Working Together, Winning the World

I think I got it. Give me one second. Let's see.

Okay. Has anyone heard of Heralds of Hope? Do you know much about it? I'm going to try to tell you a little bit. Doesn't mean I know everything. I just know a little bit. If you're going to start an outreach program to teach an Anabaptist message, would you use a radio?

That's the problem with this premise. It's an outreach, not an inreach. If it was an inreach, they would put it to you in writing. But since it's used on the radio, most of the Mennonites I know, or most of the plain people I know, don't listen to the radio.

So J. Otto Yoder was a little bit ahead of his time because now some Anabaptist people use multimedia to spread the gospel.

I'm a little nervous.

1959, they got together and they decided they wanted to tell the Mennonite doctrine, basically what it was. And the grayheads over there will tell me where I'm wrong because I think John knows a little bit more than I do about it. So

what our churches are designed to do is to reach out to people. The Great Commission tells us that we should take the gospel to all the world. So what's a good way to support the gospel around the world is to help other people network with other people to get the gospel to go out. We've created things like All Nations Bible Translation where we support somebody and send them over to a country for 10 or 15 years before they can translate the Bible. What Heralds of Hope does is they partner with people on the ground who know the language and know our language, and they interpret. Now, most of us who are contractors understand the concept of subbing things out.

So basically, there are being good Mennonites. They're subbing it out. They're getting someone to write the information or interpreting the information in their language to make more of an impact. And plus, they leave that person who's the subcontractor or the person they're discipling, whatever you want to call it, the minister. I know I'm using vague terms. Sorry. I'm not always the best one to present stuff to Mennonites because I have terms that make sense to me, and they kind of throw you into a tizzy.

Forgive me for that. So what they do is they partner up with somebody. They have the information printed, and then they send it. One of the biggest things they do is Bible distribution and a radio program. They have three programs that they work with. And now I have to use my cell phone because I get real nervous, and I forget everything.

And how many of us have walked away from something and went, "I should have told them that." I don't want to do that.

Now I'm forgetting what I'm doing. I'm really nervous. I don't like presenting anymore because if I don't know something you know what? If I was on a street corner of Kensington, I could get out there and talk to people because that's people I understand, and they don't look at me and go, "Well, he said that wrong. He didn't dot that I across this T." And I'm not saying I'm being judged, but I'm more comfortable with people like me.

Now, I learned about Jesus Christ in prison. Anybody in here also learned about Jesus Christ through prison?

I was in jail for bad behaviors. And there was a guy down the hall from me, and every day he would put on or every time he would turn on Heralds of Hope, and I would sit there, "Well, he shut that up." I didn't want to hear it. I didn't want Jesus Christ in my life, but something about him playing it over and over and over. There were a couple of things that went on. The preachers at the prison would open a door so they could sow seeds into my life. Okay? And then I had William Keel who would play Heralds of Hope and gospel music. And I was like, "Well, you just stop it."

And he didn't. And I'm glad he didn't. But I was going through a transition in my life, and my heart was becoming soft. And it was by all the godly influences in my life at that time.

Heralds of Hope was one of them things that helped me. I really didn't understand what it was saying because I had no concept. I'll use an analogy. Most of the people in here have a lineage. There's a few of us first generation. How many of us are first generation?

I would clap your hands, all of you.

It's good to see you. But the rest of us are lineage. And so you have an example. I don't have an example. I didn't know how to act. I didn't understand anything about Jesus Christ. I knew how to be angry. I knew how to hit people. And I came to you, and you said, "Stop hitting people." And I'm going, "Well, hold on.

Hitting people always got an immediate result. Oh, no, but this is the better way." And I was going through that conflict in my life for a long time.

Christ won over. But I had to go through that sanctification process. Now, few of us have sanctification process that's really nice. Mine looks like a heart attack. If you ever seen one of them EEGs, EKGs, it was all over the place because I didn't understand. There was a language barrier. What Heralds of Hope is looking for, people to help them with, is adopt the language.

If you have a language that you're really committed to and you want to help, they're offering people to adopt that language and help sponsor that language. We publicate in 40 languages. We also reach out to 288 countries where we give Bible distribution. I have to get something. I'm sorry. I forgot this.

Really good when you have to run across the stage or church just to get what you need to show people. Do you know what this is? That very radio I was talking about. Sub-Sahara Desert, they don't have electricity. This is a solar cell.

It's also a flashlight. One of the things you can put in is an SD card. Now, this is an AM radio only. So in the middle of the desert, desert, Bible desert, language desert, and physical desert, you can listen to the Heralds of Hope program. If you're hungry for Christ, if you don't have an appetite, how do you get people to get an appetite? I just explained to you how my appetite was created. I heard things that irritated me. And the more they irritated me, the more I went into them. I don't run from conflict. I run into it.

Now, I'm bouncing all over the place. Forgive me. When you're ADHD like me, this is what you do.

The biggest problem in Africa is people don't hear about the Bible. Now, I'm using Africa, but there's 40 other languages that they use.

I only have 26 slides. I'll try to make it quick. Millions haven't heard. There's no Bible teaching in their language. ABT is trying the same thing.

We're subcontracting here. Remember that word? Limited access to Bible and pastors and teachers that lack discipline and resources. How many people do you how many Bibles do you have at home? In most countries, a Bible costs three months of wages.

In Korea, I think it's four months of wages. Now, we have this elaborate program that somebody just started where they're going to send helium balloons to drop Bibles.

So as a people, we support these ideas to get the Bible out there. This is a very simple one. We partner with other people to get the job done.

The reality of the Bible, if you have a weak spiritual foundation, you're vulnerable to false teaching and difficult to grow in Christlikeness.

Had I been in prison and I listened to the Protestants, where would I be? I was listening to the Protestants, and I was confused. And I came into Chambersburg, and I met Chambersburg Christian Fellowship. And I joined that church, and I stayed there. That's the only church that I knew before now.

I don't know if I'm trying to make a point. Sorry.

What Heralds of Hope does and why they asked me to be involved? First of all, I heard the teaching on the radio. Second of all, I've been very upfront or outfront with things like Strength of Strength, something that I created when I didn't have the right language during COVID. What I did is I created a support group to help me grow up and learn more about what the church believed.

And since I've been out in front with things like that and a few other things, they thought it was a good partnership to get me to come along because I understand social media to a point. And we're trying to use the social media platform to carry out this great commission that we've been asked to do.

Does that seem like a viable thing? Does that seem sensible? Let's be honest. Most people use social media of some sort. They have various different programs. You can listen to a 20-minute Heralds of Hope. You can listen now I'm getting stuck because I'm nervous, and I'm not going to come up with what I need to, and I should have notes, and I don't.

It's my lack of preparation. But there are three radio programs that they have on YouTube and some of the other platforms. Now, I'm not advocating social media. I'm just telling you it's there, and it can be used usefully to spread the message that Heralds of Hope puts out.

What they do is they work together. And I know I'm only reading it, and there's a bunch of other writing that develop.

Does this look like an Anabaptist group of people? It looks like a few people in our audience tonight.

They started out strong, but because he went to Eastern University and got a doctrine, people didn't know where he was going when he started the radio program. Here's our team of today. What they do is they're working together to win the world. They do Bible teaching with several Bible teaching programs that are distributed over many platforms like social media, radio, website, and telephone.

Anybody here speak Pennsylvania Dutch? They have a Pennsylvania Dutch telephone thing that you can listen to geared to meet the old order people in Pennsylvania.

These are the ones that I couldn't think of: Hope for Today, Voice of Hope, and Guide Through the Bible. Has anybody ever listened to one of these? One, two, three people? I invite you to take a card tonight, go home, and listen to it. And if it seems sensible, get back to your leaders or your Harvey or John and say, "Hey, I like this thing." And if you don't, don't.

The method of outreach is through social media, radio programs, and call-in numbers. That's the one I was talking about for the old order. They have 30-plus languages, and they're currently providing Bible teachings in 30 major languages. I'm being redundant here. They also distribute over a million Bibles throughout the world.

And remember I talked about the subcontracting? They pay somebody to interpret the material, do the what do you call it? Transcription work, John? Yep. And then they send it out. This is the Northeastern Partners. I really worry that I'm not doing the job that I need to.

PD is physically challenged, but he has a passion for telling people about Jesus Christ, and he rode around on a bicycle, and he did that. Bible distribution, solar radio.

If you had no other source of input and you had a radio and you could listen to the Bible, would that be helpful?

On the left is a gentleman with a cell phone. The man in the center has these radios, and then they have the Bible. The reason they're showing the cell phone is they have SD cards that they can put into them, and people can listen to the Bible on their telephone.

Partnership. It doesn't have volume, does it? Oh, jeez. This is going to make it difficult.

Is there a way you can

nope. Well, what I was hoping for is not working. This doesn't have sound in it. Okay. That's it. I can't do anything. I can't bring this up for you. But they're talking about the distribution of the solar radios, and this is a village in Nigeria. This gentleman's telling about how they took one person who fell in love, that gentleman on a bicycle, fell in love with Jesus Christ, and they used him to go around the country and ignite other people. And he's also talking about a weak if you don't have a strong message, the Protestant churches come in and overtake.

Well, that was about 15 minutes. Our presentation got shortened a little bit. Sorry about that. What our goals is, is to add well, they've just updated. In the next 10 years, they want to work with 200 languages, and they want to hand out 2 million more Bibles throughout the world.

Let's forge a partnership. I'm here to see if you're interested in helping partner with Heralds of Hope to get some of this great commission done. What we need people to do is to pray, adopt the language, or we need hope reps. If you think I've done a terrible job, step up, do a better one. Come join the team. We need help. You probably would do a lot better. You would have a different view than I do.

We need hope representatives. There's a couple of positions that are open at Heralds of Hope. I think they're looking for a corporate secretary or something over there right now.

That's it. I'm sorry that I didn't bring something that played a music or played a sound. But the Heralds of Hope program has impacted my life because I wouldn't be here unless it was played to I don't think he was doing it intentionally to irritate me, but it did irritate me because you read about the Bible that if you're not a believer and you don't want to be a believer, it will irritate you. But it prompted me to do something. Irritation's not a bad thing.

Now, you just have to evaluate, is the conversion experience with Patrick worth more people coming into your church? And I'm not using that as a technique or anything, but if our idea is to grow, if we're a pool running into itself, it becomes a stagnant pond. Help drag a line on the other side so some fresh water can come in. There are a lot of people in prison. There's a lot of people on the street, and there's a lot of people in the world that are looking for an answer. I believe the Anabaptist message is the answer to the world. But if you're way over here in Shippensburg, somebody in Cleveland can't hear you, and somebody over in Philadelphia can't hear you, do you realize there's only one Anabaptist church in Philadelphia?

Most of the Mennonites came from well, three places: Canada, Philadelphia, and South America. But first of all, in 1600s, they came through Philadelphia. There were brethren, and there were Anabaptists. I went to that first church in Germantown.

There's one Anabaptist church. If you look at churchindex.org, you'll realize how few people are in the urban areas. By our nature and I'm taking this on myself, we're farmers, so we go to where there's farmland. I understand that.

But how did the people in the city hear about this lifestyle, this cultural culture, if they can't see it? Do the people have to travel to us, or can we give them something? Can we throw them a lifeline to make this viable within their lives? Am I making any sense?

See, the thing about talking to Anabaptists, the quieter they are, the more quiet that they are, the more you're succeeding.

The only time they say something is when you're really making a mistake. Now, in a Baptist church, you'll hear, "Amen, brother," and you get all this encouragement. I'm not saying I'm not, but our lives should be throwing seeds in every single direction that we go.

And if we're not, why? Now, this is just one option. I've also said about ABT. You may be supporting them, and that's a good thing also.

Thank you.

Any questions, critiques, rocks, tomatoes, fruit? I appreciate you coming to share that. I think.