Jim Van Gelderen: This is evangelist Jim Van Gelderen, and for this podcast, I happen to be broadcasting from Kenya in the eastern part of Africa. I have with me a missionary, Brent Halstead. I’ve been here working in Independent Baptist College of Ministry, which is a Bible college right in Nairobi, Kenya, and certainly been exciting to work with the young people here.

I’ve asked Brother Halstead to start. Perhaps he can say just a word about his ministry here. And then I’ve asked him to share a burden on his heart for you here in this new 2018.

So, Brother Halstead, it’s good to have you here on the Thee Generation Podcast. We have young people literally around the world that are listening. Why don’t you tell a little bit about yourself, what you’re doing here in Kenya?

And then as you finish up, why don’t you just give a challenge to them about their walk with God?

Brent Halstead: Thank you, Dr. Jim. Good to talk to everyone. We’re excited to be able to have a part in your life as you listen on this podcast.

I came to Kenya 11 years ago and have been working with a team of five other missionary families as we seek to reach the Nairobi metropolitan area and all of Kenya with the gospel. Nairobi is a city of about four and a half million people, and the country of Kenya has about 45 million people. We work with 33 different churches.

Most of them have national pastors, but we are able to encourage them, preach in the churches, and help them to accomplish all that God has for them. My main ministry is as executive director of Independent Baptist College of Ministry, a Bible college to train national leaders of our churches, to function in a developing country and to be able to meet the spiritual needs of people as they progress into a fully developed nation. Our college has about 35 students.

We offer a one-year certificate in Bible training, a four-year Bachelor of Arts degree, and a Master of Arts degree in theology. The Lord has been blessing in that ministry. We are beginning our tenth year in the Bible college, and we have trained 42 graduates.

We have also started seven new churches in that nine-year period. I wanted to tell you a little bit about Kenya and make an application that helps our young people understand what it means to walk with God. Kenya is a country and a culture where we do not have all of the cars and transportation that we have in America, and so many people, if they want to go somewhere, travel by walking.

In fact, the vast majority of our people who attend our churches walk to church. One day I was thinking about that and realized that our walk in physical life is an illustration of how we ought to walk with the Lord.

As I was talking with some young people one day, I asked them, “Did you walk to church this morning?” To which they replied, “Yes.” Then I asked, “How many of you walked together to come to church?” Several of them indicated that they had paired up in a group to walk to church, and another group had come to church and liked to walk together. But then I started thinking: What does it take to walk to church together?

You don’t start at one side of town walking to church, and a person on the other side of town starts walking to church to meet in the middle. In order to walk together, there must be a meeting place. And if you’re going to walk together, somebody has to lead.

Have you ever been in a situation where several people in the group wanted to do different things as you are walking together? The group doesn’t stay together very long when there is more than one leader. And so it is with the Christian life.

When we walk with Jesus, if we are going to walk with Jesus, we must have a time that we meet with Him and meet with God. I trust you can meet with God in the morning when you have time to read your Bible and pray.

A lot of people ask, “What is the purpose of our daily devotional time?” Many people look at it as simply a duty to say, “I have done a task for God today,” but it’s much more than that. It is a time of meeting with God, but it doesn’t end with that. When we finish reading our Bibles and prayer, God wants to walk with us through the day.

So that devotional time in the morning is the meeting time with God so that we can walk with Him throughout the day. In order to continue walking with God, just as a group of people have to follow the leader as they walk together, we as Christians, if we’re going to walk with God, must follow Jesus Christ and do what He wants us to do as we walk through our day. Jesus will not follow us.

He demands that we follow Him. As I shared that lesson with the young people in our church here in Nairobi, it made sense. They understood in a practical way what it means to walk with God and why our devotional life and meeting with God is so important.

I trust that as you hear me speak today, it will make sense to you as well. My burden, my goal, is that you will learn to meet with God and walk with Him throughout your day.

Jim Van Gelderen: Well, thank you, Brother Halstead. That is a wonderful challenge. Certainly, being here at the Independent Baptist College of Ministry, I know the emphasis that you’ve had with your own students on spending that time with God.

They have a wonderful journal, and you encourage them to spend extended time, even up to an hour, praying and meeting with God. The key in meeting with God is really the presence of God. As he’s mentioned, walking with God in a very real way, God’s doing something here in these Kenyan students, and He wants to do something in your heart.

I’m so glad you tuned in today to the Thee Generation Podcast, and I hope as we sign off that your heart will be stirred to walk with God. Remember our battle cry: total surrender to the will of God and total dependence on His strength to live it. That total surrender and total dependence is nurtured and encouraged when you spend time with God.

I hope in early 2018, young person, you will make a decision: “I’m going to spend time with God, and I’m going to learn how to walk with God.” I hope you’re encouraged with this podcast from the country of Kenya, where God is working in hearts, and may He work in your heart as well.