The Ministry Growth Show: Ep. 1 – Leonard Lee of LINC Ministries

Welcome to The Ministry Growth Show. In our first episode we interview Leonard Lee who is the Executive Director of LINC Ministries, a discipleship making ministry based out of Roseville, CA. Leonard shares the story of how he and his family have built LINC Ministries over the past five years and how his simple approach to […]

The post The Ministry Growth Show: Ep. 1 – Leonard Lee of LINC Ministries appeared first on Reliant Creative.

You're listening to the ministry growth show brought to you by Reliant Creative, the creative agency for gospel centered ministries. Find out more at Reliant Creative dot org. Welcome to the Ministry Growth Show, a podcast dedicated to helping churches and ministries grow and make more effective impacts for the Kingdom of God in an ever changing digital world, whether you're building and growing a gospel center ministry or leading a church, if you want insight into the strategies, struggles, challenges, and successes of other ministry leaders, you've come to the right place.

Well, hello Kevin. Hello Zack. How are you? I'm doing great. I'm a little tired, but I'm doing great. Uh, so you went on, uh, you went on a weekend long weekend trip recently, right. Yeah. Yeah. One of the reasons why I'm a little tired, um, my wife and I um, decided um really last minute to take a road trip with our three month old, 3.

5 month old. Uh, and when I say road trip, I mean six hour drive to the north coast. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I would say at that point road trip mint, like maybe an hour tops, not six hours, but it was cool.

It was really, it was special. I hadn't, I've been up maybe once or twice to the north coast of California kind of close to the Oregon border and so seeing big trees was you know, a fun experience. But I'll tell you holding a baby, I'll be a baby who's worn out because the baby has been, you know, in a car for six hours.

So you guys drove straight to the trees. Yeah, yeah, straight to the trees. So we had maybe two stops. There's no time, no time. Yeah. Yeah, there's a there's a lot of, a lot of singing songs um and not like common, you know, fun alt rock songs, but I mean like like old, like you know the itsy bitsy spider type stuff, jesus loves me.

Yeah, a couple of yeah, the staples of are staples of our faith. Exactly. Anyway, so uh mixed in with itsy bitsy spider um of course we gotta we gotta teach the kid, you know, determination or whatever that song he gets back up again, man keeps on going, keeps on going, which is yeah, an encouragement to our faith.

You keep going. Anyway, so, so uh we we you know, we're hiking around and uh I'll say the kind of most special moment of the whole the whole trip was was holding Sebastian, which is my son's name and watching him kind of take in his surroundings and it's all new, right? So for me, I mean I've been up there before, but you know the places that we went were new places, but I still had a reference like this is what a tree looks like and this tree is a bigger tree, but for him he has no reference.

And what I loved about it was was seeing the look on his face as he looked up, not at light bulbs and fan blades. He looked up at gigantic trees and I just thought his eyes are full of wonder and and that's that's how I want to be.

You know, I want to be, I want to be taking in God's creation with wonder. Um and and and I want to worship him just like a child um like a like a child who is taking in this stuff for the first time, you know, jesus makes all things new and and I think so often I put I put kind of those, I don't know, learning experiences that God kind of takes us through into little boxes of, well, relative to the last experience.

Just like I look at trees like the size of this tree relative of this tree, but but a baby, but Sebastian, oh man, he's just full of wonder with everything. We I want to be full of wonder of everything.

I don't just want my worship to be expressed or or I don't want to just exalt him and just, you know, I don't know parts of my day, but I want to be exalting him through everything. That's awesome. Well, cool, I'm glad you had fun.

Oh, yes, yeah. All right, well, why don't we get in the show? And uh we're going to be interviewing Leonard lee. All right, welcome to the ministry grow show, this is Zach and kevin. Hello, uh today we're going to be interviewing Leonard lee of Link ministries.

Uh and so Leonard is on with us today, Thank you Leonard for being here. Glad to be here guys. Yeah, and uh so Leonard, you and I go back a little bit, my you were best friends with my uncle um and so growing up we didn't hang out a lot, but I kind of, you kind of knew me, I knew I knew about you um but uh we got connected recently and we've been working with your ministry for the last couple of months.

Why don't you tell us about Link ministries and what God is doing through you? I'm gonna I street, the Link ministries is kind of a disciple making strategy where we uh seek to train people uh in in biblical skills, biblical knowledge, ministry skills and teach them to train other people who train other people so that we create a ripple effect of disciple making, whether it's in pastoral skills primarily or in specific ministry skills bible, study knowledge, a whole variety of things.

And so that's kind of our focus and you guys are primarily working with uh national missionaries. So so people who live within the country that you're serving, correct exactly. Our focus primarily as indigenous pastors and leaders uh in africa in the uh and south America awesome.

And so Leonard for all our listeners, just got back from India a week ago, Leonard, correct. A week ago. Yes. Okay, so tell us a little bit about that trip. What were you guys doing over there? Well, we had, we had three different conferences in five days.

We did a two day marriage conference, we had a couple 100 folks there and uh we were the first Westerners to ever lead a marriage conference in that region. And we had uh men and women sitting together in church, which is, they always sit on opposite sides, they were holding hands, they were telling each other they loved each other.

One wife said, this is the first time since we've been married that I heard my husband say he loved me, another pastor said um I have been beating my wife and I find that I am ashamed of myself and I want to change everything about my life.

And so it's great fruit. We did a women's leadership conference Teaching women to make disciples who also make disciples. And we had about 60, 70 women involved in that conference and most of the women a large number of cannot read.

And so a lot of story driven, a lot of uh written out storyboard Women memorizing stories and writing the stories of the scriptures so they could tell Jesus stories to Hindu and Muslim friends uh incredibly exciting.

And then I took a group of about 55, 60 pastors through three days of how to study your bible, how to get the most out of the bible. Most of them have about 1/10 grade education and have, have never actually learned anything about bible study skills and to see them sitting in groups and and learn and practicing biblical studies to deserve attacks, to read it, to study it, to pull the meaning out of the text versus add instead of at the meaning to the text.

Incredible, incredible. And then I had a chance to be in a church while I was there, made up primarily of of uh, of uh, x. Hindus. And when I got there, they said, could you address the fact that many of the folks in this church are still worshipping idols? And so I had a chance to uh to walk them through a process of understanding what it means to be uh christ only as my salvation.

And uh at the end We had about 25 families committed burning their idols, which is huge because that's family heritage they're getting rid of. Um and then we had about 40 different folks in the church come to me and say we have been praying for four months for someone like you to come along and just teach us this from the word of God.

So exciting, exciting trip. That's awesome. So are you guys working with a ministry on the ground while you're there? We work with cashmere Evangelical fellowship while we're there. And uh and then a few local churches, all of which I can never pronounce the names because the jays and H is together make a K sound.

Yeah, definitely. Um, that's that's awesome, exciting to see what the Lord is doing to you guys. Um, how long is, uh, tell me about your, how, how your ministry came to be? What was the, maybe the Lord's original call in your life and um, how, how it grew to where it is now? Well, my, my story starts out.

I knew I was called to be in the ministry from the time I was a little kid, pursued the ministry uh, in college, high school, college all the way through. Um, after about 18, 20 years of being a senior pastor at church planter, my wife and I began to pray God.

What would you do with us if you gave us 35 more years to serve you and recognizing that we would rather serve jesus, uh, somewhere um, than just say welcome to walmart and pushcarts at that age. And uh, the largest began to stretch us.

That was in 2010 that summer, I sat down in Swaziland near South Africa and I was training a group of pastors um on disciple making and uh as I was sitting there, the Holy Spirit just said, this is the answer to what you've been praying for, I want you to train pastors.

And uh I called my wife right after that and she said, let's do it. And I resigned my church a few months later And launched link ministries in January of 2011 and now here we are. So, so as you guys have uh entered into that obedience and um, started this ministry, uh, were some of the hardest parts just stepping out in faith and starting the ministry or or have there have there been other struggles along the way that, um, you came up with, and like, man, we had no idea this was this was gonna be a struggle or a challenge.

Can you share with us? Just some of the difficulties that you've had growing and, and jumping out into this, this obedience? Well, I'll tell you sometimes when, uh, I think about sacrificing and the things that God has led us to do, I feel kind of embarrassed because the joy and the fruit of what he's done in our lives in the last five years, it doesn't even feel like sacrifice.

Um, but when we began this ministry, Uh, the economy in 2011 was pretty bad. We were gonna have to go raise all of our support. And so in 2011, we went almost six months without a paycheck cash in my retirement, sold all of our staff, uh, begin to sell all my tools, sold our home just to get this thing off the ground.

Um, and from that point on, it has been, um, it has just been exciting to see, got open door after door after door. And so I think our struggles have not been, um, have not been there like momentary afflictions compared to what God has been doing around the world.

That's awesome. So, you guys, I mean, you completely went all in. I don't really know how to do anything else. Uh, you know, when God calls you go and you go until the there's nowhere else to go. Can you share some of maybe you're maybe success is what you guys have been after stepping out in faith.

Um, maybe some things that, um, didn't happen until you stepped out in faith, until you got into, um, what you, where you are now, the successes that the Lord has brought out of your ministry, and just your obedience to to step into this calling.

Mhm. I think some of the some of the things that God has brought about, just as an uh as a part of the process of obedience is uh um it's just a sense of confidence in God. I mean, you can't undersell when a man loses confidence in God.

Uh he has, he just has to compensate in other ways, and we just had this incredible confidence that God asset, we can do it. And so, for us, as we stepped out, and faith as we walked forward, uh some of the benefits, like I said, I've been confidence in God.

Uh the pluses have been that my whole family has joined in my kids. Uh 21 23 but they have uh my daughter has actually been to more countries than states. Um, My son has been to India several times. We have friends all over the world.

Our lives are rich and filled with christ centered believers in all, in all parts of the world. And so he's just made us incredibly rich in faith and in life, but I probably think the greatest benefit has been uh, just the, I I feel like I have the best seat in the house.

Uh, you know, it's, there's, I'm in the front row of the best theater and it's God's theater and I can see everything that God is putting in front of us. And um, I always ask myself what in the heck am I doing here? How did this happen? I'm, I'm justice, you know, kid from Orangeville California, how did that happen? Uh, and I'll be sitting in this mud hut in the middle of Nigeria training a group of pastors and I think, wow God, you really can work miracles.

Um, and that probably the greatest benefit to be honest with you guys is to see that we have never brought God anywhere, we've only met in places, you know, he is everywhere. We go to places and we see, uh, we feel like I'm in the tall grass with these folks there, their faith is strong and so we get to come along and do something incredibly personal, incredibly practical with what God has given us to share and to see that change lives is that's probably the best, the best benefit, the greatest reward when you, uh, you guys have stepped out in faith and been obedient to his call and I mean his, his call for us to go and and share his, his good news and um go to the nation's is not one of um, just because just for the sake of it, because he wants us to be obedient, but he's asking actually calling us into this um redemption of humanity and allowing us to be a part of that.

And um it's just really cool when you, when you do that and you you are obedient to step out into that calling. He ah it's crazy the stuff he does, like it's for our ultimate joy that he asks us to be a part of that um that story and so that's really cool that you guys are um have stepped out into that and and are are getting to be a part of like you said on the front lines of what God is doing um for humanity.

Yeah, I think that Zach and I have talked a couple of times about just the way how easy it is potentially for for, uh, you know, going on a missions trip or starting a ministry going abroad and not, um, not going there with the appropriate lens, but you so perfectly worded it like that rather than bringing christ to these locations, meeting christ at those locations.

I feel like it's a uh, you know, like we, we as believers have opportunities to share in that, share in in those opportunities that uh, that God gives us that God, that God does the work. You know, we're just, we're just there to, to be able to witness it.

So, uh, your humility and and that picture was, I think it was beautiful. Thank you. Yeah, well Leonard obviously uh, running a five oh one C three nonprofit organization isn't free. Uh, and so fundraising is a big part of it, it's a necessity.

Can you, can you share a little bit about how you guys handle, um, fundraising, uh, and, and growing a successful ministry from a financial standpoint, maybe, um, some tools that you use, or some techniques that you have that maybe could help some of our listeners.

You know, I I would be glad to let me say, first of all that, that our ministry is unique in that, um, uh, we're not compassion international, we're not world vision, we're not gods starving Children.

And so I can't appeal to your, uh, to your tender side and show you a picture of a starving kid and say, Please please help this child for 38 cents a day. It just doesn't work that way. You know, I show you a grizzled old pastor who is Serving two churches while while I'm working his farm and you look at him and you think that's just a regular guy, I wouldn't even know he's a pastor.

And so there's no compassion driven by our images of the people that we serve. And so what I had to figure out was I had to figure out how to tell a story and what would be the story and what I've discovered over the time is that the story that we want to do is we want to connect um the story of a pastor.

That's their story. Uh their story in in that they might serve to three churches uh in Swaziland. The pastors I met buried between five and eight people a week because of AIDS. Uh they're the working poor.

So I want to tell their story. I want to tell the story of my friend and in Nigeria who has a scar that wraps all the way around his neck where it was. His head was almost removed by Muslims just because he was on the wrong street.

Uh I want to tell you those kinds of stories of pastors who had walked 10, 12 kilometers through the mountains through a jungle just to tell the good news to a village. And so we want to tell their story.

We also want to tell our story. Um uh our story is God calling us. It's just God using regular people to do his work. We're trying to tell our story. And so the two stories we're trying to blend is their story in our story.

And then the third story is God's story. When we started, I knew for a fact we had to get overseas as quick as possible and do training. And so we literally emptied our bank account. I remember being in India, uh calling my wife, We were in Punjab and I'm calling my wife from this room and I left her with about $12.

41 in the bank because I had to drain our bank account just to get to India. So we could train pastors and so we needed to, we needed to be able to serve in order to find out how God was going to write those stories.

Um, so there's their story is our story and then there's God's story and when, and then the final piece is is I want to tell your story as we're talking. I want to, I want to show you how you can be a part of what God is doing.

And so when we raise our funds, we try to blend those four stories, The story of pastors are story, uh God's story, what he's doing and then your story and mix them all together so that you become a part of the grand narrative of what God is doing, and figure out how you can contribute to that.

That's beautiful. Uh, I think I think you kind of hit on just that, you know, gospel shares are the ultimate storytellers. We tell the ultimate story. Um, and, and in those, those areas makes a lot of sense.

But how do you, do you tell the stories? So you guys, are you guys going door to door church to church, building relationships with other pastors and other ministries? Uh, is it is it a network of people that you've, you've built up over the years of being a pastor? How are you guys getting that story or those stories? Out to your audience and out to your supporters? Well, the first thing I do is I take a long nap and God lowers down on a sheet, supporters.

Know know what, excuse me? What I do is, um, is I as I do a thing called name storming, I think of everybody I know anywhere I know them. And it could be my cousin, twice removed on my grandmother's cousin's side.

Uh, it could be my neighbor who was from 4th to 7th grade. He, I note his yard, it doesn't matter. And I start making lists and then I categorize the story those those names into groups of, uh, easy and very likely that's low hanging fruit.

Easy to pick a little bit more work climate tree, gotta shake the branches and then the top of the tree kind of fruit. And so those three categories, Well, I begin to do then is I begin to, uh, make appointments and I try to meet with between three and seven people a week just to talk to him.

I call him on the phone, I tell him what I'm doing and say, hey, listen, we're working the ministry. Uh and I want to talk to you about it. I'm excited about the work and we meet with them, we talk with them.

And then when I'm done, I invite them. I say, would you, would you consider prayerfully considered becoming a part of our team through financial support, through prayer? Um if they're not ready to do that right then and there, I always say, can I get back to you in a couple of days? And uh, when I get back to them, uh usually in a couple of days, it's uh, we get, sometimes we get yes, is sometimes we get no.

Sometimes we get folks who say, we're just not ready to do anything yet. But I've discovered that um, if you don't ask, you don't get so we are, we're committed to ask. We, on her personal level, there's no beggar mentality in what we do.

You know, Jesus drew his support from a group of women who gave and supported his ministry. It's a noble thing. It's an honorable thing. Um, I take the mentality that I'm rescuing people dollars. uh they're gonna spend $100 a month easily on, on my focus on ice cream, on a burger and fries, on a pack of gum and whatever else.

Uh, and it'll be gone. I'm saying, let me have that $100 and we'll invest it together. It's something that will last forever, something that will make an eternal difference. Uh, something that when you stand in front of the father, he's gonna smile at you and say that's what I gave you that 100 bucks for.

And so we are we're confident enough to be able to say that to people. Of course we want to do it respectfully. Uh You know, we're not, you know, we don't run around with our hand out but no beggar mentality in what we do and how we ask, we're very confident.

Um I think any executive director who is not willing to ask uh people to support and join their team uh either has to learn how to do it and become willing and recognize it's a joyful part of the ministry or they need to uh possibly uh consider whether they should be an executive director Because it's about 70% of my job in the US.

when I'm stateside, about 70% of my job is fundraising, right? Yeah. And so I mean you guys are just out there hustling. Well that's what it comes down to. Hustling sounds uh uh, sounds uh that does have a different connotation to it.

Working. Working, working really hard is the direction I'm going for nonstop, right? The nonstop like relentless uh kind of pursuit of and unashamed pursuit of you know, getting support and and knowing where that support is going.

Absolutely. And I think some of that is just being confident that that what you're doing works. And so the more we do, the more we see fruit, the more stories we hear of pastors ah you know I'm in the middle of Nigeria and I'm doing a training on on how to study your bible and this man is just writing like crazy and he he says afterwards I said, I said sir, it seems like this was a good session for you.

He says, I have never heard any of this before. This changes everything and how I read my bible and one of the pastors in *** when I was there, the oldest pasture in the room, I finished doing a a lesson on training on biblical Hermeneutics.

And he said I have something to say. Now he's saying it in the house. So I'm counting on my translator to, to be gentle with me. Um, because I have something to say to this man and to all of you and I'm thinking, oh no, I've, I've ruined everything.

All of Nigeria is is going to be broken because of me. And with tears in his eyes, he says, I'm getting the first thing I do when I leave here because I'm going to go apologize to my church because I have not spoken the word of God to them and the way it should be well when you see that kind of fruit, you see that kind of ripple effect and I want to run home and tell you that story and I want to say, You know, I can train a pastor for a week for $34 in Nigeria.

Uh that's food and that's fuding, that's food housing. Uh, that is hit a little bit of help for his travel and that's 4.5 days of training with training materials. $34. That's awesome. It's incredible.

Yeah. That's crazy. So are you guys, are you guys building a curriculum that you're teaching over there? Are you how, how does that, what does that look like? We are, we have To start this ministry. I did about 200 hours of interviews with pastors in Mexico, in two countries, in Africa in um, uh, in India and in South America.

And I asked them to tell me what they're doing well, to tell me where all their successes are. And I said, if you could add to your success is, what kind of training would even add to your success is? Because I didn't want to sit and talk about problems and only do training from the perspective of solving their problems.

They begin to say things like well, if we understood our bibles better, you know what if we knew how to find leaders better? Uh, if we knew how to encourage our people to study their bibles or to read them or uh, or whatever the challenges or whatever their successes were from that, we developed five basic trainings that we do and they all come from what paul told timothy, paul told timothy to watch your life, watch your doctrine, find your gifts to flame what I've taught you, You teach others who will teach others and pay attention to how the church functions and these five areas, uh we do training in those five areas, so it takes us about 2.

5 years in one location to get through all five trainings, each one is a week long, and once we've gotten through them we will often have to go back and redo some of it, just because there's language barriers, there's education barriers, cultural barriers, and so sometimes we'll do the same exact training two times in a row in the same area just to make sure it sticks to make sure it's understood.

That's awesome. So I wanna, I wanna, before we end, I want to dive into this discipleship making approach you guys. So we just, our listeners know, we have um we've traveled with Leonard before in the past and so had had an opportunity just to talk with Leonard and um see his approach to disciple making.

Um and Leonard, you got, you guys are kind of doing something unique uh in your approach to disciple making. Can you, can you share a little bit about that approach, how you guys go about teaching your pastors, um that it's and and anybody that comes to your conferences and teachings that it's um I think you could say it better than me, but can you just dive into that approach a little bit more in detail? I think, I think I understand your question, let me uh let me tackle it.

And if I'm not then just redirect me to what you what you really want to hear. Uh We ask every pastor who comes and it receives our training um to pay it forward, and so any pastor who comes in, we asked them to make a commitment to train in three different spheres.

The first sphere that they would train in would be other pastors that they know um to take what we've taught them and to teach that to other pastors. The second sphere would be in the framework of their leaders in their church, maybe their elders, there are other pastors, maybe some of their key leaders and train them in the materials that we've given them.

And then the third sphere is in their own church, with their own people raising the spiritual IQ of their folks so that they create a stronger force of disciples, and so everybody who who comes and trains with us ah is, is requested and even held accountable to the degree that we can um to uh to train and to um add or to act, to pay it forward to other people.

And so we're asking them to do that. They actually signed a covenant with us and then we try to set up a local indigenous structure. That makes sense for the people. Um, so whether it's cellphones group calling groups of five, however that works.

And so that's that's a part of what we do in terms of the disciple making process, paying it forward, continuing to stay in because that creates a ripple effect that keeps going and keeps going. We also asked them to ask the people that learn to continue to do the same thing.

Each one of them would find one more person. And so to this day, I think We've worked with about almost 8000 pastors and leaders, personally, I have in five years, those 8000 pastors and leaders uh have worked with About uh they verified back to me about 5-6000 Other pastors and leaders.

And so that's between 13 and 14,000 people who have been trained as a part of our ripple effect. That involves 79 conferences in other countries in the last five years as well. Well, if you take that out, that's almost 21-22,000 churches that are being influenced now with who knows how many people within each congregation.

Exactly, and that that moves, you know, into the realm of possibly millions of people being impacted. And I think that's the exponential nature of disciple making, it's not fast and it shouldn't be, you don't make disciples overnight, you make them over a process.

And I think, I think the other thing that we try to try to focus on is that systems don't make disciples, people disciples make disciple right systems, ensure that disciple making is effective, you need both, that's good, and so that that's kind of our, is that, is that what you're asking me? Is that Yeah, and one of the things that struck me when you, when you were telling, when you were talking about your approach, when we were together, um is that jesus had his 12, but he really spent a lot of time with three and and invested in 33 men, more than more than the rest.

And so your approach, what, how you were explaining? It was um a little less daunting, I mean, I I grew up in the church and uh do you get, I told every every sunday, like we need to be out sharing the gospel with anybody and everybody, you know, um but that's, that's like yes to that, but it's, that's a daunting task, like, okay, how do I do that? But how you were explaining? It was breaking it down into a simple, easy to digest.

Okay, I can I can handle three, like investing in three people and really diving down deep, because again, we're not trying to make converts, right? We're trying to make disciples, that's the call. Uh So that's that's that, I think that's um what struck me about your approach more than anything else I've heard growing up was like the focus on just a few and really dive deep into that those few relationships and and you'll see more exponential growth through that process.

Absolutely. What kind of seems backwards, Right? Yeah, Well, it doesn't it's not it's not, you know, and I you can edit this out if you like. It's not all that sexy. Yeah. You know, it's it's kind of grunt work, It's not glamorous, you know, jesus by all, by all measures of, of Western faith was kind of a loser.

uh you know, he had 12 guys, one of them betrayed him, they all ran away. Uh, and the sum total of his ministry when he ascended into heaven was 100 and 20 people in a room, you know, and what are we gonna do now? Well, let's just pray and, and, And yet those, he taught those people so well, you know, John 17, I'm going to paraphrase what Jesus says in his prayer, he says, Okay, father, they're ready, their game ready, put them in, it's time to play.

Uh I've taught them everything, they need to know about you, I've taught them everything they need to know about me, I've taught them everything, they need to know about what the mission is, they're ready.

And so Jesus obviously had a plan to be able to declare them ready uh and game ready, That means that they had prepared that he had prepared them, but I think that it's just not all that pretty, it's not fast, it's hard to, it's really hard to make a living saying, yep, my my group is uh My group is three people, you know, that's how many I work with, but I think over time, If your group is three and you work well with those three, that group becomes six, that group becomes 12, that group becomes 20 for that group becomes 48 and it doesn't take that long and all of a sudden um like I said, you know how how does, how does one guy in in roseville California uh say in five years we've been influenced potentially 1.

5 million people with the gospel? Well we've done through disciple making its exponential, we make disciples, we trained pastors who trained pastors, who trained pastors. Let me clarify one thing though, um uh God is the one who always brings the harvest, we we have no power for that, uh my job is to pull weeds and plant seeds, that's all I do, God brings a harvest and then um at the end of the day uh we, we have, we've given discipleship its own little entity, but discipleship needs to be broken down one more step, you know, I do discipleship, well what does that really mean? Uh well I think it means this and I think it means this because of jesus, discipleship is nothing more and has never been anything more than to teach people how to follow, jesus, jesus said, follow me, I will make you fishers of men and so we preach on following, we preach on fishing, but those forward sandwiched in between might be the most overlooked words in the bible, I will make you, that's disciple making discipleship is just teaching people how to follow and when they have learned how to follow, they become something, they don't do something, they become fishers of men and and so I don't, I don't fish because it's a hobby, I fish because it's who I am, he's made me into something and that transformation is the fruit of discipleship now you're gonna make me preach, that was the goal and yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, well think that's, that's awesome, um I think that this is going to be a ton of value to our listeners, thank you so much for uh for being on the show and investing some of your time and and helping us help other ministries grow.

This has been awesome, Leonard, we really appreciate your time before we get off the call. Can we, can we pray for you and Link ministries real quick? Hey, that would be awesome. Pray for me. I'm, I'm heading into Africa in just about six weeks and uh we're gonna work with over 500 pastors and leaders in four different conferences.

We're gonna be in Nigeria and ***. Uh, we're gonna be uh doing biblical foundations training, which always lights him on fire in such a great way. And so I'm very excited about that and so you can be praying for us and that trip.

Perfect. Alright, father, thank you so much for this, this time with Leonard and um hearing about his ministry and what you're doing through his obedience to follow you and um say yes to your call father, I pray that you would just grow Link and uh work through Leonard in amazing ways.

In ways that only you can I pray that you would go before him as um, we know you're already in africa, doing amazing things and I pray that he would just meet you there, um, and be a vessel for growing your kingdom and redeeming humanity to your name and a right relationship with you father.

We thank you so much for your love and your grace. You are good and we love you. Amen. Amen. Well, thank you Leonard. Yeah, we appreciate it. And uh, we'll we'll be in touch as you go out. One last thing.

Can you uh, share how people can get in touch with you if they want to uh, maybe invest in link ministries or hear more about what you guys are doing. Absolutely. You can, you can go to our website, link ministries dot com and there's contact there.

You can give their, you can invest in our ministry there. Uh, we keep it fairly minimal because people who we serve, uh, if somebody finds that website and see what we're doing in other countries, it puts them at risk.

Um, and so we keep it fairly minimal. But you can get us there, You can call me 9,168,356,360. You can text, you can send up a smoke signal, Find me, find me on facebook. You can pretty much anywhere, there's coffee, I will be there and I'd be glad to sit down and talk with you.

I'd also be glad to, to encourage and coach anyone along the way. Um, who's, who's, who's working on uh, there's step of faith and saying, man, I think God saying something to me, um, what's next? And uh if I can provide just some insight encouragement for that, I'm always up for that.

Perfect, well thank you Leonard. We really appreciate it. And yeah, thanks for being on the show. All right, thanks guys via Leonard. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Ministry Growth show.

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