Interview with JJ Washington

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to Missionize with the Missions Guys, a podcast of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention offering biblical and practical insight and strategies designed to equip and encourage missions leaders to carry on mission work. The goal is to fulfill the great commission from a church's local community to the ends of the earth. That is why we missionize. Now, here are your hosts, the Missions guys, Sam Roberts and Clint Richie. [00:00:31] Speaker B: Welcome to Mission Eyes. Thank you for joining us today. I am Clint here with the co host Dr. Sam, and we are recording at the annual evangelism conference Econ. And we have been. We're on the second day here. We've been challenged through God's word, through some of God's men, and we are blessed today to have one of those. Join us on this episode of mission eyes. J.J. washington is the director of personal evangelism from the North American Mission Board. And so, jj, thank you for joining us today, man. [00:01:00] Speaker C: My pleasure. I'm grateful for the opportunity. Thank you. [00:01:02] Speaker D: Awesome. Now, jj, when we have a guest on our podcast, we of course we have good number of questions we want to walk through that pertain to missions within the church. But we also want those who listen to get to know our guests a little better. So Clint's got some questions he wants to pose to you. Just some personal type things, just rapid fire to let us know you just a little better. [00:01:29] Speaker C: Okay. [00:01:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Deep theological truths, such as your favorite meal. [00:01:34] Speaker C: Seafood. I'm a seafood guy all the way. [00:01:37] Speaker D: And we learned this morning it's not the eggs at. [00:01:46] Speaker C: Seafood brother. All day, all day. [00:01:49] Speaker B: Favorite restaurant. [00:01:50] Speaker C: You know what I like? Papados. Y'all have that here? [00:01:53] Speaker D: No, sir, we don't have one. [00:01:55] Speaker C: It's like a New Orleans cuisine. Yes, sir. Yeah. So yeah, that's one of my favorites. [00:01:59] Speaker B: What's your go to relaxation spot? [00:02:02] Speaker C: You know what? My couch. I'm a lazy boy. [00:02:07] Speaker D: Yes. [00:02:07] Speaker C: The best something that I do is when I do nothing. Man. I tell you, I love to relax on that joker. [00:02:12] Speaker B: All right, besides the Bible, what's your favorite book? [00:02:15] Speaker C: You know, the most impactful one is. And it's a work, but it's experiencing God. And I've gone through it a couple of times and it'll always be the number one for me. Yeah, outside of the Bible, what about your favorite podcast? You know, I brought a podcast guy. I don't really do a lot of podcasts. Yeah, mainly reading the Word, man. I mean, yeah, if I listen to sermons, you know, love listening to Charles Stanley, those type of guys still, you know, so. Yeah. [00:02:41] Speaker B: Okay. Favorite genre of music. [00:02:43] Speaker C: Gospel. Yeah. Yeah, the old gospel, man. Yeah. Love those. Love those songs. So most of my experience when I got saved was in the black church and so still love those. A lot of those songs. Yeah. [00:02:56] Speaker B: What was the first concert you attended? [00:02:58] Speaker C: You know, I went to a KB concert with my son. I think Lecrae was there and all that. That was the first concert I ever been to and I took him to it. So. Yeah, it was a good experience, though. [00:03:09] Speaker B: Favorite place to visit. [00:03:10] Speaker C: Favorite place to visit. I love going to the beach. You know, we always try to find some water and it doesn't really matter to the city as long as it's around the Gulf. I like the Gulf more than anything, so. Yeah. [00:03:21] Speaker B: All right. And last one, favorite sport? [00:03:24] Speaker C: Oh, football. All day long. All day long. [00:03:27] Speaker D: Now, we learned that you played football as well. [00:03:29] Speaker C: Yes, correct. [00:03:30] Speaker D: And what position? [00:03:31] Speaker C: So I played cornerback in college at NC State and that's where I got saved. [00:03:35] Speaker D: Yeah. Awesome, man. Awesome. [00:03:37] Speaker B: Well, if you have any eligibility left. That was a weakness for Arkansas secondary this past season and seasons passed so we could work on nil deal, maybe. [00:03:48] Speaker C: Funny story. Houston Nut recruited me. [00:03:51] Speaker D: Did he really? [00:03:52] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I almost came out here. I almost did. But I chose NC State and it worked out. I got saved there. But I remember he called me and he'd been here like a year at that time, and they had a good run and they were really trending up and they did well in his leadership, but I ended up going to NC State. [00:04:07] Speaker D: I'm sure you're following as well. Jj, what's happening on college campuses now, especially with this kind of revival movement that's happening among football teams. [00:04:17] Speaker C: Yeah, that too. NC State and all those teams. Yeah. [00:04:20] Speaker D: Awesome stuff. [00:04:21] Speaker C: It is, it is. [00:04:22] Speaker D: Hey, speaking of that, with trends that we see within the church, one of the individuals that we like to read and kind of dialogue back and forth on is Kerry Newhoff. Carrie, every year comes up with what he calls his disruptive trends that he sees within the church. One of those that he mentioned in a recent article that I want us to spend a few moments hearing from you on is this one. He said evangelism is on life support in most churches. And we look at the numbers, I mean, we look across our own tribe, Southern Baptist Convention, and even here within Arkansas Baptist churches. And even though since COVID we've seen an increase in the number of baptisms that in no way comes close to where we were. So there's a decrease there. We also read articles that let us know on research that the number of pastors today who say their church is very effective at outreach at evangelism to non churchgoers dropped from 13% in 2015, which is not that great, to 1% in 2023. Just. It's staggering. And even among those churches that are experiencing growth, many of those are experiencing not growth from salvations, but transfer, transfer, growth. Matter of fact, within Southern Baptist Convention, I think it's Tom Raynor who said 43% of our Southern Baptist churches had no converts, no baptisms in the calendar year, and another 38% baptized between one and five people. How do we address this issue, JJ? [00:06:29] Speaker C: You know, that's a great question. You know, one of the things. And when I meet pastors, these brothers, they want to share the gospel. I mean, they got into the gospel ministry and they want to lead their churches to be evangelistic. Most of the guys that I meet, what I've seen the tension is, is how do I lead my church to be evangelistic? And so one of the things that we tried to do is go in a different direction because normally NAM has put out things like, you know, it could be either a. Most churches evangelist strategy have to be a personality. Let's say it's a preacher. He's really, you know, a harvest type preacher, and he can draw the net and people get saved. But then when he leaves, the evangelism in, the church goes with him. You know what I mean? And so the church thinks. So it's either a personality or sometime it's a program, or we do this program, but then the program may dry up, you know. And so what we've tried to really focus on is not so much a personality or program, but a culture. And so how can, what actions and what principles, what process can we give to pastors to help them build that culture? And that's where I've seen the, the most help with pastors come in. Like, man, this is very helpful. Thank you for giving us that. Then it was a tool for a while. Here's the tool. Use this tool and it'll work out. You know, so. So really focusing on culture is where we got to go. We got to lean into that and helping pastors with that. [00:07:49] Speaker D: Okay, speak to that a little bit more because we know there's the evangelism kit that was rolled out recently. And as pastors, you know, I pastored 35 years before coming here to the state convention. And Clint has served as a local church pastor as well prior to coming here. And we remember those days where it seemed like every year you know, there was another program, a box, Evangelism box. You know, open this box, and it's going to change in the church. And it doesn't. [00:08:23] Speaker C: No, it doesn't. [00:08:24] Speaker D: Yeah. So what's the difference between those programs and this evangelism kit? What's involved in creating that culture? [00:08:38] Speaker C: Yeah. When it first came out, another guy was like, what is this, four circles now? You know, So I was like, no, no, it's not another tool. So really, what we try to focus on. Because here's what I found with pastors, and I try to summarize the main three barriers for sharing the gospel with F. So the first one is fatigue. And so a lot of times with pastors is fatigue. I mean, they're burnt out, you know, overworked, and dealing with, you know, tensions in the church that have fatigued them. Preaching a lot, whatever, just fatigue. And so a lot of times when you're in that space, you're not thinking about saving anybody. You're just trying to keep your own head above water. Right. And so what we tried to do to address that was start with focusing on soul care. So a lot of times when you go to evangelism training, we just jump right to the how to. Right? We don't. We. And then we assume that there's. There's health, soul care, and all those things are happening, and we shouldn't. So we should start there first. All right. And dealing with the soul care piece. And if there are. There are issues that come up there, let's address those. If there's issues going on in family, let's. Let's help them get the care they need. If there's issues going on personally, burnout, fatigue, let's address that. All right. And then moving from there into that deepening of their devotion with the Lord. Because evangelism should be out of the overflow. Right. Of our relationship with Jesus. So starting there and other Fs. When dealing with members, what I see is fear, and then the other one is failure. But they've got the wrong definition of failure. Sometimes when they share the gospel, right. Someone doesn't get saved. They assume they failed. Right. So they have changed the definition. The success is the obedience. So when you share the gospel, failure is when you don't share the gospel. So we try to clean that up that way. But moving on. So starting with the soul care and then moving into. Okay, now let's take a fresh look at your context, where your church is located. This is your Jerusalem. We got to go here before we Jump over to the Sumerian ends of the earth, right? So right here. And what we found, discovered is a lot of times those communities in which our churches are located have, have transitioned. They don't look like they did 126 years ago. And so the strategy that you had in, you know, 1926 ain't going to work in 2025 because your community is completely different. It's a completely different challenges. There are completely different people here. Who's here, right? What are the language they speak, what are their beliefs? So let's understand the context that we're in, like a missionary would. If they're coming to your in that area, they're going to take the time to understand who's there, what their language spoken, et cetera, barriers, challenges, et cetera, find bridges to the gospel. All right, then moving from there. All right, let's shift into. Okay, now we've understand our context. Let's also now focus on the equipping of our people. And what is that going to look like in our context? And that can look different in every context. But what I always try to encourage pastors to do is leverage the rhythms that you already got in place. What I mean is you got D groups going on. You got Sunday schools going on. You got, you know, men's groups and women's groups going on and all this stuff. Just instead of adding, you know, just try to leverage and bake and bake it into there, some equipping into there. And don't make it complicated when it comes to that piece, because one of the things that Paul says in First Corinthians 15, he says, For I delivered, I delivered to you that which I first also received. Right? So what he did, he received the gospel and he went to Corinth and he delivered it to him. Right? And so if your people are like, man, I hate tools. I don't want to remember anything. I'm not good at memorization. You don't have to. What did you receive? I received the gospel. What's the gospel? Christ died for our sins. Court of scriptures. He's buried, Rose again. Third day. Court of scriptures. Deliver that. Don't make it hard. All right, but if they want tools, guess what? We got scores of them at North American Mission Board. Best news, three circles. Whatever you want, right? They're there. Ee still out there. Fake whatever. They're there. All right, now, so the equipping piece then. Now it's the engagement piece. How can we help our folks to engage? And what I tell pastors here and tell me if I'm talking too much, I'll stop. [00:12:46] Speaker D: No, no, keep going, brother. I'm taking notes. [00:12:49] Speaker C: Okay? So in the engage piece, a lot of times, and I used to do this, too, I stand up, all right? My church was in Austell. Listen, we're going to reach Austell with the gospel and go now and reach them, right? And we're firing them up, and we're telling them to go, right? But they walk out the door and they see all these people, and they're like, oh, Lord, I don't even know where to start. There's so many people. There's my neighborhood, there's my job. There's my aunties and cousins, and, oh, man, where do. I've overwhelmed them. So a good strategy is just to say, just figure out maybe one person in those spaces. And I just tell them to, you know, write down a few names. All right? Everyone that saved, just put a cross next to them. If you're unsure of their salvation, put a question mark. If they're not. If you know they're not saved, just put an X and then pray and ask God to give you one of those persons to start with. And just start there. That's your focus. That's your strategy. All right? So now they're not overwhelmed. And I brought it down to a level where they can, you know, get in, and then you got to kind of help them with even giving them some. Some encouragement on how they can, you know, get, get, get, get engaged in conversation. And some ways they can connect with those folks. And so you can give them, you know, different things, like just tell them, hey, just redeeming this time. If it's Thanksgiving and they coming over, if it's, you know, the holidays or if you're going to a cookout, if you're at your child's football practice and you sit with her all the time as y'all watch the kids, there's the. You're just redeeming the time, right. That you already have. You're not adding to the schedule. Start the conversation at some point. Transition. And transition is going to either happen if you open the door or if they open the door, they can open the door by. They might say something that may be spiritual, and you can lean into that with the gospel. Other times, you may have to open the door yourself by changing the conversation and just asking the question. [00:14:43] Speaker D: Yeah. During the sermon that I just heard that you presented, you introduced a new concept to me. This is awesome. You called it the five minute principle. [00:14:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:14:57] Speaker D: Let folks Know what are you talking about? [00:14:58] Speaker C: Yeah. So if you, if you just having casual conversation and, and you're. And you're just talking with somebody and five minutes or more go by and you don't know their spiritual situation. Share the gospel. That might be the one thing that you say, anytime that happens, I'm just going to share the gospel. I'm going to take that as an opportunity to share the gospel. You know, that's something that I've learned just in my reading, that. That principle, that's not original to me. Another one is if somebody just come to your house and you might have people that work on your home or clean things up or whatever, and you say every time they come, because usually it's a different person, right? That every time there's a different best guy or whatever, I'm gonna share the gospel. You know, I'm gonna take that as an opportunity to share the gospel. And so you're encouraging these gospel conversations to happen with your folks, and then you gotta preach on it. And we always preach the gospel and we always make a beeline to the gospel and we always give an invitation to respond. But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about preaching on the subject of evangelism. A lot of times we're not preaching on it enough in the church. The why, the what, the who should be involved. Because a lot of people say, well, that's what the evangelist is supposed to do. No, the evangelist does share the gospel, but he's also there to equip the church to be effective in sharing the gospel. That's what Ephesians 4:11 says. [00:16:15] Speaker D: Exactly what it says. [00:16:16] Speaker C: But we all have the responsibility to do the work of the events. But that's what Paul told Timothy. And Timothy was an evangelist. He was pastoring at Ephesus. And Second Timothy, Chapter four, verse five. So. So you're trying to find those passages in there. Like Colossians 4, Ephesians 6, 18, 20, Acts 8 with Philip is rich with personal evangelism stuff. But you're just preaching on this over and over again, maybe a quarterly, at least, just to try to build that into the DNA of the church. And then you, you're tracking things like you're tracking gospel conversations. You find a way to do that. You're celebrating those. You're celebrating baptism. Sometimes I go to baptism services and I'm confused. I feel like I'm at a funeral. I don't know what I'm at. I'm confused. I'm confused. I'm confused. Because the Bible says heaven's rejoicing over one. Right? [00:17:02] Speaker B: I'm on. [00:17:02] Speaker C: Right? And then we're down here acting like everybody saying, you know, and so I don't get it, man. Like, make it a big deal. Make it a big. Because it is a big deal, you know? And so as you're celebrating those things that are happening, the obedience, et cetera, and you're constantly. And these are cyclical. These are not one and dones. Because we all, if we're honest, we find ourselves in different places in different seasons. You know, there's been times I tell people, honestly speaking, I felt like, you know, Elijah on Mount Carmel facing the prophets, and then I felt like him when he was running from Jezebel. You know what I mean? I mean, listen. I mean, listen, there's been moments when I'm like that, yes, sir. Another time I felt like a coward. Okay, so there's different seasons. And so we always need to be examining ourselves and seeing where we are in terms of our soul health and those type of things. And we also need to be looking at our community because it constantly changes. And we also need to be constantly encouraging our folks and how they can engage and help them, because methods may change. And then we always need to be celebrating. So these are cyclical things. [00:18:06] Speaker D: And what JJ has just done. Clinton, we just finished our first year of this podcast, and he has summed up the entire first year of our podcast. This is awesome. Awesome. [00:18:19] Speaker C: Oh, goodness. My bad. [00:18:22] Speaker D: No, that's great, brother. [00:18:24] Speaker B: You talked about the One, and, you know, people go out again and you talk about all the masses and it's overwhelming. But to talk about, you know, praying for one person and sharing the gospel with one. You know, several years ago, Nam had the initiative. Who's your one? Yes. Was there anything you can share, any data or any attraction that you guys saw with that that would encourage folks not to give up on the one? [00:18:52] Speaker C: No, definitely don't. And here's the deal. So when. When we came. So backing up. So Nam kind of was doing a lot of tools back in the day, Right. You had three circles and all that stuff. And then they went to one who's your one? Which is a. A great, I would say, strategy, because it doesn't really get into how to share the gospel. It's just saying, pray for one, share the gospel with one. Right. So it's, It's. It's assuming that you have that piece already a tool or something like that. Right. So what we did when we came in the door is so who's your one? Is still something that we. We. We push, but we're not necessarily going into churches and training on who's your one? What we've done is we've shifted. What we're focusing on is we're focusing on training pastors and resourcing them to then so they can then go back and equip their folks. So if a pastor comes to a NAMM training, we're giving them the process on how to build that culture. We're giving them resources, and then we're encouraging them to then go back and equip those folks in their church with those resources, like a who's your one? Strategy, like a three circles or a best news to go along with who's your one? Et cetera. The reason why we did that, because my team has 11 people, and there's 47,000 churches in our family, and we can't cover the whole territory, so we had to shift. So prior to that, Nan was flying into churches and doing a Hoosier one and all that. And so now we've kind of shifted and focused on the pastor. But a lot of good stuff came out of that, and you'd be surprised. I meet people and they're like, what's that thing? Who's your one? They still don't know. And it's amazing how long it takes stuff to get to the grassroots level in SBC life. Like, it's 10 years, and they're just hearing about it. But a lot of good stuff came out and answered your question. They were actually tracking the number of people when they were doing those trainings who were actually signing up to pray and stuff like that. But we're no longer tracking that now. [00:20:47] Speaker D: So you talked about training that's provided for our pastors through NAM on creating this culture of evangelism. Where do we go to find that? What's it called? You know, that sort of thing? [00:20:58] Speaker C: Yeah, it's called the NAMM Evangelism Kit, and it teaches a process on how to build a culture of evangelism. We offer the trainings. We do them around the country. We got them on our website. You go to NAM evangelism.com and you can see where we'll be in 25. And what we've also done is we've trained state convention leaders. So we had Bob come out from Arkansas Baptist, and he brought about six or seven guys with him, and we trained all of them. And they're. They're. They're going across the state training. So if you're a pastor in this state, you can connect with Arkansas Baptist and they can definitely help you out. We did that again because we realized that we were not going to get be able to get across this massive landscape of North America. So we've trained a lot of convention leaders, but that's what it's called. You can get it for free. There's one free per church online. You can also access it there. But I encourage you to take advantage of it. We've gotten great feedback so far. [00:21:51] Speaker D: Jj, you told us the story yesterday of the church in Atlanta that you were called to to serve as a pastor, kind of a revitalization replant. We are. That is a major focus among the Arkansas Baptist State Convention. It's something that we're developing now with a team from NAMM coming in and doing some workshops. And we're putting together a network across our state to provide for churches that sense a need to revitalize or this replanting. Can you just kind of share with us for a few moments what are some of the insights, the lessons you learned, maybe some of the potential roadblocks to avoid as our pastors begin to look at information that we're going to provide throughout this year on revitalization replant. And they say, man, we need that. [00:22:58] Speaker C: We need that. That's good. [00:23:00] Speaker D: What word can you give to them? [00:23:02] Speaker C: Well, I'm excited to hear that you're doing it because we do need to have an emphasis on that. I know a lot of guys like to, you know, do the planning route, and we do need to plan, and that's real popular. But we need guys that will answer the call to go to revitalize and replant too, just as much. And some of the things I would say coming into the gate is, first of all, you know, when I went into the church that I took, my first thing was to really just build relationship with those people and love on those people. And you're going to have to move at a pace that they can handle. It's not like the planner where you go in and there's no preexisting rigidity or structure and you can just run and there's all this excitement. When you go into a replant, it's totally different. A lot of times the folks that you're dealing with are demoralized. They haven't seen a move of God in years. They're discouraged and they need to be, you know, motivated and inspired through the preaching of God's word. That, that, that these bones can Live again. You know what I mean? And so, and so you got to come in and do that and cast vision for that and help them to see that and move in that direction. And then it's just going to be as simple as you as the leader, you got to get out and lead. I mean, you gotta, you gotta model it. I mean, you gotta be, you know, you gotta be willing to go in here and preach and then go in there and put your. Your tennis shoes on and go knock on some doors. And so it's, it's all hand. Me and my wife used to tease each other. She used to come down and help me with some administrative stuff a couple of hours out of the day, and she'd be like, hey, we got a oil. I mean, a water spill in the, in the fellowship hall. And I say call maintenance. And. But I'm maintenance. You know what I mean? You gotta have a sense of humor in this. Right? And so, but anyway, you're going to be doing all those things. I had to be the pastor, the youth pastor, the everything. So. But the point is, is, man, we really need guys that'll answer and it'll bless you. When you go in and you can see God begin to move and see revival happen in the remnant that remains, and they begin to catch it, and they begin to see that God move and see those winds, man, it is awesome. But the main thing I would say is go in and love on them, encourage them, be willing to come down and, and build those relationships, and then help them to see what God can do. [00:25:24] Speaker D: Awesome. [00:25:25] Speaker B: As we begin to wrap up, you just challenged us again this morning. A great message. And one of the things you were talking about, obviously praying evangelistically, but one of the things that really stood out to me is when you talked about speaking graciously. And, you know, it's easy as a pastor to get caught up in the prophetic voice. There's so many things to speak against. Would you just talk about and leave us maybe with a final word of encouragement? All here together. But as we go, as we're praying, as we're looking for the one, how do we do that? Graciously and just pointing people to Jesus? Yes. Not loving sin, but loving sinner. [00:26:09] Speaker C: Right? Exactly. Yeah, definitely. Definitely not compromising on the gospel or the word of God ever. And we can, we can still be gracious and disagree on some things when it comes to that. Right. But I don't want to necessarily be so interested in, you know, you know, winning my point that I actually lose the opportunity to have that gospel conversation. Does that make sense? Like, and so I'm just trying to. I want to. I want to speak the word and just like Paul says, yet with gentleness and respect. All right? And then think about what he says, even in 2 Timothy 4 through 5. And he says, preach the word, be ready in season, out of season, convince, rebuke and exhort with long suffering and teaching. And even then, we're convincing, we're rebuking and doing all that. But there is no long suffering and teaching in it. So those prepositional phrases are very important. It's the word of God. It's part of it. We can't just choose one part of that. It has to be both. Right? And so. So I just encourage you, you know, always as pastors to tell people, you got, you need to have a buffer between you and the church, somebody that you can go in, you know, be able to be, you know, unload and just talk to. And don't bring that in the pulpit because there's been times I'm guilty of it when I was mad and I preached like I was mad. You know what I mean? And I had had to repent for that, you know what I'm saying? And so I've learned over the years just to try to have someone where I can get off what I need to get off so that I can step into that pulpit, preach the word, and do it in a way that is yet with gentleness and respect, you know, does that help? [00:27:55] Speaker B: Does it? [00:27:56] Speaker D: Does Gold brother? [00:27:57] Speaker C: Yes. Yes. [00:27:59] Speaker B: Well, we appreciate your time and appreciate your leadership, the North American Mission Board and churches across the convention. If folks want to connect with you, how is a place they could do that? [00:28:10] Speaker C: Yeah, just go. Jwashingtonamm.net letterjwashingtonamm.net Namb.net Alrighty. [00:28:18] Speaker B: Well, thank you again for joining us. Thank you guys for listening and look forward to being back with you in two weeks. [00:28:25] Speaker A: Thanks for joining the missions guys today. If you liked what you heard, rate and review us on your favorite podcasting platform. And to keep up with what is happening in Arkansas missions, visit absc.org missions.