. And I brother Wilkerson'sactually coming to do help us kick
off with Hatian outreach on a Thursdaythrough Saturday, and then that Sunday he's

(34:45):
going to preach in Creole and interpretin English on all Nation's Day and wonderful,
you know, And that's all thathighlights a couple of things. We
do have multicultural ministries in the UPCIwith about tw any different language groups.
So if you would contact them,they could likely help you with resources and
maybe send someone like you're talking about. And even if we don't have a

(35:08):
coordinator in that particular language or they'renot available, still the resources they provide,
and there's a website, globaltracks dotcom, a t r acts globaltracks
dot com which has resources in manylanguages. And if you do find that
languages is an issue or barrier,if you can get one person who can

(35:30):
translate, they may not even bein church yet, or they may be
a new convert. But with thesupplemental material that you find on Global Tracks,
and maybe with support of MCM ora missionary even you could at least
pull yourself up by the bootstraps,you know, with one person that can

(35:51):
translate. And then once you startgetting people filled with the Holy Ghost,
then that you know, that willhelp solidify. Because what you find with
immigrants and ethnic minorities frequently they havea close network of friends, maybe closer
than the average person in society.And so when you win one, you
have an open door to twenty.And so that could be a great revival

(36:16):
when you focus on it. Andso yes, if you have some interest
in people coming, I would experimentwith it. May start with a Bible
study. And so even though youmay not have a leader, if you
have someone who's competent as a translator, they could teach a Bible study and
not teach one, but they couldhelp translate one. You might have to

(36:37):
work with them on the Bible languageahead of time and get the mature from
global tracks and make sure they knowwhat repentance is so they translate it properly,
and get the Bible in their language, and make sure they find the
right verses and understand or here's theEnglish verse. Now read the verse in
your language, so you know whatword translates what word. So if they

(36:59):
don't come from a background, youmight have to work with them, because
just knowing English doesn't mean they knowBible English. And I would also say
getting a translation in their language andalso getting a modern translation like the New
King James or something else or wherethey can understand it easily, and then
they compare the English to their version, and so you're kind of teaching them.

(37:22):
But so yes, even and thenultimately for any ethnicity, once you
get a few people who can participate, who are qualified for leadership, and
you can use them as role models, then that's going to be the key
because that signifies not only am Iwelcome to your church, but I can

(37:44):
be part of your church. Youknow, people of my ethnicity are valued
as members and leaders of the church, so you know, you ultimately to
be successful, you need a nucleusof people who are singing in the choir,
who are hosted is, who areteaching Sunday School of that ethinicity in

(38:04):
order to build a solid group.Right, Yeah, that totally makes sense.
And that's what Brother Wilkerson actually suggestedsomething that you just said, which
was have someone interpret, even ifthey maybe aren't saved yet. If they
can interpret, and we have acouple of guys, I think who will.
They're not regular attenders, they're veryirregular, but I think that will

(38:25):
help get them plugged in as well, and they can be often the interpreters
your first convert because they understand betterthan anybody else. Right, that's what
we're hoping. Yeah, all right, So our next question, Well,
I I think this is something that'smaybe misunderstood by a lot of people.

(38:47):
Maybe maybe I misunderstood it, soI assume other people do. But I
grew up in UPC churches basically mywhole life, and I always oomed that
we didn't talk to other Christians ofother denominations. And I think that was
that was my experience in some ofthe churches I was in, that was

(39:10):
the culture it was. We wouldgladly accept converts, but we expected them
to all be unchurched. We reallydidn't reach out to people of other denominations.
How should churches How should Apostolic churchesinterface with non Apostolic churches in their

(39:30):
community. Well, first of all, we need to be friendly to all
those around us. It doesn't matterwhat their denominational religion is. On a
personal level, we need to explorecontexts outside of our church. Now,
I do understand your close friends,that your mentors. You know, they
need to share your worldview and yourbeliefs. So I do understand that that

(39:55):
if you have close fellowship with unsavedpeople or p pole who are hostile to
our message, that could be aproblem. But I think overall, we
need to be friendly. So inour normal relationships, work, school,
neighborhood, job, social interactions,going to the restaurant, going to store,

(40:17):
we need to meet people. Andit doesn't matter what their religion is
Catholic, Protestant, Atheist, Buddhist, Muslim. Just be friendly, be
kind, help them form relationships.That's how you win people. It's you
usually don't win anybody through a debateover doctrine. You win them through personal
relationships. Now, we should bestrong enough in our beliefs that we can

(40:40):
be friends with people without being afraidof backsliding. And if that's our fear,
well, then I think we needto shore up our own beliefs.
So maybe that's where we need theculture of discipleship, where everyone is trained
to understand what we believe in whywe believe it. So now again I
understand if we had a close intimate, personal best friend or mentor that's of

(41:05):
another faith, that could be aproblem for us. But in general being
friends and interacting with people, ifthat is intimidating, then that's kind of
an indictment of us. Right,So we need to learn our own doctrine
and why we believe it and whatthe Bible says, and then we're not
intimidated. We can be relaxed,and obviously we want to win whoever we

(41:30):
can. But the idea is notjust to go Beline to win somebody.
The idea is to function in society, in your family, in your neighborhood,
in your workplace, at your schoolas a good contributing citizen member.
Be friendly, be kind, helppeople if they're struggling, you know,
advise them if they need to prayeror pray for them. And you're doing

(41:50):
that just to be a good humanbeing and to be a friend. Now,
out of that will grow opportunities towin souls. But if you're Maine,
if you're just saying, well,I'm going to target this person to
convert them, that's almost kind oflike using people even though you have their
best insis of heart. But ifyou just try to be a good neighbor
and a good friend and a goodbrother, then out of that will grow

(42:15):
relationships which then become bridges for conversion. So a healthy church will do that.
The best way to win you peopleis through existing relationships. So I
would say be friends with everybody,including people of other religions. That's the
best way to win them. Don'tbe intimidated. And if you're concerned about

(42:37):
that, that indicates a need fora more thorough training and discipleship for the
church. Now, when you doengage with informed Christians of other faiths,
then yes, you should have yoube able to understand what they believe and
then be able to explain. Andso I look at sincere Christians of other

(42:58):
groups like Baptist, Catholic Summies ofGod, I like to say they're in
the process of salvation. So ifthey truly believe on Jesus Christ, that's
an advantage over a Buddhist. Ifthey truly repented of their sins. I
think many Baptists have repented of theirsins. Well, they made the first
step if they truly received the HolySpirit. Many people in the Summies of

(43:20):
God or received the Holy Spirit speakingin tongues, so you can acknowledge where
they are, that they're in theprocess. So you don't just reject them
as unbelievers, but you accept themas having a measure of faith and they're
in a process, and then yourgoal is to lead them to the next
step in the process. And wedo find good examples such as the Book

(43:45):
of Acts, chapter nineteen, theDisciples of John and Ephesus. They were
considered disciples, they were considered believers, but yet Paul led them to baptism
in Jesus name and then the baptismof the Holy Spirit with the sign of
speaking in tongues. So I dobelieve we have examples in the Bible of
where we should engage people who Iwould say have a partial faith, and

(44:07):
we lead them to a completion oftheir experience with God. Yeah. I
know in my personal experience, Imean a lot of my I had a
lot of preconceived notions of the ofthe Pentecostal church. I was really close
to my pastor's son who I grewup with, and I remember writing in

(44:30):
a car with him one day andwe passed a Pentecostal church and he pointed
out, like, you don't wantanything to do with them. I had
a youth pastor tell me once Ibought a commentary on the Book of Acts
at a local Bible bookstore, andshe was like, you need to be

(44:51):
really careful with that talking about spiritualthings. And so I had all this
stuff growing up and leaders in mylife telling me that, you know,
steer clearer of the Pentecostals Um,and so going into the relationship with my
wife. You know, as wedeveloped our relationship, that was I always
had that and UM, but ittook it took a god breaking the cataracts

(45:20):
if you will, or you know, the light coming through to finally realize
the truth. But I felt likeit was a It's part of the ministry
I have is reaching other Christians thatare like me. UM. I have
friends that have gone on to seminaryand very strong in their beliefs and trying

(45:44):
to find a way to bridge thatgap and just to have a Bible study,
have a conversation with them, haveyou know, trying to speak a
little bit of truth into their lives. You know, I found it difficult,
but I I do agree with youin the sense, you know,

(46:04):
building that rapport with them, developingthat friendship, having that conversation is so
vital. I've you know, I'vebeen involved in different outreach things throughout my
life, and I found that thebest most effective way, at least for
me, was developing a relationship.It wasn't ever knocking on some random door

(46:30):
inviting them to church. I neverI don't think any door I've ever knocked
on, they actually came. Butwell, I'll just say this. I
tracked the all of the converts inthe first ten years of our work in
Austin, and here's what I found. So I have personally won people strangers
to giving a track. I've youknow, I've what I call cold contacts,

(46:53):
where you knock on a stranger's door, or you give a stranger a
track, or you have a streetservice, or maybe you visit a halfway
house. Well, in the historyof our church, five percent of our
converts were won by coal contacts.Ten percent were one through all forms of
evangelism, the sign newspaper ads,radio spots in the early days, the

(47:16):
Yellow Pages in the later years.The Internet became the best. So of
all kinds of you know, advertisingto strangers, direct mail, doorhangers ten
percent. The remaining eighty five percentof our converts were one through personal relationships,
family, friends, co workers,neighbors. So, while all the

(47:38):
methods can be effective, and allthe methods can help mobilize your own people
to get involved, if you doan analysis, I think the overwhelming way
you're gonna win converts is for ourown people to be friendly and you know,
a new convert is likely to winother people easily because they have to

(48:00):
zeal to convert, and they've gota lot of unsaved friends. After they've
been in church for several years,they've worked through all their friends and people
have either said no, I'm notinterested, or they've won some but they
no longer go to parties like theyused to, or go hang out or
go drinking, and so they losea lot of friends, or a lot
of friends become casual. So thenmost of their friends become church friends,

(48:22):
which is good in the sense ofassimilation, but it hinders evangelism. So
how do you overcome that? Well, you have to teach your people and
remind them to be friendly, tobe kind, to make friends, to
learn how to share their testimony,which anybody should be able to do that,
learn how to give a simple Biblestudy, which anybody should do that.

(48:45):
But then you have to say,you've been in church five years.
Almost all your friends or church friends. You do all your things with church
people, which is good for thesake of assimilation and reaffirmation. But why
don't you join your neighborhood association.Why don't you go out of your way
to meet new people, come tothe neighborhood. Why don't you the places
you regularly do business, like arestaurant, in stores, why don't you

(49:07):
meet the workers and make a pointto you know, introduce yourself and you
know, talk about your family andask how they're doing their family. Meet
these new friends. Because that's howyou're going to keep being a sault winner.
If you run through your friends andnever make new ones, accept church
friends, yeah you're not going tobe a good soul winner. But just

(49:28):
remember eighty five percent of your convertsare going to be through family, friends,
neighbors, coworkers, some kind ofpersonal relationship other than a quote traditional
outreach method. Yeah, for sure. When I think we're seeing very good
success right now with our kind ofadopt a family program, and it's not
very formalized, but a lot ofus have really close relationships with families or

(49:54):
at least kids that are coming throughthis outreach program to the point that you
know, we're we have a coupleof kids that we're taking three times a
week to church and to piano lessonsand to all kinds of things. Bryce
and his wife are actually in theprocess of well, they are foster pan
We just got licensed, and sothat's a good example. So it doesn't

(50:17):
have to be a pre existing friendor family member, but you creatively,
And I would say what I saidabout friendship, your first goal is just
to help people, be a goodcitizen, be a good neighbor. Yeah,
it's not just you're not trying tomanipulate people. Right. But then
out of that, yes, ifyou're if you're a big brother to some

(50:39):
troubled kids, are you volunteer atthe local school, are you minister to
refugees, or you minister to thehomeless, You're making connections and friendships and
relationships that, yes, will eventuallybecome a bridge to soulwinning. Yeah.
Absolutely, I think and I thinkit's working. It makes it makes sense.

(51:01):
It's the Biblical model in a lotof ways. Yes, so,
and I would also add, youknow, people emphasize Bible studies, which
I agree that was a big part, but what we're discussing is even more
fundamental. How do you get theBible study? Okay, it has to
come through a relationship, right,So I'm all for offering Bible studies,

(51:21):
but I'm saying the focus is notjust on let's all teach a bunch of
Bible studies. The focus is whoare we going to recruit for the Bible
study. It has to come throughrelationships primarily, right, right, So
let's let's have a bunch of convertsthat that hopefully stay, but first Lestian
Bible studies. First, let's haverelationships so that we can teach them a
Bible study. Yeah, it makessense. So something I've I've been trying

(51:46):
to do is frequent our Guatemalan storeand our Haitian store and just kind of
build relationships with the people that workthere. And I find a good way
to do that as learning a littlebit of the language. And I don't
I'm not fluent in Spanish, yetI'm getting better all the time. I

(52:07):
know some basic conversational Haitian creole,but you speak Korean correct. How important
do you think that language a littlebit? I know, not everybody's going
to go and be fluent in whateverlanguage, but a little bit of language,
greetings things like that, how fardoes that go? Sure? You

(52:28):
know when you take the time evento learn five phrases, you know,
a greeting, whatever's an appropriate greeting, thank you, goodbye, you know,
you're welcome. It warms the heartof the person because it's their native
language. It speaks to their heart. And also the fact that you,

(52:50):
as an American citizen English speaking person, which you don't have to learn any
other language, but you that youwould take the time to learn that shows
you care. So only a feware going to be very fluent in the
language. So I'm not suggesting thatthe effective strategy is for a lot of
people to learn another language, althoughI'm all for that if you're if you're

(53:14):
willing to invest the time, andyou can, But I would say a
lot of people can by just pickingup a few phrases and learning a little
bit about the culture, appropriate greetingsand appropriate customs and inviting someone over for
dinner. What's the expectation? Whatdo they do in their culture? Showing
just a little bit awareness can reallybridge a lot of gaps. And you

(53:39):
know, don't worry about perfection.You probably will if you do try to
learn some phrases, you'll probably botchthem, but that's okay, because you're
just the effort is valuable. Andif you even ask them, well,
how do you say this properly?And then you try to repeat it and
you say, okay, me,what how is it? You know,

(54:00):
and you make a joke out ofit, but still being willing to risk
a little vulnerability, go out ofyour comfort zone, learn something new,
usually for an immigrant or somewhat ofanother ethnicity, that's very touching and meaningful.
And you know one thing also ifyou get some people coming from another

(54:22):
background, and this could be trueif you're a majority Caucasian church and you've
got some African American visitors or members, just sitting down and asking them their
ideas, their perspective. I rememberone time when we had a few African
Americans, but not nearly what Ifelt was proper. And I thought,

(54:44):
we're doing all the right things,preaching, teaching, casting vision, and
of course we would teach against racismand teach for inclusion. But once we
did get a small NUCAS of faithfulpeople who are African American, I appointed
a little committee. I sat downwith him and I asked, Okay,
you love our church, you're faithful, but I know you have family and
friends that maybe don't go to church, or they go to majority Black church,

(55:08):
and they may not feel comfortable comingto our church because we're not majority
Black. What steps could we takethat would make them feel more comfortable and
more welcome. You know, whatcould we do? It would be easier
for you to invite a friend fromyour ethnicity that's used to an all black

(55:30):
church and the cultural style of thatchurch. If you were going to invite
them, what would you want themto see or feel or experience or what
kind of event or what kind ofthing could we do that would make them
feel interested in coming? You know, so just having conversations like that,
and you know, even reading booksabout another ethnicity or their history, civil

(55:53):
rights movement. Just being more aware, more knowledgeable and the fact that you're
asking questions and you're learning that initself is very meaningful to people. Yeah,
I find that that's true. Ithink it's the vulnerability is hard for

(56:14):
a lot of people. But ifyou just put yourself out there knowing you're
going to make mistakes. Sure,and we have we have a large population
of two speaking immigrants from Guatemala,and it's very hard to pronounce from an
English speaking person, very hard topronounce things. And I'm learning just a
little bit and they love to laughat me, and and that kind of

(56:37):
opens up, you know, thatcommunication even more so because They have to
do that every day in America,right, right, and it's nice for
them to feel like you can identifywith them. You know, every day
they're trying to struggle to speak Englishand they know they're being laughed at,
so right, and they always tellme how English All the Spanish speaking people

(57:00):
or or Choose speaking people will saythe English makes no sense, right,
That's probably true in some ways.Well, for certain, the spelling doesn't
make a lot of sense. Right. Yeah, Well, we're getting close
to the our mark. We reallyappreciate you coming on. I know you're

(57:22):
really busy. I have a busyschedule, so we appreciate that. Bryce.
Did you have any other questions before? But no, I just want
to say thank you again. Andit is truly an honor to have you
on our little Rinking Ink podcast.But thank you. Well, hopefully we'll

(57:44):
read some people and be a blessingand it's good to visit with you.
I'm always excited to talk about churchgrowth and discipleship. That's the heart of
what I have. And so actually, you know, if people are interested
in my book Growing at Church discussesthe principles my book Spiritual Leadership in the
twenty first Century is more focused onboth ministers and lay leaders with principles for

(58:07):
their personal growth and leadership. Andthen finally, my book Reaching Austin is
a testimony book, but I hopeit's both inspiration because it has a lot
of miracle stories and bet but alsoinstructive that in story form you can read
the story and think, well,how were they able to do this?
And then hopefully some of the principleswill be evident in story form. Yeah.

(58:30):
Absolutely, And those are all availableon publish Pentecostal Publishing House, Yes,
Pentecostal Publishing dot com, and youcan get a hard copy or you
can get a digital version. AndI don't know, I think Growing Yes,
Growing the Church is also in Spanishand I think it may be inaudible
as well. Awesome, Okay,thank you very much. And is there

(58:52):
a masterclass that I saw that youwere working on recently? Is that available?
Like love it? It's on everyTuesday night through September, and it's
Growing a Church. Even though youmissed the first session, they're archived,
and then we also have videos thataccompany it in addition to the live sessions,
and we have a workbook. Soif you're still interested, I think

(59:13):
you could probably still join and youget in time for the next Tuesday night,
and you could go back and listento and watch the archive of the
first one was just this past tuesdays. Now, that's tough discipleship now,
So yeah, you should go onand see the going at Church masterclass on
discipleship now dot com. Awesome,awesome, thank you so much. We

(59:35):
really truly appreciate it. Um,you are welcome back anytime. Okay,
thank you very much, thanks forlistening to today's episode of Two Pentecostals and
a microphone. As always, youcan reach us via our website at two
pentecostals dot com. There you canfind show notes anything about the episode.

(59:59):
Any link that we had mentioned inthe episode will be found there as long
as the show notes on the episode. Also, please like, share,
comment wherever you can and pass theinformation alone. We are growing and we
want to continue to grow. We'reon all the social media platforms at two

(01:00:20):
Pentecostles as well as most most podcastplatforms wherever you listen to your podcast.
Once again, we are so gladthat you chose to download and listen to
this week's episode. Thank you foryour supporter,