Has God Called You to be a Missionary?

Hello, this is Will Hardy with ManTalk Radio.

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Get ready. It's one of America's most important, influential and respected voices on cultural and political issues. An apologist, Christian political advocate and author, here is the founder and chairman of the Citizens for America Foundation, Dr. Chris Hughes. Hey folks, welcome to The Christian Perspective. Boy, we've got a great show for you today and I'm so excited that you tune in here each and every day to listen to Christian Perspective with Chris Hughes. I also want to thank Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary for being the host of our studios right here at The Christian Perspective Studios in Memphis, Tennessee on the campus of Mid-America College and Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. If you're looking for a great Christian college to attend, I want to encourage you to go online and check out Mid-America College and then some of you who maybe after you listen to the show today, because we're going to be talking about missions, might decide, hey, I want to go to seminary somewhere. Well, then I encourage you to look at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary.

It's a very biblically sound, believes in the inerrancy of scripture, the sufficiency of scripture, and in the power of evangelism. Matter of fact, if you're a student at either the seminary or the regular college at Mid-America, one of the things that you have to do every day is go out and intentionally try to win somebody to Jesus every single week. And that's really what it's all about is telling other people about Jesus.

So I want to thank you all for joining us here today. You know that The Christian Perspective is sponsored by the Citizens for America Foundation, and our purpose is to try and encourage people to develop a biblical worldview and then take that biblical worldview out into the world, particularly into the arena of public policy and politics. But no matter what we do, we stress every single day that we want people to reach Jesus, to engage the culture for Jesus, and to serve Jesus and tell others about the saving grace of Jesus Christ each and every day.

And today our show is really dedicated to that. A lot of times we talk about politics or other things, but today we want to talk about a calling that God might have on your life and you might not even know it yet. And my guest today is a really dear, dear friend of mine, special friend.

We've been very good friends for many years now. He was a former pastor on a church where we most attended, and he was the missions pastor there and really encouraged me to do more in mission work with another venture that I have and just had a heart for winning people to Jesus. And God just really drew me to him and his friendship. And then he went to another church to serve in missions there, and now he's with a missions organization that serves all over the world. But that's not the first time he's done it because he was also a missionary with something called the International Mission Board. For those of you who don't know, he's a Southern Baptist, which is the largest Protestant denomination in the world. And the Southern Baptist Convention, although the churches are independent and autonomous, they come together in a fellowship of like-minded churches to raise money, if you will, for mission projects.

They have many different organizations, but the two biggest ones, the North American Mission Board funds mission projects in the United States and North America, and the International Mission Board sends what used to be called foreign missionaries with people around the world. And I think he was in Thailand, I can't remember, he'll correct me in a minute. But anyway, he was a missionary with the International Mission Board, and now he's working in missions around the world again today. So I'm so honored to have a friend.

Our kids are friends, our wives are friends, and we've been friends for a long time. Pastor Travis Burke, thank you so much for joining The Christian Perspective today. Hey, Chris, thank you so much for having me. Really excited to be here with you, brother.

Well, I'm excited too, because you have a great story of how God directed you to become a missionary and really have a heart for lost people all over the world and to tell people about Jesus. And boy, that's so important in this day and age, as so many things are going on, really, almost like out of the pages, well, it is out of the pages of the Bible, a revelation and prophecy of things that are going to be happening. And the Bible tells us that Jesus is coming again one day. And, you know, when that day comes, or either when He comes or when we die, the Bible tells us that we have a spirit that lives within us and our bodies might die, but that spirit is going to live on throughout all of eternity. And the decisions that we make in this life to either follow Jesus Christ and serve Him, or to not, will depend on where our souls spend all of eternity in a place either called hell of eternal damnation and torment, or a place called heaven. We're in the presence of God each and every day for the rest of eternity. And I know that's a burden that you have on your heart, Travis, to reach people for Jesus before that happens.

Yes, indeed it is. You said we will either end up before our Lord in heaven and for eternity, or we will end up being separated in a place called, as you said, hell, apart from God. And it is my heart and my desire to see people have the opportunity to respond to God's gospel message. And gospel is just a word that means good news, and it's God's good news that He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for us.

We are all sinners. That means that we are disobedient to God and that we deserve death in ourselves, but God has provided a way to regain relationship with us through what Jesus did in His sacrifice on the cross. So I'm excited to be a part of that because the even better news for what Jesus did on the cross for us is that He ascended after being buried for three days off the cross. He ascended into heaven and He's praying on the behalf of all of us believers. And in this day and age it's very important as I look around and see what's going around in the world, and breaking my heart what's happening in the Ukraine today.

Things have happened in Afghanistan last August. Just so just so many things that God is working at in the world. And my desire is to come alongside of peoples to encourage their hearts to know that God loves them and has a plan for them, but they must turn from themselves and turn to God.

Yeah, amen. Well, Travis, and there are people who may not be Christian listening to the radio program, and we throw a lot of Christian terms out there like they might hear the term priest, or maybe they've heard the term rabbi, which is faith leader in another faith, or they hear the term evangelist or missionary. You're a missionary, so people who might not know what a missionary is, what is a missionary, and what do they do, and what does that title mean? A missionary is anyone who knows Christ. Basically the word missionary is describing anyone who chooses to accept the mission that God has given every believer. The mission that God has given every believer is telling others about what He did for them. If you were a believer, if someone who comes to know Christ, and you desire to want to follow after Christ as we are, when we come to know Christ, to accepting what He did on the cross for us, the Holy Spirit comes into our life and helps guide and direct us away from our sinful self and guide us more towards Him, but that takes a personal decision to follow Christ in that.

If someone chooses to do that, one of the things that we're commanded in the Bible, Matthew 28 talks about is the Great Commission, is what we call it, and what a commission is is just a sending out. So basically it's God sending out of His people who have come to know Christ into the world. Another verse that people may be familiar with is Acts 1-8 that talks about being Christ's witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And Jerusalem, it can be looked at in our lives, is where we live locally.

Judea was outside of Jerusalem, and that's more like a county or state location if you're in the US, and Samaria might be the entire country, and then of course the ends of the earth is anywhere else. I have felt called in all those areas to do missions as a missionary, and I'll be happy to talk about that here in just a minute, but basically what a missionary is is someone who surrenders to Christ and decides to follow Him with all of their heart and their mind, their soul, their strength, and in doing so they adopt the mission of getting the Word of God out there, getting the good news out there, the gospel message out there to others so that they can respond to it. And you might ask, why are missionaries needed? It's so important that we do this work because in his book John Piper Let the Nations Be Glad, he mentions that missions exist because worship does not.

So you might ask yourself, what does that mean? Well, the reason why we have a mission to go tell everybody about what Christ has done on the cross for us and uniting us with God if we accept Him, is when we do that we become worshipers of God. God's desire and God's design even from the very beginning is to have a relationship with us, and in choosing to not do that we sin, we run away, we disobey God, and He's provided Jesus to provide that doorway, and the mission is to tell others, hey, this world is bad, look around, things are going on, they're not good, and there's a way that this can be made much better, and that is through relationship with God, and that only comes through knowing Jesus Christ. Jesus said that He's the way, the truth, and the life, and nobody comes to the Father except through Him. The worship aspect is the relationship.

Once we come to know Christ and we get to know Him and His character, His personality through reading His word, spending time with Him in prayer, having a relationship with Jesus, we desire to worship Him for what He has done. So that's what that means by John Piper when he said in his book, Let the Nations Be Glad, missions exist because worship does not. Once worship is full on, meaning that everybody has gotten to the place where God wants them to be in worshiping Him, then there's not even going to be a need for any missions. So when God, yes, so the missions will cease eventually, and I want to be working with the Lord, coming alongside of Him in the world, doing things that help encourage people to know there is a God who's the only true and living, loving God that wants a relationship with Him, and I desire to share that with anyone that I come in contact with. Wow, Pastor Travis, that, you're unpacking a lot of stuff there. This is really good, and you know, you talk about John Piper writing, I'm sitting here thinking, wow, Pastor Travis needs to write a book. This is really great because this is what I want our listeners to learn about today, is what is a missionary, and you said something that is really profound, and we're about to take a commercial break, but you said a missionary is anyone who knows Christ and accepts His mission, and I think too many of us as Christians don't see that.

We don't realize that every one of us, if we're a follower of Jesus Christ, one of the primary responsibilities of every Christian is to tell other people about Jesus, and so we're on mission for Him each and every day and everywhere we go. We're going to have to take a commercial break, Pastor Travis. I already know because I had all these things I want to ask you today, but just in the first few minutes here, there's so many things I want to dig into, so we're going to have to have you back, so you just have to go ahead and plan right now, but we're going to take a commercial break, and then I want to ask you to go back to something you said when you were telling us what a missionary is. One of the things you said is, you know, you were describing Acts 1 8, you know, what that charge was to go other places.

You said locally. When we come back from the commercial break, we want to dig into that a little bit deeper, so folks, stick around. God might be calling you to be a missionary today. Our guest is missionary Pastor Travis Burke, and we'll be right back with more of The Christian Perspective. This show is brought to you by Generous Joe's, the coffee company with The Christian Perspective. This is the answer that Christians and conservatives have been looking for. A coffee company that gives back to causes you care about.

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For a free transcript, call American Minute at 1-888-USA-WORD. Welcome back to The Christian Perspective. This is Chris Hughes, and my guest today is Pastor Travis Burt. He and his family have been missionaries for many, many years, and he's talking to us about missions. What is a missionary? Maybe you're listening today and God might be pulling on your heart to tell you that he wants you to do mission work for him.

And I'm going to recap for just a second. When we asked what was a missionary, Pastor Burt said, Anyone who knows Christ and accepts his mission. And then he gave some verses and he told us that Acts 1-8 charged us to, you could be missionaries around the world, in your own country, or even locally. So Pastor Travis, when you said locally, that really hit home with me because a lot of people, when they think of a missionary, think of somebody in China or India or somewhere. But you said locally, can we really be missionaries right here in our own hometown?

Absolutely. And to be honest with you, Chris, if you're not doing it here locally, you have no business going to do it overseas. And I'll tell you, this is my perspective, this is my true heart on this. The one thing that I have seen, and I have worked with the Southern Baptist Association in my local area, and I have worked with churches individually and as a group through that association, and the one thing that I see is that in our churches, it seems to be that the relationship aspect of knowing Christ is not emphasized. A lot of what we do is programmatic, a lot of it is you go and do this because of this reason, and to me, being a missionary, being a Christian is being a missionary, and being a missionary only comes out of my heart towards Christ.

It's my relationship with Jesus that propels me to want to be obedient, and that this is one aspect of my obedience. Other aspects include becoming more like Jesus, and that means in my heart, surrendering myself and my own desires to God, and then through that, God has called me, and I'll explain what that means here in just a minute, to be called to do more in mission work. Now, I absolutely believe in local missions.

I think without local missions, as I said earlier, you really can't do overseas missions. You can go, you can do that work, but it doesn't, I remember, let's put it this way, when I went, one of the countries I lived in for two years was China, and when I was in that country, I will never forget, I was there as a student, I was studying the culture, I was studying the language, I was studying all aspects of Chinese life, and I was, I'm a Christian, so as I'm in that moment, as I'm in that place, I'm also a missionary in that very moment, so locally there in China, I served among the Chinese as just being me, a Christian who's a missionary, and I'll never forget that as we were working there and seeing what was going on in that place, God led my heart to realize that it would take the Asian face to reach the Chinese people. What that means is locally, Asians who were believers were going to have to own their relationship with Jesus Christ to reach that nation, and if you take a look at the, although the numbers are really unknown, the church in, the underground church in China is supposedly bigger than the U.S. churches, all of us combined in numbers of people, and that's because people chose to be obedient and tell others about Jesus.

Well let's bring that back to the U.S. So here in the U.S., I'm sitting in my pew at church, I hear my pastor talking about what's going on around me locally, if I don't have in my heart a desire and compassion to want to serve God and reach that in some capacity, maybe I should be asking myself, do I really know Jesus? Do I really have a relationship with Jesus? That relationship is so vital and that's who we are, so my obedience comes out of my relationship through Christ, so the only reason why you're talking to me today and I'm telling you I'm a missionary is because of Jesus in my life, and so wherever I exist, I mean we're told by the Lord, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. Someone brought the gospel to me, I need to take the gospel to them, that's how I love others as myself, and I do that because I love the Lord the God.

Yes I am, sorry about that, but this is... No, no, I love it. Well you, so you're basically telling us that everybody who claims to be a follower of Jesus Christ should have a heart for missions and that you don't have to go to China, although some might be called, and in a minute I want you to tell us what it means to be called, but so if somebody wants to be a missionary, whether it's here or somewhere else, do they have to be trained or can anyone do it? Well Chris, as I mentioned, and as you mentioned also, every believer is already a missionary, and there are some that can get it.

Let me talk first about call. So a call is where you know that you know that you know deep down in your soul that if you don't do this thing that you're being called to, generally it's a ministry related like being called to preach, being called to do missions, being called to be a music minister, being called to be a youth minister, whatever the calling is that you have in your heart, you know that you know that you know way deep down inside that if you don't do this you will not have the peace that you've been brought by accepting that, and so what I mean is I, when I received, how literally, I'm a southeastern Baptist graduate, so southeastern Baptist theological seminary graduate, and I hope Mid-America doesn't mind me saying that online or on the air, but I appreciate what Mid-America is doing, but when I arrived at Southeastern in 1997, I did not know anything about what God had hauled me to that seminary to learn. I wasn't sure if I was to be a pastor or a missionary or what, and I remember standing in the middle of that campus with my hands in the air worshiping the Lord, and I said, okay Lord, now I'm here, now what? And literally the only thing he ever told me was missions.

That was the only word, and I'm like what does that even mean? Then I found out that there was a missions department at this seminary. I went and I investigated a missions department. They had something called a two plus two program, studied two years on campus, studied two years overseas, and I dived into that, and that took me to China through the Southeastern seminaries program, so that all the student body that was involved in that program went to China in 2000, and I went through some training, and I was trained, and I'm seminary trained, I'm missionary trained, but here's my point, you don't need that.

It's not necessary for you to have to go through that. You can know Christ, and you can tell people about Jesus, and you can start a Bible study, and that Bible study can lead to church, and that church can then plant another church. You know, you can do that. It's not totally necessary that you go and actually be trained, so yes, anyone who loves the Lord, who's obedient to being a missionary, can do that. Now should everybody do that, and we start to see theological differences? No, if that's seen, then there needs to be some church that's there that's helping. In other words, if you're attending a church, and you feel led to go plant a church, your home church should be your supporter, and your cheerleader, and your encourager to do that, so there can be some accountability in how all that happens, but what I'm saying is you don't have to go spend the four years in seminary that I did to do this.

You are a missionary if you're called by Christ, if you are called to be a believer in Christ. And we are called, aren't we? Yes, we are. We believers at least, at least to be believers, and to share that testimony with others.

Wow. Well, Pastor Travis, tell us, we've got a couple minutes for our next commercial break. You were talking about local missions a while ago. What are some examples of things that we can do locally as local missionaries?

I'm so glad you asked. So some simple things. First and foremost, as a believer and follower of Christ, how we maintain our relationship with Jesus is through prayer. So we can pray for our neighbors, we can pray for those who live in proximity to us, we can pray for those we work with, we can pray for those whom we jog with or ride a bicycle with, we can pray for those that we interact with. Anyone within our sphere of influence, we can pray for them. That's a very simple thing that anyone at any age, at any health situation, if they know Jesus, can do. They can pray and ask Him to help and love and encourage them.

One of my favorite things I like doing, and it's not something I like to see happen because I'm sad at the moment that I see it, but I love to do, is when I see an ambulance go by or I see an officer standing there giving a ticket or I see someone on the side of the road with a broken down car, if I can't pull over and help, I pray for them and I ask God to provide their needs and I ask God to protect our police and protect our first responders. And that's just a way that I am being a missionary to that person, they don't even know it. Then another way, other ways that you can physically do is you could actually go to your neighbor, get to know your neighbor, have a conversation with your neighbor. One of my individuals that I consider a neighbor is my mailman. For Christmas, I left him a gift in my mailbox. Every time I'm walking my dogs, he happens to come by. If he's out, I will try to wave at him and talk to him. Treat him like a human being, get to know him, and then just pray for them in their route. You're just kind of building a friendship bridge with them there.

I tell you what, because you're fixing to get into some good stuff. Let's take a quick break and y'all want to come back, we're going to talk about more about how you can be involved in missions locally. So stick around, we'll be right back with more of Pastor Travis Burke on The Christian Perspective. The United States of America has a strong Christian heritage, but most Americans don't know the truly important role that God in the Bible played in the founding of this great nation. This June, join nationally syndicated radio host and founder of the Citizens for America Foundation, Dr. Chris Hughes, for four amazing days in our nation's capital. With Chris, you'll embark on a journey of discovering the hidden secrets of Washington DC and rediscover much of America's forgotten Christian heritage. Your tour will include an up close and personal look at the nation's establishment and how it's evolved over the centuries. Learn about the government and the men who helped forge this new kind of republic, one that acknowledged the creator from its very inception.

Know the truth about the creation of the United States of America, about the faith of the founding fathers and how Christian principles were used to establish this form of government. Visit citizensforamericafoundation.com today and secure your spot to join Chris Hughes in Washington DC this June. This show is brought to you by Generous Joe's, the coffee company with The Christian Perspective. This is the answer that Christians and conservatives have been looking for, a coffee company that gives back to causes you care about.

Order your coffee today at shopgenerousjoes.org and even subscribe to a subscription coffee plan and never forget the coffee you love or the causes you care about. Visit our website today at conservativebaptistnetwork.com to learn how you and your church can join and support this exciting movement. Pastor Travis says it starts with praying for your neighbors and getting to know one.

He was just sharing how he was friends with his mailman. What are some other things, Pastor Travis, that you do? I like to use food, for example, to try to share Jesus with people. Yeah, absolutely. Making a meal. If you hear someone's having a hardship in their life, COVID's been a real downer on a lot of people.

A lot of people have lost love because of it. If you find out, go to them. Ask them how you can help. Tell them you're praying for them.

Look for an opportunity to have a conversation. Even on the phone with a telemarketer or someone that's doing a service for you, do a service to them and turn around and ask them if they know Jesus and tell them that you're praying for them. One of my favorite things I love to do is even be a missionary among my brothers and sisters in Christ at church. I will ask them how they're doing, spend a little bit of time, tell them that I love them as a brother or sister in Christ, and encourage them. But some other ways outside of those closer relationships, and let's don't forget family. Children, parents, loved ones, absolutely being a witness in their life for what Christ has done for you.

But outside of that local economy in your personal life, you can do things like you can actually go down to another neighborhood. I remember serving with a church here locally, going into a neighborhood where there were a lot of people that had handicaps and they had a need for a new ramp. Going and building that ramp with a team and taking time to share the gospel with them. If you've never heard of it, something easy that you can learn how to do to share the gospel is called the three circles. I'd be happy to talk about that if you want, but that's a method in which you can share Jesus. It's very easy to do.

It takes less than three minutes. This, to me, Chris, the biggest factor in this is not the planning to do these kind of little trips. I mean, you can go, you can take a trip to Kentucky and you can work among those who are underprivileged, who live in the coal mines, who deal with the coal mines.

They're depressed. You can physically go to another location, and we should, according to the scripture that I quoted earlier, we should have that desire and opportunity to present ourselves to go and do that. But I'll tell you, one of my favorite things and what I love about Jesus is, in my relationship with him, is that he leads me daily.

And I think this is the aspect of relationship part that is so missing. And what makes me truly a missionary, I mentioned, is that. But here's the thing, this is, I'm going to tell you a story real quick, that this is something that God did. It was phenomenal. So I was just working my normal day. I had gotten to a gas station, was filling up my car. I was exhausted. I just wanted to go home. And all of a sudden, this truck comes rolling up on the other side of the pylon, that old beat up Toyota pickup, little white one in the back of it was a lawnmower.

A dog was in the passenger seat and a haggard older lady came out of the front and she came over to get gas. And she looked at me and she asked me a question and I'm sitting there. Oh, I don't want to have a conversation.

I just want to go home. But she asked me a question. She said, we were across the street from a hospital in our town and there was a new building that was being built right directly across the street from the gas station where we were. She said, how long has that building being built? And I said, oh, it's been about two years. And she said, that sounds about right. And she began to tell me a little bit about herself. And all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit said to me, share the three circles, share the gospel with this woman. And I took a minute and I'm like, oh, you've got to be kidding.

I'm so tired. And I said, okay, so her name was Rivonda. So Rivonda and I were having a conversation and I just shared the three circles, a simple way to share Jesus.

And how you start off with that is you talk about how the world is a broken world. And as I did that, tears filled in her eyes and she began to cry and she said, that's me. And I'm like, okay. And I went through the whole presentation and I came back to her and I said, Rivonda, would you like to pray and receive Christ in your heart today as your Lord and Savior? And she said, yes. And we sat our rear ends down right there on that pie line next to the gas pump and prayed. And she came to be a believer right there at the gas station. And I didn't want to do it. What I'm saying that to you, that's me being a missionary in someone's life that I don't even know, but I was just available to be used by the Lord.

I've got several other stories like that. And that's my heart is just, I want to be obedient in whatever I do, wherever I am, wherever I'm living, whoever I'm interacting with, I want to be in communication with my Lord and Him tell me what I need to do in that moment. And that's what I think we all need. I know you travel all over the world teaching people how to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. And to some people it's intimidating, but it really shouldn't be because the Bible tells us in Luke, if we will tell other people about Jesus, the Holy Spirit will tell us what to say. And we also know from God's word that if I'm going to tell somebody about Jesus, I don't need to share Pastor Travis's story. I need to share mine and God will send if I pray for him to send people to me every day, which I would encourage every Christian to do, pray every day God will send you an opportunity to witness and God will do that. And that person needs to hear what you've got to say, not what Pastor Travis or Chris Hughes had to say, just like the woman you met at the gas station. So I know I didn't ask you to do this in advance, but just the Holy Spirit's kind of tugging on me that there might be somebody right now who doesn't know, maybe they've never told anybody about Jesus their whole life, they've been intimidated, they think they got to go to seminary to do it.

And really if a dummy like me can do it, anybody can do it. Can you share what the three circles is and how they can do that? Absolutely. You've got a circle and an arrow drawn from that circle to the right to another circle, an arrow drawn from the bottom of that circle to a third circle, and an arrow drawn from the third circle back to the first. So that's the imagery here. And basically the top circle on the right hand side represents brokenness. I always start with brokenness because brokenness everybody can relate to. So I'll start it like this, I'll say, do you believe that the world is broken?

Can you look around the world to find any examples of brokenness? How about what's going on in Ukraine? How about what's going on in Russia and with their leadership? How about what's going on in America? How about the things that are happening all around us?

Your family life, is it perfect? Have you ever broken a limb? I mean literally, are there things broken in your life? In our brokenness, we always try to break out of that brokenness. We try to do that through maybe illicit relationships. Maybe we choose to take an illegal drug or we choose drunkenness or we choose whatever.

It might be just running away from a situation or a relationship. Those things always bring us back to brokenness. We're never satisfied. Well if you take a look at the circle on the top left side, there would be a heart in that circle and that circle represents God and God's desire and God's design was that he wants a relationship with everybody. He did not create the broken world. We created the brokenness in the world.

God created the world but the brokenness came from us. So on the top line with the arrow running to the set the broken circle, there's a person running and that represents disobedience and running away from God or sin and then from the broken circle down to the lower third circle, in that circle I would draw or have a cross and that cross represents Jesus and I say there's only one doorway out of the brokenness into into there's only one doorway out of the brokenness and that doorway is Jesus Christ who came to show us how to love one another and more importantly love God and show us how much God loved us. He was put on a cross. He died a sinless death. He was taken off the cross. He was buried and on the third day he rose and up into heaven and the only way to get to Christ is through repentance and belief or if people don't know what those those words are it's basically just admitting I'm wrong and believing what Jesus did on the cross to save me from being wrong and then I say and there's a little person praying there at that arrow and then I say once you've prayed you make Jesus the king of your life and I draw a crown on top of that lower circle and then on the arrow going up from that lower circle to the the heart circle again there's a little person that's got little sparks all around the call there's glory sparks because the Bible says once you've done that once you've prayed and you've admitted your sins to the Lord and you ask him to forgive you he enters your life and you're made a new creature you're created as now an ambassador for God in this world that means basically you were created to be a missionary and to go into sharing the mission of Jesus to tell other people about God and then I asked the question as I said in the world you see there's two types of people there are those that are closer to God and those that are further apart from God which do you say you are and then I let them respond and that gives them an opportunity to say you know where they feel like they are and that leads me in the direction of how I can work with them if they say well I'm right in the middle then I'll start a conversation about are you in the middle because you think you're good enough and we'll go through and talk through that so that's basically the presentation that's powerful and again folks if you want to hear that again the podcast is available anywhere that you get your podcast later today this will be released on podcast and you can listen to it well thank you so much I just felt like God wanted us to share that that somebody might need to hear you know how to how to share their faith if they've never done that before it's really that simple guys you don't have to go swimming here to do that it's easy easy it was less than a 10-minute conversation with rivanda less than 10 minutes is amazing amazing well I tell you what let's lead into this then tell us a little bit about your relationship with Jesus and why you decided you call yourself a cross-cultural missionary why did you decide to do that and then maybe tell us what that means as I mentioned earlier my desire is to be obedient to the Lord I desire to put the Lord first in all aspects of my life and I'm going to say this anyone who becomes a Christian today will not find themselves doing this early on it takes time for them to really truly submit every part of their life over to Christ but that's what he wants I've been a Christian since I was eight years old that means for 40 years I've known Jesus I've walked with him and when I was 15 I accepted the fact that I was not Lord of my life that Jesus was Lord of my life so I accepted him as my savior at eight but I came to it and as my Lord at eight but I came at 15 to an understanding of what it meant for Christ to be Lord of my life and I chose to say okay Lord if you're Lord of my life I want to follow you in everything that you want me to and that opened the doorway up for me to be led to be called to be a missionary but I just desire to be obedient to the Lord as I mentioned I was called by God and a calling is simply just as you know that you know that you know in your heart that's what God wants you to do there's nothing that can change your mind you've got peace about it as I mentioned earlier to love the Lord my God all my heart soul mind and strength everything that I am I want to do that and love my neighbor as as myself so my relationship with Jesus is a day-to-day relationship as it should be for all believers I don't always read my Bible every day oh gasp but I do spend time you know praying every morning I wake up I'm in prayer and I'm thinking and I'm praying about whatever is going on around me in my personal life and internationally as I work through all the things that I do at EastWest so much going on that I have to pray about but I do that because I desire to hear what the Lord has to say and I listen that's the key I listen I don't just pray and go on and on and on about what I want to say I wait and I say Lord what are you telling me and when I'm talking to you or anyone else even in this moment I'm praying and asking God what do you want me to learn from this what do you want me to hear from this what do I need to share uh what what are you doing that's my biggest question to the Lord is Lord what are you doing and how can I come alongside of that and understand more about how I can be helpful yeah yeah prayer is uh you know is not sending God like some genie to do errands for us it's a special time of communication with God where he will prepare us to do his will in our lives with that we're going to take a break we'll come back pastor Travis I want you to share with us where you've lived and I want you to tell us what the day on life of a cross-cultural missionary looks like folks stick around with pastor Travis we're talking about what it means to be a missionary we'll be right back a brand is a design name symbol or any other feature that sets an organization or individual apart bringing that brand to life can be difficult but Diggs Design is here to help you take that next step or re-energize your current situation we can handle logos social media graphics cards weddings clothings prints photo editing and much more give us a call today at 704-984-2432 or connect with Diggs Design on social media in a world crowded with viewpoints and voices critical condition after asa I believe the message of this financial problem only one voice matters gods at the college at mid-america and mid-america seminary we equip leaders to think from a biblical world view online or on our memphis campus check out the college at mid-america and 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seasons of motherhood faith and life with confidence and joy the united states of america has a strong christian heritage but most americans don't know the truly important role that god in the bible played in the founding of this great nation this jew joined nationally syndicated radio host and founder of the citizens for america foundation dr chris hughes for four amazing days in our nation's capital with chris you'll embark on a journey of discovering the hidden secrets of washington dc and rediscover much of america's forgotten christian heritage your tour will include an up close and personal look at the nation's establishment and how it's evolved over the centuries learn about the government and the men who helped forge this new kind of republic one that acknowledged the creator from its very inception know the truth about the creation of the united states of america about the faith of the founding fathers and how christian principles were used to establish this form of government visit citizens for america foundation.com today and secure your spot to join chris hughes in washington dc this june welcome back to the christian perspective with chris hughes i have a special guest a dear friend of mine today pastor travis burt he is a missionary and we were just talking about what it means to be a cross-cultural missionary and so i gave you a little bit of time over the break pastor travis now can you tell us where you've lived and then tell us what the day in the life of a cross-cultural missionary looks like sure i'll do that but let me one of the things you asked me earlier was what is a cross-cultural missionary and basically it's just someone who feels led of the lord to live in a different culture and to do what i would normally do in my own culture and living with christ in my heart of my life over there where over there might be so the areas that i've lived in i mentioned two years in china two years also in india and four years in thailand so all together about eight years of cross-cultural living interestingly enough when we were going to china my wife was pregnant with our first child and many people were asking us are you going to take your baby with you of course it's our child so he was two months old when we left to go and we lived in china from the time that our son was two months so he was almost two years old so that's about how long we lived there in china and then we came back pregnant with my daughter and my daughter and my son and my wife and i remained in the us this was you might say well i thought you were called to be a cross-cultural missionary what happened well it's because my life is an obedient life to christ and christ told me i was not returning back to china he also told me that i would stay in the us until he was wanting to call me elsewhere and after five years he did just that and he called us to india and we spent two years there my daughter at that time was about four my son was about seven and then we went from in india when the lord redirected our heart to thailand so we literally moved from india to thailand and in doing that we spent those four years there and we came out of that thailand location when my son was 13 and my daughter was about 10 and then we returned to the states why did we return to the states i thought you're a cross-cultural missionary i returned to the states again because it was god's desire for me to do so and in fact he then changed my calling not away from missions but just into a different vocation related to missions which was missions pastoring so i did that with two local churches and then as was mentioned earlier on and and then i i came out from there and um i continued to work uh in missions still today and i happen to work for a cross-cultural organization today but at the same time i live where i live and i handle who i am where i am and that means i'm a missionary right here in my own neighborhood well you mentioned a missions pastor and that might be something that listeners have never heard of and say well maybe god's called me to do that and so the missions pastor is really where you worked in a local church those churches had a heart for missions and you led mission teams and incurred missions and trained people how to witness and those type of things as a mission pastor pastor is that correct that is correct yes sir two or three years ago god called you back into a new kind of mission field and you're with an organization called east west ministries can you tell us about that transition who this organization is and we really need to know you know sir website because i think you have to raise your own money which is different than it was before tell us what you're doing now and how we can support your ministry so after my second the second church i was working as missions pastor the lord again redirected my steps and i joined an organization called east west ministries international they are located out of plano texas they have work all over the world there's 77 countries that we are currently working in there are 11 others that we're trying to get into to expand to 88 in that role it's a very large role for me and that god has been doing something called regional vice president and what that means simply is that i have an entire region of the world well this region actually reaches from iran to japan and then russia to indonesia so all of that part of the world on the map is where i focus my efforts and i've got people in and around all those countries that we're in in that regional area that i work with and i've got other leaderships in between me and those that are physically there on the ground as well that i work with and i've been doing that for the last two years um and the way that anyone who want to find out about east west they can go to www.eastwest.org if they want to give to me specifically they can go to www.eastwest.org slash travis burt that will take them to a page where they'll be my missionary number 9630 and they can give right there online in any way that is mentioned on there that they can give and that goes as a donation it goes directly to east west it's a donation to them they earmarked for my use that's how i get my money i'm not actually giving money physically to me to me i don't receive that it all goes through there because east west is a 501c3 organization so all the donations are tax deductible um so anybody would like to give it i really appreciate that may i ask again to repeat that just in case i wanted to write it down i missed it it's www.eastwest.org east west not ministry so eastwest.org and then to specifically support you they put a forward slash travis which is t-r-a-v-i-s burt v-u-r-t and can i point out that you did not ask me to do any of this but as i understand it you know when you worked in the other countries you weren't employed basically the international mission board and you were funded as such now you have to raise your own funding and so the only way that you're able to do this missions work is through people that are generous like our listeners today and if people don't donate then you're not you don't get paid to support your your wife and your two children so it's so important y'all this is another way to be a missionary i don't ever beat people up for money but i mean you know some of us can give and maybe even if it's five or ten dollars a month that adds up and makes a big difference to the ministry that pastor travis has so again it's eastwest.org forward slash travis t-r-a-v-i-s burt v-u-r-t and i know i didn't mean to embarrass you there by doing that but i just want people to have the opportunity to bless you if they're listening here today that's very kind of you chris thank you so very much and real quickly just so people understand the only missions organization that exists that pays their missionaries any kind of stipend and i mean it's a stipend it's not much money at all is the international mission board of the southern bads convention i was called to lead that and go work with another organization eastwest that is a non-denominational organization that is like all other mission organizations where everyone who's a missionary has to raise their own support so the international mission board that's their uniqueness they do that through raising funds through churches that give and they can they bring those funds together in a pool and provide that for the missionaries as a stipend and but all the other organizations are asking individuals which i actually like because you you involve the individual into the giving you involve the individual into the the ministry so where the southern baptist i would walk in a church and i'd be welcomed as an i'd be missionary and i'd be talked to like that and they i can say thank you to the whole church but i couldn't tell you anyone in that church whereas today i've got a list of people that i have that are supporting me that i know personally and then i send out newsletters and information to to encourage them in what i'm doing and if they were to write me an email i know who that is and i like that so that's the accountability is a lot closer individually and i just really appreciate that you know you were talking about difficulties in the huge region really that you're vice president over a large portion of our world today and about a week ago this was last thursday or wednesday night of last week that russia invaded ukraine and i know and you might not be able to share any details because people's lives could be in danger but i know you probably have missionaries in russia i don't know about ukraine are there's things that we can be praying for because that's a difficulty when you go to a foreign country you could be attacked or i mean it really could happen anywhere but when we're praying we're asking our people to pray for your team members out there is there anything specific not just to that situation with others that we can be praying for absolutely thank you for asking technically ukraine is not a part of my area that's actually part of europe and there's another individual who is dealing with that where russia is we have national partners in russia and in ukraine so prayers for them and their families and their safety i actually got a text from the individual who's over europe telling us that one of our national partners had been shot at while in ukraine and just praying for their situation there for that whole region and as russia pushes to destabilize that ukraine and potentially push into other countries that'll affect a lot of not only the work that east west does but also certainly more drastically the world and it'll reshape boundaries it'll create us to have to rethink how we do things and all that so prayer there is very important but i quickly want to say afghanistan is a part of my area and by god's grace we had two national partners one which has sent his family out two weeks prior to the invasion of the taliban and then he paid a smuggler to get him down to a fence line there and dug under the fence and went into pakistan and escaped but then he was kicked out of pakistan and now he's in cyprus you can pray for him and then our other one actually made it out through dubai and came to america and actually he's now currently in louisville kentucky so we've got we're partnering with him to try to reach afghan displaced peoples here within the u.s right now so although it's bad it is an open door for us to be looking and watching to see what god's doing and coming alongside of him and how we can use be useful and how god would have us to be useful for his kingdom's sake in these very negative times so pray for our brothers and sisters in these countries pray for them to be bold in their witness pray for them to stand up for who christ is to to love one another rightly those that are escaping the ukraine into poland and other areas of where we have brothers and sisters that the churches would open up and love on these people that the churches would just be what god would have them to be and that's something that's so opposite and different than this world we need to be exactly what he's called us to be and that is to love our neighbor as ourselves and to give everything of who we are and what we are to god almighty well pastor travis we've run out of time but thank you so much again folks if you're listening you can go to eastwest.org forward slash travis burt to support pastor travis pray for him and the team at eastwest and their mission and their mission work across the world and particularly these that are in countries that are battle-torn just pray for them and their families they sacrifice so much for jesus and be encouraged of what you can do right there in your local area to be a missionary pastor travis thanks for being with us today thank you it's been my pleasure god bless you and what you're doing and thank you for the listeners god bless them as well well folks thanks for listening to christian perspective i hope you'll tune here to your local radio station each and every day to listen of how we can develop a biblical world view and then take that world view out into our everyday lives if you want to hear the show again you can listen and subscribe to our podcast and please share that on social media it helps us and we're getting advertising and help us get the message of jesus christ out and around the world so we hope to see you here again tomorrow and each and every day and until then let's go impact the culture for jesus thank you for listening the christian perspective with chris hughes learn more about impacting the culture for jesus visit citizens for america foundation.com this is the truth network