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249. Stories Series Conclusion: Now What? Living as Global Christians with Todd Ahrend of The Traveling Team **Transcription Below** Acts 1:8 (NIV) "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Questions and Topics We Cover: What does it actually look like for you to live with eternal eyes and how can we grow in living the same way? Will you teach us about these four categories: goer, sender, mobilizer, and welcomer? Years ago, you shared a story about one international student that has stuck with me for nearly a decade. Will you retell that for us now? Dr. Todd Ahrend graduated from Northeastern State University, has a Masters from Dallas Theological Seminary and a Doctorate from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is the founder and international Director of The Traveling Team, a national missions mobilization movement. He and his wife, Jessica, have spent over two decades traveling both nation-wide and abroad, speaking to thousands of people about involvement in world evangelization. Todd has exposure in over sixty countries and has lived in the Middle East. He is the author of The Abrahamic Revolution and In This Generation. Todd and Jessica have six children. Email Dr. Todd Ahrend to speak at your event: tenfortytodd@gmail.com The Traveling Team Website The Missions Course Connect with The Savvy Sauce on our Website Please help us out by sharing this episode with a friend, leaving a 5-star rating and review, and subscribing to this podcast! Thank You to Our Sponsor: Sue Neihouser Gospel Scripture: (all NIV) Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.” Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“ Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“ Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” **Transcription** [00:00:00] <music> Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host, Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here. [00:00:17] <music> Laura Dugger: Thank you to the Sue Neihouser team for sponsoring this episode. If you're looking to buy or sell a home this season, make sure you reach out to Sue at 309-229-8831. Sue would love to walk alongside you as you unlock new doors. We are wrapping up this fascinating stories series today with my guest, Dr. Todd Ahrend. I'm also going to go ahead and just give you his email address up front, because I'm assuming many of you will also want to reach out to him and invite him to be a speaker at your church or at your event, and he has given me permission to share his email address. So it is tenfortytodd@gmail.com, and 1040 is all spelled out. I'll link to it in the show notes so you can see it as well. [00:01:17] But Dr. Todd Ahrend is an author, speaker, and founder of The Traveling Team, which is a national missions mobilization movement. He's gifted at giving us an eternal perspective, which changes everything, and he has stories to share, just like the other guests in this series. But Todd is also going to wrap up this series by answering the question, now what, for each of us as we've encountered these testimonies. After concluding this conversation, I pray that we are all clearer on what the next step is in our lives and that we have answers to this question, how then shall we live? Here's our chat. Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Todd. Todd Ahrend: Well, thank you, Laura. Great to be here. Laura Dugger: I'm so excited to get a chat today. Will you begin by taking us back in your life and share a little bit about both before and after you were following Christ? [00:02:20] Todd Ahrend: Yes. Well, I'll tell you what, man, I was not raised in a Christian home. At age 16, I went to church with a friend of mine, became a Christ follower, thought God wanted to bless me, but I didn't realize He wanted to change me. And so it wasn't until college that I got plugged into a campus ministry and saw what discipleship was, like, oh my gosh, how to share the gospel. They just sort of trained me in the basics. And from there, I really became ruined with wanting to do ministry. So here I am getting my degree, but at the same time, trying to share Christ with my fraternity, trying to start a campus movement. After that, I just thought, "Man, all I want to do is minister to students." And so for the past, like, 25 years, my wife and I have been leading a ministry called The Traveling Team that we started in 1999 that just helps college students with global vision. [00:03:29] Laura Dugger: I think it's so fascinating when the Lord really grows our heart for this age group in a time where He went and He saved us. So will you share more about the work that you and your wife get to do with The Traveling Team? Todd Ahrend: Oh, man, yes. You know, when you look at the world and the lostness and just the extreme unreached, and you ask the question, how in the world is someone going to go there, learn the majority language, learn the minority language, translate scripture, you think, Man, you got to get someone who is energized, is ready, is young, is like, I can do this. So we just thought, man, where do workers come from to reach the extreme unreached? And we just thought, man, there's something about college students. They're the most sendable, the most mobile, the most passionate, really. When you think about it, it's like, I'll go to Yemen, you know. [00:04:33] We just thought, man, let's go to college campuses and speak, give a 35-minute talk at the pre-existing ministries that are doing a fantastic job, The Cru, the InterVarsity, the BCMs, the Chiapas, the Wesley Foundations. Let's go in there and give a 30-minute message on God's story and scripture of reaching the nations from Genesis 12 to Revelation 5:9. And then let's invite them to go spend a summer. So every semester, we send three teams out and we speak on 120 campuses a semester. 120 campuses. So tonight, there's a team speaking at UC Berkeley, there's a team speaking at University of Wisconsin, a team speaking at University of Charleston in South Carolina. We just challenge students with, "Hey, this is what the world looks like. You're getting an engineer degree. Would you consider going to an internship in India this summer and praying about a lifetime?" [00:05:37] Our ministry is called The Traveling Team. We've been doing it for 25 years. And it has been such a joy to cast vision to these students. Laura Dugger: As you're casting this vision to them, what would you say is the purpose that you hope for them? Todd Ahrend: Well, I think our big purpose would be that they would live a global Christian life. Like, what does that mean to live, whether you're a nurse, a doctor, an engineer, or a full-time pastor? That's sort of our big-picture goal. But because we're talking to 18- to 22-year-olds who have really their life in front of them, we can say, Man, would you consider giving the next 15 years of your life to going long term, to learning a language, planning a church, translating scripture? So if we were at Montana State and we got 250 students that we're speaking to, 90% are going to be going into the workforce in America. [00:06:40] They're going to be what we would call the senders. But 10% are going to be the goers. So we're sort of targeting both groups. We're saying, Hey, be a global Christian. But some of you, you need to get a passport, get on a plane, and go and plan a church. Laura Dugger: And you called out some specific ages. So with this population, you really are connecting with a very special group. So I'd love to hear your perspective on what you've learned about the reasons why people, specifically between these ages of 18 and 22, are so instrumental to global impact with the good news about Jesus. Todd Ahrend: Yeah. Oh, there is just—I mean, you talk about The Savvy Sauce. There is something savvy sauce about that age group. I mean, I don't understand it. But when you look at history, over the last 300 years, every major missions movement has been launched by 18- to 22-year-olds. I don't understand it. I just study it. [00:07:48] I spent three years writing a book called In This Generation that just basically tracks every major missions movement and how it goes back to universities. And you just kind of scratch your head, and you're like, Okay. I mean, think about this, Laura. In 1806, if you were a college student, you had nine colleges you could go to. That's it. I mean, we hadn't even founded Mississippi yet. You had nine colleges. You could go to Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, Cornell. I mean, that was it, right? Well, there is also a college called Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. And a young man named Samuel Mills goes there. He's 18. He's a freshman. There's no mission agency. America has not sent one missionary. If you were a college student in 1806 and you wanted to be a missionary, you had to go to London, and then they had to send you. We didn't have a mission agency. [00:08:47] But yet in 1806 at Williams College, Samuel Mills starts the first five mission agencies and then launches, in 1812, the first missionary to India with Adoniram Judson. And then fast forward 1886, John Mott, Robert Wilder, Grace Wilder, these college students that were sophomores, juniors, and seniors and they decide they're going to launch really a second movement after the Samuel Mills movement of 1806. They're going to launch a second movement. Are you ready for this? They sends out 20,000 to the world, and then 80,000 stayed behind to send them. I mean, that's not even counting the Cru, the InterVarsities, the Wycliffe Bible translators. I mean, this is just two of the first. And so I think there's just something about that age group where you and I know and many of your listeners know the simple truth is this. The older you get, the more stuff you get, the harder it gets to risk. It's hard to risk when you've got two kids, mortgage, and soccer practice. [00:10:01] It's hard to risk going to Saudi Arabia for 10 years. But that age group, they don't have a ton. They have a cracked iPhone. That's it. That's it. And so they are just more willing to risk. And I guess risk is right because God loves risk. Laura Dugger: I love that. Will you say just a little bit more, God loves risk? Todd Ahrend: Yeah. Risk is right. I remember, I mean, for 20 years, Laura, for 20 years, my wife wanted to adopt, and I was saying no. I was like, "I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. We already have five kids. That's a basketball team." And she's like, "Every basketball team needs a sub." I mean, she prayed. I mean, she did so much. And really, a friend of mine took me to coffee, and we just... there was no purpose, just to catch up. And I told him about adoption, and he's like, "Man, when was the last time you risked something? Like you live in your safety circle. Risk is right." [00:11:04] That just changed me. I was like, oh my gosh, man. I do. I mean, I'm a middle-aged man in the middle of America with a middle savings account and middle of safety. And I'm like, you're right, I haven't risked anything lately. So we ended up adopting a five-year-old boy from Asia. I just think there's something about saying, Lord, I am coming out of my safety circle, I'm going to say yes to you. And for all of us, it's different areas. But for college students that we talk to, we're really challenging to come out of the American dream and to move east. So that's our challenge to them and sort of our challenge to others. Laura Dugger: I love it, Todd. You brought up your family, so let's go there for a moment as well. Because this week I've really been thinking about the parable – and I'm just going to completely paraphrase – where the seed falls on different places, four different categories. [00:12:06] But the last one it falls in the good soil, and it can produce the harvest of 30 or 60 or 100-fold. So as I'm thinking in my brain, okay, these college students, this age, this is so impactful. Let's back it up. You have six children in your home that you and your wife are homeschooling. What are you doing to cultivate that good soil in hopes of preparing them even so they're ready at any time when God calls them, but even in this specific age group of college students that you work with, they're ready for a yes to God, whatever He asks. Todd Ahrend: Well, raising kids, whether public, private, or homeschool, it's never easy. But for us, we started off by saying, okay, they're middle names. We're going to give their middle names missionary n…
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