Kevin: 0:38

Today I am joined by a new friend of mine, Alex Kocman, who is the director of communications and engagement for ABWE, a global missions agency with nearly 1,000 missionaries serving in 91 countries. Alex hosts the missions podcast, Out of Witnesses, and the Worldview, and is the author of Striving for the Faith, co-author of Missions by the Book, how Theology and Missions Walk Hand in Hand. And author of the upcoming Order to Love, Recovering the Order of Affections from the Home to the Ends of the Earth. That is a mouthful from Founders Press. He also serves as an elder at Faith Bible Fellowship Church of York PA, where he, his wife, and their soon to be five children reside. Alex, it's great to meet you.

Alex: 1:24

It is great to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Kevin: 1:27

Absolutely. Why don't you just share a little bit about yourself, kind of your background, where you grew up, your family history, and things like that that just got you to where you're at today.

Alex: 1:36

Sure. I'll I'll start by saying I'm the last person that you would ever think is working in anything remotely connected with global missions. I was kind of that classic kid growing up in the church that, you know, Lord, whatever you do, don't send me to, you know, fill in the blank any foreign country, anything like that at all. I'm a homebody. I like predictability. I like routine. And that's just not the wavelength that uh I'm naturally on. But I was blessed, immensely blessed, with um, I would say a boring testimony. Um, and by boring, I mean, you know, I wasn't strung out on drugs in some gutter somewhere when the Lord found me. And praise God for those stories of things that he does in people's lives. But uh, for me, it was the type of uh forgettable testimony that I want my own children to have, which is that I grew up in a wonderful Christian household, was blessed with a Christian education and church-going, uh sincere believing parents who taught me to love the Lord from really as young an age as I can remember. And from a pretty early age, I made a, I think, a sincere profession of faith. But like so happens so often with people with that kind of backstory, you slip into ease and comfort and you tend to um think that uh God is really impressed with you. And uh how could he not be? You're a good Christian, after all. And so as I got into my teen years, um, found myself uh wrestling with anger and lust and all sorts of teenage sins and uh really just walking farther from the Lord. Of course, on the outside, maintaining a veneer of uh not just religiosity, but even saying, you know, I'm passionate about certain things uh in terms of the things of God. Um, but really the state of my heart was not um uh so as to back that up. And so the Lord broke me um through a series of events uh involving the passing of my grandfather. And I finally submitted to the Lord's will and baptism um as a 15-year-old, and the Lord began to get a hold of my heart, and then through college gave me a heart and a desire for ministry. So went to Liberty University and uh had a desire to pursue both ministry and media, but didn't know how those things would come together. Uh, we, my wife and I uh early in our marriage started to put our yes on the table with the Lord, started to try to give God that blank check with our lives and say, where would you send us? Of course, all the while in the back of my head, I'm thinking, um, really what I didn't want to do was return to central Pennsylvania where I'm from. I wanted to go out and do other bigger and better things. And I also wasn't a kid person, wasn't interested in youth ministry. And so what did the Lord do? Um, he brought me back to central Pennsylvania to be a youth pastor. And so um, I should have asked the Lord not to make me, you know, a debt-free millionaire. And uh it didn't occur to me to do that uh at the time. Uh, of course, I don't think you can reverse psychology God. Uh so the Lord used that, um, bringing me up back to central Pennsylvania to get involved in youth ministry. Ultimately, that was uh, I think because he had other things in store. Um, our heart was for the nations, but our heart was not for ourselves to be goers, but to be senders, to invest in the life of the local church, ordinary life on life ministry in the local church here in the States, and then for the overflow of that to be that we would be able to send and help to train and uh hold the rope for missionaries in a in a healthy and biblical and sustainable manner. And so uh a little bit about 10 years ago, the Lord brought me to work here at ABWE. And I have the privilege of celebrating and serving our missionaries by telling their story. I've got a wonderful team here that I get to serve, and uh it's good to be here to discuss some of those stories and how God's at work around the world.

Kevin: 5:12

Awesome, awesome. So uh the first question I have for you is why is why why biblical missions must be rooted in sound doctrine and not pragmatism? And I've heard the word pragmatism used many times, and I was even kind of looking it up and trying to better understand it. And to be honest with you, I was still a little bit confused by that. So could you just clarify for me what the difference is between pragmatism? I understand sound doctrine, and then you can actually answer that question for me.

Alex: 5:41

No, that's a great question, and thank you for that question. And I'll start with what I saw here in the States. Um, in in previous church ministries that I had served in, you know, there's a real temptation that we have in the church uh to accommodate unbelief, to accommodate the world. Um, and usually how it happens is the best of intentions, right? We want to welcome unbelievers into the church. We want them to discover Christ. We want them to feel at home among God's people. Uh, we want them to know that there's a God that loves them and has made redemption possible for them, right? And so uh so oftentimes, though, the temptation in the North American church is to frontload entertainment or to frontload acceptance or tolerance in the kind of way that maybe, maybe gets the unbeliever in the door, uh, but does not challenge them to deeper and deeper levels of faith and obedience to Christ. You know, we're called not just to make converts or to raise up fans of Jesus. We're actually called to make disciples in the Great Commission, Matthew 28, and also says the part of making disciples is to teach them to obey all that I commanded you, Jesus says. And so that means you're gonna run into some difficult uh things that we have to obey once in a while, thinking of everything Christ calls us to do. Uh, but that's the temptation we have here in the church. And so uh in the states, we we have our own uh tendency towards pragmatism. You know, we want to get it done. We want to see the numbers, we want to fill our churches with happy, smiling people. Um, but you know, the path of faithfulness doesn't always look like that type of numeric success, the type of thing that looks really good on the church's Instagram account. Um, sometimes faithfulness costs you. And the same is true uh in the missions world. And I've been um alarmed over the years to see that in the missions world, those same temptations persist. Even though uh I think we all are excited and we celebrate when people go to faraway parts of the world um to do difficult things uh in Jesus' name, sharing the love of Christ, um, certainly doing works of compassion as well as proclaiming the good news of Jesus, doing all of that for the glory of God. That's a wonderful thing. But uh, you know, we're human and we're sinful and missionaries like anyone else uh have temptations. And when you are writing back home to the church that sent you or to your financial supporting partners, you want to be able to tell a good story. You want to be able to share how God's at work in your midst. And so that same sort of uh pragmatic methodology that we see here in the church that's that's much more success-oriented in terms of numbers. There's a version of that that happens in the missions field as well. We have a tendency to overestimate sometimes either the number of converts or the number of churches that are being planted. And we tend to bring down the definition of these things. You know, what is what's a true biblically healthy and faithful church? Is it two or three people having a Bible study, exploring Jesus, but they're not even sure that they believe yet? Or is it a group of believers committed covenanting together to serve Christ together and to hold each other accountable and to worship him regularly as a local church does? And so, in all those sorts of ways, uh in the missions world, we've we've started to see that type of mission creep. And one of my passions and the passions of ABWE is to get us back to our true north, to not only be going hard places in the world, doing hard things for the glory of God, but to do so with our Bibles open and to do so in a way that's faithful and obedient, and to leave the results of that numerically to the Lord and to simply do what he's called us to do.

Kevin: 9:13

Well, that's a great lead into the next question I have for you, which is uh what are the dangers of the church growth movement and what true spiritual fruit looks like? So contrast the two because I could see how uh the the tendency to focus on fruit versus the seeds planted, because the fruit is a lot easier to measure. Um, even if you're thinking of uh a missionary, you're like, oh, you know, our church has grown by X number, or we've baptized so many. Uh, but I think what you're saying is the real key is how many seeds are we planting and how many true disciples are we making. So let's let's talk about that.

Alex: 9:47

Yeah, absolutely. I actually just had lunch with a uh pastor friend in the area. He and I both once served at uh a church that was very much a part of this church growth uh movement and philosophy. And you know, we just had a really honest conversation about that type of philosophy. So the church growth movement um coming out of figures like uh Bill Highball's Willow Creek, um, and then there's uh maybe a second generation of that, um, which tends to call itself the attractional church model or movement. Uh characters like Andy Stanley are typically considered a part of that. But originally the church growth movement uh was a missionary thing. It was actually a part of missiology. And so Donald McGavrin uh was a missionary and a researcher who spent time uh working with uh the caste system within India and came up with uh his observation, which I think is a valid observation, generally speaking, uh called the homogenous unit principle, uh the H U P. Um and that sociological observation states that you know, like attracts like, that generally people tend to group together among people who are similar to them. And as a result, when the gospel is spread, generally it's spread among people who are similar to each other, who tend to clump together in groups based on cultural affinity, based on similar demographics, based on nationality, based on shared language. So that's that's kind of common sense. And of course, that was true in India. He saw that generally the gospel, as it's spreading through relationships, it's happening within each caste, and it really wasn't jumping from one caste group or from one tribal group or subgroup to another. Um, it takes extra missionary effort to bring the gospel to a new group. Generally speaking, the problem is that that principle as an observation became normative practice. And churches in the states ran with that and said, okay, so the way to build the healthiest, most effective church is to do so among a homogenous group. So worldly marketing thinking starts to enter the picture and we start to ask questions like for our church, who's the target user persona? Okay, we're gonna go after the 25-year-old male. And so let's condition all of the music, all of the trappings of the lights and the sound and the preaching and teaching style. Let's do everything that we can uh to match the sensibilities of this 25-year-old, you know, American male. Um, and if we can shoot, you know, right at the bullseye of that target demographic, then we'll see our church grow numerically. And again, the problem is you're taking something that happens to be true and you're making a normative practice out of it. See, the reality biblically is sure, you know, sometimes you have to aim at reaching a particular type of person. We need to think about culture and language, those things matter. Uh, but of course, there's one gospel for all of the nations and for all types of people. And we shouldn't be trying to build churches that are just targeted after a certain person's taste or sensibilities. We should be seeking to be faithful. Let's measure ourselves against scripture, not measuring ourselves against the market. And so, really, the church growth movement that comes out of that through the 80s and beyond, and here we are today, and I would argue we're kind of at the tail end of that. I think over the last several years, we've seen more and more people that are less interested in a model of church that's designed just to attract more interested seekers. And we're seeing more people that are hungering for truth and they're hungering for reality and they're they're tired of playing games. They want to know what scripture has to say about the things that are happening around us in the world. So I think we're seeing the tail end of that. But again, that's why scripture needs to be our standard, both on the mission field and in the churches at home.

Kevin: 14:12

So, what I hear you saying, and and I think I agree with this, and it's scriptural, is that modern marketing philosophy of know who your target market is, is not a scriptural way of building church. Is that correct?

Alex: 14:26

I'd say it's not a biblical way of building the church, correct. Now, I'm a marketing guy. I I run a team here at ABWE whose job it is to uh not just celebrate and serve missionaries by telling their story, um, but also to think long and hard about who our organization is, who are our donors, who are our prayer partners, and let's communicate in a way that makes sense to them. Um, but the problem is when that way of thinking um is put in the driver's seat of uh of a church. And in reality, I think scripture needs to be in the driving seat of the church. And ultimately, what is a church? It's it's not a group of people that have gathered because they're similar. Sometimes they're very different. That's actually the beauty of the church. Um, the the beauty of the church is that as Christ is preached, as Christ is made big, uh, as Christ is magnified through the unfolding of his word, through regularly gathering together on the Lord's day to worship, to adore him, to be in his presence, and certainly to avail ourselves of the ordinary means of grace that he gives us: the Lord's Supper, baptism, prayer, uh, musical worship. But as we come together around those things, uh the beauty of the gospel is it actually brings very different people together. Uh, and I think we have to keep that in mind on the mission field as well. You know, it would be a mistake to go to a place like India and say, I'm only gonna target this one very specific type of person. Uh no, the world is full of all sorts of lost people. We actually have to unleash the word of God and then let it attract whoever God is gonna draw to himself through it.

Kevin: 15:56

That's great. That's great. So, how does the church stay faithful in an age of cultural confusion about truth, gender, and authority?

Alex: 16:06

Yeah, gender is a great example of one of the questions we're all wrestling through right now. We we wrestled through this um again, in and I think every church has to wrestle through this. Um, but these are questions that we ask in in churches here in the states as well. Okay, if we're trying to bring lost people into relationship with Jesus, if we're trying to introduce them to Christ and help them fully follow him, you know, what happens when a person is bringing baggage where their way of living is contrary to biblical standards? Uh, we have to answer those types of questions. And the only way to answer those questions is with scripture open. Um, there's a tendency today to only want to center around the gospel and not bring God's law to bear as well. But, you know, scripture gives us law and grace. It gives us command and it gives us good news. Uh, of course, we fail to keep the commands, and that's why we need the grace of God that's presented for us in the gospel. But now that we're saved, now that we know Christ and are redeemed, well, the gospel points us back to the law as a template for the best way to live and to please God in the world that He's made. And we're supposed to live with the grain of reality rather than contrary to the grain of reality and just using grace as an excuse for disobedience, right? So we need the whole council of God's word, that phrase that Paul uses in Acts 20, that includes law and grace. The second London Baptist Confession of Faith, a really helpful historic document, says that law and gospel sweetly comply. And I love that language. And so we need churches here and missionaries abroad. We need men, servants of God, uh bringing uh the full testimony of God to bear uh upon people in conversation with culture. Culture is going to bring issues up that are uh creating these crucial conversations that we have to answer uh biblically. Okay. Um you guys have missionaries in how many different countries? Do you know where? We're serving in 91 countries right now. Missionary boots on the ground in about 70, but then through partners and trips, we're reaching about 91 nations.

Kevin: 18:08

And are you guys spread across developed and underdeveloped or third world countries?

Alex: 18:12

Yeah, fairly equally, or just you're representing both types? I don't know what the ratio would be. It's pretty evenly spread, um, to be honest. Some of our largest fields are in pretty underdeveloped countries.

Kevin: 18:22

Okay. And then so the the gender, uh specifically the gender issue that we're dealing with, do you find uh that that is more of a westernized type of issue? Or is that uh you're seeing the same issues in underdeveloped or third world countries that we are here, certainly in the United States and I think Europe as well, uh, with regards to uh specifically gender?

Alex: 18:48

So I can share my perspective, obviously, not having been to all of the the 91 countries, but overwhelmingly it's a first world problem. You know, it's a luxury issue. Um, thinking about who you really feel like you are deep down inside, that's that's just a luxury that uh people that are living a subsistence lifestyle don't have. So we see that in the developed world. You you do see that in parts of the east as well, kind of the very technocratic uh parts of Asia, especially where the uh where the sex trade and other sorts of forms of sexual degeneracy are rampant. Uh you do see, you know, certain lady boy phenomena, you you see things that that are different from what we have here in the West, but they're certainly pushing some of those boundaries of created real reality of male nature, female nature. You see that too. But certainly in parts of the world that are heavily influenced by Islam, um, even Hinduism and Buddhism to a to a lesser extent, but those traditional non-Christian religious cultures, um, tribal and animistic cultures, they're not dealing with those types of questions at all. Now, they're still lost and in need of God's truth in many different ways, but that's simply not something that we find them struggling with. And usually uh when we're coming to some of those countries, it's usually with a tool like healthcare or education or something else that's going to help meet some of those immediate physical needs so that then we have the space to have a conversation about the gospel. But they don't have the luxury of sitting around thinking about the things that we frankly tie ourselves in knots over.

Kevin: 20:24

Okay. I'm not surprised by that, but it's yeah, it's just good to hear that uh affirmation. Uh so let's talk about the role of men and families in leading gospel-centered mission efforts.

Alex: 20:36

Yeah, I and I'm glad you bring that up because the role of men is crucial. Um, I just received an email from one of our missionaries. Um, she's writing some kind of a research paper and she's asking for topic suggestions. One of the topics I suggested, she's thinking about male, female dynamics and how that works in the church. Um, one question that I encouraged her to research was why are single women so overrepresented statistically compared to single men? Um and that is the reality. If you look at an organization like ours, it's overwhelmingly married people, but then among singles, um, it's it's 10 to 1 the female to male ratio. Um and that's nothing at all against our female missionary colleagues. Uh, but it is also important to highlight that we need men of God. Um, specifically if you're someone who like me, like ABWE, specifically if you are convicted that biblically uh it's men that God has called to be leaders in the home and in the church, preachers, pastors, elders, uh, those who minister the word of God in that type of a capacity, um, it's certainly critical that we have men for that reason. The Great Commission is not just telling people the good news about Jesus, it's also planting churches, bodies of believers. Well, those believers need to be led. They need to be shepherded and guided and ruled. And those things are the prerogative of godly called and qualified and equipped men, biblically speaking. So we need men for that reason as well. But I think part of the reason just has to do with the kind of the feminization of American culture in general. You know, if you were to look at uh a lot of the websites of different missions, travel groups, and things like that, you'll probably see um sort of a world, you know, venturing, wanderlust, travel vibe, similar to what you would see with a travel agency website. You'd see probably a lot of ladies traveling and having different cross-cultural experiences. And really it appeals to this sensibility, not that says, I want to go to hard places and I want to do the long, hard work of obedience, and I want to suffer for the sake of my savior, for the good of other people to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. No, it it has more to do with this expressive individualism that's so infiltrated the West that says, I want to self-actualize, I want to unlock my inner potential. Um, and that's a problem for men and women, but the result of that is that we have a dearth of men of God that want to rise up and do these types of hard things. And, you know, it's a real problem when you have a pastoral position that somebody might have open within a church, and you'll open up a pastoral job search and you might get hundreds of resumes sent your way. Uh, and yet we have brothers and sisters around the world in less developed networks of churches and Christian ministries who are begging, uh, sort of like the Macedonian call in the book of Acts. They're saying, come over here and help us. We need more people that are willing not just to fight for the same small number of ministry jobs here in the States, you know, all while paying off massive uh seminary and college and university student debt bills that are that are coming due. Uh rather, we need some of those who are willing to go to places that are underserved. And so we're at a point of crisis of male leadership, I think, in the ministry world. I think we need to return to an anti-fragile, uh, resilient uh model of men leading well in the home and in the church. And the overflow of that, I think, will be brave and robust uh missionaries going with that old-time classic missionary zeal that we used to celebrate in men like William Carey and Hudson Taylor, who didn't get everything right. And even women going back, like Amy Carmichael had a resilience that that people today just so often don't have, especially when they're looking at missions as a way to fully actualize their inner longings and potential, right? We need to return to what First Corinthians 16 says, you know, do everything in love. Yes, but also Paul says, act like men. And we need people who are willing to stand in that way.

Kevin: 24:26

One of the things, so my wife and I, we have uh four kids, our older three, our boys, the ages 18, 17, and almost 15. And one of the things that we've observed as you talk about like we needing to get back to an anti-fragile culture, totally agree with that. Um, is that we're our our culture, our society has pretty much pretty much sucked the adventure out of life uh the way that it used to exist. Now, uh today's kids, they they find some adventure in video games, which we don't allow in our home. Um, you know, no judgment on those who utilize them. But it my opinion, as someone who was in the Marine Corps and was also in law enforcement, uh playing Call of Duty is not even close to actually answering the call of duty. Um and it it to me it's it's a fantasy world. And so we we've just observed that our modern education system is especially for boys, it's not really set up for them. And and I've heard the same thing said about church. Like the the Western church, especially is really it appeals to women, but not to men. You know, there's a lot of men that don't want to go because like, I don't want to go, it's you know, it's all pretty and blah, blah, blah. There's no sense of adventure there for men. And I think we've done that the same thing um, you know, in even Christian schools and and and as well potentially even in churches and youth groups. How would you what are some changes that we could make um as church leadership and also just people who are attending church to help uh create more of this sense of adventure and welcome young men into you know the type of life that Paul lived, where you know he was risking his life on a regular basis, but happy to do it, um, even though that it might cost him everything.

Alex: 26:15

So I first of all, I just love what you pointed out that that that the sense of adventure has been sucked out of our society, that that culture. I'm gonna have to have to chew on that thought and that idea. I think that's actually a really powerful explaining tool for maybe even why we don't see young people sign up for the missionary task in ways that we used to. Yeah, life is pretty predictable and boring. It's it's we we've actually done everything possible to put safety first and to limit the sense of risk. And that's no way to live, whether you're a believer in Christ or not, but especially as a believer, um risk is part of the cost. Um, that's that's the name of the game. And ambition is something that's been lost um as well. But how do we fix it is a great question. It starts in the home, but I think we can start in the church and then backfill in the home and then go more broadly out from there. So I do think in big ways the church sets the tone for what's happening in the broader culture and what's happening in individual uh houses. Um in the church, you see so often, especially in evangelical churches, uh, that so much of the worship, the manner of speaking, the posture is feminine coded. Um, the the primary values that are centered and pursued are tolerance, empathy, sensitivity, understanding, which have their place, uh, but they can't be uh the only values or forces in the driver's seat. There has to be more to the Christian experience than just that. So there's certain things, even that we do in our church, that that are intentional and they're designed to communicate to everyone, but especially to men as heads of households, so they can lead their families better, and then the net effect of the church will be stronger and better ordered as a result. You know, we sing songs in a lower key. Um, we sing songs that men can feel comfortable belting out. Um, there's a reason we stand in rows. You know, Andy Stanley has made popular the statement that circles are better than rows. In other words, it's it's better to be in a small group, intimate environment, sharing your hearts with each other, than it is just to be seated in rows in an auditorium somewhere hearing some main speaker talk from the stage. That's all well and good, although to be honest, it's ironic coming from someone who fills auditoriums every single time he speaks. But in reality, you know, you know this from military service, like there's a reason we stand in rows that we stand in attention when there's a call to worship, when the word of God is announced from the pulpit. We stand in attention together out of reverence. We are troops in the Lord's army receiving our marching orders from our master and our general and commander, the Lord Jesus Christ. So bringing that martial attitude back into the church actually matters. Um, there should be in the preaching modeled a boldness and a precision and a fierceness and a fearlessness. Um, there are other places to demonstrate compassion and sympathy, and certainly the right preaching of the word of God will have those notes and emphases as well. But that's also for the counseling room. Um but there is the call of the man of God to say no to sin, to simply denounce sin uh and to treat the word of God not as his own opinion, um, but as a message that he's been given from on high to uh to relay in its purest, most unadulterated form as an ambassador, not as a salesman, but as an ambassador announcing, heralding good news, proclaiming good news. Something else that I think has been more femininely coded is evangelism itself. When we talk about evangelism, what what are some of the euphemisms that we use? We talk about, well, let me share my faith, let me share my story, let me invite you onto my journey. Um, and those are fine and they have their place, but it certainly evokes something different from saying, I'm a herald of the gospel. I want to proclaim the good news of the Lord and risen Savior Jesus Christ to you. I mean, that that certainly conjures up something different in your mind and in your heart. And we need more of that. So I think if we bring that into our churches, if we make churches places where men, you know, don't feel catered to, you don't want to do that in an insincere way. You know, there's some churches that that sort of just cater to men in a way, you know, stereotypical things, right? We're we're not trying um to bring back that marketing worldly thinking that we were talking about earlier. But if we simply make church an experience where men recognize, no, I'm called, I'm invited to render worship and service to the true and living God, uh, as well as my wife and my children. Then out of that, I think can come men leading family worship in better ways in their home. And I think the net effect of all of that is healthier churches that are going to engage the cultural relationship. Realm better, they're going to engage politically, they're going to engage in their neighborhoods, and they're going to engage the nations abroad by sending qualified and called workers to do the right work of ministry.

Kevin: 31:18

Awesome. That's really good. Thank you. Um, so how can local churches and agencies partner biblically for global impact?

Alex: 31:26

Yeah, I think it starts with the church. We would say it's not our job to send missionaries. As much as we want to see missionaries go, ultimately, you look at a passage like Acts 13 when Paul and Barnabas are called to go as the first missionaries. Uh, it's not because they just felt called one day and they bought some plane tickets and signed up for a trip. It's because the church was gathered in worship. And actually, we're not really even told what Paul and Barnabas personally felt, like, oh, do I feel called to go somewhere cross-culturally? No. Uh, what happens is the pastors, the teachers, elders, shepherds, prophets in that church, which included Paul and Barnabas, who were already serving. They were already active, they had skin in the game, they were involved in the life and ministry of the church at Antioch. God, in that moment, through the Holy Spirit, calls that group and says, send Paul and Barnabas. So I think it actually starts with churches, with leaders in churches and those who are actively involved in the life of the church and the ministry of the church, gathering together and asking themselves prayerfully, Lord, if you would send out from our midst, what would that look like? Whom would you send and where would you call them to go? And then being willing to back that up with continued prayer, with financial support and looking to those, not just that feel called. Again, a lot of people go on a trip and feel a certain way, but also are you qualified? Um, are you well spoken of by the outside watching world? Uh do you have unassailable moral character? Do you have a well-ordered home? Um, do you have a well-ordered personal life financially, health-wise? You know, there's there's all sorts of criteria that you can look at, just as you would look at if you were ordaining a person, a man into pastoral ministry or somebody into any other kind of significant ministry role, um, looking at all of those factors and then prayerfully, not just sending them on their way, go sign up with an agency, sign up for a trip, go do, go do your thing, be blessed, uh, be warm and filled, but rather laying hands on them, bringing them up before the church, uh, commissioning them in the sight of God, making sure the whole church knows what's happening in their lives, keeping their updates regularly before them. So it's the church that sends, it's the church that's supposed to hold the rope for those that are descending down into the mineshaft. Um, an agency like ABWE, we come alongside of churches that are ready to send in that way. You know, we'll show them the way if they've not been overseas before. We'll get the added training for cross-cultural living that a lot of people just don't have. If you need more Bible or theology training, we provide that as well. We'll connect you with a team so you're not going it alone, because let's be honest, we don't need any more lone gunslingers in the world of ministry. We need people that are willing to work with others and have a multiplied impact and raise up more leaders in their absence when they're gone. So we'll connect you with a team uh with a unified philosophy of ministry that's biblical so that there's staying power to that. So that's how we come alongside of churches, but really ultimately it starts with the church.

Kevin: 34:16

Awesome. That's great. Um, how can people find out more about AW uh ABWE? Yeah. Yeah.

Alex: 34:23

ABWE Association of Baptists for World Evangelism. That's the name. It uh does not quite roll off the tongue, so we go with ABWE. The letters are a little bit easier. You can go to abwe.org. Uh, we'd love to have a conversation with you. And uh, maybe you're thinking of having some just you want to have a bigger impact in your life. You don't even know if that's overseas. Maybe that's just here in the States. Maybe you just want to bring the good news of Christ to other people. Uh, we'll help you take those next steps. Um, we'll we'll help illuminate that path for you working together with your church. So it's not just you on your own, but you're supported by people that have your back along the way. Um, we've also got a podcast where we discuss all these things and try to move people into action and also help them to think about how to do these things more faithfully biblically. Um, and you can find that at missionspodcast.com or wherever good podcasts are found.

Kevin: 35:10

Awesome. And people can find you on social media. What platforms are you on, primarily, Alex?

Alex: 35:15

Yeah, that's right. Me personally, um at AJ Cokeman, K-O-C-M-A-N. That's my handle on X. I'm pretty active on there. I'm on Facebook and Instagram, but not a lot, but you can find me there as well. Of course, ABWE is on all of those platforms as well. And uh would love to connect with someone out there listening, uh, wanting to learn more. And real quick, you've got a book, another book coming out. Do you want to tease that real quick? Yeah, I'd love to. So in January, um, Founders Press is publishing Ordered to Love. Um, and the idea of ordered to love is, you know, we've been talking this year as a country a lot more about the order of loves. Uh, how do I love my own nation, my own family? How do I put those things first and not just care about faraway things and regime change wars? And you know, that's kind of the national conversation. Um, but then there's also the biblical principle that we're called to go and make disciples of all nations. So, how do those things fit together? I don't think that those two concepts are enemies. I actually think they're friends. You can't reconcile them because they're already friends with each other. Um, so that's the project of the book is restoring the biblical order of love, so the order of affections from the home, spilling over in concentric circles to the ends of the earth, ultimately, as God's called us to do. So that drops in January. And I'll be a part of the Founders Ministries conference in January as well, that's going to be talking about some more of those same themes. That's our theme for the year. And so I believe that's still open for registration and would uh love to have people engage that content. I think it's relevant right now. I think that's what we all need to do is learn how to order our loves correctly at home and abroad.

Kevin: 36:52

Yeah, I would say uh love is what the world needs right now. Um I think it's a Beatles song, if I recall correctly, but uh you just look at the uh the hate and discontent that's uh just rampant in our country. Yeah, uh, some love would be the right kind of love would be a good thing. So I agree. Uh Alex, great to meet you. Uh thank you for your time. Thanks for sharing about what you're up to. Thanks for uh just helping me uh have a better understanding of you know the gospel, the Bible, and um just excited for the awesome work that you're doing and uh really appreciate your time today. Thanks, Giving. All right, hey friends, thank you so much for joining us. Have a wonderful day, and we'll catch you next time.