It feels a little awkward mentioning what I’ve learned after 20+ years living overseas. I’ve learned a few languages well, worked in different roles, and have always sought to be and make disciples in healthy reproducing churches. And I must recognize that I’m still learning.
When You Obey, You Can’t Lose
My life verse says, “Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe” (Proverbs 29:25). Staring down failure and the accompanying shame still requires prayerful courage all the time. Many days, I still see people as big and God as small. If I don’t squelch this haunting fear of man or fear of failure, I can justify all sorts of second-best options, doable “in my own strength.” But relying on the power of God allows me to step into situations I couldn’t handle on my own.
What if I fail? God will be near me in my lowly broken-heartedness.
I’ve learned to face failure and fear. I depend upon God who dwells in a high and holy place but also with the lowly and broken-hearted. What if I fail? God will be near me in my lowly broken-heartedness. That sounds like a win, not a loss!
When you choose to move and make disciples and plant churches in a place where there are few of either, you have no guarantee that you’ll succeed. God calls you to be faithful and to lean into the fear and risk of failure in the eyes of others, your sending churches, your family and friends, and fellow team members or workers in a nearby city.
Jesus is the Hero, Not You
Your sending church and friends may think you are a hero. You are not—and you don’t need to be. The Son of God is the only one we need (1 Corinthians 3:6–7). See yourself as the neediest of the needy, and know that your weakness given to the Lord Jesus Christ can be a great strength as the Holy Spirit works through you. God seems to use flawed, still sinful, eager, persistent men and women who are willing to endure hardship as good soldiers of Christ, filled with his love and prayerfulness at all times.
The Apostle wrote, “Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9). That doesn’t sound like a hero to me. It sounds like someone I could be, with God’s help.
Backward Blessings
One of the backward blessings of living overseas for so many years is that I’ve learned how to ask forgiveness of others in at least four languages. Living in cross-cultural spaces stretches my ability to love others well because I must keep working hard to understand people very different from myself. In the meantime, I’ve learned how to communicate with a variety of people, helping me show and tell the good news in simpler ways to different people in different places.
I’ve also learned to work hard at communicating in simple ways with simple Scriptural truths, that when the Spirit works, the glory of God is revealed in transformed lives of unbelievers and believers alike.
I need others as much as I think they need me.
I’ve learned that while I may have some doctrinal understanding or interpretive skills to share with a first-generation Christian leader, he also has much to teach me about how to count it as joy in suffering and how to be content in hard circumstances. I’ve also learned to understand the New Testament much better by living among people who are, in many ways, living more in the early Church world than most of us in “the West” ever have.
Pastoring is not the same as cross-cultural church planting.
While the character and competencies are similar, the cross-cultural church planter will have to focus on developing a few local leaders who will then be able to shepherd the larger flock of local believers. Word ministry for a church planter happens mostly in spiritual conversations, not by delivering sermons. So, work at letting the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, ready for spiritual conversations 24-7!
One of the blessings of living overseas for so long is that I’ve learned to ask forgiveness in at least four languages.
I confess my need to read the Word of God again and again, over and over, prayerfully, meditatively, asking God for insight into how this particular word addresses me in my various roles, but also how it addresses those I’m trying to reach and those I’m training up to be leaders. When I read Scripture, I’ve learned to read large portions of whole books, asking, “In this book, what addresses the situations ‘my people here’ are facing?”
I don’t just ask for myself. I ask for my team, for the starter church I’m helping oversee, for the local leaders I meet with, and for the local community who have yet to turn and believe. This kind of Bible reading nourishes me and others. And when we have the mindset to serve God and others, in God’s kindness, we can see the gospel transform lives around us.
