Mark Gillmore: Hello and welcome to our Go Mission podcast.

I’m Mark Gilmore here once again and it’s a joy to sit down with you and encourage you about missions and what God is doing around the world.

One of the things I really enjoy is connecting with young people, and God’s given me the privilege to work in a college training environment where we have many young people coming who really want to serve the Lord in various aspects of ministry, including global mission work.

And I have with me today one of the young men who came to our Bible college.

It’s called Baptist College of Ministry.

Many of you have heard of it, no doubt.

And I have with me Matthew Kelly.

Welcome, Matthew.

Thank you.

It’s great to be here.

It’s great to have you sit down with me.

And it’s been a privilege to get to know you now for several years.

I knew from the beginning that you had a vision for missions.

So why don’t you just introduce yourself a bit by just telling us how God gave you that vision for missions.

Matt Kelly: Absolutely.

I was saved when I was 10 years old.

And at that point, I began to just ask God, God, what would you have me to do?

And what is my purpose in life?

What’s my part in the Great Commission?

And I can remember God taking me through some key points during those teenage years.

And God definitely worked in my life in many ways as I sought his will.

But I do remember a missionary coming through my home church, and he was from India.

And he encouraged me, and he said, why don’t you pray for India every day?

And that was where he was from.

And so I began to pray about India.

And when I was 18, I felt God’s call for missions on my life, and I knew God wanted me to serve him on the mission field one day and to tell unreached people groups about Jesus.

But at that time, I didn’t know exactly where that would be.

And through God’s grace, I came to Baptist College of Ministry, and really, your vision that you cast, Pastor Gilmore, really impacted my life in many ways in my mission’s journey.

And as I began to pray and just seek God’s face about where he would want me, God seemed to continue to bring India back to my mind.

And that was really a thought I couldn’t get away with.

I had visited other countries during that time and other missions trips.

And although I was definitely burdened to see those countries reached with the gospel, God just did not give me any peace about it.

That’s where God would want me.

Mark Gillmore: So what were some of those other countries that you visited in your teen years?

Matt Kelly: Yes, I had the opportunity to visit the Philippines twice, actually, two different missions trips, and really saw God do some great things through our time there and really saw God bring many people to Jesus Christ.

And it’s exciting when you go to other places and sometimes you think that God’s not doing anything there, yet to go there and see what God is doing.

And although the need is great, God is doing things all around the world.

Mark Gillmore: So those trips gave you a vision.

And I think in the Philippines, God is moving in the Philippines, really key to the Great Commission going forward right there.

But it’s interesting how that, even as you experience those, that moving your own soul, that connection to a region of the world, the Holy Spirit’s the one who’s in charge of that, isn’t he?

Matt Kelly: Absolutely.

And we’re reminded of that, about the pray the Lord of the harvest.

He would send forth laborers into his harvest.

And really, you need to be sensitive to his leading, exactly the place.

Mark Gillmore: Yeah.

And different things he’ll do to kind of give you that vision.

And one was sending an Indian man to your church.

Matt Kelly: Absolutely.

I really think that I would not be headed to India today if it wasn’t for the vision that he cast as a teenager to pray for India.

Mark Gillmore: Yeah, almost instead of you going to India, God brought India to you just through that one individual and was a voice from God that never left.

So as you have thought about India, prayed daily for India, what a great challenge that is.

As you’ve related out of your testimony, God’s given you a burden for that region.

How has he connected you more particularly to India?

Matt Kelly: During my college years, God gave me opportunities to reach into the Indian community and to begin to develop a love for the people and develop a burden for the people and just seeing the darkness that they’re trapped in, in the Hindu religion.

And so that was very key as I was in my prayer journey about where to go.

And as God began to make it maybe a little bit more clear that I was to go to India, I had opportunity last year to spend, to take two different trips to India, spent a month at a time.

And that as well was very key in helping me just catch exactly what God’s vision for my life and how it fit into India.

Mark Gillmore: One was to South India?

Matt Kelly: India.

I went to the country or the state of Kerala, and I spent some time with the same missionary that had come through my home church and told me to pray about India.

And he is a national church planter there, and I got an opportunity to spend almost a month there.

Mark Gillmore: Uh-huh.

And then where was the other area, the other trip to?

Matt Kelly: The other trip, I spent some time in Kerala, but I also went to Manipur and spent almost three weeks in Manipur as well with another missionary that was there, a national church planter who God’s really using in that area.

Mark Gillmore: So what would be the difference between South India, Kerala, and then the mountainous area of Northeast India and Manipur?

How far are young people know the difference?

Matt Kelly: Yes.

What surprised me when I went to India is just how different India is.

It’s a very diverse country.

And we think of traveling from state to state in the U.S. and the same language and really not much difference in food or culture.

And yet India is just very different in each state and each state has its own language and its own culture and really its own traditions.

And so Kerala is definitely more business, it seems like, driven.

And a lot of them, they have been somewhat influenced by Catholicism there in Kerala.

So they are a little bit more maybe open to the thought of the gospel, but still very in need of somebody to tell them about the true gospel.

And then when you go up to northern India, the places that I was in, that had a large Christian presence at one time.

And it is exciting to see how a lot of that is still there.

But also to see the need for really revival among those Christians.

And then just a need for the Great Commission once again to continue to go forth in that region.

Mark Gillmore: Yeah.

The Great Commission is an every generation thing, isn’t it?

It absolutely is.

And it’s awesome to see in that region the fruit of amazing gospel breakthrough and the churches and, you know, in the tribal mountain villages and to realize what God has done.

But yet the work is not over.

The need is still there to be involved in those regions.

Now, you were down in south there in Kerala.

I know you met up with a national man down there, and you’ve shared with us that pattern that he is employing to multiply new laborers and churches across whole regions there.

What did you see how God was leading the man you visited?

Matt Kelly: Absolutely.

It was really exciting to see what God was doing there.

This man, he was a professor at a Bible college there in southern India for a while, and he felt God’s call to step out into church planting.

And so he began to find some young men, and first of all, he gave the gospel.

Obviously, they got saved.

And then he started a small Bible institute where he trains about 15 men at a time.

He trains them for one year in the institute and gives them a foundation in biblical studies.

And then he sends them back to their own village for one year to begin discipleships and Bible studies.

And in some cases, even see churches planted in their second year of college.

And through this time, he keeps contact with them.

And then they come back for that last year and finish out their studies.

And then they go back and they just continue the ministry that they’ve already started.

And this man, he’s been there 12 years, and he has seen over 22 churches established in not only just Kerala, but some of the surrounding states as well.

Mark Gillmore: That’s thrilling because what you described to me sounds a bit like the pattern of Jesus Christ with his own disciples.

Did he talk about his endeavor to follow those biblical patterns?

Matt Kelly: Absolutely.

And one of the patterns that he was following is he realized that the smaller the group and the more focused your training can be, the faster the Great Commission can spread and the faster ministry can spread.

And I know it sounds counterintuitive.

You think if you can get more people trained at one time, you’ll actually save time.

But because he’s able to focus and really pour himself into these young men, God is using them in amazing ways in their ministries.

Mark Gillmore: Yeah, someone said, go slow to go fast.

And at first, you know, you’re really pouring into 12 men, 15 men.

But, man, I’d love to have a congregation of 200.

But actually, you can’t mentor 200 people.

Jesus mentored 12, and here’s a man who’s following that pattern.

Now, those men are going out.

He sends them back to their home villages, and I see that as a biblical pattern as well.

Absolutely.

Remember the Apostle Paul?

He’s a witness.

He comes down to Jerusalem.

He’s about ready to get stoned or killed down there, and the apostles that are there in Jerusalem send him back.

Where do they send him?

To Tarshish, to his hometown.

And we don’t hear the story of those years, but what’s he doing?

We know what he’s doing.

He’s preaching in his own region, planting churches, and that’s what’s happening.

So these men are going out, planting churches in that way.

Do you know yet if some of those men are following that pattern of training others that they’re now grouping?

Have you gotten to that?

Has he gotten to that stage yet?

Matt Kelly: You know, I had a chance to visit a lot of the churches that these men have started, and every one of them had two men with them that they were training.

Mark Gillmore: Yes.

Matt Kelly: And they would probably end up going to a Bible institute for a little while and kind of follow that pattern, but they already had them by their side and were just ministering with them and bringing them into ministry so that they can catch that vision, that burden, and get that practical just firsthand seeing God walk and seeing ministry done.

Mark Gillmore: Yes, life on life.

Absolutely.

In that fashion and not necessarily thinking that ministry preparation is a degree that you get from an institution.

It’s really a lifestyle that you get from a leader, from an individual who’s living that out.

And so he has planted, you said, almost two dozen churches.

At least two dozen.

Mm-hmm.

And really wanted to see God multiply across those regions.

Well, that’s what it’s all about.

Absolutely.

As you think of young people and the choices they’re going through and the decisions they’re making, what would be your word to them as they consider God’s will for their lives?

Matt Kelly: Yes, well, definitely something that impacted me.

First of all, just to be surrendered to God, wherever He calls you.

And maybe it’s not going to be to a foreign mission field, but we’re all called to go.

But what was challenging to me is when that national pastor told me to pray for India every day.

And Jesus does tell us, pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest.

And so I’d encourage any young person, whether they know they’re called to missions or whether they don’t, to begin praying now.

Pray that God will send forth laborers and then also have the mindset and the hope that God, if I am that laborer that you’re sending, then God, I’m willing to go.

And I feel like if we can begin to catch a vision for what God wants to do, through us in the Great Commission and fulfilling the Great Commission, then it will change the way we make everyday choices and really the way we live our lives.

Mark Gillmore: And really, God can give you a burden for a region of the world.

Touch your heart with that.

When I think of the common Indian background, you definitely sense a great spiritual stronghold that’s there.

Just a couple nights ago, I sat down with my own Indian neighbor.

He talked about that his mother had passed away about a year ago, and he’s going to return back to India.

He lives in the States right now, and he’s going to take her ashes.

He’s going to take those ashes and pour them over the Ganges River, which is their holy river, and he’s trying to help her get to paradise.

He thinks he’s doing the right thing.

He thinks he’s being loyal.

He’s honoring his mother.

But he’s ignorant that it’s not making a difference.

And a great burden comes into your heart for the Indian people.

Matt Kelly: Absolutely.

The spiritual darkness there is just so evident and so hopeless and helpless.

And we shouldn’t be surprised because the Bible says that the God of this world has blinded the eyes of them that believe not as the light of the glorious gospel should shine forth.

And so Satan is actively blinding people’s eyes.

And it’s our job to take the light of the gospel so that their eyes can be opened to the light of Jesus Christ.

Mark Gillmore: And that same passage says we have this treasure in earthen vessels.

That means the treasure of the gospel lives in each one of us.

We have eternal life.

We know Christ.

He’s opened our eyes, and God wants to use our lives to be that channel through which others see the light.

And well, Matthew, I’m excited about your surrender.

I’m thrilled about God directing your steps into India.

And you’re on deputation now,

Matt Kelly: is that correct?

I am on deputation, and I’ve been doing it part-time for several months now, and in the spring will go full time.

And Lord willing, I’m praying that God would open the door to sometime in the beginning of 2025

Mark Gillmore: to be going over to India as a missionary.

Amen.

Well, young people, put India on your prayer list and put Matthew on your list and ask the Lord to connect you to a region of the world that you can pray for and that one day maybe God will even send you to.

That’s our burden.

So remember, the only way to stay at peace in a world of turmoil and uncertainty is to stay on mission with Jesus in his Go Mission.

Guest Speaker: Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Thee Generation Podcast.

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