This week we are in for a treat as we hear from Keith in New Zealand share his story of being called into planting seeds across Asia with the vision to seeing movements. Excitingly, movement is now happening!
The call
We hear how God called Keith and his wife Joy to Thailand after living their whole life in New Zealand until their 50s. Keith poured himself into training people across Thailand and many parts of Asia.
These days, Keith shares how we are now seeing movement spark in Thailand amongst some of those he once trained and continues to disciple in DMM (disciple making movement). Over the past few months, mass baptisms have been seen amongst Burmese refugees near the border of Thailand and Myanmar. This is one example of a seed Keith and his wife Joy once sowed now bearing an abundance of fruit.
So we learn from Keith how it is all about God’s call. We can trust in this call, knowing it might not work out the way we plan but God will do it his way since it was always his call.
Keith also shares about his passion for everyday, ordinary people being part of God’s kingdom. He tells us a powerful story of one humble Asian woman who never thought she’d be part of God’s work hearing about the Great Commission in Matthew 28. It was the Word of God that made her realise she was called to make disciples in the same authority that Jesus was given. Time and time again Keith has been able to bear witness to ordinary people in Asia bearing fruit like this in unexpected ways. One of the keys he learnt as he trained people was helping people discover movement principles by pointing them to Scripture.
What about New Zealand?
But what about New Zealand? What about the Western world? Keith shares that since returning home to New Zealand, he realises that he and his wife are now locals who are called to reach their fellow local New Zealanders. He says how he is now living out the movement training he has been teaching for years. The best people to reach the local people, he says, are the local people. “Now that’s us”, Keith says.
Even though he doesn’t see himself as a gifted evangelist, Keith’s learnt to have very natural spiritual conversation with people he and his wife meet in the market near their home. They’ve learnt to share Scripture and engage people in discovery style conversations.
So the challenge in the West, according to Keith isn’t about the harvest. He reminds us that God says the harvest is plentiful in the West (Luke 10:2). Instead, our challenge as the Western church is to get out and engage in the harvest.
Keith ends the podcast leaving us with a word of encouragement and a prayer of how he sees that we are clearly in time of unprecedented harvest in the world today:
“God just wants us to be obedient. Then He will use us in this harvest. God can use anybody”, says Keith. “Those who have a heart to obey. God is so well pleased to use anybody. He will put faith in the hearts of the people to do his work.”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:58 — 12.9MB)
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Blubrry | Email | RSS | More