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Apostolic Mentoring
Converting Access Challenged Nations Distinct Cultures Part 1 ... English
Navigating cultural barriers is the most significant challenge in effective evangelism, more critical than language barriers which can be overcome with technology.
• Individualist Western cultures and collective immigrant cultures operate with fundamentally different values systems
• Apostolic churches already function more collectivistically than secular Western culture, giving us a unique advantage in reaching immigrants
• Approximately one in six people in North America comes from a collective cultural background
• Time perception differs dramatically between cultures - relationship focus vs task focus
• Hierarchical respect structures must be understood when evangelizing collective cultures
• Patronage relationships can be sanctified for kingdom purposes when approaching immigrant communities
• Global migration represents a strategic opportunity to reach access-challenged nations through their emigrants
• Hospitality is not just fellowship but specifically means "love of strangers" and is biblically commanded
• Cultural offenses often occur unintentionally, with neither party aware of the disconnect
• Collective cultures process through shame rather than guilt, requiring different gospel approaches
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It's in the name of Jesus. Hallelujah, yanda la boshata. Hallelujah, mighty God. Yanda la boshata, la la ba sa kai. Yanda la boshata In the name of the Lord. In the name of the Lord, hallelujah, yanda la boshata. Yanda la boshata. Yanda la boshata. In the name of the Lord, hallelujah. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus. Hallelujah, set before us open doors that no man can shut. Hallelujah, empower, equip your people globally, god, accelerate and multiply in time Revival globally, god. Hallelujah, mighty God In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus, hallelujah, hallelujah, mighty God. Hallelujah Well. Praise the Lord, everybody, and welcome to our inaugural session of Apostolic Mentoring Special Edition English only.
Speaker 1:And we are so, so excited about this new venture and the way that we are going to approach and attack and execute some new programming to help people around the world to become what God wants them to become and to do what God is speaking to them to do in their unique areas. And today is such a cool inaugural episode. It is focusing on really multicultural ministry, it's focusing on access-challenged nations, it's focused on winning those who maybe are outside of the norm in our communities, and this is so cool. But before we even get into that, I do want to take a few moments and say how excited we are to have Dr Azar and Sister Azar with us on Apostolic Mentoring. I have had the privilege to know these amazing, truly amazing, outstanding people of God for a lengthy period of time, but I didn't know how amazing they were, I just thought they were like normal level amazing. And then I got to be with them boots on the ground in New Albany, indiana, louisville, kentucky, at the Win your World meeting and, oh my goodness, when Brother and Sister Azar got in a ministry setting and just activated and began to do what God has called them to do in these last days, it was like they were on a whole other level of apostolic ministry.
Speaker 1:And Dr Azar wound up teaching this session during Win your World. That was probably one of the most articulate, anointed, deep, revelatory lessons on winning unique cultures in our community during the Win your World training and I sat literally on the edge of my seat. Not only did I feel like I didn't get enough, but I felt like it was one of the most amazing sessions on evangelism that I'd ever experienced in my life and I kept telling everybody, everywhere I've been, I've been telling everybody you have got to hear, dr and Sister Azar, you've got to have their ministries. They're going to change your church, they're going to change your city, they're going to change your nation. Really, what we need is Dr Azar and sisters Azar to go with us on the crusade.
Speaker 1:Um, that would like be like. All of you know what I want for Christmas If we believed, you know, in Santa. I'm not saying he's real, not real. I certainly don't want to mess up anybody on Facebook or any children on Facebook, but if I had a Christmas list, my number one Christmas list would be air conditioning in my house. But second to that would be Dr and Sister Azar going on a global harvest crusade anywhere in the world to impart and equip team members and the national churches for this multicultural access challenge ministry that is fast upon us as we're dealing with this mass migration and we're dealing with mass immigration in every nation around the world. To have the tools that Dr and Sister Azar have in their belt and to put them in ours to multiply the kingdom effort would be just amazing. So everybody, start praying for my Christmas list. Ac is number one. I'm 45 days without AC, so pray for AC is number one. Number two is the Azars on a global harvest crusade. But having said all of that, I love these great people of God. These are just truly, truly outstanding leaders. I want to give a little bit of background on them for just a minute and then I'm just going to turn it over and let them loose. But they were.
Speaker 1:Dr Azar was born in Jordan, immigrated with his wife and two children to the US in 2007 for medical education, and currently he is the associate professor of radiology at the University of Michigan. He was licensed with the United Pentecostal Church International in 2018, serving as the director of Middle Eastern Evangelism under Multicultural Ministries and the director of Culture Program and Marhaba Center in Detroit Metro, equipping and training apostolics to evangelize the Middle Eastern communities in North America and Eurasia and North Africa and access challenge nations Beast mode. That is a cool bio, dr and Sister Azar. We love you. Sister Azar, we just want to hear your voice. I know next month we get to hear from you. She's going to be our next special edition guest and that's going to be so cool. But, sister Azar, we love you very much. We'd love you to greet the Apostolic Mentoring community and all those on Facebook and YouTube, and then I'll turn it over to your precious husband.
Speaker 2:Greet you in the name of Jesus and I'm so excited to be with you. One thing Brother Robinette did not mention that he prayed me through the Holy Ghost many, many years ago, Excited to work for our great God and with people that are willing and putting everything that they have to help and save people like us. I'll leave it to Shadi.
Speaker 1:Bless you, sister Azar, sincerely. You're an amazing woman of God and you and your husband are just a tremendous partnership of faith. You, just what you do and how you serve in the kingdom, is exemplary and it's excellent, and we honor you and esteem you highly, dr Azar. Love you, sir Humbled greatly that you accepted to be on this episode, and we love your family. Thank you for your, your ministry. Please take your liberty and I'll decrease our screens and you can have absolute access praise god and thank you so much, brother robinette, for this kind invitation.
Speaker 3:We are so honored to be part of the apostolic mentoring. We've been part of this um ministry for a while, me and my wife, but we are so honored to be on this special edition and I really appreciate the chance to share resources with millions and with a lot of people who are having the same burden, same message that we want them to be equipped so they can connect with people all over the world. So they can connect with people all over the world, although our focus with the multicultural ministry is on North America. But we also provide resources for our missionaries I see my good friend here, brother Cedra, and also we connect with all the missionaries in the Middle East and we work actively with them. I didn't see the harvest as one unit. Really, with the current communication and travel opportunities, we cannot talk about certain country. Everything is connected um. I call my father almost every day in jordan and I see him and talk to him and I can share with him things about the church and what we do and what god is doing. So the connectivity has given us an opportunity that we can actually reach people and we're going to be reaching millions, because I believe the internet is now similar to the roman world at the time when the gospel came to the world and spread all over. So we have an opportunity that we should not really ignore. What I'm going to be attempting today is to focus on reaching people from different cultures because, really, the language barrier is getting smaller and smaller with the new technologies between Google Translate, ai, printed material, global tracks. We have been focusing on the language barrier for a long time and, of course, we have the theological barrier that I believe the power of God can overcome. Today, we're going to focus on the cultural barrier.
Speaker 3:I want to give this short example to just stir your interest into this. If I come to your house and you cater food in the United States here, let's say from a restaurant you like and then we come to your house and say, hey, in the United States, here, let's say from a restaurant you like and then we come to your house and say, hey, we're going to sit and have a great meal together. I honor you, let's feed the kids, and then we sit and have a great meal and you can eat whatever you like, you can scoop whatever you want, and I say to you, as a Middle Eastern person, I would be offended three times One, that you did not think I'm worth your time to cook for me. The second is, by breaking hierarchical respect structure, that you feed the kids before the adults and you don't want to honor me by scooping for me. You want me to do this for myself.
Speaker 3:So, with our best intentions, our best attempts to connect with people, to build friendship, so we can witness and reach them with the gospel, we can also, at the same time, offend them unintentionally, and they would leave our house with a smile on their face, but we will never know why we don't connect with them anymore. And this is the challenge that we have is that the culture is something that cannot uh, it cannot be given to people on a paper. You absorb your culture as you live in it and it's something that you take it in the first 10 years of your life, naturally, by osmosis almost, and you get to know the behaviors that is acceptable by your, by your community, or not acceptable. And with that challenge is that if I am going to give you the gospel and you have rejected me or I offended you, you're probably not going to receive what I'm bringing to you. And, of course, the big example that we have in the bible in the person of paul, where he he said I, I will be all things to all men so I can win some. And you can see how we change his approach between ministering and ministering in Athens and Mars Hill. So we have a lot of examples in the Bible that encourages us, as believers, to actually take our Great Commission to people. But it is putting the responsibility on us to figure out these cultural barriers and cross them so we can deliver the gospel.
Speaker 3:And I would like to share my slides with you because I'm going to go through a few of them and I hope they will be helpful. So this is the beginning of our um process here. If, if you, I want to have a great commission. I was commissioned by god to reach the world. Uh, the great commission says all ethnicities, which means you know that carries all cultures or races or languages. Um, and if you want to disciple people from all nations and you want to connect with them, this requires you to build some sort of a relationship.
Speaker 3:The reaching of the under reach, unreached people, groups all over the world, I believe has keys on North America on the side, because the United States have probably a person from every country in this world and some places, as you know, we have 30 active challenge nations that we cannot go to, but they have family members in the US and Canada who are able to go there given the language knowledge and they have the culture knowledge and they have also the passports to go there. So imagine how we can reach people from all cultures in North America and sending them as missionaries to the whole world, especially places that we cannot go to. If you look at this quick map, you see this is again 2023 and these numbers are not counting undocumented or illegal immigrants. So we're talking as approximately 85 million people in total that live in this country that have a different foreign language other than english in their home, which means that these people are actually learning a different culture at their household, although they can blend in with the American culture when they go to work or go to school, but in their household they have a different culture. Now, as an American, if you want to reach them and you're not completely understanding the cultural sensitivities that can offend them, you would never know what you've done wrong. And with these people, with 330 million. I'm talking about one out of six, one out of seven people that we're trying to reach is from a different culture.
Speaker 3:This is a map that shows where people are spread, that immigrated to the united states and I think you can agree with me that it's all over the map and there are sector bigger circles that shows where the concentrations are and if you look at, these circles are actually the metro cities that we're trying to reach. These are the areas that the upc is trying to put forward and reach these multiple cultures on your soil and in Canadian soil. So this map will probably shock you, because it really shows the second most common language per state throughout the United States and you would probably be surprised to see some of these languages listed on the map. Swahili is one of the languages that you can see in Tennessee. You can see Arabic in three or four states as the second most common language. You can see Korean, vietnamese, russian, french even, and Northeast. So every language carries with it a different culture, for sure, and we want to reach every soul, at least in our neighborhood, but I do believe that the impact is going to be global.
Speaker 3:But we have a huge interest in a group of people who come in from these blue countries, interest in a group of people who come in from these blue countries. These blue countries actually represent countries that are what we call collective, which are so different in cultural values and cultural perspective than the United States, and how can we bridge that gap? This is a very challenging thing and I'm going to focus on it today, because most of these countries that you just saw the map they come in from kin-based culture, which means that all the relationships between the family members and the hierarchy of the community is all based on blood ties, on marriage connections, adoption based on tribal communities. How they communicate and connect and how they govern themselves is all based on that hierarchy and based on that collective mentality, and this is what we call intensive relationship. It takes the nested structure of an extended family lineage and hierarchy and becomes the framework of all the behaviors throughout their life, and this is a significantly different thing. I'll give you a simple example. Walmart is a big organization, but it's not based on kinship. It's a charter town with a legal document that gathers different people together. This is all governed by laws and by agreement and not by blood ties, but this is not what the rest of the world is doing, and I believe there is research that shows up in the last 10 years from psychology and sociology that I think it makes a little sense here. I don't want to share it with you because it will impact evangelism.
Speaker 3:One of the things the Catholic Church did in the seventh century that has significant consequences on the European continent is a prohibited cousin marriage and that of course weakened the kin-based networks that we talked about in these countries and that reduced tribalism and reduced clannishness and it forced individuals to seek spouses outside of their immediate community and that fostered social ties with strangers and promoted trust and cooperation between beyond the family unit. And then the church said we don't want cousin marriage because it's incest, and they extended that even to many cousins, up to six in some years. These expanded taboos compelled individuals to form social and economic ties outside of their immediate kinship group, and then they also banned polygamous marriage. They say you cannot have more than one wife. And with that this shifted and supported the development of a nuclear household, as this is just me and my wife and my kids. That's the household, and also reduced male-to-male competition and social hierarchies that are tied to that. Now it also eliminated arranged marriage, which means everybody get to decide who to marry. That means that everybody has an individualist perspective for marriage and life and that means less bound to familial obligations and more focus on personal goals and relationships. So these things have changed Europe over centuries.
Speaker 3:And then we have another major shift. Martin Luther comes in with Sola Scriptura in the 16th century and the level of education in every culture went up. Usually you run around 5% to 6%, 10% max educated people, I would say, who know how to read and write in any culture, in any place in the world. But in Europe it went up to significant degrees after the 1800s and 1700s and that really fostered the Industrial Revolution and that fostered significant improvement in the standards of living, collaboration between different countries. So this map shows you the countries that were exposed to medieval church, catholic church teachings, right, the, the blue countries, the eastern green countries, eastern churches, um have absolutely left. But overall, if you look at the opposite map, if you look between these two like these, the blue color is almost the opposite of the red color. These are the kinship-based countries where it's focused consistently on the collective values.
Speaker 3:But most of the immigrants that we're getting in North America are actually from these countries. So if I look at the American Christian, the apostolic, the Canadian apostolic, who wants to reach people from other cultures, you look at him and say you are Western, you are technically educated, you are industrialized, you are rich and democratic. So in reality that makes you a little weird compared to the rest of the world. And again it's in a good way, but you are different than the rest of the world. And again it's in a good way, but you are different than the rest of the map. So the people that you're trying to reach think and behave and process differently and their psychology is completely different. Joseph Heinrich is the professor and his group have suggested this acronym. It's not mine, but I would like to say that it really makes sense to me because I moved to this country as an immigrant and I grew up in these collective cultures and these non-weird cultures and it was a challenge for me to build these connections, even in the United States. So I would like you to kind of see here that that barrier, the cultural barrier, is real. Why? Because you as a person would have certain attributes that you do not share with the people you're trying to reach.
Speaker 3:You are an individualist in your thinking. You view the world through yourself, putting premium on individual rights and basing success on personal accomplishment. You believe in moral principles, that honesty is a good thing, believe it or not not, every culture believes that. You believe cheating is bad. In other cultures, loyalty is to one's family often takes precedence over such principle. The weird people in North America are much less likely to lie to protect a family member or a friend. If they broke the law In other countries, they don't even think twice about it. They would lie to protect the family. You're also nonconformist in a sense. In a sense much greater willingness to resist peer pressure and to ignore the opinions of elders. Obedience is not a vital quality to instill in children. You want people to think and not necessarily be a conformist. Now, I'm not talking about apostolics in church, I'm talking about Americans and Canadians in general.
Speaker 3:And also, you think analytically as opposed to holistically.
Speaker 3:I think holistically. You think analytical thinking. That involves focusing on individuals and their properties at the expense of relationships and backgrounds. For example, if a person A is yelling at person B, an analytical thinker might infer that person A is an angry person, while me, I think about it in a holistic thinker, I worry about the relationship between person A and person B, so I see incidents and I see things in a different way. You're also more trusting of strangers, which the inclinations to trust strangers or cooperating with anonymous others is a big factor and big influence on evangelism.
Speaker 3:Because your group of people, the weird people tend to focus on people's intentions and beliefs and desires and judging them morally instead of emphasizing on their actions morally instead of emphasizing on their actions. But the non-weird societies, the penalties for premeditated murders and accidental killings were the same, while in many weird societies in the west they come, they came to depend on the killer's mental status, on their intentions and on their beliefs. So the way you process things and you may analyze everything is completely different. Now these ideas and these principles will translate into behaviors, and the culture is actually a set of unwritten norms of conduct that guide your behavior and which can say what is right and what is wrong. So I walk into your house. You tell me hey, you can open the fridge and grab some juice if you. I tell you, no, I can't do that. In my culture this is offensive. So it's a behavior that is decided by the community what's right and what's wrong.
Speaker 3:Now, why am I saying this? Because when you go and witness to somebody, when I build a relationship with someone, you think that you ate their food and you talk with them and you know their holidays and you like their dress or you know how they dress. You think that you know the culture. But really the culture is much deeper than that. There's a communication style, rules, courtesy and manners, modesty, friendship, the concept of fairness what fair with the concept of time? Uh, what is? What is the class? What is the family? What is a? What does the age mean to get older or younger? And how you treat, how you think about death and sin, or through marriage and parenting? There's so much depth into this that can actually create a bigger barrier to witness to people than we do expect, actually create a bigger barrier to witness to people than we do expect.
Speaker 3:So I want you to see yourself on the blue here, where you're an individualist that you think for yourself. You prioritize your needs over the others of the community. It emphasizes self-reliance, independence and personal achievement. But somebody who come in from my culture, collective culture that I'm from birth onward, I'm a part of a cohesive family that could be my clan or family that protect me throughout my life. In exchange of loyalty and service. I have commitment to the group I have to fulfill. So people are supposed to be loyal until the day they die, and the group itself is normally larger and people take responsibility for the other people's well-being in the same group. So I'm here to tell you that the biggest barrier, I believe, for evangelism is culture, not language, and we're going to try to break some of these barriers today.
Speaker 3:Let's talk quickly about the major thing in this map. People who come in from the Western Europe and North America and Australia are individuals. They were influenced heavily by the Catholic Church laws and they are, in their thinking, a little weird compared to all the immigrants who come into this country. So let's talk about that major difference. I believe an individualist is a person who lives his or her own life as they see fit, and the individual may act on their judgment and pursue their own rules. And the individual may act on their judgment and pursue their own rules. For me, a collective, the idea that individual's life belongs to their community and I am part of a larger group and I value and follow the goals and the rules of my own group. I marry who they think is best for me and I go to school to study what's better for their family and the community. Now I want to share with you this here as the Bible was written by collective communities in a collective culture, and we are apostolics and we follow the Bible as close as we can.
Speaker 3:I believe that we move, as apostolics, closer to the collective culture than the rest of the population. So because we are just reading from the same text that was written for this group of people, and that means our values are conservative, like they are, we focus on the family and the church becomes our family. So we have a clan. Technically, we call the apostolic the oneness apostolic group. We connect with them wherever we go. We feel obligated to help them. So you technically live in church in a collective community with a different set of values than the surrounding community. And you will find there's so much closeness between apostolics and the rest of the immigrant population, between apostolics and the rest of the immigrant population. And I can tell you, based on the statistics we have, the UPCI is mainly growing, in the last five years at least, mostly with growth in immigrant populations added to the church, which means that we have a huge advantage in the harvest because our collective mindset, biblically, is coming. We're living it by hospitality, by fellowship, by supporting each other, by donating to our needs. So we are a big family in North America One million people clan, and this is not a bad thing. People can make their own decisions, have their own ideas, but we agree on basic values that we live by. So we have a higher opportunity to reach the immigrant population in north america and we have an advantage when we travel to go to other countries that we actually connect easier with people from these cultures because we are biblically based and the Bible is close to the community.
Speaker 3:Now, if you live in the United States, you know that people are trying to be unique in the way they look. They're trying to be also focused on nuclear family, just mom, dad and the kids. We also try to be independent, live on our own, not really needing other people for any of our needs. We need to be autonomous. You have your own, you grow your own food, you do your own thing. This is a thing in the United States and Canada. We are very this culture is very independent and that has a bunch of challenges for evangelism and we have to understand it so we can overcome it.
Speaker 3:Let me start with the advantages of an individualist culture. First thing is you respect other people, uniqueness, so you are celebrating diversity of other cultures. You don't mind if people look different, spoke different. You don't mind it, um. And you also focus on personal development, not necessarily go with what your family did in the past. You want to study theology. You want to become a Christian. You want to do whatever you want to do. You're free to do that. There's no penalty for you to do that, and you can pursue a change in denomination without much pressure from the group. Also, you're an entrepreneur. You can start your own business. You can support, support missionaries. You can really help the church. You can spend your money the way you want, right, and you can marry the woman or the man that god have given you direction to. So you have these advantages.
Speaker 3:The disadvantages that we have with this culture is there's less hospitality, less hospitality and there's so much focus on privacy to the degree that we're not opening our lives to live and disciple others. The other thing is we have so much respect to other people's privacy that when you see an immigrant, you are shy to actually ask them about their family, their community and how they got here, what challenges they're going through, out of respect, but they interpret this as lack of interest. So this is one of the major barriers between individualist and collective culture that I have seen here manifested. People would smile in your face welcome you. That I have seen here manifested People would smile in your face, welcome you. No one is asking me about my family, about my challenges at night when I have no one around me. Nobody's asking about immigration status. Nobody's asking if I need help going to the airport, because they're respectful of my privacy. So this is one of the downsides of an individualist culture People wait for somebody to ask them for help. Nobody's offering me help that I'm used to in my community, the collective. They tell me how are you going to the airport? Do you have enough weight airport? Do you have? Did you pick up? You know gifts for your people going to? Do you need help with that? We ask each other in the collective culture because we care and we want to show that we care. I know the individualist culture cares, but they for perspective, privacy. They don't start with these discussions.
Speaker 3:So there are also some side effects to individualist culture. There's more isolation, probably more depression, more anxiety. It is less happening, much less in the collective culture. But when people leave their families back home and they move to united states they feel so lonely because there is almost psychological dependence on having a big family and having the support all the time. Then they come into the US and they come to your church and say, hey, nice to meet, you, enjoyed your time with you, we'll see you next Sunday. And I was like what about Monday? Can we meet on Tuesday? Can I come and visit you on Wednesday? I mean, we don't do this in the US and this is a big gap in building relationship and in discipleship.
Speaker 3:They feel isolated when they come here and we have an opportunity as a collective, as an individualist culture here, but apostolic, that we follow biblical training, biblical request to say you need to be hospitable. A man of god, a woman of God need to have hospitality, and hospitality means philozenos, love and friending a stranger. We do very well with fellowship, but we don't do good enough in hospitality, and hospitality is a command. It's also not just to show hospitality to each other. It's mentioned many times in the Bible and I think we're going to focus on that in the next session. Other, it's mentioned many times in the bible and I think we're going to focus on that in the next session.
Speaker 3:On the other hand, if you look at the culture of the people who immigrate here, all the people you go overseas to connect with you have to understand that for them, they are designed to serve each other. They are a relationship comes first. They're exclusionists. They see you as a stranger. They think about we, they think about I. But they also value social harmony. They want to keep a relationship with their family members because they are the ones who support them, who help them, who take them to the doctor, who check on them, who take them to the airport All of these needs. They move you. They're the babysitter, they're roadside assistants, they're everything to you. You cannot break the social harmony, otherwise you will pay a big price.
Speaker 3:So the central theme in the collective culture is preservation and advancement of the group as defined by its members. You don't determine that. It is something that is set for you. Ok, so now you need to maintain these relationships. You end up having to lie and having white lies everywhere and trying to beat around the bush when there is an issue and and that creates a lot of culture of gossipinging, a culture of white lies all the time. Now, when I this is an egyptian family in an evening like you think this is thanksgiving dinner. No, this is a regular evening. This is, this is the most immediate family group. They're just snacking, eating, talking. This is how they spend their evenings and you have siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, in-laws. Everybody is in the same. Why? Because they move and they believe that they are a group, they're one unit, they take care of each other and they support each other.
Speaker 3:Now, psychological attachment and fear of rejection play an important role in the evangelistic effort that we do, because if you want to get somebody out of this group and you tell them, hey, I see you once a week, see you on Sunday, and they're going to convert and be shunned by their whole family and lose all this support, this is going to be a huge price to be paid and we have to understand this and the group actually intentionally make it harder. Because what if that door is open to others to leave the group? Can we risk losing the entire family, to break down and become weak and become smaller number? There's strength in number. So everybody or anybody in this picture who decides to change denomination or change faith, they will be pressed hard and shamed, so others will not even try to do that. They want to make an example out of you. So we have to understand this that when we reach collective people, there is significant price and there is also psychological dependence. There's significant price and there's also psychological dependence and we need to step up and say are we able to actually become their family and commit to help them and support them as they had? Because the level of support they had is something. If we cannot match this, then we're going to get them out of there and they're going to shrivel and die Because they cannot survive life without connection.
Speaker 3:Now I do believe that our church members and our life groups and connect groups, whatever you call them, we're pushing into this as a whole denomination, maybe as a whole fellowship, but this is really essential if we want to win people from other cultures, to have these small groups and to have people come and attend these, because the setup in church that we have does not allow to build relationships during service and it would not allow us to open up deep conversations and challenges of their life and what do they need. So it is a must that we would have to reach such a harvest, and I think the stuff that we have overseas starts with home churches, the small groups, and I think this is actually aligned with the culture, because you want to create a community to support each other. Now you understand, also, in these cultures, there are generations who live together in the same place, in the same house, and that brings another set of challenges. We teach people hey, cleave with your wife and leave your mother and father and and respect them and honor them. But there should be some sort of a boundary. But these cultures don't have boundaries.
Speaker 3:So you'll have to deal with these issues when you witness to them and and they're going to tell you and I, I can't, I have a family gathering on sunday, every sunday with me, I can't come to church. What are you going to tell them? I, he said, if I stop going and seeing my family, uh, then they think I've left them and that would be determined and I would be, you know, uh, ostracized. And you also, at the same time, you want them to stay connected to their family, so you can reach them, so you want to exercise wisdom. How are you going to handle the situation? You want them to be in the family because they're going to be the voice of God in that group. You cannot be there. You're not accepted. Yet they are. They're already in there. Are you trying to pull them out, or are you trying to get them converted as well? So the wisdom that we need to exercise here is that we need to be. If these people are open and be discipled outside of the church, then we need to do that.
Speaker 3:Attending a church service would be, for a lot of people from other cultures, a luxury, and if we only focus on bringing them to the building, we will be missing a lot of these opportunities that we give the church to them. And by taking the church to them we actually get the gospel to their community, because as soon as they come to church let's say you have a Muslim friend that came to church his family knew about this then they're going to cut him off. Then you're going to lose the opportunity to reach the gospel with that group. He was the only access to them that is trusted and willing to do it. So we have to think about this in a different way and approach it.
Speaker 3:Now. Let me give you some advantages of this collective culture. Although from birth onward I have supported my family which was amazing. Just I had a wedding people flew from the Middle East North Dakota, alabama, oklahoma, florida, everywhere to support us and they offered. They get support and help and work and money. It's a great support. They are usually conservative. They shame the bad behavior in their community because every one of the family members represent them. They share resources. They're very hospitable. They support the young, the little kids and the older people. They respect the elders.
Speaker 3:But we have disadvantages in this collective culture when it comes to evangelism. It is very hard to become part of that group. They are afraid of strangers. They don't have any privacy. You can't sneak the Bible to somebody and expect them to stay in the room. They're ignorant. For him, changing your faith or denomination will cost you dearly. And there's so much hierarchy. There's a lot of corruption, there's a lot of gossip, there's less value of women and teenagers and there's a lot of tribalism. There's a lot of backbiting and gossiping. Okay, so there are so many disadvantages in these cultures, but they also have good advantages and I believe that we need to be wise when we reach out to people that we can use them in areas that are strong, like hospitality, you know, supporting other people, sacrificial giving, all of these things that do very well with it. I don't want to endorse any culture over the other. I do believe everyone works for the people, but I would like to go through a few major differences that would help you.
Speaker 3:When you evangelize people, let's focus on hierarchy, because in the United States, when they see collective people dealing with their kids and the certain hierarchy, they might seem oppressive. But when they see you being like called by your first name, by somebody younger than you, they they think this is disrespectful. So understanding this is essential because when you want to do ministry and you're reaching to people, you have to understand that a family has a structure and you come in as, let's say, children bus ministry. The kids are in the bottom of the hierarchy. They don't break anything. You want to greet people, invite people to events. You need to go to the elders, to the older people, to the grandparents. You want their blessings and everything. An uncle can tell his nephew I don't want you to go to that Sunday school thing because I don't like them, and he has the same power as a parent. So you'll deal with the whole package and that package has hierarchy and that hierarchy would reflect on how you're going to do your children ministry and how effective it's going to be, because if you really look at the children ministry and the status of kids in these, there's not really strong enough people not going to follow their kids to school, to church or to Sunday school. It's usually the opposite. You need to invest your time and effort in the leaders of the. It's usually the opposite. You need to invest your time and effort in the leaders of the household rather than the children.
Speaker 3:The other thing is you need to use your hierarchy as a pastor, because if you come in as a man of God, a licensed minister, have a position in your church. You need to lead your conversations with that, because they are a hierarchical culture. You do not want to be saying, hey, I'm just so and so I pastor this church. You need to present yourself in an, in a formal way, and that will give you a lot of clout, a lot of points in that connection, and that will give you access to their life in a better way. You might think, oh, they might. If he's muslim, maybe he won't like it that I'm a pastor. No, they would respect you because you're a man of God and the hierarchical structure that you are a pastor. You get respect right off the bat, right away. So use that. Present yourself in a professional way. It will always be better than going casual.
Speaker 3:Now, if you are teaching, if you're a teacher in the church or something like that, you have to also use that authority. Although we try in the American culture to be equal, we feel that this is disrespectful. I did not want my kids to call their teacher by their first name. What about what if my dad walks home and my son is calling his grandfather with his first name? It's very disrespectful. We want to keep the hierarchy. We understand in the apostolic church that we do have apostolic authority, apostolic respect to elders, and I think we do very well with that. This saying in Arabic here he said who taught me a letter? I will be a servant for him forever. So there's so much respect to teachers.
Speaker 3:So I tell people if you're in a teaching ministry, you travel, you go overseas, allow them to respect you, because this is how they know to do it. Don't disrupt that structure and try to be humble and sit with everybody else and be casual with everybody else. They don't know how to handle that. They get confused. They want you to be in the status that they give you, and this is a good thing. Now, the problem with hierarchy is that they have so much respect to you as a pastor. They're not going to tell you when they have a problem, so they're going to go around the problem and try to avoid it. Say, oh, pastor, they're not gonna tell you when they have a problem, so they're gonna go around the problem and try to avoid it. So, oh, pastor, everything's fine, everything's fine, and they're not gonna tell you what's happened. They're probably gonna tell someone else, so they would tell you, so you would know what happens indirectly, and this is what we call gossiping.
Speaker 3:American culture is more direct in communication and this is easier to do. But the other cultures, to preserve the relationship, to avoid confrontation, to avoid breaking harmony, they go around the problem and they don't go directly, and that can be very frustrating if you do ministry with them or you're trying to reach them, and this is a challenge. They do not want to be direct and tackle the issue right away. They want to sleep on it, ignore it and hopefully it will fix itself. The other thing is these cultures, the collective cultures. They're not focused on the task, they're focused on the event.
Speaker 3:You invited me to come to church or to your house. I'm excited about that. I'm not thinking about the lesson I'm going to learn. I'm looking forward to what the sermon would be. I'm focusing on the relationship and with that you might feel like people are coming late to the event. For you it's inconsiderate. But if you're telling people hey, you came late, you should have come on time. We have a Bible study 7, 8, and you just showed up at 8 o'clock, that's going to sound very unkind to them because they're focused. I want to come and visit you. I'm making a cake and I'm getting my best clothes on and I'm thinking about the time of fellowship we're going to have together, not about the task at hand.
Speaker 3:So if you look at the way people behave and look at time, it's flexible. Time is not precise. If it's a 7 o'clock event, I can come in 7.30, 8, 8.30, not a huge deal. But you also always have to give them a benefit of the doubt and assume that what delayed them is not them being lazy, it is something else, probably the weather, probably sickness, gps issues. I always call people when they're late hey, did you find the house okay? Do you need me to send the address? Are, are you okay? And they say, oh yeah, yeah, we on our way. We just stopped to pick up some dessert for you guys. So it's always good, but don't show up like, hey, what were you doing? You made us all wait.
Speaker 3:So if you have a Bible study and you want to start on time, but you're reaching people from other cultures, if you start the Bible study without them, they would feel unimportant and undesired and they will be offended. They will come, but probably not going to come again. You have to be very wise in accommodating that. Now you could say, well, they have to adjust to our system and we have to live in the United States. I agree with you, but that's not required for people to be saved. That is not required for people to be discipled to show up on time. We need to adjust our schedule. Maybe invite them earlier so they give them time to be late. Maybe tell them that I have a commitment today. Specifically, I would love to finish at this certain time over.
Speaker 3:Communicate, be kind, but you do not want to lose your harvest just to for the principle of keeping time. A lot of cultures believe time belongs to God, not to us. And if my uncle asked me to take him to the hospital before the event the Bible study I feel more obligated to my family than to the Bible study. You don't get offended and feel like they're not serious about learning about the Bible. They are, but they have also obligations with their families. And then we talked about honesty and harmony.
Speaker 3:A lot of people in the United States, they have direct communication. I say what I mean, I mean what I say and these things are important. But in other cultures, as I said before, to preserve the relationship, we have to go and beat around the bush a little bit. So you invite them to church, say, hey, my friend, I want you to come to church this Sunday, I want you to be my guest. I would love to come to church, pastor, I have my cousin visiting from out of town. I'm going to take him to the museum. So he didn't say yes, he didn't say no. But you should have read between the lines that he said no, they know. But you should have read between the lines that he said no, I'm not coming because I have family obligations and I cannot miss with that. I I have a commitment to my extended family. So you have to give them grace for this because otherwise, uh, every time they're going to be disappointing the pastor, they're going to feel ashamed and and pull away and not show up again. So, um, there's also levels of communication.
Speaker 3:I want to focus on this reasoning aspect. When you teach them Bible study, you have to know that the United States teach you inductive reasoning, while most of the world goes to deductive reasoning. So inductive reasoning, it's a form of logical reasoning where you focus on the example first and then you go to generalization. You go to application and then you go to generalization With that in other countries. I want to know the principle. What is the principle behind this? I need to know. It's logically thinking, first of give me the principle and then you give me the application. And this is the example I like to give. If you want to, we are told in the United States, share your testimony, it will be impactful. But this is an application first process. You say I received the Holy Ghost. It's in the Bible, bible. Everybody should do this.
Speaker 3:You started from application to principle, but a lot of people think differently. I want the principle first. You're born with a sinful nature. You need a new nature. The bible teach about it and guess what? I had that experience. So you have to start with a principle first. And also you talk about dichotomous thinking and holistic thinking. That is helpful for pastors who minister with people from other cultures, because we do judge on the event. But for me, I look at the whole historic process and I also like to learn in a different way than other people. I like memorization and parables and videos and play a church and all that. This sticks to my mind better For you as an American, you learn how to do word study and you do how to do a sentence diagram and charts and everything. So the movie, the Jesus movie has won so many people all over the world and that really helps them because it's more holistic. It's more an example to do it. So incorporate more of that in your ministry. It'll be very helpful.
Speaker 3:The other thing I want to touch on is being a patron for your community. It might be corrupt, but really being a patron, you become, as an American, a source of connections and resources, not necessarily financial, but it could be. It could be also access to care, access to resources, by teaching English as a second language, by training people how to drive a car, by helping people move, doing all these things. So all of these things are actually biblical principles that we have in Lydia and the Shunammite woman in the Old Testament is an example of a patron to the man of God. And Lydia had the same thing. But you know, when you are a patron in their life, you can provide them with things that they need in return to sanctify the relationship. You're not using it to your own benefit. You're asking them to come to church, you're asking them to work to connect a Bible study. So you, technically, are using this to their salvation rather than to your own financial gain, which can be, of course, corrupt. So patronage can be sanctified and used for the kingdom of God and for hospitality's sake.
Speaker 3:We're going to talk more about it in the second session, but I want to say that people build trust based on relationship in these cultures, in the collective cultures, while in the United States, if I do certain tasks well, you trust me, and I think this is where the difference is. I want to trust somebody. I need to sit with him at a dinner table, coffee table, for hours and hours to build that trust. So every time you're spending time with people, you are actually building trust and this is something that you should be investing in. Spending time with people. It's not a waste of time. It is essential Because if you look at the groups of people in the US, you spend time building trust with one or two people to try to, you know, get them to connect with God, but in reality, in the collective culture, they have so many families it's hard to get time with them and if that's the issue, you are trying really to break into that group and connect with more people. So you need to spend more time. Probably you're going to spend hours to get into one person, sorry, years to connect with one person, but eventually they will connect you with the whole group of people and that group of people would be the harvest that you're seeking. People and that group of people would be the harvest that you're seeking. And finally, we are the collective.
Speaker 3:People are shame-based.
Speaker 3:They feel ashamed when you sin rather than guilty, and for that you need to use the right language to present to them if they are actually.
Speaker 3:If I sin in my culture, I feel ashamed from going to God. You're going to tell me that Jesus took your shame on the cross, that he reconciled you with the family of God because he paid that price on the cross, and that language would speak to me like, let's say, the caribbean, where they're scared of the you know spirits or spells or magic. You'd say that god will give you the power to overcome all of these challenges, all of these things that come against you. So we have to use the right language in the bible, based on the culture we're trying to reach, that will give us the ability to speak to their hearts directly, not just to their minds. And it's all biblical, it's all in the bible and it's all legitimate, and you can see these. There's many examples in the bible for that. So, um, I hope we covered basic things and um, I'm excited that next session we will talk even deeper about more precise things that can be helpful to reach the people from other cultures and to reach actually people from different faiths.
Speaker 1:Man, dr Azhar. That is so amazing. That is just so much powerful information. I wish that I told you during the Win your World Conference. I wish I had known all of that 10 years ago, you know, when we started seeing this Muslim migration into Austria, germany, liechtenstein, switzerland, and we were just grasping at straws of how to get into those communities, how to minister to them. There was such a distinction between our cultures, even more so the European culture, you know, was so drastically different than this migratory culture, and we were grasping at straws and thankfully God gave us wisdom. Thankfully, god, let us stumble upon things. Thankfully we learned along the way. But as I was listening to this today, I thought to myself and I know you shouldn't do this, but I did think to myself I wonder how many more souls we could have won in that year of great victory if we had not been so ignorant of the cultural, collective cultural things that were so different from our individualist mentality and culture. It seemed like sometimes we unintentionally offended people. Sometimes we, with a right motive and a right spirit, you know we were pursuing, you know, evangelism, but we were doing it in a way that was literally working against us and yet we couldn't figure out. What's the key? What am I doing wrong? And here it is cultural and not linguistic, here it is collective and not individualistic. And so, dr Azar, this is absolutely incredible. I can't even wait for part two with Sister Azar on August 13th Everybody, august 13th. That is our next, our very next special edition episode of Apostolic Mentoring with Sister Azar, and that is going to be the part two of this episode, where we get a little more practical and begin to put tools in our hands for continuing to reach this amazing cultural diversity, not just in North America but all around the world. The cultural diversity interesting point of information.
Speaker 1:Years ago, people were kind of being critics of the diverse cultural revival that we were having in Vienna, austria, and I remember somebody said something to me that was just really asinine, just a crazy statement, brother Azar. But they said your revival is irrelevant because it's not indigenous. And so they were challenging the validity of the harvest in Austria, you know, we had 150, you know Muslims that were baptized in Jesus' name in a 12-month period of time and 101 of them I think it was that were filled with the gift of the Holy Ghost. And all of a sudden we had this collective community of over 100 Muslims in our church every Sunday and yet they were creating a collective and even deeper collective culture within our body. That was amazing and I remember people began to criticize this revival and they were saying it was irrelevant, it was not a real revival because it was non-Indigenous, and that it was unrecognized by God because it was not indigenous, and just crazy things. The statements that were made, the criticism that was brought against our church in Vienna, austria, because of this amazing God revival that we can't even take the credit for. Obviously, god gives the increase. Nobody gets to take the credit for his revival, gives the increase, nobody gets to take the credit for his revival.
Speaker 1:But I remember doing some research in Vienna, austria, and this was years ago. This would have been what five or six years ago, and the research was amazing. It said that 48% of the capital cities in europe, uh, as a whole, were were non-indigenous, they were immigrant populated. I mean almost 50 percent of capital cities of millions of people was a migrant population. And the report I read, um, also said that within 10 to 15 years, because of births, because of the intermarriages, because of the cultural diversity, because of the growing immigration in our capital cities. It was saying the majority of our capital cities would be immigrant population or second generation immigrant population that maybe were you know, intermarried or what have you, and you know.
Speaker 1:Immediately I felt like the Lord spoke to me and said this is not an irrelevant revival. These are people that do not hear my voice, that think that this immigrant revival is an irrelevant revival. In these last days God spoke to me and said I am strategically migrating these cultures that we may not have access to in their homeland. I'm strategically migrating them to communities where the apostolic church can minister to them and reach them and share the gospel with them. And not all of them are going to stay in our communities. Not all of them are going to be granted immigration status. Not all of them are going to get to stay. Some of them are going to receive the gospel. They're going to find an apostolic collective culture that's attractive to them and that has a gospel that is attractive to them, and they're going to wind up carrying it back to their homelands and home nations and home cities and places. We cannot go.
Speaker 1:God has strategically deployed a migration, a multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual multi. He's migrated them into our communities for mass evangelism, and so I'm so grateful for you, dr Azar. I'm so grateful for the vision that God has given you. I'm thankful for the ministry that God has given you in these last days and how timely it is. With the strategy of God moving people all around the world, god puts a man of God like you in our hands, where you can help to educate us, inform us and make us better evangelists. In these last days, I honor you, dr Azar. Thank you for being with us. It has been our great, great honor. Would you like to say goodbye to everybody or greet everybody one more time before we sign off?
Speaker 3:Speaking to what you said before, if we are not involved in the multicultural harvest, we are going to be missing out, because this is the new, this is the real harvest, because all our cities are very diverse, all Europe is very diverse and, as you said, if we're going to just wait for them just our culture, to walk into the doors or receiving a flyer and walk in, I think we have been. We will be waiting for a long time. The culture barrier is so painful. If I walk into any one of you and invite you to an event for a Filipino group, are you going to go without knowing anyone? It's unlikely. So I do believe that our harvest is ready. We need to adjust to it. We need to be ready and I do believe that God is giving us the grace, he's giving us the organizational understanding that we need to work together between multicultural ministry, global missions, nam. Everybody needs to work together so we can actually make this happen.
Speaker 3:The center that we are starting to minister to immigrants in Detroit Metro, marhaba Center. On the board of that center is a representative of NAM, detroit Metro District, global Missions and MCM. We're working together in one group to sit our young people, our apostolic and non-Muslim Muslims that we cannot go to. We've got 30,000 Yemeni people in Detroit Metro but nobody can go to Yemen they can go to. We've got 30,000 Yemeni people in Detroit Metro but nobody can go to Yemen. They can go to Yemen.
Speaker 3:So we have to start thinking kingdom and I know you think kingdom all the time and I do believe that we have one earth, one global mission, one global church, and if we're not open-minded, we're still looking geography we're going to be missing out on a great revival. I'm so thankful for this opportunity. I wish anybody had a question. Please find me through Facebook or through the links Brother Robinette is going to put in with the website, but my ministry is to equip you to reach your harvest. I'm here to serve you. I'm thankful for the opportunity to share this and there are so much resources through multicultural ministries that are available to every minister here that we are glad to support you in your ministry. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you, dr Azhar. I was thinking, you know I love kingdom verbiage, you know, and as you were talking just now and you were mentioning what God is doing in Detroit and you began to talk about, you know, we've got MCM, we've got youth ministries, we've got global missions, we've got NAM, we've got all these. You know I love the partnership of faith and, interestingly, as you were talking today, it just jumped in my spirit and please correct me if I'm wrong, but as you were just talking and you were revealing and teaching about the individualist mentality and the collective mentality, I would say please correct me if I'm wrong, but I would say that the kingdom culture is much more aligned with the collective culture than it is with the individualist culture. Because when you look at the way that Jesus worked and you look at the way that they operated, they operated in the partnership of faith and they you had two by two and they, they would go city to city and they would. They would work with their giftings in harmony and they would work in their ministries in harmony and they would. They would sit down with people and break bread with people and house to house with people, and and they did this daily. The Bible said daily, house to house people. And they did this daily. The Bible said daily, house to house. This is much more. I see the Western culture and I'm Western. Listen, don't be offended at me. I am Western by birth, but I am the partnership of faith and kingdom by new birth and so, um. So I do see the dangers of my own natural birth that creep up every once in a while If I'm not careful. My individualist mentality, my that, that that kind of anti-collective ministry thing pops up every once in a while because of my natural birth. But it is absolutely in opposition to my spiritual birth. My spiritual birth is a collective kingdom. My spiritual birth is a partnership kingdom. My spiritual birth is a unity kingdom.
Speaker 1:And I was thinking, you know, when we had that Muslim revival in Austria, you know, we were ignorant of all of these incredible points that you have made. But in ignorance, and maybe by spirit leading, but not by information education, we thought okay, well, these immigrants are in our community, they don't have money. We knew that the nation of Austria was basically giving them 300 euro a month, providing them housing and food, but they could not work. They had a five-year hiatus on unemployment, which was really contributing to a lot of crime in the city. Because they needed to do things illegally to put food on their tables, like you said, they had to blur the lines in order to take care that their loyalty was to the family.
Speaker 1:So we would take our church to the refugee camps in Austria and go door to door, giving them groceries, giving them baskets, asking if there was what they were going through. Do you have anything we can pray for you? We know that you're going through a lot. This transition is a lot. You're dealing with challenges that we can't even understand. Can we pray for you?
Speaker 1:And what I found, dr Azar, was when we went to these refugee communities, nobody resisted us, nobody rejected us and nobody turned us away. When they would open the door, like you said, they would invite us in. But then somebody would go knock every family member's door and all of a sudden we were surrounded by 50 people in a living room and and we had only knocked one door. We knocked one door and everybody came and um, and and we would say, can we pray for you? And they'd say, yes, but you pray for grandma and grandpa and you pray for the sons and the daughters, and we would have to go through the whole hierarchy first, then we prayed for the children, then we prayed and it was the most. It was an incredible kingdom education. But because we made time for them, I remember one of the Muslim families saying to us. They said everybody else is afraid of us, everybody else rejects us, but you show up and you are here for us.
Speaker 1:And we came as often as we possibly could to those refugee communities. Our face became recognizable, our ministry became something that was attractive to them. Because we were there, because we cared, because we made ourselves available, because we had a patronage type of ministry that we didn't even. I didn't even know what till. You said the word patronage, I don't think I even knew what it was. So that's like one month old I'm educated on patronage, but we were doing it organically, just because we thought, man, these people are going through a lot. And, dr Azar, people flooded our church, flooded our church because we loved, we were there, we took time, we didn't rush, we made ourselves available. It didn't make sense on paper, it didn't make sense to our individualist mentality and culture, but it seemed like it was opening a door that no man could shut. So do you want to comment to that, dr Azar, or am I just running my mouth?
Speaker 3:No, you're absolutely right and I encourage people to give services to people around them that they need it, because the love and faith are things that are inside of your heart nobody can see. But they were able to see the love of God through your action. And I know we have a philosophy here in the US you don't want to bring people for things. I understand that. But for immigrant and collective communities you have to understand that first, they are lacking family if they're in the US or Canada as immigrants and they need that support. And you can sanctify that relationship, the asymmetrical relationship between you and them, the patronage. It's not friendship necessarily. You are providing something they cannot have and they cannot thank you. So hold what you need. It gives them an opportunity to reciprocate, to keep that relationship, by telling them hey, come to my church, let's meet for Bible study. These things will open a door definitely. I think the Lord has guided you in that process. I do believe this is a biblical principle and I gave a couple of examples. I think it's underutilized um to to do patronage in north america. I also have to understand a lot of elephants have come south america or africa. They're used to churches supporting them, not them supporting the church. So you also have to understand they would like to come to church and be benefactors, but they have a way to give back. They can paint the church, they can clean the church, they can protect the church, they can bring people to the church. So it's not always we think that you need to be a member and you need to pay tithes and all that. They can contribute in other ways, that we need to allow them to do that and that would enrich the church.
Speaker 3:When we came to our church in Ann Arbor we were the second nationality. Now we have 22. The collective people in every church will take care of the collective people coming in. I have a Chinese man came to our church and I said tell me how we can reach the Chinese. He said Americans cannot reach the Chinese. I said come on, bro, work with me. He said you know who invited me home in your church. You, the Jordanian, thomas, the Nigerian, joel, the Mexican. These are the people who invited me home and that's why I thought I can come and stay in the church.
Speaker 3:So if we reach collectives in our community, they will have the collective culture and they will embrace and become family with other immigrants, and this is how your ministry propagates itself. You don't have to do I almost. We teach about hospitality for American individualists, but it's hard for them to do, but I don't have to teach our Mexican, our Honduran, our Albanian, our Nigerian. They do it already. Naturally, they're excited to do it. So I think what they're missing on is we need to start with a few and they will help each other and create that culture, and I do believe hospitality and fellowship are biblical. They're needed and we, as an individualist culture, lack these things, and I think a harvest that is multicultural can help us reach into these communities and propagate our message, even not just locally. We propagate the gospel internationally because when they go home we started a church in Torreon, mexico, from Ann Arbor, because of the family of people who come back.
Speaker 3:We have a daughter worth now officially, and this is something that should happen easily because of the amount of immigrants that we have in our soil, in our neighborhoods Huge potential. I believe the UPC will tap into this very soon, amen thank you, dr czar.
Speaker 1:Wow guys, I could like my brain. I could run for hours talking with dr czar, but I certainly want to be respectful of everybody's time. But I I do want to say what Azar just said about you know, the giving nature of this culture is so true. I remember I literally I've got a movie theater running through my mind right now of how many times that 10, 15, 20 Muslim brethren would just show up at the church on any Monday or Tuesday, Wednesday, knock on the door and say, Pastor, what can we do, what kind of work could we get done to help the church? And they would stay in the church all day and sit in my office. They'd sit in my office in between working and we'd talk for hours and we'd order pizza and eat together and then they'd get up and go paint 18 more walls or something. And you know it was so amazing. They were so excited just to be a part of a collective community that cared, and they poured themselves in and loved us as much as we loved them, and they poured themselves in and loved us as much as we loved them.
Speaker 1:And even to this day I get text messages from these brethren and from these families who are now spread all over the world and still serving God in other collective communities, and I'm just thankful for what God is doing through this multicultural ministry, Dr and Sister Azar, and their passion for the kingdom of God globally. Pastor Ogie, would you mind if I was just to spotlight you and maybe you could just close us out in prayer. Pray over our churches, nations, our leadership. I'm going to spotlight you here. Elder Pastor Ogie is a great man of God from Wisconsin, Pastor's a great church there and just a wonderful, wonderful man of God.
Speaker 4:He's going to pray for us today and then we'll wrap this up, Brother Ogie, yes, sir Lord Jesus, we love you and we thank you so very much for all that you're doing here in these last days. God, you're truly pouring out your spirit on all flesh, god, collectivist cultures, individualistic cultures, god, and I'm praying that you would help us to reach those that are like us, those that are not like us, help us to understand others and to reach the lost, in every country of the world, every continent of this world. God, I am asking you to help us in these last days to reach every soul that's hungry, every soul that's thirsty for what we have to offer, what you have to offer God. Out of their belly flowing rivers of living water, god, the people of this world. They need what you have to offer, god, and we need to reach them, and so I thank you for this man of God today and what he's imparted to us.
Speaker 4:I pray that this would cause us to think throughout this week of things that we can do in order to reach people in our communities, in the countries of this world and in the places where you've planted us, god. Let this just be a beginning in our mind of how we might be able to further reach those that we're trying to communicate to that we're trying to bless in these communities, god, across this world. God, let it be something that just isn't what we heard here right now, but something that we take with us, god, and ruminate on throughout this week, and that we would try, god, to implement strategies, and that you would give us divine wisdom and ability to reach people in our communities, where you've planted us, everywhere that we are. God. We thank you for what you're doing. We're believing you for a great harvest, lord, like we have never seen the likes of before God, and we're asking you for your help and divine wisdom in reaching the lost where you've planted us. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Speaker 1:Thank you, pastor Ogie, thank you, dr Azar. Sister Azar, I'm going to spotlight you real quick. I want everybody to see your wonderful face. This is Sister Azar, great woman of God. She's going to be with us August 13th, 1 pm Eastern time, for our second Apostolic Mentoring Special Edition on Multicultural Evangelism and winning of those very distinct Access Challenge Nation cultures around our communities. And so, sister Azar, we love you, can't wait to August 13th. It's going to be beast mode. Thank you for being with us today. God bless you all. We'll catch you on our next episode of Mentoring Session. God bless you. God bless you.
