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Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. May we welcome you to Bautista, Bautista? I will be meeting Bautista, after the second service. Welcome to Bautista, the Baptist Church. If you don't know how to read it, you can read it on the page 95 of the Tagalog. If you don't know how to read it, you can read it on the page 95 of the Tagalog. If you don't know how to read it, you can read it on the page 95 of the Tagalog. If you don't know how to read it, you can read it on the page 95 of the Tagalog. If you don't know how to read it, you can read it on the page 95 of the Tagalog. First Sansa Putayo. Si Christoy a Tinkan Lumen. First Sansa, ready? Sing. Si Christoy a Tinkan Lumen. Aitik Sivir Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sivir Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sivir Sahabu Hai. Si Christoy a Tinkan Lumen. Aitik Sivir Sahabu Hai. Si Christoy a Tinkan Lumen. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. Aitik Sahabu Hai. But if it is something that the world is asking of you, look for the anchor for the amplifier of the living. The other way us we will pray it. Take it away and it will be ring underscore. Jesus name you pray. Amen. All right, good morning everybody, welcome to Verity Baptist Church. Take out your bullets and we'll go through a couple of things real quickly. First, let's count up any salvations from this past week that I'm not aware of. Any salvations in the back? Any salvations to report to? Anybody else? How about in this section? Any salvations? One? Anybody else? How about here? Anybody else? Salvations? Four? Anybody else that I'm missing? Seven more salvations for the bulletin. Of course, we do have so many this afternoon around 1.45. I didn't know until this morning that on Friday, Muslims are celebrating the end of Ramadan, and our country decided to also. It's a holiday, so we're going to have a soul-winning marathon. We'll celebrate with them by trying to get them saved. Anyways, we'll have a soul-winning marathon on this Friday. Next week is our monthly prayer meeting. I don't have this in the bulletin. I think we're going to start the Mother's Choir next week. Mother's Day is coming up in four weeks, coming up here shortly next month. One other thing to mention is that at 12.30, the ice cream will arrive because we smashed all of our records. It's good news, bad news. Because we smashed it by so much, it's going to be hard to break it again. This might be the last ice cream you eat for a long time, right? We broke a record of 107 people, 83 soul-winners from our church last week. That is amazing. That's great. 507 total salvations, which averages out to roughly six salvations per person. Because 507 sounds like a lot. Well, when people are going out every day, six salvations per person is actually pretty believable, especially here in the Philippines. So anyways, that's it for announcements. We'll have Brother Rafi lead us in another song. Page number 25, the region's behind. Page number 25, the region's behind. First hands already sing. To the region's beyond, I must love, I must love, To the story as there were before, To the village, the giver, the bird of the sea, I must tell as good story of all the worlds. To the region's beyond, I must love, I must love, To the land of the world, Peace of vision shall hold us again, To the heart is a place of singing, I think we have no more fear, The world may pronounce me a dreamer, We are in the master and his first, To the region's beyond, I must love, I must love, To the world, the bird of the sea, I must tell as good story of all the worlds, To the village, the giver, the bird of the sea, I must tell as good story of all the worlds, To the region's beyond, I must love, I must love, To the world, the bird of the sea, I must tell as good story of all the worlds, To the world, the bird of the sea, I must tell as good story of all the worlds, To the land of the sea, I must tell as good story of all the worlds, To the land of the sea, I must love, I must love, To the world, the bird of the sea, I must love, I must love, To the world, the bird of the sea, I must tell as good story of all the worlds, To the world, the bird of the sea, To the world, the bird of the sea, I must love, I must love, To the world, the bird of the sea, I must love, I must love, To the world, the bird of the sea, I must love, I must love, Amen. For a scripture reading, please open your Bibles. book of 2nd Chronicles, 2nd Chronicles chapter 18. You have the first five books. You have Judges, Ruth, 1st, 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, 1st and 2nd Chronicles chapter 18. And we will only be reading verses one down to verse 13. 2nd Chronicles chapter 18. Please say Amen if you are there. Amen. 2nd Chronicles chapter 18 verse 1. Now Jehoshaphat had riches and honor and abundance and joint affinity with Ahab. And after certain years he went down to Ahab to Samaria. And Ahab killed sheep and oxen for him in abundance and for the people that he had with him and persuaded him to go up with him to Ramoth Gilead. And Ahab king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat king of Judah, Would thou go with me to Ramoth Gilead? And answered him, I am as thou art, and my people as thy people, and we will be with thee in the war. And Jehoshaphat said unto the king of Israel, inquire, pray thee at the word of the Lord today. Therefore the king of Israel gathered together prophets four hundred men and said unto them, Shall we go to Ramoth Gilead to battle, or shall I forbear? And they said, Go up, for God will deliver it unto the king's hand. But Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that we might inquire of him? And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord, but I hate him, for he never prophesied good unto me, but always evil, the same as Micaiah the son of Imlah. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so. And the king of Israel called for one of his officers and said, Fetch quickly Micaiah the son of Imlah. And the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah sat either of them on his throne, clothed in the robes, and they sat in a void placed at the entering end of the gate of Samaria, and all the prophets prophesied before them. And Zedekiah the son of Shenana had made him horns of iron, and said, Thus saith the Lord, With ease thou shall push Syria until they be consumed. And all the prophets prophesied so, saying, Go up to Ramoth Gilead and prosper. For the Lord shall deliver unto the hand of the king. And the messenger that went to call Micaiah spake to him, saying, Behold the words of the prophets declare good to the king with one assent. Let thy word therefore I pray thee, be like one of theirs, and speak thou good. And Micaiah said, As the Lord liveth, even what my God saith, that will I speak. Bless the ring of God's word. Let us pray. Lord God in heaven, we thank you, Lord, for this day it is given to us. I pray the Lord that you would please bless the Lord for this day, and I pray the Lord that you would please bless the preacher, and the preacher of your word, Lord, this day. We love you, Jesus, and we pray. Amen. All right. We're here in 2 Chronicles chapter 18, and this is part of the Alphabet of Bible Doctrine series, and we're talking about missions in this sermon. And so when you look at this word mission or missionary, you actually don't see this word in the Bible. You do have the Great Commission, but this is kind of a word that people are going to have a lot of different opinions of. For example, here in the Philippines, when they start what we usually call a church plant in the US, I'll hear people use the term, yeah, you know, it's a mission. And you know what, it was kind of a new terminology I'd never heard, but it's kind of what a lot of Bible Baptist churches will call it. So I'm going to talk about missions, and the idea in this sermon is being a missionary, church planting, and all things associated. So point number one is pre-mission. Pre-mission. Now let me just say this before I start also. For example, in February we're going to have our annual missions trip. And kind of the idea is we're going to be doing extra soul winning. What I would say with like a mission or a missionary is it's an ability to get extra soul winning, lower souls saved, and reach more people that is outside of your norm. So for example, if we did a three day trip to some province and did all day soul winning, we'd call it a missions trip, right? So anyways, point number one, pre-mission. Before you go out on the mission field, before you become a missionary, what is the process? Well in most Baptist churches they use something called deputation. Deputation. And here's the definition of deputation. Deputation is the process by which churches deputize missionaries to go out to other parts of the world on their behalf. Deputation mainly involves a missionary traveling around to churches to present the ministry God has laid on his or her heart, and raising prayer and financial support. Now there are a lot of issues with the deputation system. Number one, it's not in the Bible, and that should be a big kind of red flag to what you're doing, right? But I'm going to give you four issues with this process of deputation. And look, I listen to a lot of stuff on church planting and being a missionary from different opinions. There are a lot of different opinions out there, but generally every Baptist will pretty much agree the system is broken. It's not working. A lot of money is being spent to send missionaries out, and the churches just disband after a couple years. Things are just not going according to what they expect. One problem with deputation, the system they have is this. The system promotes compromises. The system promotes those that are willing to compromise on the message. 2 Chronicles 18 verse 10, And Zedekiah the son of Canea had made him horns of iron, and said, Thus saith the Lord, With these thou shalt push Syria until they be consumed. And all the prophets prophesied so, saying, Go up to Ramoth Gilead and prosper, for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king. And the messenger that went to call Micaiah spake to him, saying, Behold, the words of the prophets declare good to the king with one assent. Let thy word, therefore, I pray thee, be like one of theirs, and speak thou good. It's like, Please, Micaiah, can you calm down a little bit? Please don't be that big of a hate preacher, okay? Everybody's saying something good. Can you just say something nice? Why do you always have to be negative? And what Micaiah said is, As the Lord liveth, even what my God saith, that will I speak. He said, Brother Sukkiah, what's your point? Let me ask you a question. Do you believe Micaiah would be supported by Baptist churches if he went on deputation? No, he would not. I mean, all the prophets are prophesying good, and you've got this negative message, Micaiah, right? He wouldn't be supported. Because here's the thing. If I were to preach like one sermon to let people know what I am or who I am, it would be similar to the sermon I just preached. That's not going to get you a whole lot of money from churches. Because they don't agree with me. I mean, literally, what I just preached, almost every Baptist church in the Philippines would disagree with all of it. They would. They'd disagree with it. They certainly wouldn't give money. And here's the thing. To be on the deputation process, you must be willing to compromise, or you're not going to get any money, right? Look, if you listen to old friends, Pastor Anderson talks about that he had a desire to be a missionary, and he chose not to because he knew he could never get supported if he went out on deputation. Why wouldn't he get supported? Have you heard his preaching? I mean, I love his preaching. But not most people. Most people don't love his preaching. Baptist churches wouldn't give any money. And look, they wouldn't give any money for our style of church either. Because they don't agree. Go to your Bible to 1 Thessalonians 2. 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. And let me ask you a question. What's the secret to a politician getting elected? Compromise. Right? You know what the secret is to getting money on the deputation trail from Baptist churches? Compromise. If you're not willing to compromise, you're not going to get a whole lot of money. Why? Because most churches wouldn't agree with what I'm saying. That's just the way it is. And look, I'm not saying that most independent Baptist churches are unsaved. You know, the pastors in the United States, I'm not really sure. But I'm still saying they wouldn't support me whether they're saved or not. Now, I would say that the majority of Baptist churches here are certainly unsaved because they're teaching repensive sins and Calvinism and all those things. But my point is this. If I went on deputation from church to church, do you really think those Bible Baptist churches would support our mission work? It's like, hey, can I present our work? It's like, sure. And I preached a sermon I just preached. It's like, I'm sorry, we're not going to support you. Right? You preach against the LGBT. That's a little bit too intense for us. Right? They're not going to give any money. And see, deputation supports people that are compromising on the message and are not clear about what they believe. You just use that word repent. It's going to divide a crowd. You can't divide. You need votes. That's why politicians, they don't say anything controversial because they want to get elected. Right? Number two, the system promotes covetousness. The system promotes covetousness. The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 2 verse 9, for you remember, brethren, our labor and travail, for laboring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you. We preached unto you the gospel of God. And what Paul says is, you know what, we didn't want to be chargeable unto any of you. We worked and made it ourselves. Now I don't want you to misunderstand what I'm saying because I'm not saying every missionary is bad. I'm not saying that everyone has the wrong intent. And I'm not saying it's always wrong to ask for money for certain situations. I'm just saying to the average person that's a good person, inside of you there's kind of that feeling to beg I am ashamed. Look, I'm not going to go from Baptist church to Baptist church and beg them for money. Right? I would never do that. Right? I mean, and here's the thing about it. They'll say, no, no, no, we don't ask for money as we present our work. But that's the whole reason why you're there. To hope for money. It's kind of understood. You don't have to say the words. It's like I would feel weird going from church to church saying, and this is why you should give me money. It's like, look, I would feel weird about that. No, I'm not saying it's sinful. I'm just saying that Paul didn't feel like that. He didn't want to just go around and say, hey, you need to support me. He felt weird about it. He said I would not be chargeable onto any of you. But if somebody's covetous, they would have no problem begging for money from various people. And see, the system itself promotes compromising and it promotes covetousness. Go in your Bible to 1 Timothy chapter 3. 1 Timothy chapter 3. It supports compromising. It supports covetousness. The system also promotes Christians who are babes in Christ. Novices. Not experienced. 1 Timothy 3 verse 5, for if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil. If you're going to be a church leader, you better not be a novice. You better not be a beginner. There's nothing wrong with being a novice. I mean, if you've been saved for six months, nothing wrong with that. But you're a novice. You haven't been saved long enough to have experience. It's just the way it is. And the Bible's saying, those in spiritual leadership, they better not be a novice. Right? Well, here's the thing. This is how deputation usually works. And we don't support this system. We would never do this system. But let's say somebody from our church had a desire to go to the foreign field of Vietnam. Okay? And they wanted to get support from various Baptist churches here. I would start by writing a letter and say, you know what, I recommend Brother Ehrman to go to Vietnam. He's got a skill at languages, so I'm picking Brother Ehrman. Okay? And then what would take place is they've got kind of the endorsement from me as the leader of the church. And then it's like, yeah, we'll accept you in because we like or we know Brother Stuckey. Now, of course, my letter of endorsement wouldn't help you much. But I'm just saying, that's kind of how it starts. And then basically, churches will have them in to present their work and have like a video that's emotional and touchy feeling to get to your heart. And then they'll have like a 30-minute sermonette or 20-minute sermonette that is not controversial, that is just very basic. It's generally how it works. Here's the thing. If somebody comes into our church and they're recommended by somebody else and I let them in, here's the thing, I don't know that person. I don't know anything about them. I don't know how much they know the Bible. I don't know how faithful they are to church. I mean, pastors in general are going to put a letter of recommendation out for anybody. It's kind of like, you know, if you have a job and you go to a different job, almost every company you work for will give you a letter of recommendation. Almost every single one, whether or not you're a good employee or not. It's like, hey, if you're a bad employee, we want you out of here, here's your letter of recommendation. If you're a good employee, they'll usually give you one as well out of respect, right? But here's the thing. In general, churches will write that letter of recommendation, but that doesn't tell the church that is hosting that person, do they know the Bible? Do they go soul-winnings endlessly? How long have they been saved? It's just not really possible to know that. And here's the thing. I can make a speech here and say, I've been saved for 20 years. I've been soul-winnings and such and such. I still don't know someone based on the words coming out of their mouth. That's just what they're saying about themselves. And here's the thing. You know what? You would kind of feel weird promoting yourself as being the greatest thing since sliced bread. And the system itself, it supports people that are Christians that are babes in Christ. So basically people that don't have experience, but they have a desire. It's like, you have a desire? We'll send you to the mission field. And this is often how Baptist churches operate. You don't have to be saved for a long time. As long as you have the desire, that means God called you, and you know what? We'll send you to the mission field. But what takes place is they go on this two to three years of deputation where they're asking for money. And what they learn over the course of two or three years is how to beg for money and to compromise in order to get money. So what's going to take place when your church starts? You're going to compromise on what you say to bring more people to church for money because that's what you've been learning for two years. Whether you're a good person or a bad person, that's what you're teaching yourself for two years. Compromise to get money. And that's what the system promotes. It's not a biblical system. You don't find it. Go in your Bible to Proverbs 27. Proverbs 27. As I said, I listen to a lot of stuff from pretty much every Baptist on missions and missionaries and church planting. It's a topic of interest to mine and important. For example, someone I listened to recently, someone sent me this video series I listened to, and there's often at least a little bit of wisdom you can glean from stuff even if you don't agree with the overall message. And honestly, I didn't really agree with the overall message, but one thing this guy said is he was a missionary and he was 19 years old when he went on the mission field. And he's like, and people told me you're too young. You've only been saved for a couple years. You're not married. It's like you're not ready. And he was basically criticizing that attitude. It's like, of course you're not ready. You're 19 years old. You've been saved for a couple years. I was like, I agree with them. And the guy's a lot older now. I'm not saying he isn't a good guy. I don't know that much about him. But it's like 19 years old and saved for two years? And you're going to be a church leader? I'm sorry you can't learn that much in two years, being saved just for two years. The system promotes those that are babes in Christ. It's just a fact. It promotes compromising, covetousness, Christians who are babes, and also the system promotes carelessness. Carelessness in a couple different ways. One way it's careless is in regards to money. The Bible says this in Proverbs 27 verse 23. Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds. For riches are not forever, and doth the crown endure to every generation. The Bible says to be diligent, work hard to know the state of thy flocks, and what's going on. Now, it links into verse 24 with riches are not forever. And the idea is, if you don't pay attention to where your money's going and your financial well-being, you can find out, wait a minute, I'm in trouble. Right? You say, well, how does this apply? Because if someone's going from church to church to present their work, somebody pays for the hotels, somebody pays for the restaurants, somebody pays for the gasoline to travel. These things are expensive. There's a better way to spend that money. You say, well, what better way than to support missions? To pay for people going soul-winning all day on Friday. Right? I mean, do you realize how much money we spend on soul-winner's lunches? Do you realize how much, and I'm not criticizing it. I praise the Lord for it. God has blessed us, and we have the ability to do that. And so we'll pay for the people going soul-winning all day, every Saturday. Because we had a lot of people say, what, 61 salvation's yesterday? And it's like, you know, some weeks we get more than 100, and we have a lot of soul-winners. It's like, we'll pay, but it's just like, here's the thing. I know the people soul-winning. I know what you're doing. We support this, but if we were to pay to have somebody come in and pay for their hotel for a couple nights, pay for their restaurant, that's a lot of money that's being spent. I'd rather just spend it on people doing the work. Once again, we wouldn't even know anything about that person that's coming into town, but somebody's paying for that. Either the sending church or the church that's hosting, somebody's got to pay for that. That is a careless way to use the money that God has blessed you with. There is a good way to use money that God has blessed you with. That is just a careless way. And it doesn't even promote the best people. It's going to promote people that are compromisers, people that are covetous, and often people that are just babes in Christ. Another reason why it's careless is because the general system, and you might not know a whole lot about missions, so maybe some of this is kind of going over your head, like deputation. If you've never heard of this, maybe some of these things are new concepts. The average church in the United States, and also a lot of Baptist churches here in the Philippines, but in the United States, you'll have a big map on your wall. And what you're going to have is a safety pin with different colors in every area where you support a missionary. So what comes in is you walk into the church and you see on the wall, wow, this church supports 50 missionaries. My old church in West Virginia had less than 50 members and it supported like 40 missionaries. You say, how could your church support that many missionaries? Were they made up of millionaires? No, you give $5 a month. You give a very small amount of money. Now, I'm just trying to be logical here and not get emotional. Why not just give the money to the best missionaries rather than just giving to a ton of missionaries so you can say, look at how we're reaching the world for Christ? Now, my old church in West Virginia, we had people come in all the time that wanted to go out to the foreign field somewhere. And so, you know what, when we started going to that church, the pastor's very solid on salvation. He preached a whole series about how repentance of sins has worked salvation. You've got to believe in eternal security to be saved. When we first started going there, kind of the zeal had been lost a little bit. We started going there and they're getting really excited about doing lots of soul winning and everything that, you know, like-minded doctrines, things like that. And the church is doing a lot of soul winning. And so the pastor said, I've got a new thing. When people come in and they want to get supported, a requirement is we take them out soul winning on that Sunday. And we're going to see how they do. I think that's a great idea. But it's amazing how people that are going to be full time soul winners and missionaries on the foreign field, I'm busy. Over half of them said they could not do it. They came and said, hey, you know, you're going to come soul winning with the assistant pastor after church. I don't have time for that. How do you not have time? I mean, you're going to be a full time soul winner. And I get it. In deputation process, you've got to make a lot of phone calls. I'm not saying it's easy. But what I'm saying is, it's just like if we're going to be a full time soul winner and just preach the truth and start churches and you can't go soul winning here, something doesn't add up. And usually when we had them come with us soul winning, some of the worst soul winning I've ever seen in my life. Horrible. I remember very vividly, me and the assistant pastor, we went soul winning with this one guy. And so of course we make them take the first door because we don't want them to try to mimic what we're saying. First door, the woman answers. And he's like, hey, we're from, you know, I'm not going to say the Baptist church, but such and such Baptist church. And the woman's like, I don't believe in God. She's saying she's an atheist, right? Now in the Philippines, you don't get that that much. In the US, you get that plenty of times. People that don't believe in God. And then all of a sudden, you know, he talks to her for about five minutes and he half quotes various verses. He says, you know what, we've all come short. That's all he says. We've all come short. Right? You know, nobody always does good. You know what, there's a penalty for our sins according to the Bible. And he talks for about five minutes. And then he's like, and doesn't use any other verses that I remember. And then all of a sudden he says, but in Romans chapter 10, the Bible says, if you call on the Lord to save you, He'll save you. Do you want to call on the Lord to save you right now? She's like, I don't believe in God. It's like, what are you talking about? Now here's the thing. That's the sort of soul winning I'd expect from someone who's new. Not from someone that's going to be a missionary and be the one leading. I mean, if the person leading the church doesn't know how to go soul winning, what's going to happen to everybody at the church? It's garbage. It's horrible. I mean, just bad soul winning just did not know what he was doing. And it's like, well, here's the thing. I wouldn't have known he was bad at soul winning if we didn't take him soul winning. Because in his presentation, he's like, you know what? Salvation's a free gift. You know, love souls. We're going to get churches started. I mean, it sounds good. But that doesn't tell you that much. You don't really know just because that's what he said. You've got to actually find out, okay, we take you out of soul winning. How do you do? And then usually what we saw is it just wasn't very good. You say, well, why are you talking about carelessness? Because if you support 40 churches, let me ask you a question. Is it really possible to know what's going on with all 40 churches? No, it's not. Because we're going to talk about it here in a second. There's like a cousin to deputation called furlough, which is when you come back from the foreign field. And I remember somebody came in from the foreign field, and you know what? We had been supporting him for like 15 years. He preached a sermon. Four times he said repentance of sins for salvation. We vividly remember this because people are like turning and looking. People are looking at us, and it's just like, I mean, I can't throw them out of the church. What am I supposed to do? And four times he said that. And he made the statement that a person can go soul winning for, he said, don't lose courage with soul winning. A person can go soul winning for more than a decade without getting a convert. What? You can go soul winning for more than a decade? We've got a few people in this room that are from either the United States or Europe, and those are tougher areas by far. No question about it. But a decade? It's like, man, I've done 15 years since my last salvation. And what they'll say is, hey, but you know what? Don't let it lose hope. I mean, Jeremiah is the weeping prophet because he never let a single soul to the Lord. Where does it say that in Jeremiah? Yeah, Lamentations is the Book of Mourning. He's not saying, man, I can't get anybody to say my life is horrible. Where are we getting that from the Bible? Jeremiah is the weeping prophet. I mean, why would we support someone who isn't getting anybody saved for years and years? It's like, well, what are you doing? Well, soul winning doesn't work in our country. Well, then why would we support someone to go soul winning in that country if it doesn't work? I get it. If you're a full time missionary in North Korea, you're not going to have many results. You know what? We're not going to support someone in North Korea because it's not an open field. I mean, you got to use some common sense with this stuff. You can't just go off of emotions, right? Turn in your Bible to 1st Timothy 3. 1st Timothy 3. As I said, the cousin to deputation is furlough. These things go hand in hand. Deputation is to ask money ahead of time. And so what will take place is you have a set amount of money that you want to raise. And let's say it's $5,000 per month. You need $5,000 per month, you say. And you want to get at least like 80 or 90% of the way. And here's the thing. If you pick this amount, you will not get this amount each month. Because certain churches will pledge or promise an amount, but it doesn't necessarily mean they come through. So the expectation on deputation is you raise this much money knowing that you're only going to get this much. But what also takes place as the years go by, some of the churches that support you, they quit supporting you. Some of the churches that support you, they disband as a church, right? Your money will go down over time. It doesn't go up. So what do you have to do? Well, you've got to go back and start begging for money again. What you've got to do is go back to every church that supports you to present your work and let them know, hey, this is what we're doing, so they keep supporting you. And you've got to go to new churches to get more money. Why? Because you're not getting as much. Now here's the thing. Missionaries are different, and there's different countries and all of these things. And here's what I would say. As a church, as a ministry, God has greatly blessed our ministry. When I first had a desire to go to the foreign field, I did not know there would be the opportunity to be a full-time missionary. And underneath Verity Baptist Church, I am a full-time missionary. Pastor Menes pays my salary, and basically he's my boss, okay? But as much as God has blessed our ministry financially and people donate online that support the work we're doing, we get nothing compared to the average Baptist missionary that's out there. I mean, literally from day one, it's like they've got all these cars, they've got their own church lot and a building, and it's like, man, where are they getting all this money from? And here's the thing. I'm not trying to compare or be upset because God has blessed us. I mean, we pay for people to go to soul-winning all day. Friday, Saturday this week, hey, we'll pay all day for soul-winning for you for your lunch, not your dinner, not your breakfast. We'll pay for your lunch, okay? But it's like, obviously, and you know what? We get to eat at a nice place. Bacolod-Inasal is a nice place. We own stock in Bacolod-Inasal, right? We single-handle. That place will never go out of business, I promise you. Not while I'm here, right? I mean, God has blessed us. We can't be upset. I mean, we're here and I look at the things God has given us. I mean, God has blessed us. We're able to have nice activities and all these things. But I'm just saying, in comparison, it's like a lot of these Baptist churches, they have an insane amount of money that's coming in. I'm just thinking, how are you able to do that? Now, there's no need to compare. We're happy with what we got. God has blessed us. I would not expect that a new church would have a fancy building on day one because if you started a church in the U.S., you wouldn't have a fancy building from day one, right? I mean, you'd probably meet in a house. Verity Baptist Church, guess where they started? In the house. Nothing wrong with that. Verity Baptist Pampanga started in the house. Verity Baptist Pico started in the house, right? Now, this church started in a hotel that we just rented by service because it's like, hey, you don't know what's going to take place. You've got to be wise financially. I'm not complaining about it. God has blessed us tremendously. I'm just saying it's like there's a ton of money that they're raising from Baptist churches. But they have to go on furlough because they've been gone for a while and they've got to raise up more money. So let me ask you a question. How would you feel if, because you know, my family's planning to visit the U.S. later this year. We don't have the exact time, but we're probably going to visit the U.S. and it's been a long time at this point. Anyway, I'll probably be gone since it's been a long time, probably a month. It's been a long time since I've seen my family. Obviously, I've got to go back to Verity Baptist Church. But how would you feel if I said, you know what, I'm going to be visiting the U.S. I will be back in 10 months. That's insane. But that's what takes place on furlough. And I knew what furlough was and I just didn't really stop to think about, you know, what this entails. But I remember when I was in Guyana because many years ago there was a missions trip that Pastor Anderson put together. And originally, you know, it was going to be preached at this one person's church. And this pastor said he got linked with a new IFB and now everybody's dropping him financially for support. So we're trying to help that church out. It turns out he got dropped for being a sexual pervert and he was just pretending to be new IFB because there's nothing new under the sun and people always pretend to be new IFB for money. That's just the way it is, right? So we kind of changed the plans to try to preach in as many schools as we could and just do a lot of soul winning. So we're going soul winning and we have no plans of any church to go to because the only church that we knew turned out the pastor's a pervert, right? So we're going soul winning and I remember I ran into someone who was saved, clearly saved, and they went to such and such Baptist Church. I thought, great, maybe that church is right on salvation. Later on that week I ran into somebody else. Clearly saved, they went to the same Baptist Church. I met a third person from that Baptist Church. Later that week, clearly saved. I said, that's the church we should visit, right? Makes sense. So I went and visited this church and look, I like the missionary pastor at that church. He's a great guy. I would have no problems recommending his church in Guyana. I thought he was awesome. I went soul with him. He's a great guy. And as I said, I'm not saying every missionary is a bad person. I don't want you to take stuff out of context, what I'm saying. He's a great guy. He went to Hylos Anderson College, very solid on salvation, very zealous for soul winning and everything. But you know what? What he told me was that, you know what? I haven't been back to the US in a while. He's actually from Guyana originally. And he said, I got to go back on furlough and I haven't been able to do this because I didn't have anyone at my church I could trust to run the church in my absence. And he said, I'm going to be gone for, I think he said, eight months. And this is not a criticism of this guy. This is just the system that is in place. And it's like, but can you imagine me being gone for more than six months from this church? Now there's men at this church I trust, but I don't trust you that much. Right? I'm gone more than six months? When I visited the US, you know, and it was 2019, I mean, I was gone for three and a half weeks. We had people step in to preach and I felt comfortable with that. I'm not going to be gone for six months. That's too long. And it's like, that's just the system that's in place. And look, the guy was a great guy. And I remember, you know, he asked about Pastor Anderson because, you know, he said that Pastor Anderson organized this trip. And he said, yeah, I've heard a lot of controversial things. And I told him, you know what? Pastor Anderson has gotten a ton of people saved I know through his ministry. And he helped me become a good soul winner. And what he told me, to show you this is a good guy, he said, you know what? When I was younger, a lot of people criticized Brother Hiles. And he said, you know what? I understand where you're coming from on that. Now, I'm not saying he's the biggest fan ever, but this is a good guy. But there's a system in place that is failing. Because here's the thing, you know, the guy's a good guy. He needs to be at that church, not gone for a while. Now look, it makes sense. I've got to go back to the US from time to time to go to Verity Baptist Church, check in on everything, get various work assignments, explain what's going on. I mean, a lot of new people in the church, they need to know who I am. But if I was going around to 40 different churches in the US, when I when I visit later this year, I would be gone for a long time. That's the system that is in place. It's a broken system. It's actually was never correct. It was always broken, because it's not biblical. Right? So for starters, there's the pre-mission. Secondly, there is the present mission, the present mission. To understand this, you need to realize, sending churches in general, and mission churches have a symbiotic relationship. Symbiotic means they need each other to survive. The classic example, bees and pollen cannot survive without each other. If there's no pollen, the bees can't survive. No bees, the pollens can't survive. Pollen can't survive. You say, why do sending churches and missions churches need each other? Well, the mission church needs the sending church for a very obvious reason. Money. Right? I mean, they go around asking for money. That's the reason why they're doing it. They need the sending church financially. Right? And look, I get it. There are some countries that you would not be able to work a full time job if you went to. It just would not be possible. I get that. There's some places where it just wouldn't be possible. And that is a possibility in certain places. But it just might be an area. Maybe it's just not the best area to start a church at that time. Maybe it just wouldn't be the right opportunity. Right? But the sending churches need the mission churches. You say, why? Because churches in the United States, in England, in Australia, and these big countries with a lot of money, they don't do a lot of soul winning. So what do they need? They need to be able to put a map on the wall saying, look how many people we're reaching with the Gospel. Because the report in the bulletin is, oh we got one salvation last month. That's good. That's an improvement from March. Right? It's like that's reality. I mean churches just don't do a lot of soul winning anymore. So they need the mission church to get big results. And so generally as a result of this, needing each other, the mission church needs to impress all of these sending churches. Here is how you impress them. You report a big number regardless of how thorough your soul winning is. That doesn't matter. What matters is the number you report. And you need a giant picture with a massive children's ministry because it looks like you're reaching a ton of people. You need to be able to take a picture with 100 people and have like 70 kids. I mean look at how many people they're reaching because it gets you emotional. You see the kids are reaching a man. They're reaching these kids. But wait a minute. Do we have a kids ministry at this church? Do we have a children's ministry? Not at all. You say why? It destroys the church. Destroys the church. It changes the culture. And as a result of having a big children's ministry, guess what? You've got to shorten the sermons quite a bit. Why? Because it's going to get pretty rowdy and makulit in here. You're going to have kids running around making all kinds of noise. I mean we've allowed a few kids to come in here from time to time and just with a small group, it's like they're distracting. Slow. Now we support kids coming to our church with their parents, with a parental authority. But why is it we don't support a bunch of young kids? Because if nobody's responsible to watch them, what happens? Well nobody watches them and they make a lot of noise and they destroy the church. And what takes place on the foreign field, and I don't understand this, but the mindset is that things that don't work in America work on the foreign field. So you could never get somebody saved in five minutes in the U.S., but on the foreign field, preach the gospel in five minutes. In the U.S., you preach a long sermon. But you go to the foreign field, I mean they're not Americans. They're just kind of a little bit simple. You know what I mean? That's the mindset. I mean it's a fact. That is the mindset, even though they would not admit to this. So they expect churches to have very short services on the foreign field. Now you could accuse me of a lot of things. Could you accuse me of having short sermons? Could you accuse me of sermons without a lot of Bible? Because here's the thing, I don't believe in this mindset, wait a minute, you want to learn the Bible? Listen to this pastor online to learn the Bible. I don't believe that. I believe you ought to be able to come to this church and learn the Bible. So what am I saying? I'm saying whether you're a church in the U.S. or a missions church or whatever, you ought to operate the same way. Same way! What works there works here. Long sermons with the truth and here's the thing, it's not like we're starving for members, but here's the reality, in our first couple years there's a temptation, man it would be nice to have a lot of kids here because it would look like our attendance is much bigger. But it's in artificial attendance. We've done things the right way at this church and we packed this place with 107 people last week by doing things the right way. Today is a small day, probably in the 60s, right? 70s, I don't know, something like that. Right? We ought to do things the same way you would do anywhere. You say why? Because what works there, works here. Zealous soul winning, preaching the truth, same thing. The Bible says in 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 15, But if I tear along with thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. If this is a bona fide church, you ought to be able to come to this place and say hey, this is the pillar and ground of the truth here in Metro Manila. I go here because I learn the truth. I get motivated to serve God and I learn things I would not learn at other churches. Go to Matthew 28. Matthew 28. Matthew chapter 28. And look, I've been a part of a lot of old IFB churches in the US that have a big children's ministry and I'm not saying they are bad churches. I am saying it's an unbiblical system. It's not the right system. It destroys the church itself. You say why would it, because what takes place is when you have all of these other ministries that are not associated to soul winning, all of your time and energy and effort is poured into them and you don't have the energy for soul winning. Now of course, there's a balance because we need fellowship and we get that. And there's a balance that we try to strike, but if I'm a little bit overboard on one area, let's go a little bit overboard on soul winning. I'd rather go overboard on soul winning and have a little bit less fellowship than we're supposed to have if I have to be a little bit off balance. You say why? Because soul winning is the heartbeat of this church. And it's the first works that the Bible speaks about. And we must always be about the first works of soul winning and getting people saved. Matthew 28 verse 18, And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. And if you go to other nations, make sure the sermons are short and just tell them, well just listen to this sermon online to learn the word of God. Is that what it says in verse 20? Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you all the way, even on to the end of the world. Amen. So no matter what the church is, they ought to be getting people saved, getting people baptized, and seeking to multiply themselves as a church. Turn in your Bible to Acts 1. Acts 1. Now I'm not almost done, but this will be the last verse we look at. There's still a lot to say, okay? I get it, the ice cream, you know, it's like if we let it sit out too long it's going to get cold, but that's kind of the point of ice cream, right? I guess it will get warm, right? Ice cream is always a little better when it's a little bit melted though, right? Am I right? So that's good. Number one, we talked about the pre-mission. Number one, we talked about the present mission. How should our church operate? We should be all about soul winning. We should have long sermons. Now we did recently shorten the sermons a little bit, like four months ago shorten the services by fifteen minutes. Here's the reason why we did this. Because of the fact it's very hard with young kids at this church to sit through back to back services. It's very hard on the moms, very hard on the dads, and I like the new change. Just shortening it a little bit I think has helped us a lot, but here's the thing, you can never say my sermons are short though. They're still over fifty minutes long, right? Today's sermon, my first sermon was like five hours long, right? So anyways, point number one, the pre-mission. Point two, the present mission. Point three, what about the post-mission? Basically, okay, this is how we operate as a church, but what is our plan looking forward as a church that is a missions church, or however you want to say it? Our church here has been around for four and a half years. Our church is financially stable. We are very financially stable as a church. We've been saving up money for a long time, and we're seeking to have our own lot where we can build our own church building. We're financially stable. We always operated where we didn't just spend all of our money because we had a purpose that we were looking toward. Our church is physically stable, and what I mean by that is we don't have a small church at this point. We have a good number of people that are here every single week, and what we would call a low day would have been a very high day a year ago. It's not like just a couple lucky attendance. We've broken our attendance record three times in the past three months, and average we usually run in the 70s. We're a very stable church at this point. No matter what would happen, I can't foresee us becoming as small as we used to. We've grown quite a bit. We have great people at our church. Eighty-three people went soul winning last week. How many Baptist churches around the area could say that eighty-three people went soul winning? Eighty percent of the church went soul winning. That's amazing, right? Now, here's the thing. If I'm telling you everything that's wrong with getting churches started, it doesn't really do much good unless I give you an alternative system, right? That's kind of what I'm planning to do, just kind of tell you what is the vision that we have to get new churches started. Now, here's the thing. I'm not saying that this plan is perfect. I'm not saying that we couldn't make improvements. I'm not saying it would never need any adjustment. I'm just stating that where there is no vision, the people perish. And as a church, I don't have a goal to let's just get the biggest church and never have anybody start new churches. No, I mean, that's what they kind of did in Acts 1, and God's like, okay, you're not going to start new churches. Let's end the persecution. And then they start churches because they're going in various areas. Acts 1, verse 8, it says this, But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. Now, there's a lot of different interpretations of this verse. I do not believe personally that this verse is stating that every single church should strive to reach the world with the Gospel. I don't believe one church can reach the world with the Gospel. For example, we have no ministry to reach Muslims in the Arab countries right now. I mean, we put sermons online, but we don't really have a big outreach to reach them. I believe this is something that has to be done in unison with all good churches, where basically every church should say, okay, we start here in Jerusalem, and then all of Judea, and then Samaria, and then to the uttermost part of the earth. And see, if every church has the mindset of multiplying and duplicating, then you can start reaching the world with the Gospel. But no one church is going to reach everywhere with the Gospel. Now, it's interesting because in the book of Acts, once they start getting persecution and they're not doing what God is saying, what takes place? They get churches started in Samaria and in the parts of Judea, and basically the persecution causes them to spread out. But there's logic in this verse, because the Bible is basically saying is you start in your area, and you kind of slowly spread out as far as you can get. That's kind of the logic behind it in general. So let me just say this. When it comes to, now I'll give you an example. Pastor Jimenez's main vision is to reach California with good churches. To be honest, he wanted me to start a church in California. And he knew that my desire was to start a church here, and of course he ordained me to start a church here, but his first thing was to start a church in California, because he's from California, that's where the church is, and California's a big state, a lot of people, and it needs a lot of good churches. Now, my main vision is to reach Luzon with the Gospel. Honestly, there's over 50 million people in this island. Now, this is not stating we would never start a church anywhere else, because obviously Pastor Jimenez sent me outside of California to start a church, outside of the country. I'm just saying my main vision, it's like reach Luzon with the Gospel. If you say, Brother Stuckey, I want to be a pastor, where do you want me to go? Somewhere in Luzon. Now, if that's not what God has in your heart, I'm not going to hold you back. I'm just stating my main goal, because to me this is big enough. I'm not saying we'd never start a church in Visayas or Mindanao, but I just feel like this is a big enough zone for us to reach, and look, if one day in 20 years we had a ton of churches, then maybe we could branch out past that, but in reality, what is there, 13 million people in Metro Manila? One church? That doesn't really reach all of Metro Manila, right? So my main idea would be the area of Luzon, okay? Now, let me give you various possibilities of starting churches. One valid method to start a church is that somebody is ordained as a pastor from day one, and they are sent somewhere to start a church, and from day one they're independent, day one they're doing their own thing, and most likely from day one they'd just be working a secular job, because they'd have to build the church to be full-time. That's the way it is. There's nothing wrong with that, because guess how Verity Baptist Church started in Sacramento? Pastorman has had a full-time job. You say why? Because there was like eight people that met in his living room, right? I mean, the church had to grow before he was able to be full-time. There's a lot of good pastors that are full-time secular jobs right now. Pastor Joe Jones was ordained from Verity Baptist in Sacramento as a pastor from day one. As far as I know, he works a full-time secular job, because the church is not yet at the point for him to be full-time, right? Nothing wrong with that. That's a good method to start a church. Number two, someone could be sent out as an evangelist to oversee a church, but they're still underneath the authority of the sending church. So for example, I am underneath the authority of Pastor Hermanus. It's like, who's the pastor of this church? Pastor Roger Hermanus is the pastor of this church. I am underneath his authority. Now I'm the person in person to run it, but here's the thing. When Pastor Hermanus started some other churches, like Hold Fast Baptist Church, or Jared Pozarnsky, he wasn't ordained as an evangelist from day one. You say, why? Well because the church is only a couple hours away, and Pastor Hermanus did the baptisms. Look, Pastor Hermanus isn't going to show up to baptize you. It's a long trip. And so by virtue of the fact me being so far away, it's like I was ordained as an evangelist, and that's a biblical system. There's nothing wrong with it, but we're still underneath the authority of the sending church, right? Another thing that could take place is a church could be started that is a bit of a co-laboring effort. For example, Verity Baptist Pampanga. When it started from this church, it was kind of a co-laboring effort. I did not know if I would be able to preach five sermons a week. I was like, I don't know if my voice is going to be able to take it. And it's like, it's hard. I mean recently my voice, like every other week, it's like I have no voice. It's hard, right? So we had various men go down to preach, and many men in this room have gone down to Pampanga to preach because of the fact I was like, I don't know if I can preach five sermons in a week. And we were having the services on Sunday. I was like, I don't know if I can preach four sermons in a day. And quite honestly, that's a bit insane, but that's what we were doing, right? And so it was a bit of a co-laboring effort. And you know what? If our church started a new church, we could have that situation of a co-laboring effort of various men taking turns to preach from the sending church, but only if the church is within vicinity to reach. That's kind of the idea of slowly spreading out, because if the church is six hours away, nobody can really go from our church to preach on a Sunday. Do you understand? When it was in Pampanga, it wasn't that hard, because it's like, okay, it's like an hour and a half down. It's on Sunday, so getting back to Metro Manila is four hours, which was the problem. But I mean, it's not that far away, okay? Now, when we started Verity Baptist Church Beekle, there is a group of people that for a while, I never really mentioned it, but they were doing what we called a Bible study fellowship. And basically, we were trying to get some organization to the group, but it wasn't a bona fide church by any means. We were just trying to help organize the soul winning a little bit to try to help out. This is why in the past in the bulletin we've had, we still have Hong Kong listed, but Singapore, it's not a bona fide church, but we just try to send them supplies from time to time, encourage them, try to make it a little bit more official just to get more soul winning going. But quite honestly, they're not in a position to get a church started in those locations, at least at this point. And after about six months, Verity Baptist Beekle had a lot of people soul winning, so we ended up just making it an official church. But for a while, it was kind of a Bible study fellowship where the idea is, if it doesn't work out, it's not really a big deal because it wasn't really a bona fide church. It was nothing we publicly were announcing because we were just kind of seeing how things go. Now, I'll give you some examples to help you understand what I'm saying. I talked about this yesterday obviously in Pampanga, and obviously Pampanga is a different church. This church is a lot bigger than Pampanga. There is no way at this point, as a church in Pampanga, we would be ready to start another church. It would just be illogical. We don't have a big enough church at this point. But an area that's kind of close to Pampanga is Tarlocke, right? It's not that far away from Pampanga. If the church in Pampanga reached, let's say, 60 people, and let's say you have 15 people coming from Tarlocke, which say this is the best church we could find, then you could say, well, wait a minute, we got people coming from this area, maybe we should consider trying to do something over there. Now, I don't know a single person in Tarlocke, so I'm just giving you a hypothetical example. I'm just saying if the church grew, we can't do regular soul winning in Tarlocke as a church because it's just outside of our realm in Pampanga. You know, it's far, other than doing like a one day event or something like that. And so, let me look at my notes here. So, and I'm not saying that this is something we're going to do now, I'm just saying this is a sort of mindset for the future of getting new churches started. What do you need in an area to get a church started? Number one, you need people. Right? So for example, if we started a ministry in Tarlocke, I mean, there's probably people in Pampanga that would go because it's exciting, but there's nobody there. So it doesn't make any sense. So of course, number one, you need people. You need people that would say, hey, I would make this my church. And you need people that actually live in that area that would say, hey, this is the church I would go to because it's convenient for me. Right? For example, I'll give you an example, Brother Fabian's with us and Faithful Word started a church in Tucson, Arizona. I mean, that's, you said two hours away, one and a half? One and a half. And you know, that's in an area where it's like, hey, that's kind of close. And there's people that were coming up to Faithful Word, but one and a half hours away, it's kind of like there's wisdom in a local church. Right? Being close to the church you go to. Now at our church, we have people that drive up an hour and a half to come to church. People, I don't know how far everybody comes, but some people come from further away than an hour and a half. Some people come a long distance. Right? You say why? Because you can't find a church like this in your area. But the goal would be to eventually find a church in your area. You say why? Because of the fact as a church, we can't reach all of Luzon with soul winning in all of these things. So you need people in an area and you need regular soul winning in an area. Because if there's not regular soul winning, what I would question is are people committed to the church? I mean, all the time people say, hey, I want to have a new IFB church right by me. The church starts and then they don't attend. Now if they're going soul winning on a weekly basis, then I would say, hey, actually maybe they are really looking for a church. This happens all the time. I mean, our first day when we met at Bayview, there were people there that were there for the first service and they never came back. They were waiting for years for a church just like Verity, just like Faithful Word. Churches started and they made it to one service. They weren't committed. And it's kind of like, okay. And of course we know that. I mean, if you're at this church, you understand that. I mean, people say, hey, I want a church just like this. When the church starts, actually you don't really want a church because it takes some work. It takes effort, right? So you need people in an area. You need soul winning. You need a place to meet from time to time for a church event or church service. Now what I'm describing to you right now is kind of an intermediate step from starting a church on a weekly basis and basically saying, well, we're kind of testing the waters, but we're not really ready necessarily to start a church. Now I say from time to time because basically you can invite friends and family. You get people to say, hey, we're having an event in this area. We would love to have you for this date. And you can invite them for something specific. And kind of the idea of that is just kind of see how it goes. Here's the thing. Let's say you don't get anybody to come and nothing ever comes of it. It's still a fun event. Soul winning. It's a nice time. Nothing wrong with it. But if you start getting more people, it could be something saying, well, maybe God's kind of moving here and maybe there is a need for this to start, right? This is the vision we ought to take in our minds because of the fact we've grown as a church. And because whether or not we're ready for this at this moment, we do need to be a church that duplicates not just be one church here, but actually grow. I mean, I've said this and I'm not lying about this, but we have people that come from a long distance and I do not want you your whole life to drive this far to come to church. Eventually it's better to have a church near you. You say why? Because there's wisdom in a local church, right? What are some things you might need? Well, as I said, a place to meet for church. Now here's the thing. Most churches in the U.S., not in the U.S., but in the Bible, they start in a house. It meets in a house. Verity Baptist Pampanga, met in a house. Verity Baptist Beekle, met in a house. What's the benefit of that? No contract. Doesn't cost much. And it also kind of shows whether people's hearts are in it or not. If it's like, man, we need a fancy building. It's like, okay, then you're probably not going to like this church, right? Basically you start on a very low level to kind of test things out to see how things are going, right? We need a place to meet. Obviously you need somebody to preach the sermon. Now ideally it would be somebody who lives in a location because if you start a church in an area, you know what? You're not going to be able to necessarily send people all the time to that area to preach sermons. But there could also be the need of people at our church to step in and say, hey, if we start a new church, I'd be willing to go down once every two months, once every month and a half or whatever, and preach a sermon. Now a lot of people feel like, man, you know what? My sermons, you know, I'm just not confident. People wouldn't like it. Let me explain something. They would like your sermon a lot better than a repentance of sins preacher. I'll tell you what. The church in Pampanga, they talk about how awesome it was when you guys were going down and preaching sermons, and you might not have felt like you did a good job, but to them it's like, man, they didn't mention repentance of sins once. Amen. They said we got to go sowing, and they were excited about it, right? This is reality. And the other thing you would need is kind of a team effort atmosphere. You say, why a team effort? Well, because of the fact if people at our church are getting involved in a work, and they volunteer at this church, there's kind of like an opening of volunteering spots that need to be done here. What it will require is more work to be done. Now here's the truth. You can like it or lump it, but I'm not preaching more than five sermons a week. I can't. I mean, literally, I don't think my voice can take it. It's like just recently, you know, Brother Ronald recommended this, you know, this weird vegetable liquid thing, and it's been working. It's the worst tasting thing I've ever had in my life, but I'm like, man, it's really helping my voice because like week after week, I lose my voice, and my voice actually feels pretty good right now. It's like, man, that is disgusting, and that teaches you, you know it's healthy, right? But anyways, I decided to preach this sermon. There's a lot of things you could preach for M, and I decided to preach on missions, so just kind of refresh your mind. Well, what is the vision of our church? You know, basically, we want to get new churches started. Now, I would say this, like, I don't really have a vision to start a church anytime soon in Metro Manila, outside of this church. Even though this is not enough to reach all of Metro Manila, you know, a church in Metro Manila is going to be a lot more expensive. It would take away a ton of members from here. It just wouldn't be the wisest thing. In the future, that would be great. What I'm talking about is basically kind of surrounding provinces, areas where people come from a long distance, and we could use a church in those areas because of the fact there could be more soul winning done, reach a new group of people, and quite frankly, we're just not able to reach right now. In our soul winning marathon from the last week, we had over 25 soul winners from this church outside of Metro Manila soul winning, and over 150 salvations, which is right on the same average. Six salvations per person, basically. Six, seven salvations per person. But if it's outside of Metro Manila, unless we're talking about Cayenta, which is still Metro Manila in my opinion because it looks just like Metro Manila, it's like, you know, we're not really reaching a new area. So I'm saying, like, from something that's far away that, you know, honestly, we're just not going to be doing too many events there because it's just too far. Right? But every church should have the mindset that we want to duplicate as a church. We don't want to just be one church with a big attendance. You know what? If there's guys at a church that have a desire to start churches and prove themselves worthy and practice preaching and want to become a preacher, I don't want to force you to stay at this church. No, I eventually want to just help kick you out of this church. Not kick out as in you committed a sin, but go to Mission Field, right? You say, why? Because as a church, you need to duplicate yourself. And here's the thing. Christians beget Christians. Good churches beget good churches. I don't believe we can count on the Bible colleges or the seminaries. What's going to be required is a church itself says, okay, let us just help you out. This is how we started. This worked for us. This didn't work for us. And we just basically helped get that new church started. Let's close in a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today. And I ask you to help us understand this sermon and kind of the context and the point. And help us to understand that what we mean by a missions church and missions and what our goal is. And help us as a church to just grow with more soul owners of this church and grow in attendance. But also not be like in the book of Acts where they were staying in one location, but just have the mindset, how can we branch out? Are we ready for this? And we ask you to bless us in that way. And we just pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. It is well, ladies. It is well. Okay. First, let's sing this praisefully. First, let's already sing. Let peace, life, and freedom rise again and again. Let sorrow, life, and freedom rise again and again. Let love, peace, and freedom rise again. Let the soul of heaven rise again. Let peace, life, and freedom rise again. Let peace, life, and freedom rise again. Let the soul of heaven rise again. Let peace, life, and freedom rise again. Let the soul of heaven rise again. Let the soul of heaven rise again. Let the soul of heaven rise again. Let peace, life, and freedom rise again. Let the soul of heaven rise again. Let the soul of heaven rise again. Let the soul of heaven rise again. Let the soul of heaven rise again. Let the soul of heaven rise again. Let the soul of heaven rise again. Let the soul of heaven rise again. Let the soul of heaven rise again. Let the soul of heaven rise again. Let the soul of heaven rise again. Let the soul of heaven rise again. Let the soul of heaven rise again. Let the soul of heaven rise again.