Behind The Pulpit
Our weekly pastors podcast where we discuss fun new stories, church events, previous sermons. As well as answering interesting questions from you!
Behind The Pulpit
Missions in Ukraine
With Pastor Bob on vacation, Amy Huber steps in to co-host this packed episode featuring special guest Dr. John White, a longtime world partner serving in Ukraine. We kick things off with summer heat, sunscreen, and a quick look at the NBA Finals before diving into some of the weekend’s major headlines—from rising tensions in the Middle East to a Supreme Court decision with implications for families and faith.
Dr. White shares powerful on-the-ground insight into the ongoing war in Ukraine, how the church is responding, and what it really looks like to be a missionary in a crisis zone. We also explore his message from 2 Timothy 2 on how grace fuels the work of ministry, plus some memorable stories from his early years on the field—including one language lesson that changed everything.
An audience-submitted question sparks a thoughtful discussion on God's role in end-times deception and what it means for those who reject the truth. Along the way, we talk just war theory, Orthodox Christianity, the Chinese church’s bold vision, and whether “multiplicational” deserves a spot in the dictionary (jury’s still out).
Don’t miss the book recs, the Theology Sprint, or the challenge to be part of a church that sends and serves.
Serve at MBC!
https://millingtonbaptist.org/sharegifts/
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
2:28 In The News
12:08 In the News: Ukraine Edition
28:03: Book Recommendations
34:17 Audience Question
39:05 Book Recommendations Part 2.
40:38 Sermon Recap
1:10:30 Theology Sprint
1:16:44 Church Body Life
Hey, what's going on, everybody? We are here for Behind the Pulpit. It is June 23rd. It is like a thousand degrees outside. We've got our special show for you. We are hydrated. We are ready to go. We're going to be talking about what's going on in the news. We're going to be talking about a big weekend that was really full of headlines. We've got a special guest today, and we may even learn a little Russian on our program. And we have a fabulous co-host today in light of the fact that that Pastor Bob's still on vacation. Amy Huber is here to co-host our show for today. Thanks for coming on, Amy.
Amy:Thank you for inviting me. Appreciate it.
Dave:Wonderful to have you as
Amy:always.
Dave:And our guest of honor, the wonderful preacher from yesterday, Dr. John White is in the house. How do you say hello in Russian, John? Здравствуйте. Здравствуйте. Good to have you with us. Thanks for bringing the word yesterday. We're going to do a little deep dive into what it's like to be a missionary sending church and how does that make us a healthy church as well. So a lot of stuff happening in the show today and we will have some fun. So tune in, like and subscribe. We're here for you. So, guys, are you staying cool? Are you dying outside like the rest of us? You got your sunscreen
Amy:on? What's going on? Yesterday was pretty warm, and the mighty group that played pickleball yesterday was melting, but we had some great games out anyway. I
Dave:heard there was some
Amy:huddling under a tree. Yes, we were all crammed for every space of shade available. It was great.
Dave:And, John, I understood that your car was not exactly keeping cool in this weather. You had a little issue there?
John White:Yeah, it broke on its way up US 1. But fortunately, our friends and hosts where we're staying were able to get it into a garage. And it's been fixed now for a couple of days. And we're thankful for another family in the church which lent us their car.
Dave:So
John White:we've been provided for. We're very thankful.
Dave:Yeah. But I understood the mechanic told John, your water pump exploded, which I've never heard that happen before, but that should be an interesting thing to look at. But good to have you with us, John. And we got some things to talk about. So, Tim, why don't we just start with what's going on in the news? All right. It's been since the beginning of April, Noah, when we've been tracking with who is going to be at the top of the deep here with the NBA finals and Noah and I have been kind of watching the Pacers recently going maybe maybe they have a chance and if you watch the game last night you know what happened in the first quarter what'd you think about that man Tyrese Halberton yeah he hit the deck
Noah:yeah I felt horrible for him he's been playing so hard all playoffs long and just to see it go that way in the game seven yeah
Dave:oh His dad was just really struggling with that. But the Pacers still put up a good fight, but ultimately it was OKC this year who ended up on top. Hey, they deserved it. Young team, talented team. I think they had 68 wins. I think they had, like, whatever is the top amount of wins in a whole season, including the playoffs. They were just... on fire. John, you like basketball? I do. All right. Were you watching last night? I was. Okay, cool. I had a little Shea graphic to put up here. Evidently, he hit some kind of record. And here's who the new champ is. So Shai Gilgis-Alexander is the first player in NBA history to win not only the league MVP, the scoring title, the conference finals MVP, but also the finals MVP. So There we go. There's the new champ of the NBA. Well deserved. OKC on top. I believe that's the first time OKC has won. the finals although they used to be called the seattle supersonics and then changed uh to the oklahoma city thunder they almost got there i think in 2011 or something like that but they couldn't quite get it done but this year was their year so do you have a favorite team you usually like to watch or just kind of want to watch good well i'm
John White:from chicago so i follow the chicago bulls but they haven't been good for a while yeah i enjoy a good game and it was good well it's been a good series anyway
Dave:so who's the goat in your mind is there overall is there Well,
John White:it has to be Michael Jordan. Okay, good. I'm a little biased, I know.
Dave:He is in a league of his own, in my opinion, too. So that's the big news. But we have a couple other news stories to talk about as well. So first one is pretty big weekend in the Middle East. We had, I think, a pretty surprising news story come out Saturday night where the President of the United States authorized to be directly involved in the conflict with Iran that Israel has been engaging with. Al Mohler had a good article about that this morning that I thought was a helpful perspective from a Christian worldview. He said this, The American airstrikes against strategic nuclear installations in Iran represent a fundamental change in U.S. policy and may well lead to a wider conflict that could spiral out of control. The risks are huge, but the danger was clear. Trump acted decisively and American forces did what they alone could do. Powerful and stealthy B-2 bombers dropped as many as 15 massive GBU-57 bombs on Iran's key nuclear installations in Fordow as well as well as a couple other cities. So huge news Saturday night. I think that was something that took most people by surprise. And that's a really difficult thing to work through as a Christian. We're peacemakers. We are people of the ultimate peacemaker himself. Although in the Christian worldview, there is something called just war theory. And we want to look at it through that lens and as well. So what was this justified? Is this an okay use of force for that matter? I think Al Mohler had a pretty good case to be made about that this morning. He said, There are certain conditions that have to be satisfied for just war. So the military action had to be defensive rather than offensive. And you could make the case that Iran has essentially through proxies started this offensive against us. The action must be lawfully or authorized. And that's the big debate in our country. Did he do this within the realm of what the president can do or should he have gone through Congress first? That's a raging debate right now. Third, the action must be proportionate to the threat. And so this was a very limited attack. And he did tell people to evacuate Tehran. And he must seek to establish a stable peace. And as soon as it was over, that's what the president was asking for. So you could make a case that this falls within the boundaries of just war. I think both left and right have agreed that a nuclear Iran could be a problem for the world because of some of the statements that they made. So that's something that we're going to be watching in the news. I don't know if you guys were surprised Saturday night as I was watching that headline, but that was a pretty big story coming out of America.
Amy:Yeah, it was definitely escalating what's been happening already. And my heart goes out for the Iranian people. They are in a, I guess, under the tyranny of a regime that is really volatile. So I know people who are ministering directly to the Persian people. So my heart is aching for them. Many refugees have come out of the area and are very concerned about trying to reach their loved ones who are still there. And of course, for the people of Israel, it's a very complicated situation, for sure.
Dave:Yeah. I mean, in 1979, things really changed over there. It used to be a very different country with the Shah, and it's been 46 years under the current regime, and it's been kind of brutal for the Christians in Iran to live in this particular environment. So we need to pray for the Christians in Iran. We need to pray for the church in Iran, which actually is thriving. And we hope that even that which was meant for evil, because God is so amazing and good, can be turned around for good. So big story. We wanted to highlight that from a Christian worldview perspective.
Amy:Absolutely. Now, I don't want to necessarily make light of it, but if anyone saw the Top Gun Maverick movie did anyone notice the uh parallel storyline
Dave:i didn't think of that but now that you mention it
Amy:huh right it's almost like it was a prophetic movie was sent on a mission to train pilots to uh defuse the nuclear threat right
Dave:I forgot about
Tim:that. Except that was, I guess in that movie, it was clearly, I think, Russia that they were.
Amy:Was
Tim:it? I think so. It was Russia without saying. I don't think they wanted to say it was Russia, but I think.
John White:Yeah, they didn't ever reveal who it was. I'm
Tim:pretty sure it was Russia.
John White:But yeah, I saw it. But still. That's what I thought. But you know. Really? That's
Dave:what I tend to think about. It's quite the parallel. Threats.
Amy:It's a parallel. Yes.
Dave:Amy, bringing in Hollywood here. Shout out to Michelle Clemmy. I know you love her. I know you love Top Gun and Top Gun Maverick, so that's
Amy:a little... Who doesn't love that one? Wow, nice. So nostalgic.
Tim:Tom Cruise. So which one was better? Real quick. Which movie was better? I'm interested.
Amy:Without a doubt, the second one. Maverick. That's my opinion. I would agree. Would you?
Noah:Noah? Uh-oh. Cinematically, yes. But there's something about the original story. Yeah.
Tim:Something about the original.
Noah:Tom Cruise in his prime. I don't know.
Unknown:Hmm.
Tim:Talk to me, Goose.
Dave:All right. Both great movies. Next news story. This is something that is related to, again, the Alliance for Defending Freedom. They are the people who are defending First Choice and our own Amy Huber with the current situation going on in New Jersey. Last week in Tennessee, there was a SCOTUS decision that came down that was, I think, a win for Christian parents and those who affirm the the sacredness of marriage and the two gender binary. So the case here was that it is okay for Tennessee as a state to restrict harm upon children through the use of gender transition drugs and surgeries. And it was more of a state's rights case, but I think the decision has some broad implications, not just for Tennessee, but maybe other states who follow suit who want to restrict the ability to make these life-altering, irreversibly damaging types of surgeries that they're performing on children so i thought that was a pretty significant decision that came out here at the end of june for for the issue of um gender transition so i think that that's a good thing um i think we should rejoice with that i don't know if you guys saw that decision any thoughts or comments on that one
Amy:no i agree i think that was a big win and uh just
Dave:um
Amy:a win for families in general. And you mentioned the movement of Amy Huber's first choice case to the Supreme Court. And I just want to encourage our dear friend. Yeah, I'm the other Amy Huber. So our friend Amy Huber and first choice. So that's definitely an answer to prayer, but we're still praying that through for sure.
Dave:The ADF doing good work. The next news story, I thought we could just turn to John for a little bit more um maybe on the ground kind of commentary about what is happening in ukraine of course we know three years ago russia invaded it's been pretty catastrophic there was a huge refugee crisis and even you had to flee the country with your dear family and i thought maybe you could give us a perspective um from an insider about What's going on in Ukraine and what's going on specifically with the church in Ukraine and the seminary that you're associated with and kind of wrap together who you are and what you do and then tell us a little bit of an update for that part of the world in the news.
John White:Okay. I think it'd be easier to first talk sort of geopolitically first and then talk more about the church and our ministry. So unfortunately, really, the conflict started in 2014 when Russia used, shall we say, more hybrid war methods. First to take Crimea, they had a naval base down there, so they did it pretty much without a fight. And then they started taking eastern Ukraine, which is where I was living at the time. My wife is from eastern Ukraine, near the city of Donetsk, and I used to work at Donetsk Christian And eventually Ukraine reached sort of a standstill in terms of the fighting. It became a frozen conflict in 2014, early 2015. But just to give you perspective, my school, Donetsk Christian University, became a Russian military barracks and people, you know. The fighting continued, but more like shots between trenches, that kind of thing. Kind of World War I-esque. It
Dave:seemed like we haven't seen this kind of ground invasion since way back in the day. It seemed like how the news was for my grandfather, right? So it was kind of eerie there. Okay, so we start way back then.
John White:Yeah, and to be honest, before that, Ukraine had a pretty good relationship with Russia. I would say there were people that maybe favored, say, doing business with Europe and some business with Russia, and most people were fine with that. You know, where do you do business? But there was this polarizing happening, and Russia really manipulated the situation. And to be honest, That's important because it really turned just about all Ukrainians against Russia. It didn't matter your ethnic background. Like, for example, my wife is half Ukrainian, half Russian, and just everybody turned against Russia. And I think that was the only reason. So there have been, what, eight years from 2014 to 2022 when the full scale invasion happened that helped Ukraine prepare themselves for this huge invasion where it was just obvious it wasn't this hybrid thing where Russia was trying to have the And so Ukraine, I think, surprised the world by surviving. Russia was expecting to win the war in three days through their creativity. I think we just saw that recently with Ukraine's one and a half year project to send these drones in all across Russia. And they destroyed one third of the Russian bombers. And so basically, in recent times, Russia is really angry about that. And they've been using drones to hit as many of the large cities as they can. can in Ukraine I get updates from my colleagues in Ukraine about you know cities getting hit drones coming that kind of thing especially recently but if we look at the big picture although there have been kind of these big moments which you may have heard of right now the the battle is fairly static Russia is losing many lives by sending their soldiers forward they're gaining meters maybe hundreds of meters of territory but for the most part not much has been Of course, there was hope for a ceasefire that hasn't happened. And so to be honest, humanly speaking, looking at things, I wouldn't expect it to end anytime soon. Just
Dave:some statistics, you can verify this, but... There's about 12 million Ukrainians requiring humanitarian aid this year. About 10 million have been displaced as refugees. Six million have fled abroad. I guess you'd be part of that group. 30,000 to 40,000 civilians have been killed and tens of thousands injured on top of that. And then, of course, the infrastructure damage issue. 1.5 million homes damaged, 3,600 schools, 2,000 healthcare facilities hit. So devastation over the last three years there. Yeah, it's so, wow.
John White:Typically, Russia has advanced when they have literally razed cities to the ground. When there's no place for Ukrainian soldier to hide anymore, that's typically when they retreat. So there are these horrifying pictures that look like the landscape of the moon. And that's what Russia's been conquering for the most part.
Dave:And then move back, retreat back to the next big... And so the Ukrainians
John White:back and to save their soldiers, save the people that they can, evacuate people. And so, yeah, yeah. It's horrifying, but Ukraine has been holding the Russians back.
Dave:Yeah. Do you think the ultimate prize is Kiev? Or what do you think is going to be... When will this end? What do you think Putin really wants to... achieve here? Oh,
John White:he wants all of Ukraine. The whole thing. Yeah, yeah. That's what he wants. I mean, he's always, I'm sure, calculating what he can get for what cost, although just his, it appears that Russia's view of losing life is not the view that we have. I mean, they've already, in terms of casualties, that would be dead and wounded, they estimate it's already over a million people. And I know, I've read, you know, one of the generals, top generals of Ukraine said any normal army would have stopped. I mean, the casualty rate is just, isn't it worth it? They're not winning enough.
Tim:Historically, that's pretty... on par for Russia, I believe, right? Because if you look at World War II, the Russian casualties are through the roof compared to everyone else, I believe.
John White:Yes, that's true. Also because, well, there are many factors. As I understand it, and I'm not an expert on World War II, but there was a good while when both the Germans and the Russians basically had orders to never retreat. And if you never retreat, your casualties would just be horrific.
Tim:With the Battle of St. Petersburg and all that, I think.
John White:Yeah, and in Stalin As I understand it, that was the first time the Soviets were allowed to retreat and they won the battle because of it, you know. So, yes, unfortunately, it has been the MO of or at least the methodology that Russia has used for a while.
Dave:Well, can I ask a more personal question? Yes. What do you remember? about three years ago when the full invasion began. What was that like for you?
John White:Well, I wasn't actually in Ukraine when it started. Oh,
Dave:you were over here?
John White:Yes. So what happened was beginning of December, to be honest, the warning signs were there. We already evacuated once from Donetsk. So to be honest, I was already had a feeling that something was going to happen.
Dave:Wasn't a total shock to you.
John White:But my teaching ended a little bit early for the semester. And so we came back. We were planning earlier, but we came back even earlier. even earlier, to celebrate Christmas with my parents in the Chicago area. And our organization, WorldVenture, has a company that gives us advice and can help missionaries evacuate if they need to. And so we were on this Zoom call with all our missionaries and being given information. And they told us that if this happens, you need to be ready. First of all, the airports aren't going to work. If you have a car, you can drive west. But maybe you'll run out of gas. Maybe there won't be any gas available. So you need to be willing
Dave:to take anything. Maybe your water pump will explode or something.
John White:Yeah, maybe. You need to take everything you have on your back and walk across snowy fields. And I had, I think, a nine-year-old at the time. Oh, my word. And I'm thinking there's no way. My goodness. So we were going to go back in January. We canceled that and waited, hoping that things would calm down. And actually, in the past, Russia had threatened at the border doing training exercises and had backed off before. Although things were looking worse and worse, to be honest. And all of our missionaries were told to leave by the end of January. It was February 24th when the invasion happened. Many of our other missionaries were in different parts of Europe at the time. And so that's what happened.
Dave:So in the providence of God, you had already had your family in a safe place and you haven't returned, though you continued to teach in an online format. Yes, that's
John White:right. That's right.
Unknown:Mm-hmm.
Dave:What do you wish the world understood about the daily reality happening in Ukraine right now?
John White:Well, I definitely wish... On the one hand, people would maybe better understand how horrible what Russia is doing, that there really aren't two sides of it. I mean, they're literally trying to commit genocide. They want to take all of Ukraine. They steal Ukrainian children because they have population problems, are putting them in Russian orphanages to make them Russian children. That doesn't mean all Russians approve of this. I mean, it's under a dictatorship. And I know of some Christian brothers and sisters that are against this war, but there's just so little they can do, you know? But just, there are no two ways about it. And I do understand why people can be, can misunderstand. Of course, it's a different country, different world, but also Russia intentionally has propaganda all the time. And it gets through to us, even in, I think, in ways we might not realize. Like one way, at least it's kind of occurred to me is this whole idea, which I think most of us think that Russia's winning. When most military experts would say if you lose, say, 1,000 soldiers a day to gain 100 meters of ground, that's losing. So again, I think we need to be careful in what we understand, but it is horrible. I know many wars are gray. There are points on both sides, but Russia did this, and it doesn't make Ukraine perfectly innocent or they do everything right. I mean, they're a human government led by humans, although I do have a great respect for President Zelensky. So that would be the geopolitical side. Of course, I would also like, as I shared a bit during the sermon, to know that despite this, God is at work. You know, God works even through evil times, through evil people, and so many people are coming to know Christ. The Protestant Church, which in Ukraine has been stronger than most of the former Soviet Union. I like to joke it's the Bible Belt of the former Soviet Union. It's really Ukraine. And so there has been an impact, but I would say there's an even broader impact today, even since 2014, because since then, the government has been in some ways so weak and dealing with such, you know, huge problems, that they've been more open to help. And so evangelical Protestants have been doing all sorts of things that they never before would do. They have an influence in supporting the soldiers, whether that's as a chaplain or helping through evacuations and different things like this. They've gone and helped rebuild places. They offer places for displaced people to move to. A lot have moved. Some moved to my seminary campus, some to retreat centers. So the evangelical church And has done amazing things. God is opening doors and opening hearts. Of course, when people are facing life and death, they're interested in the gospel. And of course, they may need food and medicine. And I think Christians are offering those as well. But many need spiritual answers because it's such a hard situation.
Dave:So small world. Yesterday, John was speaking in one of our services and we had visitors from Ukraine. missionaries in Ukraine. A local pastor and his family were here just by happenstance, just by chance. They knew one family in Millington, and they were just coming to worship. That's it. There was no idea that, oh, John White's going to be our guest speaker. He's going to be talking about Ukraine. He actually is part of the seminary program. No, they didn't have no idea. Of course, they're familiar with your seminary, but They were blown away by the fact that they come to visit our church just for encouragement and nourishment from the word, and they get a special treat with a speaker who's using Russian words and talking about what God's doing in Ukraine and has a heart for their homeland. And I thought it was really cool to hear from him and what God is doing through him. So he talked about how they're pastoring this church. And then there was the, you know, the refugees who left and they said their church was like completely depleted. There was like 150 people. And then there was like 12 people the next week. And they said, should we still have a church? Like, do we need to do this? And then he said, the crazy thing is then the war kind of, you know, started to be ramped up and, people started flooding into his church and all 150 seats filled up again with all new people. He had a completely new church of people who wanted to connect with God spiritually and get fed and they had a real desperate hunger and thirst for the good news of Jesus. And he and his wife and their family has been experiencing a great revival in their church and a move of God as people are really hungering after the Lord and seeking his strength and seeking his sustaining grace. And I thought that, wow, that's an untold story about what's happening in Ukraine. Do you feel like that story is something that is happening in multiple churches in Ukraine and this is not an isolated thing that he's experiencing but God is on the move and in that would you testify to that
John White:yes I would say both you have new people come into Christ especially as they become displaced I know of I believe they work in Kharkiv which is the second largest city in Ukraine and actually quite close to the front lines it's a pretty dangerous place
Dave:it sounded very dangerous yes they were describing explosions and things very nearby
John White:yes I have more connections now in Kyiv the capital. And I know of multiple churches, which yeah, like their size is slightly bigger, but almost all new people because there's been this wave of the people in the East moving West. So they've come to Kyiv. Some of the people of Kyiv have left for safer places and God is at work leading so many people to himself. So yes. Yeah. I think that's a widely untold, but a wide and broad story.
Dave:Yeah. Very neat.
Amy:I just want to say thank you for being a world partner with us because you are, even though you're not physically there at the moment, you have the inside understanding of the situation and can share that with us. I think so easily we are blinded by what's the hottest or the newest spotlight in the news. But the battle continues day by day. But we're encouraged by what God is doing in the midst of the darkness. And thank you for being that partner. or with us appreciate it
John White:well I couldn't be there if Millington hadn't sent me and I certainly did not sign up for this if you know what I mean I wanted to be a missionary and God called me into theological education especially to train Ukrainians and others to do missions themselves I never really expected to be involved in a war or to answer questions about military things but you know I've been learning and trying to serve God in these things as well so thank you for your support and your
Dave:encouragement. coolest things you can do with your time is read missionary biographies. Just go read a missionary biography. It doesn't even matter which one. Just pick one and read one. They're really, really cool, really inspiring. So you had quoted Hudson Taylor in your sermon yesterday, so it kind of reminded me of when I read this one. This is Roger Steer's biography of Hudson Taylor, A Man in Christ. Fascinating story of a guy who, you know, led by the Lord, just wanted to make an impact and just saw God meet needs in such tangible ways and just trusted God with a degree of faith that I envy and I just... I'm so encouraged by the fact that God is a promise-keeping God. He's the one who famously said, God's work done God's way will never lack God's supply. And you had a couple good quotes from Hudson Taylor in your sermon yesterday. I'm not remembering off the top of my head. Do you remember what they were? I think
John White:I can get close. What was the ones you shared? So he was a very humble man, especially considering all the things that God did through him. But he said it was something like, I often think that God was looking for someone small enough and weak enough for him to use, and he found me. And the other one, he said, there are three stages of God's work. Impossible, difficult, and done. And that's what he saw. God did that through him and his colleagues in missionary work.
Dave:So speaking of things that feel impossible, a dissertation can feel pretty overwhelming and daunting. So why don't you hold this up and tell us
John White:what... Sorry, I didn't bring a copy of my book.
Dave:That's okay. Tell us what your book is about.
John White:So I don't know if you can see that. So yeah, It was my doctoral dissertation at Biola University. And so the name of it is The Factors Behind the Ukrainian Evangelical Missionary Surge from 1989 to 1999. And to me, it's an amazing story. I've been wanting to perhaps rewrite it in a more popular form. And I have the copyright to do it in Ukrainian and Russian. I've been wanting to do it, but unfortunately now is probably not the time. Because when I went to Ukraine, I had heard, one of the reasons I was inspired to go was because of missionaries from the West seeing the amazing spiritual thirst people had for the gospel, how communism had denied that, how there was a church that had survived, but a lot of people didn't often talk about them. They more talked about what the Westerners were doing. And as I worked for a number of years in Donetsk, my colleagues told me, somebody needs to tell the story of the Ukrainian missionaries. And then I ran into a fellow missionary world venture. And he said, yes, somebody needs to tell this story, especially before the leaders of this Ukrainian movement pass away. And actually, I was even told by my Ukrainian colleague that the Ukrainian can't do it, because they'll be suspicious. There'll be all these sort of things that it's good at a little bit outsider, an American who can speak the language would do it. So what I researched by talking to people all around Ukraine, as well as people located in Russia and other places, was about this surge that hundreds of missionaries left Ukraine and planted churches all across Russia, into Central Asia. For them, as I said in the sermon, for many of them, when they read the passage that we need to bring the gospel to the end of the earth, to them, they saw that as Siberia. And so they did. For me, that's the end of the earth too, though. We can agree with that. I agree with them. Yes, yes. And to be honest, I think they had much more success in church planting, leading people to Christ, than really Westerners have had because they understood the culture. At the time, everyone spoke Russian and many of them. So this is the irony. I started this research right before and then through 2014 when the Russian attack started. And the irony is the story that I was learning and then I tried to share in this book is how Ukrainians have been this incredible blessing to Russians for years and years, that many of the churches in Russia are They're pastored by Ukrainians who've taken Russian citizenship. Leaders of denomination, they're Ukrainians. And it's just so sad that this has now happened where Russians have done so many horrible things to Ukrainians. Of course, not all. So this is their story. A lot of really interesting quotes and ideas. And so I could give you more details. I hope that gives an idea.
Dave:No, that's really cool. I mean, when you do a deep dive into a very small period of history, at some point you start to... get this thought, like, I know more about this than anyone else on the planet right now, right? So, I mean, you were in the weeds. So if you really want to know the story, pick up John's book. It's available on Amazon. We would encourage you to check out that story and appreciate you writing that. The verse that came to my mind when you were explaining that is from Isaiah the prophet, where in, of course, different context, but it says, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.
Unknown:Mm-hmm.
Dave:And I think that that's a thing in history that keeps repeating in Ukraine, in your story. Well, very good. Can I add one more thing?
John White:Please. Because it's not the light. It's actually, I love this one quote. But when communism was falling, there was a spiritual vacuum. And these missionaries filled it. Because so many people had really believed in communism. And now they didn't know what to believe. It was the basis for their whole lives. And this was the time that they needed to hear the gospel, to have a new foundation for their life. And I think that was, yeah.
Dave:Well said. Good. Well, thank you, John. We'll hear more about that in just a minute.
Tim:So we have a question from the audience. Now, it's an eschatology-related question that to me seems like it might be a bit of a hardball. So if you want to save it for next week when Bob is here, We can, but if you think you guys can tackle it.
Dave:Let's play hardball.
Tim:Let's play hardball. All right.
Dave:If my degree at Dallas is worth anything, they taught me some eschatology.
Tim:All right. Let's hear the question. I was watching a sermon on eschatology. Oh, my word. Look at this
Dave:question.
Tim:And one of the verses used in the sermon caught my eye. 2 Thessalonians 2, 10 through 12 says, And with all wicked deception for those who are perishing because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore, God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Deception is often seen as a main attribute of Satan, so I was interested to see it being linked to God. I guess my question would be if you guys could break this down, and for those like me who may be confused by this aspect of God's character during the last days.
Speaker 03:Sure. That's all you, Pastor
Dave:Dave. Yeah. You know, I mean, we all think about God as... loving and merciful and gracious. And that's really true. It's probably only half the story. There's another few attributes of God about his justice and his eternal character and his holiness that we also need to emphasize. And it appears that Paul is talking about something called judicial hardening. So what judicial hardening is, is when a person has rejected God and they have been opposed to God, that God gives them over. to their sin. And this can have an especially hardening effect on them. And it appears that Paul is talking about something in the latter days that will occur that one day there will be a strong delusion that will be at the climax of all of history where people will be given over to this lie and we think there's probably going to be this culminating figure known as the antichrist and many people will believe in him and be deceived by him and um god will allow that in a sense you might think of examples in the bible like pharaoh so of course pharaoh was no saint right he hardened his own heart towards god but then eventually god actually hardened his heart in order that god might be glorified in him so that um you know, God would be shown as more powerful and God would be lifted up as higher than Pharaoh. So I think 2 Thessalonians is talking about the concept of judicial hardening. That is a tough pill to swallow, but yet there are some examples in the Bible that have God doing that. Even Jesus, when he was giving parables, one of the reasons why he gave parables, he said, was that the people would not be able to understand because they've already rejected me and he didn't want them to be able to comprehend what he was saying. So he veiled his truth in a way so that the people would not be able to comprehend what he says. So sometimes God does work in that sort of mysterious way. Character of God, I think we have to remember, is a God who is saying things like, all day long I have stretched out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people. This is God all day long. But yet the hardness of the human heart is something that we also see that the scripture testifies about. So that's a tough passage, Tim. I don't know if you guys want to say anything about that, but I haven't been in 2 Thessalonians in a long time. Any comments?
Amy:I'll just say that, no, I have nothing to add except my appreciation for how our pastors handle difficult passages and don't shy away from them. And I appreciate that, you know, the human mind can only comprehend so much, but we rely and... really surrender to what the Bible says as the authoritative word. So thank you for being faithful to that.
Dave:Yeah, sure. Thanks for the question. And if that answered that, let me know. If you want to follow up, please do that too.
Tim:It's actually my question. So you definitely answered it. We haven't had a... What a twist. What a twist. Tim was in the audience. Tim, was that an audience question? Did that help at all? Yeah, we haven't had an audience. I figured it was something like that, but we haven't had an audience question in so long. So I figured, or actually we have, but not many. So I figured, ah, this is something I'm kind of wondering about. I think I kind of know the answer, but I figured we added it to the show. So spoilers. It was me.
Dave:Yeah. All right, good. So we want to talk about, um, a couple more books, uh, at least one more book.
Amy:I think Amy had, uh, one really liked both of yours. I just have to say, uh, Hudson Taylor is someone that my family definitely reveres. And my nephew is named Hudson Taylor Tedeschi. So I applaud your recommendation and yours as well, John. So in the threaded theme of maybe going and making disciples, which I believe is a common thread for all of our books, my recommendation is a book called Hero Maker written by Dave Ferguson and Warren Bird. Actually, Warren Bird is a friend of mine, so shout out to him. But this is all about practicing ministry in such a way that we are multiplying leaders. Leaders are through discipleship. So a lot of great chapters in here about how do we think about multiplication, how are we kingdom building, and how are we investing in the next generation and not just looking at a ministry as our own, but looking at the people who are serving and developing their gifts and talents so they can serve as leaders as well. So that's my recommendation, Hero Maker.
Dave:Great book, and thank you for being a hero maker, Amy. All right, so we are going to talk about your sermon a little bit. So we asked John to be part of our series on The Divine Blueprint and talking about aspects of healthy churches and what are those aspects and John cheated a little bit and went over to 2 Timothy because I think it more solidified the kinds of truth he wanted to convey, which is okay. It's pretty close, you know, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy. But great message, chapter 2. I took a lot of notes. I have like a whole sheet worth of stuff from you, John. Look at this, man. I just filled it up. We would like to challenge you to do a 60-second flyover about your sermon. What was 2 Timothy 2, 1 to 7 about? You have 60 seconds. Ready, set, go.
John White:It's about how to live a missionary life. We get the strength for that through God's grace, which is what we need to both live our lives and have an impact on others. And the formula that Paul was giving Timothy, which I think we can use today, is that we are to share our faith with those who will share it with others. There's a multiplicational aspect to the gospel.
Dave:So, okay. I know I only gave you 60 seconds. Now I'm interrupting. I'm writing my notes, right? Okay, I'm sitting next to my wife and I write down the word multiplicational. You can see it right here, multiplicational. And John's like, I don't know if that's a word, multiplicational. So I wrote it down because John has a PhD. I'm like, it's probably a word. And my wife takes the yellow legal pad out of my hands and takes my pen and she writes down Multiplicative.
John White:Multiplicative. That could be.
Dave:So she would like to take issue with the word. I'm just letting you know.
John White:I found one dictionary that had it.
Dave:I don't know who's right. So I thought I could go with it. I found it. I saw multiplicational. Julie, John says it's in the dictionary. So there you go.
John White:But I saw some that didn't. So I was just going to throw it out there.
Dave:Yeah. All right. I thought it
John White:rhymed better with transactional.
Dave:It's like when sometimes preachers have to rhyme and just, you know, even if it's not a word. But
John White:I would not. Debater, that's
Tim:fine. It's like when a movie is only played in select theaters. It's like it's a word that's only in select dictionaries.
Dave:I interrupted you rudely. So we want to be multiplicational. And
John White:so Paul, in order to try to explain his idea of how we need to live in living a missionary life, he gave three pictures. A picture of a soldier that's endured suffering. A picture of an athlete who's following the rules. In other words, he lives a life of integrity. And a farmer who works hard. And I think of that especially is needed to work a certain amount of time. And so these are pictures of the life we need to live in order to live a missionary life and to spread the gospel to others who will spread the gospel to others.
Dave:Those three pictures are awesome. And thank you for explaining that, especially the rule part. I thought that your interpretation about cheating and integrity was really compelling. So I... I tend to be persuaded by that and tied really nicely to last week's message. So that worked well too. All three images are like, hey, this is hard as well, right? Like soldier, athlete, farmer. This is not for the faint of heart. Like living a missionary life is going to be heavy work, hard work. Amy, feel free to jump in whenever.
Amy:Well, can I just affirm that multiplicational is a word of... That is recognized by ChatGPT. Okay. Authoritative source here, but it is a rare, non-standard form. And it can be understood as the adjectival form of multiplication. Where's my gavel?
Dave:There you go. It's settled. So let it be written. So let it be done. Okay. So in the first section, you mentioned be strengthened as a passive sense. And I really love that because... I just don't, I don't have what it takes. I do not. I mean, I think Hudson Taylor would say, you have to learn to do what you cannot do. And this is so a God thing, right? So it's like constantly praying God, just grace for today. And I love the way you packaged the grace piece in point one. And you said that this strengthening by grace is not just the grace that God gives us at salvation, but it's Can you unpack that a little bit? How is he using the term grace there in 2 Timothy 2.1?
John White:Yeah, I wanted to distinguish because I didn't want people to think that they had to do all these things to get saved. We need God's grace to be saved. There's nothing we can do to be saved. But God then calls his children, those that are saved, to share his gospel, but yet still relying on grace. So grace is both the thing that leads us to him and the thing that enables us to serve him. And that's that second piece that really this whole passages focused on.
Dave:Yeah. And then you said that the grace is a story. And I thought, oh, that's an interesting way. And then you had us read 2 Timothy 1, which was amazing. By the way, we opened up the service with this song called Death Was Arrested. You remember that? And so there's this verse in chapter 1, verse 10, where Paul says, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. I'm like... Oh, that's a cool tie-in to the worship set. Yeah, I
John White:didn't catch that. That's great.
Dave:There it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you talked about this story of grace, and like Paul has a story of grace. Timothy has a story of grace, like his grandmother, his mother, and God has been constantly at work. So I thought, how about you? Like what is your story of grace? How has that concept changed? landed for you personally?
John White:Well, I'll just say I'm from a non-Christian family, and so I did receive that first piece of grace to be saved. I was a new believer when I went to college to Princeton here in New Jersey, and I grew in my faith.
Dave:Shout out to the Tigers watching. Oh, yes, thank you. Probably some Jersey people watching this podcast. Yes, one of my
John White:classmates came up. She's just been coming to Millington for a little, like a year and a half. No way. Yeah, I hadn't seen her in a long time, so that was really wonderful that she came up and said hello. Yes. Yes. And then through my time there in the Christian group, I was a part of, I was inspired to do missions. And so I did work for a number of years, which is why I actually ended up at Millington. I was a computer consultant in the area and I went as a missionary. And I mean, I was just thinking of two short stories from my early years as a missionary. I did show a picture up there. One of the people at Millington came up to me and said, I remember when you were that age. And those first, when I was learning Russian, those first years in Ukraine. So one story actually was from... Wait, quick question. Yeah, go
Dave:ahead. Why did you have to learn Russian instead of Ukrainian? I was a little bit unclear about that. Yes, yes. So, I mean, you're clearly... a professor in Ukraine. But do you teach in Russian?
John White:I do because I don't really know Ukrainian. They are similar languages. I would make it similar to say Spanish to Portuguese. So I believe generally if you're a native speaker of Ukrainian, pretty much everyone in Ukraine knows both Russian and Ukrainian. And I went to Eastern Ukraine where everyone spoke Russian. And so it was actually quite strategic. Ukraine has always had the greatest religious freedom of the former Soviet Union, but Russian is the language that was spoken all across the former Soviet Union. So we had many students say from Russia, from Central Asia, the Baltics. And so that was the common. So missiologically, it was strategic. And originally, WorldVenture It was kind of open to me going to other places as well. And as it turned out, one of the best places to learn Russian happened to be in Donetsk. So they sent me there. Although at the beginning, I wasn't quite sure and didn't know how many people spoke Ukrainian. But today, because of the war, unfortunately, many Ukrainians don't want to speak Russian any longer.
Dave:Okay. When I was talking to the missionary yesterday... That was news to me. So what he said was, that's now the language of the aggressor. And we don't want to be interacting in that language anymore. The war has put such a damper and a souring on the Russian language that everyone's now wanting to interact in Ukrainian. So that might change things for you.
John White:So it does. It's especially hard on my wife. She can speak both languages, but Russian is her first language. And she feels, in some ways, rejected Russian. because so many people are against the Russian language. And I think in some ways, to be honest, it's foolish. I mean, I think Ukraine has as much right to the Russian language as the Russians do. I mean, Ukraine's existed longer than Russia. I think they should embrace both languages. But I do understand the pain that people are dealing with today. It's an emotional reaction. It is. So what do I do? At my seminary, I can teach in Russian or I'd have to teach in English translated. And everybody in Ukraine understands Russian. And typically, I'm teaching, maybe younger people might not, but I typically am teaching at the master's level these days, more of my time, some at the bachelor's. And so I just start, I say, I'm sorry, I don't speak Ukrainian, I'll teach in Russian, is that okay? And as an American, they know I'm not a Putin sympathizer, and so typically they give me grace for that.
Dave:Makes
John White:sense. I
Dave:totally interrupted your story of grace. So you had this picture on the screen, and you were learning Russian, sweating bullets,
John White:trying
Dave:to say these words that are like So long.
John White:You can imagine. So I was learning Russian. And my teacher, Galina, one of the sweetest women in the world, but she worked hard to teach you the language.
Dave:How many hours was your lesson?
John White:Well, yeah. I think it was supposed to be three. It was never shorter than three. But sometimes it went to four and five. And most of the time I was by myself. Sometimes there was another person or two. Bro. So I like to joke she was killing me with kindness. Because whenever I didn't know something, she was like, oh, you just forgot.
Dave:I'm like,
John White:I'm not
Dave:sure. I'm not sure I ever knew that. Minimum three hours. I spend five minutes on Duolingo, I'm done. I'm like, let this bird have a sad face. Well, I will tell you, immersion is the best way to learn a language.
John White:And I also, for my first year, lived with a family that didn't speak English. So I was single, a lot easier, but still hard. So one of the things, if you can imagine this, so my teacher, she grew up under communism. She was very nominally orthodox. So she had some belief that God existed, but she'd been training missionaries for years. And She almost had an immunity to it. She would even help us to learn theological terms. How do you explain? She would help me write my testimony. There are all these ways that she should be hearing the gospel, but it wasn't getting through for whatever reason. And to me, I learned one word which helped her understand. It was the word for responsibility. It's advietstvennest. And I don't
Dave:know quite what it was. Try that. Nope. Go one more time. One
Tim:more time. Advietstvennest. Advietstvennest. Oh,
John White:my
Dave:goodness. Close. Tim, what's your background?
Tim:Half Lithuanian. Oh, wow. Great. And the other half is a mix of German, French, Danish, Scottish, Irish.
Dave:But man, Tim, that was impressive. I couldn't do it. All right. So this one word for responsibility. Well,
John White:it really it helped her to understand. There's a bit of a fatalism, I think, in the culture more broadly and sort of like they don't take that responsibility. Too often they just blame others for things and that they have no control over what they believe or who they are. And that seemed to click that she knows all of this stuff about the gospel and she has to make a decision. It is up to her to have faith or not. And that seemed to really help her. She seemed to pray to accept Christ. I mean, I think our relationship was always close, but I think it made a difference in her life. She came to our church sometimes, unfortunately, Then we got close to the war starting, and so I couldn't stay in Donetsk. We corresponded some after that. So I think that concept, that word, really made an impact on her life, and that was God's grace. I mean, I didn't have some... I had sermons before. They never helped. She helped me write sermons. So that was one example. The story of grace. I can give one other if you have time. Yeah,
Dave:let me
John White:just
Dave:say something, and I want to hear the second story. So... One of the things about Baptists is we have a value called soul freedom or the idea that each individual is responsible before God, that we're all heading on a trajectory where one day we're going to actually stand before God and we're going to answer for our lives. That is a Baptist distinctive. I mean, all Christians understand this in a general sense, but there's been many Christian cultures that don't necessarily... I think that that's really cool that. that word actually just kind of unlocks something in people's minds that, oh, I'm responsible before God. And that's something I think as Baptists, we tend to emphasize that maybe isn't always, we just kind of swim in that water like we understand it, but other cultures don't necessarily emphasize that. So I thought that that was kind of cool that she needed to have that concept clarified so all right neat all right second story of grace so
John White:second story i think it was my first summer in ukraine i world venture um has a really good policy i think it's the same of course i've been with them for 25 years so maybe things have changed but the policy was this that you have if you're a long-term missionary you do not have any ministry responsibilities for your first two years you can just work on learning the language and the culture um so I was in those first two years. One way that I was learning, I was making some friends with some students. They were involved in Campus Crusade for Christ, or CRU, would be known as here today. And they invited me to go on one of their summer evangelism beach campaigns. And so I went. You
Speaker 03:were part of CRU.
Amy:I was. Yeah. That's how I ended up in New Jersey, not to derail your story.
John White:Yeah. Well, I've been blessed by them. Actually, one of my first roommates is now the head of CRU for Ukraine. And so anyway, so they invited me. invited me to this thing. My Russian, you know, I had been learning probably for a year at that point, was only so-so, and I always remember the text message I got that said, congratulations, you're going to be leading a small group. Okay. So I went to the small group, and it was an interesting mix of people who were at this, I guess, I think they intentionally tried to invite from different parts of Ukraine, because there were a number from Western Ukraine, they were predominantly Ukrainian speakers, some from where we were living were Russian speakers, and a few from Poland. And I got two Polish guys in my small group. Okay. And one of them didn't speak Russian. He spoke very broken English. But the other Polish guy, he'd been working in Ukraine for years. He could have translated from Polish into Russian easily, but for some reason he didn't. And the guy kept speaking in broken English. And so I became both translator and small group leader. In addition to... to be honest, struggling to understand what the other guys were saying, you know, hoping, praying for God to lead us, especially when you don't, when you're trying to lead people who are young believers or maybe not even believers in their faith. And we had a very dynamic group. I'll always remember that, well, there was a time when this Polish gentleman, again, his English was broken. He was sharing some things that were pretty heretical. And, you know, translators really aren't supposed to change what is said, but But I felt I'm also a small group leader. So I'm going to translate these into basically more what I'm hoping he meant. So that was, it was very difficult. I still remember there was an American missionary who'd been there much longer than me. We were rooming together and he would hear from one of the other guys in the small group who we both knew well. And he was just so excited about all the things we were learning and was shocked to hear it was different than in the other small groups. So I think God, through his grace and me, just hanging on language-wise and translation-wise. I think he really did bless the small group, but I just was feeling God's grace through all of that because I was just
Amy:learning. Perfectly positioned by God.
Dave:Only the Lord. Yes. So crew had an impact on your story of grace.
Amy:Yes, yes. How so? Well, I grew up in a somewhat religious background, Catholic, and went through First Communion. But in my high school years, I really was just going through the motions and really didn't understand what the significance of the faith meant for me. But when I went off to college, I met some young ladies who were true believers and lived it day by day, and they befriended me, and they were part of crew. And over the course of my freshman fall semester, they were inviting me to Bible studies, and at first I... was resisting. And I thought, I don't have time for this. And I just was drawn to an opposite lifestyle, you know, exploring my freedom in this huge university. But God was doing a work in me and drawing me to him. And at some point, I thought to myself, why don't I go to this Bible study and check it out? And my friend shared the gospel with me. And my heart was just ready, wide open. And I got involved with crew and went on a summer project, which brought me to Ocean City, New Jersey. I was only supposed to stay for a summer, but I never went back to Virginia. I was going to go on staff with Crew, but I ended up, God had a different plan for me. But I was involved in college ministry at Pillar College for about 20 years. So in a way, God led me to a different form of college ministry. But I'm very glad to now be here at special to me. God used that organization to draw me to himself.
Dave:Very cool. Yeah. So quick question about faith in Ukraine. The vast majority of the people in that part of the world are Orthodox. So if you're not familiar, there's kind of three major branches of Christianity. There's the Catholic Church. Then there's the Orthodox Church. They had some disagreements around 1054. They split off east-west. And then about 500 years after that, the Protestant Church was born. And then they had a bunch of other pieces of the family tree. But Orthodox is the... dominant version of Christianity over there in Ukraine. So can you give us a little bit of an understanding of what does it mean to be Orthodox Christian? And anything you'd like to share about that?
John White:Yeah, first I'll give a little background. So Russia is very predominantly Orthodox. There's not much else. Ukraine has actually, one of the reasons it has probably the best religious freedom is because it's a little more balanced. I would guess, I don't know exact statistics, maybe 60, 70% of the people would be nominal Orthodox. Maybe 20, you know, 25% Catholic. Most Americans Actually, Greek Catholic, which is a little different than the Roman Catholic you would have here in the US. And then Protestant, maybe 5%, 10%, something like that. So there is a bit of a balance. There isn't quite the dominating force that Orthodoxy is in Russia and some other places. So maybe that does... at least give us the foundation to have a little bit more friendly connection. I know actually we definitely do a number of things together with Catholics, we Protestants, and so that's good. In terms of Orthodoxy as a theology, and it's important to understand, I think, that Orthodoxy tends to kind of connect itself with a culture. So you have, you may have heard Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Ukrainian Orthodox, and I think that is both good and bad. It's good in that it tries to really connect with the people and sometimes can be bad because there's a temptation, so we say, to really become more a cultural Christianity. It's more about, if you're Russian, you're Orthodox. And the two are almost equivalent statements. It's not a separate question about your faith.
Dave:Yeah, almost like, hey, I'm German. Right, right, right. So you should be Lutheran or something like that. Yeah, or like, my wife's Italian. So that's just what we do. Yes, yes. We're Orthodox, but it's not personalized in a spiritual sense.
John White:No, you're born into it as opposed to choosing it. Right. Now, I heard this analogy on a thing it's very helpful to understand and here we have to bring in catholicism as well um this is the argument that catholics and protestants both care about answering questions about truth now we might answer them differently but that's what we're arguing about or is this true or not the orthodox don't actually ask that question so much. For them, they look at Christianity as a question of life. Are you living it or not? You could ask an Orthodox, do you believe the Bible? They say, yeah, of course we do. They wouldn't question that. They wouldn't necessarily hear the Bible a lot or encourage you necessarily to do Bible study yourself because instead you need to live the life. You need to go to church. They would like the analogy, and there are many analogies in the Bible and how we understand our faith. And I think God did that intentionally because they resonate But one analogy that they like to look at is that the Christian life is a path. And as long as you're going to church, you're on the path. But if you ever stop going to church, you're no longer part of the body of Christ. You've left the faith. But at any point, you can come back to the path. It's very much part of the body of Christ. being a part of this community that makes you a Christian, not necessarily what you believe or like a doctrinal statement, they would care very little about that sort of thing. So I see that as different. And I see, you know, I believe that there are Orthodox true believers that I think are my brothers and sisters in Christ. But I think because of that tendency, it's easier to not really get the truth, especially when in a lot of churches, they might use, like, for example, an old language, you know, like maybe some old Catholic churches might use Latin. There's some that use something that's called Old Slavonic, which again, some Ukrainians say they understand, a lot say they don't really understand. It's more that they go to the church to sort of feel the faith, if you know what I mean. They feel the service, but don't understand what's happening. And of course that is, it's easy not to believe because you don't really know what's going on. So that's how I would explain the difference.
Dave:Very interesting. So we're actually just different categories. We're not asking the same questions.
John White:In a lot of cases, yes. Although I would say that, and I have limited experience to Orthodox believers here in America, but I think because of American cultural elements, they may do more things like Protestants or Catholics would do. And so an Orthodox here might still look different than I just explained.
Dave:So does an Orthodox person recognize the authority of the Pope in Rome? No, no. Does an Orthodox person recognize the original creeds of the faith, like some of the big ecumenical councils? Yes, I don't know
John White:if there are any. I mean, they basically were in lockstep with the Catholic Church until about a thousand. So I would guess before that, yes, if they're written before that, and afterwards, possibly no. But that's why I would say they're all Christians, Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, because we have those creeds in common.
Dave:Right. Good.
Unknown:Yeah.
Dave:Back to 2 Timothy, and we're almost done kind of wrapping up the sermon here. But you had a couple other points I just wanted to highlight. So later on in your message, you talked about these three images, the soldier, the athlete, and the farmer. And the question that I thought was something that would be worth talking about was in the farmer one, you You encouraged us to be patient and you encouraged us to wait on the Lord to bring the harvest in and that a farmer has to kind of be reliant and dependent on what God does there. And you told this, I never heard of it. You told us about a movement that was kind of starting in China. And I wonder if maybe some of our listeners have never heard of this either. Can you explain what that movement is and what their goal is and the heart behind that and what it's going to be?
John White:Yeah. Um, yes, there, there actually is a book you could look at called Back to Jerusalem by a guy named Paul Hadaway. Um, uh, there may be newer literature about it because the idea has been going now for a number of years. Um, it actually, I think started before communism started and then it was derailed for a while, but this vision was passed on by different Chinese pastors. This vision that China was called to raise up missionaries and they've, they've given a number, a hundred thousand missionaries to basically share the gospel between China going all the way back to Jerusalem. And of course, that's a very strategic and needy area because this is where predominantly people are Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu, and there are many countries that don't have much opportunity to hear the gospel. And they have trained up some missionaries, not 100,000, who are also reaching into Chinese minority groups that need to hear the gospel. But I love some of the things they say. Should I share some of these ideas that they've had? They say they really are grateful to Hudson Taylor and other Western missionaries who have come, and they say things like, That Westerners have shed enough blood for us. It's now our turn to shed our blood for others. And they say we are prepared for what's needed in these very difficult places to share the gospel because we don't need to build a large church building. We can meet in homes. We can hide underground. We can deal with persecution. A couple of things I didn't share in the sermon, which I thought are very interesting, especially being a theological educator. They say we need to teach our missionaries certain skills. They need to be able to jump from a second and not die and not get hurt because they may have to do that at times. They need to be able to get out of handcuffs.
Dave:Tim, I feel like that would be a good skill for anybody. Do you think you could do it, Tim? No. Noah, do you think you could jump out of a second story building?
Tim:Absolutely not. How
John White:about get out of handcuffs? Do you learn that in seminary? I never did. I don't know if you did, Dave. Dallas is pretty good.
Tim:Skip that class. The old dislocate the thumb method?
John White:Maybe it is. I don't know how they do it. Yeah. Yeah, that could be. But they're ready for persecution and willing... So I just have a tremendous... To me, it's so encouraging because especially when you teach in other cultures, sometimes there's a tendency to think, well, the Americans, they have the experience, they have a strong church, they have money. It's so easy to depend, say, on America or the West to help. Ukrainians, I think, have a lot of initiative on their own, but I think... seeing that the Chinese are, especially under a communist government, I think that's very encouraging for them and can be encouraging to us as well. And should I share the Dead Sea analogy? Sure. If you didn't catch that in the sermon. And I don't know if it's original to the Chinese. The first time I'd ever heard it was in this book, Back to Jerusalem. But they said, they asked the question, why is the Dead Sea dead? And the Dead Sea is dead despite having numerous sources of fresh water. They have no outlet. That's why it's dead. That's why nothing can live there. And the church is the same way. If the church doesn't have an outlet, we can have all sorts of great pastors and preaching and servants. But if we don't send out missionaries, if we don't try to plant other churches, if we don't share a faith, this church will die as well. And so I think we can learn from the Chinese church in that.
Dave:Tim is about to be taking on a new role here at Mellington as our director of production and outreach starting in July. Manager. July 1st. Manager of production and outreach. So I thought that that Dead Sea analogy would be good for you, Tim, to
Tim:make. You said that, John, in your sermon yesterday, and I was like, whoa. That was really cool. That's going to preach, Tim. It's one of those things where I knew where you were going with it. I was like, uh-huh. He's cooking up some sauce. And then you said it. I was like, yeah. That was awesome.
Dave:Well, thanks for challenging us yesterday, John. Guys, John is living proof of the fact that Millington Baptist Church is committed to being a missionary sending church. And so thank you for your generosity and allowing us to continue to do the ministry that God is allowing us to do. And thank you, John, for your commitment on the field. We pray for you, brother. We love you, brother. And we're with you. Hey, we wanted to highlight a couple things, but I think there's a sprint, Tim, before we do that. Yeah, so... Do you want to make us run? Yeah,
Tim:it's a hard ball. It's hot today. We're continuing with the hard ball. I don't know
Dave:if we can run, but...
Tim:So, yeah, let me just pull up the old... We got a dun-dun-dun. Oh, man. It is time for the Theology Sprint, and I will once again hand it over to my partner in crime, Noah Graves, who will be offering up this week's Theology Sprint.
Noah:All right. So this week, we're going to challenge our guest speaker, John White, to sprint here. Sorry, man. At first, I was going to give him an option of an easy or hard question, but after all this talk of seminary and PhDs, we're going for the hard question. Yeah. So today's question is, if in Matthew 6, Jesus says God will provide for our needs, how does this apply to people in places overseas, such as Africa, who are dying of starvation and insufficient water supply?
John White:Well, it's referring specifically to those... serving him. So I think it is amazing how God continues to provide. Actually, if we look at Hudson Taylor, he had a philosophy to not ever specifically ask for help, and God would always provide it. And so again, Africa actually has, I think, by percentage, more Christians than any other continent in the world. And that doesn't take away the suffering. But I do know there are many active Christians and missionaries. I mean, I've met an African missionary in Ukraine, I met one in Chicago. So and And I have students from Africa actually. So I believe that they are all about trying to meet the needs that are there. God uses missionaries to fulfill his will and to answer the needs that are there. And so I know that doesn't answer every need, but I know that God is at work and wanting to answer every need and maybe more of us need to answer the call in order to be a part of that.
Dave:It's a good answer. I think just to piggyback on that. There's a certain mystery to suffering in this world that we don't have all the answers to. Paul in Romans 8 talks about groaning and even Jesus experienced hunger. So I think sometimes God's provision comes through people and we fail to fulfill our responsibility to carry out God's will. But we do know starvation breaks God's heart. But it is not the final word. One day we will live in a place where no one will hunger or thirst again. And we are not yet at that place. And we long for that place. But we do serve a Savior who enters our suffering with us. But I want to tell this story about Hudson Taylor now, since you brought it up. So he was 27 serving in the pharmacy at this particular hospital in China. And they asked him to lead. So the missionary founder was... going away and they said you know would you take over the hospital he's like i'm just 27 years old like i can't do this and so um he prayed about it and after he waited on the lord for guidance he felt like he should at least keep the pharmacy open relying on solely on the uh the faithfulness of a prayer hearing god i think is what he said and he kept kept it running kept the medicine going until you know sometimes when the founder of a ministry like moves on the fundraising dries up that happens it's sad but it happens so that happened to Hudson Taylor and they were like dwindling and they got down to like zero and he was down to his last bag of rice and so the cook comes to Hudson Taylor and is like this is all we got man there's no more food in the pantry realistically we need some money to keep the doors open and all they could do was pray Okay, so this is an incredible story. So I have to remember exactly the details, and I have it written down here, but here's what happens. So the hospital is about to close down, and then Hudson Taylor gets a fascinating package package. And providentially, on the other side of the world, there was a guy named Bill Berger. He lived in London where his father had recently passed away and he had an inheritance. So Berger describes a heavy burden coming over him, compelling him to use his wealth for the Lord's work and he wanted to give it away for missions. So he bows his head and he prays to God about where he should send this money and God puts his friend Hudson Taylor on his heart and he looks down at the pile of money and in today's currency it was like 5,000 bucks and he sends it off to Hudson Taylor and just has a note there, the The bill enclosed was for immediate needs. Let me know if you can use some more. What was so amazing about this story is they needed $5,000 to keep the hospital open and the timing of that because back then it was like not instant, right? To get money from someone. Like months. Yeah, this wasn't like FedEx next day, right? So Berger had this inheritance and this prayer thing four months earlier, right? and mails it and then it arrives exactly four months later the same day the last bag of rice ran out. So here's the quote from Taylor. Taylor gets the package, runs over to the staff, pulls the patients together and says, look at our God, look at his power. Where is the idol that can do anything like that? Have they ever delivered us in our troubles or answered prayers like this? No. have faith in god amen taylor so there you go that's that's our sprint for today noah hopefully we'd somehow
Tim:amen that was a long sprint it was a long sprint and it was our first time having someone get choked up on the show sorry no that's okay it's a crying sprint it's an
Dave:amazing story so i think we need The faith of Hudson Taylor. All right, so a couple things to announce in the life of our church. Amy, help me out here. What's coming up? First one. What's coming up, Amy? What's this?
Amy:Okay, well, we are on our summer schedule with the NBC Kids program. So starting this Sunday, June 29th, we will offer NBC Kids nursery, preschool, and elementary classes during the 1045 service only.
Tim:Say it with us. No 9 a.m. No 9 a.m.
Amy:Starting this Sunday. All right. Good. June 29th.
Tim:Amy, back to you here.
Amy:All right. And if you consider Millington Baptist Church your home, I hope that you will take the call and the opportunity seriously to serve with your gifts. We have areas everywhere. for people to serve, but we want to spotlight four particular areas. One is the safety and security team area where you can patrol our campus, serve as a security and safety personnel. Another area is hospitality. How can you help us create a warm and welcoming environment for all of our congregants, especially new visitors? The third is the NBC kids program, kids team. We are always looking for people who love kids and love to serve in the classroom and in summer vbs and then finally we're excited that we are forming a buildings and grounds team if you love to work with your hands if you love to beautify the campus paint build work with the plumbing hvac we could use your help. So there are many, many ways in which you can serve with your gifts. Not only will you be blessing the church and the grounds, but you'll be making friends and you'll be fulfilling the gifts that God has entrusted into you and using them for good. So I believe that Tim or Noah, you're going to link the page in the notes, show notes, where you can sign up.
Tim:Beautiful. Noah, I'm going to ask you to take this next one.
Noah:Weekly emails. We would love for you guys to be plugged in with our weekly emails. We have two big ones. First one is our weekly e-news. So this goes out on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Tuesday is a behind-the-pulpit email. So if you're a behind-the-pulpit listener, you should definitely subscribe to that one so you can listen to it as soon as it goes out. It also has some other announcements throughout the week as well that are included in that email. We also have a weekly praise and prayer. This goes out on Wednesdays. This just has prayer requests from people throughout our church So this lets you be plugged in with what's going on with our church and how you can be praying for different people involved with Billington. So definitely subscribe to both those weekly emails. We would love for you guys to get to be in the know with all that.
Tim:great i will do the next one uh band of brothers if you are a high school boy who's probably not listening to this but if you are a parent of a high school boy uh we will be we'll be starting our summer schedule um we're gonna it's all kicking off this thursday june 26th we're gonna have a bonfire and barbecue at johnny's house it's gonna be a really great summer we're gonna be talking all about character we're gonna be talking about respecting and honoring women being a faithful witness we're gonna be talking about integrity on social media we're gonna be talking about some into authority, handling conflict, work ethic, and so much more. So this summer, check our Instagram out for the schedule, but pretty much every week except for July 3rd and July 31st. Pastor Dave, take us home. Thank
Dave:you guys for watching. John, it's been a pleasure to have you not only today, but this whole weekend. Thank you for your ministry. Thank you for your answering the call to the Lord.
John White:Thank you for having me. I appreciate the chance to share.
Dave:Yeah. Lord bless you as you move on tomorrow. Thanks for watching, guys. Like and subscribe. We will see you next time. Thanks, Amy, by the way, for co-hosting with
Amy:me today. I couldn't do it without you. Hey, we look forward to Pastor Bob being with us next week.
Dave:Yes, we do. We miss you, Bob. Please come back. Okay. Have a good day, guys. Thanks for watching.