Calling Versus Assignment: Why You Never Missed Your Chance to Serve God

There is a moment that happens in a lot of Christian lives, usually around age sixteen, usually at a summer camp, usually during a service designed to stir something up.

Everyone prays. Everyone waits. And some people walk out of that room certain that God has spoken. The rest walk out with a quiet, private verdict about themselves.

I guess I’m not called.

Erik Cooper has described sitting in exactly those services. So has almost every marketplace believer who ended up in accounting, construction, sales, or software instead of a pulpit. The message was never intended to divide anyone. But the language did the dividing anyway.

Here is the correction, and it changes everything downstream.

Calling Is General. Assignment Is Specific.

Dick Brogden, who leads Live Dead and has spent decades among unreached peoples in the Arab world, puts it in three layers.

Calling is what every follower of Jesus shares. It is Jesus and His glory amongst all peoples. It does not vary by person.

Assignment is the specific arena. Pastor. Missionary. Accountant. Business owner. Assignments shift occasionally across a lifetime.

Role is the most granular layer, and it changes constantly.

As Brogden frames it, “Roles change a lot. Assignments change occasionally. Calling never changes. It transcends geography, it transcends personality, it transcends age.”

The practical payoff is enormous. Consider a missionary who believes they are called to Libya. Civil war breaks out. Visas are revoked. A health crisis forces evacuation. Under the old framing, their calling just collapsed. Under the correct framing, nothing happened to their calling at all. The assignment moved to Morocco.

The same logic runs the other direction. When Erik Cooper left twelve years of vocational ministry and found himself renting apartments, the question that haunted him was how the two halves of his life connected. The answer was that they had never been separate. The seat changed. The calling did not.

Rob Ketterling, who has pastored River Valley Church for thirty years, says he uses this same correction with his own staff. Someone will say they are called to be a youth pastor, and he stops them. The calling is the global glory of Jesus. Youth ministry is the assignment, and assignments move.

The Statistic Most Missions-Minded Christians Do Not Know

Ketterling makes a striking admission in this conversation. He has built one of the most missions-obsessed churches in America, sending missionaries by the hundreds and running sixty trips a year. And it was only about eight years ago that he learned the number that reframed his whole understanding.

Here is the math.

Global population sits around eight billion. Of those, roughly seven billion are lost. Of those seven billion, 3.9 billion are unreached.

The difference between lost and unreached is not spiritual condition. It is access.

A lost neighbor in Minneapolis drove past fifteen churches on the way to work this morning. A member of an unreached people group does not know how to find out about Jesus even if they wanted to.

And underneath that category sits something worse. Roughly two thousand people groups are classified as unengaged, meaning no church, no missionary, no Bible school, no known Christians at all. Brogden calls it the tragedy of our day, and Cooper calls it the greatest injustice in the world today, that a person can be born, live, and die without ever hearing the name of Jesus.

Ketterling’s honest reaction when he first ran the numbers was discouragement. How do you move forty-two percent to forty-one? Then he landed somewhere more useful: do what I can and pray for miracles.

Where the Resources Actually Go

The access gap is not primarily a compassion problem. It is an allocation problem.

Brogden lays out two figures that are difficult to sit with. Of all Christian giving, roughly one percent goes to the unreached. Of all Christian missionaries, roughly three percent serve among them.

His question is not that every dollar should be redirected. It is proportional and it is fair: if forty-two percent of the world lacks access, why does one percent of the money follow them?

Part of the answer is uncomfortable. Unreached places are hard, slow, and expensive. We want a hundred dollars to produce a hundred conversions this week. Ten years and a million dollars for one person does not photograph well in a newsletter.

Why the Marketplace Is Now the Access Point

This is the turn that should change how a business owner reads their own resume.

The countries with the least gospel access are precisely the countries that will not issue religious visas. Seminary degrees and the title “reverend” are liabilities at those borders.

Which means the best-prepared people to enter them are people with marketplace credentials. A teacher at a university in Riyadh. An engineer in the oil industry. Someone running a coffee farm in China.

Brogden’s practical menu for business leaders is specific:

• Adopt one unengaged people group and pray for it by name
• Franchise or extend your business into a hard-access region, even as a small office or logistics node
• Hire the emerging global south workforce, professionals from Africa, Asia, and Latin America who need credible professional identity to enter these countries
• Buy assets that serve ministry, as one River Valley business owner did by purchasing an investment property in an unreached country that missionaries now use, while the owner retains the appreciation

His challenge lands on a single point. You cannot change the world. But you might be able to change the forever of one people group.

What Distracts Us

Ketterling names the drift in his own affluent congregation with uncomfortable specificity: toys, tournaments, travel, and treasures. Not scandal. Not heresy. Just the slow gravitational pull of comfort and comparison.

Brogden names a different distraction, and it is more internal. Missions was once plagued by arrogance, which produced paternalism and colonialism. Today the American church suffers the mirror image, which is insecurity. I am too broken to be useful.

His diagnosis is that arrogance and insecurity are the same disease wearing different clothes. Both are pride. And the resolution is a posture shift: we are not going to teach, we are going to learn. Brokenness only disqualifies you if you were supposed to be the solution.

Common Myths Worth Retiring

Myth: local outreach and global missions compete. Ketterling had a youth pastor tell him he was more of a local guy. His answer was blunt: wrong answer. Brogden adds the strategic version. Prioritize the local and you do not automatically get the far. Prioritize the hardest places and the local comes along with it.

Myth: giving is the ceiling of business involvement. Ketterling’s three-tier ask is serve when gathered, serve where gifted, then give. His frustration is watching high-capacity leaders drive the golf cart on Sunday while their actual expertise sits unused.

Myth: give it to God later. Ketterling’s question cuts through the retirement plan: what is a dollar worth today in the Great Commission versus a dollar ten years from now?

Determination Comes First

Brogden closes with a pattern he traces across Scripture. Abraham receives the promise of blessing to all nations, and then fire passes through the covenant pieces. Samson’s parents receive the mission statement, and then the angel ascends in flame. Elijah determines to stand alone against the prophets of Baal, and then the fire falls. Solomon dedicates the temple as a house for the nations, and then the fire falls.

All the way to the upper room, where a group of people who had already determined to reach every nation waited, and then the fire fell.

We have inverted it. We wait for revival, and then we will send. We wait for the fire, and then we will commit.

What if determination comes first?

The Ask

You do not need a new calling. You already have one, and it has not changed since the day you first believed.

What you need is to decide what your assignment will do with it. Pick a people group. Look at your business and ask what it could open. Ask your church what its vision actually costs, and whether you have been sitting on the provision.

Then make the determination and watch what falls.

Start here: thestonetable.org/start

Full Transcript

Erik: All right, we are here today with two dear friends. I’m calling this “a pastor, a missionary, and a business guy have a conversation.” It sounds like the start of a joke.

Rob: It does sound like the start of a joke, doesn’t it?

Erik: We had you guys in today for some meetings, and I could not let you be here at The Stone Table office without having a conversation with you, especially a conversation that we could share with other people. So this is going to be kind of a rapid fire thing. There’s not really a theme to this. It’s going to be all over the map, but I want to pull some wisdom and experience and stories from you guys.

I have Rob Ketterling, pastor of River Valley Church in Minneapolis, the Twin Cities area, and also a member of The Stone Table board of directors.

Rob: Glad to be here.

Erik: And I have my dear friend Dick Brogden, global leader of Live Dead. Missionary, he told me I could use that term. Missionary all over the Arab world amongst unreached people groups. Dick has challenged me in incredible ways, and he’s also responsible for putting me in some of the most uncomfortable positions of my life, which I’m very thankful for. So guys, I’m just glad we could have this dialogue today.

Rob: Likewise. And you may not know this, he was our first missionary. Thirty years ago I said, I want a good first missionary. Who should be the very first missionary we support? Dick and Jen Brogden.

Erik: I mean, he’s done okay.

Rob: He’s done fine. It was a pretty good prognostication. If it was a stock, we’re doing well.

Erik: Well, thank you guys. Thanks for taking a couple minutes to talk about, I don’t know, we’ll just see where this goes. I’m going to throw you some softball questions and see where the Lord leads.

We talk a lot about this idea of calling. Dick, in our breakfast this morning, you brought up this idea of calling and assignment, which I thought was really interesting. Before I press you guys on your own personal journeys, can you unpack that for us a little bit?

Dick: I think where we get in trouble is when we have too specified a calling. Calling is general, and what I believe theologically is that every single follower of Jesus is called to Jesus and His glory amongst all peoples. That’s a calling we share together.

Under that calling, we have different assignments. So Rob’s a pastor, I’m a missionary. Under those assignments, we have different roles. I’ve done different things as a missionary in different places. Rob’s done different things as a pastor. The most fluctuation is at that tertiary level. Roles change a lot. Assignments change occasionally. Calling never changes. It transcends geography, it transcends personality, it transcends age. We are always called to Jesus and His glory amongst all peoples.

Where that’s helpful is, let’s say there’s a missionary called to Libya. If they think that’s where they’re called to, then a government issue, a civil war, a health issue, and they’re kicked out or they can’t stay. They think, what happened to my calling? Nothing. You’re called to Jesus and His glory in all the earth. Go do it in Morocco. Or if the Lord leads you to go pastor, if the Lord leads you into the marketplace. So when you go from marketplace to missions, or from pastoral to marketplace, your calling hasn’t changed. Your calling is steady.

Erik: I love that, Dick, because I had that experience in 2012. I had spent twelve years in full-time vocational ministry and then all of a sudden found myself here renting apartments. I remember those first few weeks. My passion for Jesus is still the driving identifier of my life. So I went from preaching on Sundays to renting apartments on Mondays. How do these two things go together?

And the Lord spoke to me so clearly: your calling’s the same, you just sit in a different seat now. But the global glory of Jesus is our calling. So we always try to encourage marketplace people with that, because they say, I’m not called into ministry. That calling versus assignment vocabulary is just really helpful.

Rob: I love it. And I’ve done that with staff, because they’ll say, I’m called to be a youth pastor. And I’m like, no. You’re called for the global glory of Jesus. You’re in ministry, so you’re one of the fivefold, okay, we get that. But your role is going to change. Your assignment is going to change. And someday your location may have to change. All those are movable. The first one isn’t.

Erik: So if we’re going to use that terminology of calling and assignment, when did the Lord reveal your direction? Maybe tell us a little bit of your personal story about how you ended up in the assignment of pastor, and in the assignment of missionary.

Rob: I was fifteen years old on my first missions trip. I was in the Amazon jungle basin in Brazil, and I remember doing devotions and I just wept. I felt like God said, you’re going to do this for me. You’re going to be called into ministry. I couldn’t explain it. I was fifteen. I just knew it was a moving moment.

I came back and shared it with my parents, and they were like, okay. And I really wanted to be a doctor. The desire in my heart was to be a doctor. I even enrolled at ORU for pre-med. I was going to be a doctor. It wasn’t until a month before school started that I felt God saying, no, I have called you to be a pastor. I thought it was pastor or missionary. I didn’t know. Actually for a while there I thought it clearly was missionary, and then it turned out to be pastor that is sending missionaries and fueling missions.

But I’ve got to tell you, even to this day, I’ll still say to my wife, okay, we’re still called, but should we move? Like, we should start a church in Bangkok. Everywhere I go I fall in love and I see the need and I’m like, we should go. And she’s like, we have our ministry. And until God calls both of us…

Erik: Be careful saying that sitting next to Dick Brogden.

Rob: Trust me, I know. But she knows. So that’s how it happened. Once I laid it down and said, I’m not going to be a doctor, I’m going to be a pastor or missionary or whatever you want me to be. I’ve done youth pastor, lead pastor, I was a worship pastor for a while, and I’ve been able to move around in those positions. I love where I am now. And I prayed this prayer: God, could I pastor one church my entire life? I’m thirty years in on one church.

Erik: That’s awesome. So Dick, what about you? When did you know your assignment was going to be the global mission field?

Dick: Backing up one step, I knew calling when I was sixteen, looking at the stars in the heavens. Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God. There is no language or speech where their voice is not heard. That’s where I settled that whatever I did assignment-wise, I wanted to live for the glory of Jesus amongst the nations. I thought, if stars can glorify Him, how much more the crown of His creation, which is all the peoples of the earth.

So calling was settled at sixteen. Then I went to North Central Bible College, and I loved Africa, and God gave me a heart for Muslims in prayer. And I liked a fight, so I wanted to pioneer. I didn’t want to go where there was a church or Christians. I wanted to go where there was nothing. So the assignment was actually worked out through some of the loves that the Lord had put in my heart. As those loves coalesced, it showed me what my assignment was.

Erik: That is really cool. I wrestled with that a lot as a kid. We’d go to summer camp and there was always a called-into-ministry night, and we would all pray and go, am I called, am I called, am I called? And I always left those services going, no, I guess I’m not called.

I understand what we were doing in those moments. We were trying to spark a passion for people to go into full-time ministry or missions. But if we’re not careful with that language, we can end up creating a bifurcation that we don’t intend to create. I remember telling people, no, I didn’t get the call. I’m just going into the marketplace.

So I love hearing these stories, but I also love framing it for marketplace people to say the global glory of Jesus belongs to all of us. We all sit in different seats on that bus, or as you like to say, Dick, on the apostolic spear. But we all own that calling.

Let’s talk about distractions. Rob, your heart and passion for missions at River Valley is known the world over. I’ve never been to a church that is as passionate for missions as you are. I grew up in a church that I tell people was global missions obsessed, but you guys have taken it to another level. It’s what you’ve built the church around. So tell us what has created that, and what is distracting us now from that passion as the church.

Rob: That was a loaded question there. When I saw outside my circle of my county, Dakota County, and I actually went on my first missions trip, it woke me up. Wait, there are cultures and people that need to know. There are people that have never heard the gospel. When I was awakened to that, I couldn’t shake it. I couldn’t go back to normal.

That was part one. Part two was, I just feel an obligation. If forty-two percent of the world has not had an adequate witness of Jesus Christ, I’m not going to rest on that. I’m going to keep trying to bring the message out. And then I understood lostness versus access. Yes, my neighbor’s lost, but they have access. They drove by fifteen churches this morning. Others have no access. That’s why our church has been consumed with it.

There have been all sorts of prophetic things spoken over us, and that’s why our church is so focused. But even as focused as we are, there’s still the drift. And I’ve put it down to this: there’s toys, because we’re so affluent. There’s tournaments, people love sports and they travel all around the world for their kids and get distracted. And there’s travel. Three T’s that they’re consumed with. And maybe a fourth, treasures, because they’re so consumed with, I don’t have as much as them. So instead of being about giving to missions and staying on mission, we start living to have as much as them.

All these T’s are distracting the local church. Like I told our kids, the world does not revolve around your sports. It revolves around building the church. We’re not going to make it to every game. And if there’s a practice on Sunday, you’re not going, because it doesn’t revolve around your sports. It revolves around building the kingdom.

The church is really distracted, and the “what about us” is very prevalent. That same mission creep is even in Luke, where Jesus tells the story of the prodigal son. The guy at the feast with Jesus is uncomfortable about the way Jesus is teaching, and he goes, blessed are those who eat at the marriage supper of the Lamb. He was saying, here’s to us. We’re in. We’re going to heaven with God. We’re going to paradise.

And Jesus immediately goes to the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son. His heart is for the lost. Instead of saying, aren’t we glad that we’re in, He was saying, aren’t we glad that we’re on mission for the King? So I’ve just lived with that in our church. Let’s not get inward focused. Here’s to those that are not yet here. Live that life.

Erik: Yeah, to look at the table and say, who is not represented here yet.

Rob: And I’m crying. My church teases me. They say, whenever you talk about missions, you cry. It’s our heart. If you cut us open, our heart is global.

Erik: I love that. Dick, talk to us from your perspective as a missionary. What’s distracting us?

Dick: Arrogance and insecurity are manifestations of the same problem, which is pride. If missions in the past was plagued by arrogance, which led to paternalism and colonialism and imperialism, now within our American context we’re so broken and so fragmented, increasingly, as a culture, that I think there’s insecurity of, man, I’m too broken to be a missionary.

The difference is, in missions there’s a misnomer. Sometimes people think we’re going to teach. What if we’re going to learn? And if we’re going to learn, then our brokenness is something the Lord can use. But if we’re going to teach, if we have to have all the answers, if we’re the solution, then brokenness does disqualify us.

So where we could make the turn and perhaps pivot is if we could bring our insecurities to the Lord along with our arrogance and let the cross deal with both. Then we can be fitted for service within these difficult contexts around the world. Our church is increasingly broken, and so there’s so much attention to the local or to the self. That’s a consequence of secularism as well. But if we could just get self off of the throne, put Jesus back on the throne, He could work with our brokenness, and we can go as learners into His fields. From that posture of humility we can still add a lot of value.

Erik: That’s good. I’m going to go a little off book here, because let’s talk about some missions basics. There are some things people don’t quite understand and you guys have swerved into them. Let’s talk about forty-two percent unreached around the world. What does that mean when we say unreached? When we talk about gospel access. Can you guys unpack that a little bit for people who might be watching this?

Rob: Here’s a confession. I was so into missions, and it wasn’t until probably eight years ago that I even realized that stat. And I love missions. We’re trying to send five hundred missionaries from our church alone. When that stat was shared with me, I was shocked to my core.

Then when I started doing the math, I was like, how do we make it from forty-two to forty-one? And I got discouraged. And then I was like, okay, I’m going to do what I can and pray for miracles. So I just want you to know, if somebody doesn’t know this, and I’d love for you to explain it, I didn’t know it, and I was in love with missions.

Dick: So the global population right now is eight billion. Of those eight billion, seven billion are what we call lost. Of those seven billion that are lost, 3.9 billion are what we call unreached. And the difference between unreached and lost is the access issue. Pastor said it. 3.9 billion people around the world don’t know how to find out about Jesus even if they wanted to.

That number is only growing because of global populations. So if you’re a competitive person, this really should bother you, because we’re actually losing. We’re losing ground. We’re not keeping up with birth rates.

An unreached people group is defined two ways. One, numerically, less than two percent evangelical. The other is qualitatively, meaning there are so few, so marginalized, so persecuted, or so afraid, they can’t reach their own. So really it’s higher than forty-two percent. But 3.9 billion people around the world are in this category of not having adequate access to Jesus.

And there’s a subcategory within unreached which is particularly worrisome, and that’s what we call the unengaged. A people group has their own language, culture, religion, and space. But two thousand of them don’t even have a church or a missionary or a Bible school or even Christians that we know of. And that’s probably the tragedy of our day. Two thousand years after the cross and the resurrection, there are still distinct ethnic peoples, the people groups of the Bible, the nations of the Bible, that have nothing. They have no access to Jesus. And that’s the responsibility we all bear.

Erik: I hear people say a lot, why should we care about people around the world when we’ve got lost people right here in our own communities? Rob, I’ve heard you talk about this. I think we’ve created an either-or equation, and it needs to be both-and. And what you just said, Dick, is so key. Yes, we have lost people in our own communities, but they’ve driven by fifteen churches on their way to work today. There are places in the world that have no one, where you can be born, live, and die without ever as much as meeting another believer, let alone hearing someone unfold the gospel to you in a way that you can understand.

So this is what I want people to understand. Yes, we care about our neighborhood. Yes, we care about our workplaces. Of course. We talk about that all the time here at The Stone Table. But all of us need to own what I call the greatest injustice in the world today. The greatest injustice in the world today is that people could be born, live, and die and never even hear the name of Jesus.

Dick, I’ve heard you say too, correct me if I’m wrong, of all the 3.9 billion people, forty-plus percent of the global population is unreached with the gospel. What percentage of Christian giving and resources goes to those forty-plus percent?

Dick: Only one percent of all Christian giving, and only three percent of all Christian missionaries. That is a sobering fact. Most of our money and most of our personnel are going to where there are already Christians, already churches. So the pronouns, even in your illustration. We, our community. We are there in our communities, praise the Lord. But there are so many communities without the we, without the us, without any believers in Jesus.

No one is saying that all missions money should go to the unreached. But if forty-two percent of the world is unreached, shouldn’t forty-two percent of our personnel and our finances go there? Not one percent. Something’s wrong there.

Erik: And the extra problem is those are really difficult places to go.

Dick: That touches on the issue, because we want bang for our buck. We want to give one hundred dollars and see one hundred people get saved, and we want to see that in one week. But what if it takes ten years for one person to get saved, and that costs a million? We’re not so excited about those numbers.

Erik: Rob, how do you preach this to your congregation? How do you instill this in their heart?

Rob: Because it’s not an either-or. We’ve said it’s both. I once had a youth pastor say to me, I’m more of a local guy. I don’t have the heart for the world. I said, wrong answer. They are not exclusive.

So what we’ve had to do is keep it in front of them, because they’re not aware. Keep them focused on mission. We’ve had to present missionaries over and over again. We’ve had to have this culture that calls for sacrifice and giving and generosity and going. We’ll do sixty trips this year, which sounds crazy, but we do.

Erik: Like you said, you were raised in a church that slow-baked you in the Great Commission.

Rob: That’s us. We’re just slow-baking them. Even our missionaries that will do a five-spot, they go in and talk to the kids. We’re starting young with that. So it’s just constantly keeping it in front of them.

Erik: So of course you’re encouraging people to care about their neighbors in the Twin Cities area.

Rob: Yes. We have to reach the people that are all around us each and every day.

Erik: And I don’t know about the conviction that we all ought to be talking about Jesus a whole lot more than we are. It’s like, I only talk about Jesus when I go on a cross-cultural missions trip. We need to encourage people, reach your neighbors, build relationships at your workplace, all of those things. But gospel access.

Rob: Gospel access. We have to.

Dick: And the reality is, if you prioritize the local, you don’t automatically get the far. But if you prioritize the most difficult places and peoples of the world, the Lord blesses that and you get the local as well.

Erik: I don’t know how this question will land, but what would you say to the average Christian? What is something the average Christian dramatically underestimates about their role in the Great Commission?

Rob: I love again that spear illustration that he used. I don’t think they realize that every piece is needed. They’ve got to think of it like the military. There’s somebody who drives, there’s somebody who supplies the fuel lines. They don’t realize that it takes everybody doing their part. They look at what I would say are the flashy parts and say, well, I’m not that, so I’m not. No, you’re in the process. So I think they underestimate that right there.

And I think we also underestimate the power of a million small good deeds. Small obedience, compounded. The more I travel, the more I realize the compounding good of the church, what it’s doing. So I think they get distracted by that and get discouraged.

Erik: I love that. One of the analogies I love, because I’m a Colts fan and I love NFL football: have you ever seen when a quarterback throws a pass to a wide receiver and he’s on the two yard line and the defense stands him up? They’re trying to run to the end zone and the defense stands them up. And then all of a sudden one of the other players runs over and gets behind the guy who has the ball. Then the other guy runs over, and all of a sudden you’ve got this big scrum, and the big uglies, the offensive linemen, come over and they start to push the pile over the goal line.

I like to imagine even marketplace believers that way. We think the missionary, the guy who’s catching the ball, is the only guy who’s important. But all of us need to get behind and push. All of us have a role in that.

Rob: All of us do, except for the Eagles.

Erik: That’s when the analogy breaks down. I was struggling with that. I was going to say the New England Patriots, but that’s an argument for another podcast.

So what would you say to a marketplace believer, an accountant who just gets up and goes to work every day, loves Jesus, but says, I don’t know what to do. How do I engage?

Dick: I love your analogy, and I thought of a piano player trying to do a minuet with three fingers. How God designed this is so beautiful. It’s such a rich mosaic, not only of all the peoples of the world, but of how all the different variegated parts of the church engage. We don’t get the sweet music unless we have all of our fingers playing, even our pinkies.

I have a friend, his name’s Bob Stock. He’s a Harvard graduate and he went into corporate America. But Bob Stock lives, eats, and breathes unreached people groups. If you took them away from him, he’d wither up and die, because he loves Jesus so much and he loves the nations. He has never been called to be a missionary. He’s been in corporate America all of his life. Now he’s retired and he’s the missions chair at his church, he does prayer meetings, and he’s training missionaries to go. So he’s never, ever left corporate America, but he has lived his whole life for the glory of Jesus amongst the nations, with the priority on the unreached.

It’s such a beautiful picture of what I think Jesus wants for every marketplace person. Whether in our prayer, whether in our finances, whether in our sending, discipling others. Every person in the marketplace can live wherever they are in the world for the global glory of Jesus. And when they do, it is enriching not only to them, but to everyone around them.

Erik: So beautiful.

Rob: We had John Bevere speak at our men’s event and he talked about, you’re going to give account for what God called you to be. He said there are so many people that are running businesses that want to be pastors, or pastors that want to run businesses. And he said, you’re going to stand before God for what He called you to, the lane He wanted you in. Don’t get upset. Flourish in the lane you were created for.

It ministered to all of our guys, because I had guys say, the only way I can make a difference is if I quit my job and join Pastor Rob on the staff. And afterwards they’re like, wait, I can glorify God by running my business. Having that sphere of influence, having an influence in the community for the gospel, and raising great resources for the gospel. And they’re like, I’m on this team. It really set them free. I hear from guys all the time, I think I just want to quit my job and join them. And I’m like, no. We work hard too. Go where your lane is, do what you’re called to do, and let’s do this together.

Erik: Almost like, I’ve wasted forty years of my life in the marketplace, and so maybe the Lord will let me in the last five years of my life do something that really matters for Him. I think we’ve got to get people thinking differently, not only about how they approach their work every day, but that they are part of this calling to the glory of Jesus amongst the nations.

Just a couple more questions. Dick, where are we seeing opportunities for marketplace people in missions? Sometimes people are like, I’m a business guy, I’m an accountant, I’m an engineer, I’m not a Bible school graduate. I would never have a place in missions. And I think you’re seeing something completely different happening out there.

Dick: The places that remain unengaged with the gospel are not conducive for those who have seminary degrees or “reverend” in front of their name. In fact, missionary or church-related visas are impossible to get in many of these countries. Therefore the best-prepared people to go into these countries that need creative access are those who have marketplace experience. Whether that is taking a job as a teacher at a university in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, or whether that’s starting something like a coffee farm in China.

So there are so many opportunities for marketplace people to actually gain access into places that a traditional minister cannot access. What a wonderful convergence we have in our day, as the marketplace man and woman realize that everything they have done is a preparation for them to be able to give gospel access into Somalia, into Libya, into Syria, into Afghanistan. If we can have this awakening, we will by God’s grace be able to present Jesus to hundreds, thousands of people groups that never have heard of Him.

Erik: Rob, I know we always like to talk about more ways for business people and marketplace leaders to be involved beyond just giving. But I don’t want to shy away from giving. I don’t want to shy away from generosity, and this is huge for you. If there are business people out there watching this or seeing a clip of this, what do you say to your high-capacity business people when it comes to how they use their resources to fulfill the Great Commission?

Rob: It reminds me of a teaching that I did for our church. I said, we need you to serve when we’re gathered. When we’re gathered together, we need you to be an usher, a greeter. Everybody needs to do something when we’re gathered. But don’t stop there. We want you to serve where you’re gifted. If you run a company, don’t just park cars for us on Sunday. Say, how can I bring my gift into the church to help us fulfill the Great Commission? And then the third one would be in your generosity. How can you leverage and live differently with your generosity to move the needle?

I’m shocked when I see these high-level people and they’re driving the golf cart at their church. They think, I’m serving the King. You are, technically, but you’re way underperforming for the gifts and talents that He’s given you. So serve the King with your gifts and talents in the church. If you’re a lawyer, if you’re a media producer, whatever it is that you do, use that talent for the church as well, without charge. What a great way to help. And then also leverage the gift that you have to make wealth to fuel the Great Commission.

That’s very biblical. Luke talks about the three women that supported the ministry. I’m so grateful that he talked about how Jesus didn’t just always make gold coins in the mouth of the fish. These ladies paid the bills. So I’m like, can you pay the bills? Can you use your gifts? And can you also, when we’re gathered together, just don’t stop driving the golf cart.

Erik: So maybe just a last question here. Dick, from your seat, what would you say to a Christian business person, an entrepreneur, who sincerely wants to leverage their life, their influence, and their resources for the global glory of Jesus? How would you encourage them?

Dick: I would ask them to begin praying for an unengaged people group. You can do that at doxa.life. You can sign up for one. I would encourage them to leverage their gift, as Rob said, and their assets for gospel access amongst that people group. Whether that’s opening a branch of their company, whether that’s supporting missionaries who go to that people group, whether that’s offering some type of business covering for those who are engaging in that area. The Stone Table can resource them.

But I would say, rather than just being super generalist, is there one unengaged people group whose history you could change forever? Even as you’ve been creative within your sector, could you take all that creativity and leverage it so that you can’t change the world, but you could change the destiny of one unengaged people group? Would you pray about that, research that, and then see what you could do to change the forever of that people group?

Erik: I’m really interested in something you just said there, because you talked about some practical ways and I don’t want to gloss over that. Obviously when we think about BAM, we think about entrepreneurship and actually starting a business in another country. But you talked earlier about taking a job in a difficult place, working in the oil industry in Saudi Arabia. Some people could have a job that is portable. Maybe they could do that job here, or they could do it in California, or they could do it in North Africa. That’s another way to go.

You also said, if you have a successful business here, could you franchise that? Could you open an office of your successful business in a hard-to-reach place? Can you press into that a little bit?

Dick: One of the challenges we have right now is we have a huge workforce emerging from the global south, from Africa, from Asia, from Latin America, but they don’t always have the resources to be able to enter these difficult countries. But if a businessman in the States would franchise his business and create even an office, or a logistical center, or some kind of freelance option, and then look at intentionally hiring these men and women within the profession that are gifted from the global south, so that they would have credible professional identity in these contexts, this could be a huge way for us to have gospel access where it hasn’t existed.

Erik: So maybe if you’re out there listening to this and you’re like, I’ve got a successful business here and absolutely we could open a branch in some other part of the world that is void of gospel access, reach out to us here at The Stone Table. We’ll connect the dots for you.

Rob, let’s press into this with you as well. You’re sitting across from an entrepreneur, a business owner, a business leader in your church, and they sincerely want to leverage their life and influence for the Great Commission. What are you saying to them?

Rob: I’m copying that right there. Seriously. No, because I’m saying those same types of things. How can you leverage us for the kingdom of God? What can you do more? I’ve had guys say to me, I’ve got all the money I need and I’m thinking about retiring. I’m like, could you work for three more years and give it all to the kingdom? Knowing what you make, if you did three more years, that’ll move the needle, and you could literally be working for the Great Commission just giving the resources. That’s a challenge.

Or, can you take your skill set and bring it somewhere else? We have a lot of people that do BAM in our church, business as mission, and we have a lot of people doing that, even buying properties and places and assets. But we haven’t had anybody start a franchise yet.

Dick: If I can brag on what he just said, and it happened with Rob’s blessing. A business guy in his church bought an investment property in one of our unreached countries and allows us to use it for ministry purposes. It’s a huge blessing. It saves us on operational costs. So that’s even a very simple, practical thing. And the businessman still owns it, and it will return to him twenty years from now. The Lord will bless that value increase on his property, but in the meantime we’re getting decades of ministry use out of this very critical center in the Middle East.

Rob: I think there’s something huge there. Here’s what I would say to the businessman. They all think, I’ll work and I’ll make money and I’ll do my thing, and then someday I’ll give it to God. And I’m like, now. Give it to God because He promises thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold, and you’re putting into the kingdom economy. What are you holding back? What is a dollar worth today in the Great Commission versus a dollar ten years from now? So I’m like, get it into the kingdom as fast as possible and you’ll get more. I don’t want to say bet on yourself, but they are. Don’t bet on yourself and your gifts. Get it into the kingdom. And then get around other people that think the same way.

I share the story of The Stone Table all the time. I tell our business people, from an idea at a breakfast, two guys have turned this into a multimillion dollar generosity factory for the kingdom. And I’m like, what are you dreaming about? What are you dreaming about for the kingdom? Use your creativity, go for it.

Erik: I don’t want to insult any of our founders, because they are brilliant guys. One of them happens to be my father. But I think they would tell you, we didn’t know whether this would work. We’re not some brilliant strategists here. We just saw an opportunity and stepped into it and said, how can we use this for the global glory of Jesus?

As I look back on it, I’ve been in leadership here for almost fourteen years now, and all I can tell you is we’ve just been faithful to make sure this belongs to the Lord. The breath on it has come from Him. So that’s what I would say to anybody out there. Just that posture, that open-handed posture to say, I’ve got assets, I’ve got business skills, I’ve got these things, and Lord, I want to use them so that the nations can know Jesus.

I’m not saying you won’t go through difficult seasons, because I can tell you some really, really hard seasons. But I can tell you, you can rest assured when you go to bed at night that you are living in alignment with the desire and the will of God.

So any last thoughts, guys, that you would want to share?

Dick: I would like to take three minutes. Can I take three minutes?

Erik: Yes, you can.

Dick: I want to do a canonical review, because I think there’s a misnomer in understanding fire and determination. That’ll make sense in a moment.

Abraham, Genesis 12, he is told he’ll be a blessing to all the nations of the world. After that determination, Genesis 15, God appears in an epiphany of a flaming pot of fire and walks through the covenant pieces.

Samson’s parents are told that their son would deliver the people from the Philistines. This is a mission statement. After that, the angel ascends in fire.

Elijah makes the determination to stand for God before 400 prophets of Baal and 450 of Asherah. So it’s a missions determination. After that, the fire falls.

Solomon dedicates the temple and says it will be a place for all the nations to come, if the foreigners come. After that, the fire falls.

The three Hebrew guys: we’re not going to bow to these idols. That’s before 127 different nations in this great empire. After that, the fourth man in the fire.

All the way to Pentecost. And somehow we have got into our heads that the fire fell and then there was a determination to reach the nations. But they’d been commissioned to reach every nation, and between Passover and Pentecost every day the Jewish people would pray Psalm 67. Let the nations be glad, let all the peoples praise You. They knew the deal. So they come to the upper room, and it wasn’t waiting for a determination. They had determined to reach the nations. Peter, you in? Yeah. Andrew, you in? Yeah. Philip, let’s do this. And then the fire falls.

We have a misunderstanding that we’re kind of waiting, as business guys or marketplace people, for the fire to fall on us, and then we’ll make this determination to reach the nations. Or in the churches, wait for revival, then we’ll send missionaries. But what if it’s the other way around? What if we make a determination that we’re going to live for the glory of Jesus, and then the fire falls? Because Jesus is so happy, He sends the fire on our businesses, or the fire in our church.

So my heart and plea to everybody in the marketplace is, go ahead and make the determination. Live for the glory of Jesus. You do that, and the fire will fall.

Erik: That’s so good. Did you preach that on Pentecost Sunday?

Dick: I did.

Erik: That’s good. So Rob, I’ll leave you with the same question, and you get to follow that from Dick. Any thoughts in closing for somebody who might be hearing this? We talk to a lot of marketplace people who are believers and just want their life to count.

Rob: I’m thinking about something with pastors, and then I’ll go to marketplace. With pastors, I keep saying, dream a big enough dream and vision for the amount of resources God has placed in your church. Because the business leader is saying, does my church have a vision big enough for the resources God has asked me to steward?

I see a lot of frustrated business people who are like, my church doesn’t have a vision. Carpet, keep the lights on. I think pastors need to live on vision, because those people are going to have to be good stewards, they’re going to have to give account for what they have and use for His glory. So help them. Pastors should do that.

And then, business leaders, don’t play catch me if you can. Aggressively bring your gift. I can’t imagine, and sorry, I get kind of choked up about this too, if I was in the marketplace and I played coy with my church of, call me, ask me when you need something, let me know if I like it. I wouldn’t do that. I would be like, these are the resources that I have that God has asked me to steward. How can we partner together? And here’s how much I want to give. I would take that posture. Now, I know most don’t.

But I do have families in my church that do that. They say, we’re going to live differently, and here’s what you can count on. How can we change the world together? It makes all the difference. They didn’t start their own foundation. They actually brought their gifts into the local church and said, how can we use this for God’s glory, and how can we use our gifts?

So I would say to the marketplace leader, please don’t sit back and wait. Your pastor might even be intimidated by the resources you have. Bring the provision for the vision, and let’s get this world changed.

The other day my son asked me, he said, you all say you have 250 million dollars worth of vision. If somebody came to you, write it down. So I wrote it down, all the things that I would do. And by the time we were done, he goes, it’s almost 500 million. And I was like, I know. And he’s like, people need to hear that and know that there’s vision in your heart to do that, and they can bring these resources in and we can change the world together.

So don’t sit on the periphery and wait to be engaged. Fight your way into being engaged in the church and using your gifts. You will give an account, not for the fact of whether your pastor asked you, but for what did you do with it. So I would fight my way into using my gifts and talents for the glory of God. I couldn’t sit by and just wait. I couldn’t do it.

Erik: Pastor Rob Ketterling, missionary Dick Brogden, thank you for the honor of having this conversation with you today. I’m honored to call you both friends, and thank you for leading the way and challenging and encouraging all of us that the nations matter to Jesus. And that if we build our lives and our ministries and our businesses around that, we have no idea what God is capable of doing. So what an honor to talk with you guys today.

Rob: Thank you.

Dick: Thank you, Erik. Our privilege.