Latest / reIMAGED: Bringing Pro Life Into Gospel Focus / Do You Know the Father's Heart for Life? | Kurt Dillinger

Transcript

Do You Know the Father's Heart for Life? | Kurt Dillinger · reIMAGED: Bringing Pro Life Into Gospel Focus

• 0:04
  Kurt: And the Lord at times, he just comes upon you in such a way you almost sense his presence. And You almost think there's an audible voice going on. This one time I was going through this passage, and all of a sudden, I'm reading that passage, and I thought I heard this voice, Kurt, you don't know my heart. That... I go, what is going on here?
• 0:32
  And so I'm thinking it through, and I'm having this little argument with God because it's in my devotional time. Yeah. Yeah. I know your I know your heart, Father. And I'm against of abortion.
• 0:44
  I'm for life. I'm doing all these things, and I'm preparing even to talk to people about this
• 0:50
  Chris: Mhmm.
• 0:50
  Kurt: In my church. And, no, Kurt. You don't know my heart.
• 1:09
  Alissa: Scripture says about the value of every human life. This is Reimaged, bringing pro life into Gospel Focus.
• 1:31
  Chris: Alright. So welcome back to Reimaged. Today, we have the privilege of having our first guest on. President and founder of Life International, Kurt Dillinger, is going to join us today. And he's going to tell us a little bit about his background.
• 1:45
  But what I'd like to start with is just to ask you, Kurt, what is it, that drew you to the connection of the value of human life and the Gospel?
• 1:57
  Kurt: Boy, there is a storyline with that one. But all of us have individuals in our lives that really speak into our lives and have an impact on us, that kind of become building blocks And for so one of my greatest memories, I'm sitting on my grandfather's lap, grandpa Roy. And he loved Billy Graham. And so here I am, three years old, four years old, just sitting on his lap, and we had this little black and white TV watching Billy Graham Crusades.
• 2:42
  Chris: Probably the only option back then was black and white.
• 2:44
  Kurt: Yeah, yeah. We were fortunate even to have that. To have a TV? Yeah, to have a TV is like, Woah, you're living big. But I remember that to this day.
• 2:56
  So it's interesting how impressionable things can be, even at a young age. And so early on then, I was just really committed, Hey, I want to be a Billy Graham. I want to do this. I want to lead people to Jesus Christ. So early on, I remember that being part of my life and just really wanting to impact other people's lives with that good news.
• 3:25
  And so that became a building block. That's always been part of my life. All the way through high school, we would do crazy things to try and get our friends to accept Jesus Christ.
• 3:37
  Chris: Yeah, we've heard some of these crazy stories.
• 3:39
  Kurt: Yeah, maybe another time we can get into some of those.
• 3:42
  Chris: This Bible thumper Kurt Dillinger on the beach in Grain Haven.
• 3:46
  Kurt: On the beach. Yeah, it's like, those are the days of the Jesus people, you know? So And those were enjoyable times, great, great memories that really led me to being committed to that real need, the real need. But then there are opportunities to try to address that real need through felt needs. Yeah.
• 4:12
  And that's how I would kind of differentiate between these two issues. Abortion really being a felt need, because there's a lot of turmoil and a lot of issues that come into a person's life when they have an unplanned pregnancy. It's extraordinarily difficult for a young lady to go through that time period. So many pressures, so many incredible, difficult things to make a decision about. So that's a real felt need.
• 4:47
  So it needed to be addressed. And so as I was serving in a role as a pastor at a local church, for a while, I was doing just evangelism, but then I moved into missions. And so I started being the person on staff, this large church overseeing missions and evangelism. And I remember one time specifically where I was going through scripture and reading through Genesis one twenty six and twenty seven one more time. I've already read, you guys know it.
• 5:24
  Yeah. It's so familiar. We're made in the image of God. Yeah. And so I'm going through this little personal time with the Lord and a little study.
• 5:31
  And the Lord, at times, He just comes upon you in such a way you almost sense His presence. And you And almost think there's an audible voice going on.
• 5:45
  Chris: Mhmm.
• 5:46
  Kurt: Oh, this one time I was going through this passage, and all of a sudden, I'm reading that passage, and I thought I heard this voice, Kurt, you don't know my heart. That... I go, what is going on here? And so I'm thinking it through, and I'm having this little argument with God because it's my devotional time. Yeah.
• 6:09
  Yeah. I know your I know your heart, Father. And I'm against of abortion. I'm for life. I'm doing all these things, and I'm preparing even to talk to people about this in my church.
• 6:23
  No, Kurt, you don't know my heart. And it really began to sink in. And here I am, a pastor, an under shepherd for the kingdom. And I don't know the Father's heart on this issue? Mean, you served as a pastor.
• 6:46
  What's that like when you realize you're not in sync with the Father?
• 6:51
  Chris: Yeah. And you have responsibilities in front of you, and you're thinking, well, how am I supposed to move on then if I don't understand you?
• 7:00
  Kurt: Exactly. Yeah. That's what I was feeling. And it broke me at that point. And then he began to teach me his heart on the life issues.
• 7:14
  And it's been a forty year journey now of growing and understanding the heart of the Father for life. And we're still on that journey. I'm still on that journey.
• 7:28
  Alissa: Yeah. It's all about the way that the Holy Spirit convicts and makes our faith deepen. And I think that's such a fascinating and encouraging story that you share because oftentimes... And I think, really, that's a lot of the premise of this podcast is we know that the church as a whole has held the right, quote, unquote, right position on the issue of life, but helping people to go deeper, as you have always said, in the conviction that brings a deeper understanding of not just the moral right and wrong, but where God's, like, value and love for each human being actually rests. And you have just, been able to capture that in your own story and how that brought you to establishing Life International.
• 8:23
  So how did you go from that point to starting Life International?
• 8:29
  Kurt: Well, I'd like to just kind of tackle this in maybe a simple way, in that the Lord works in our hearts to bring clarity as we go to prayer and we really seek Him. So I think what started there was, Okay, Father, I don't know your heart. That's a mystery to me. How do I know your heart? Well, it's that old fashioned approach of having some time with him.
• 8:57
  Spend time with him and ask him that question. And so as a pastor, being devoted to seeking his heart for life began my journey where he'd start to bring revelation of what that really looks like. In that time period, and probably still true today, there was so much politics involved with this. And people normally think about pro life being a political issue.
• 9:29
  Alissa: The
• 9:31
  Kurt: one thing he began to teach me at that time was, This is all about me, Kurt. It's not about women's rights, although that's pretty important.
• 9:43
  Chris: Right.
• 9:44
  Kurt: And it's not about that little person in the womb being killed.
• 9:48
  Chris: Right.
• 9:48
  Kurt: Even though that is very important. Right. Kurt, this is an attack on me. Right. And you, as my undershepherd, you don't understand that.
• 10:03
  Yeah. You don't feel what I feel on this attack on me. Yeah. It's the wicked one going after me through the most innocent of my creation.
• 10:20
  Alissa: Right. I've heard you articulate that before. Could you unpack that a little more where... Help help us understand how abortion is an attack directly on God the father. How does...
• 10:36
  How do you articulate that?
• 10:39
  Kurt: Yeah. It's his image that is under attack. And so we look at that passage in Genesis one twenty six. We all are made in his image. And that is a conversation that we could fill out several episodes with, but
• 10:56
  Chris: we're be video
• 10:58
  Kurt: the image of God. And that's part of the journey, too, just really understanding what did he mean by making us all in his image. So that's the big part of it. And it's the most innocent of his image that gets attacked. And so the wicked one loves doing that, loves to get at our Father in Heaven through these channels that are just a significant violation of And it's almost innocent among us in that the wicked one chooses to go after, but his real effort is to get after our Father in Heaven and to attack him.
• 11:48
  Right. And he does it through that channel first.
• 11:51
  Chris: Yeah. And it's the most primary, meaning it's the earliest stage of life. It's the earliest moments of life. So it's right when life begins, the enemy's attacking it. And it's also the largest attack on life because we know statistically the abortions that happen around the world where, let's say, if it truly is seventy three million, we know that it's hard to pinpoint that number.
• 12:17
  But if it is seventy three million, there is no other cause of death that great. So it is the largest attack on life.
• 12:25
  Kurt: It is, his creation. And that seventy three million is only on record. Off record, it's multiple
• 12:32
  Chris: times
• 12:33
  Kurt: more than that. So you can see what's going on in this global effort of the death march. And that's why God's called us at Life International to step in that gap and to say no to that. And it's an amazing opportunity God's given us to do on a global level.
• 12:55
  Chris: And I'll say too, part of my testimony in coming to Life International was when I attended that banquet in 2018, you shared that about it being an attack on God Himself. And that was the moment for me as a pastor where it was like the mind blowing moment where I was saying, I had never seen it that way. And it truly was the moment where it broke my heart. And that's the first time I also heard about how... I mean, I've heard about how great abortion is as far as a devaluation of life in America because I've been in the political realm more.
• 13:31
  But when you talked about how bad it is globally that this is permeating every corner of the world, every nook and crevice of the world, abortion is happening. Then you started sharing the numbers and did the BB exercise. It blew my mind and it broke my heart for it again. I feel like your testimony and what God did with you to say, You don't know my heart, He's using the way that you uniquely tell that for everybody else to kind of break their heart in short moments. Like your forty year study, people are getting short moments of that.
• 14:08
  And I feel like that's the joy that we get to have as coworkers and people who attend these events or attend the trainings, people who partner with us. They get to experience that moment where God breaks their heart, but then ignites something within them.
• 14:24
  Kurt: I love that. And we see that happening all over the globe, We do. Don't Yeah. The light bulb all a sudden, boom, goes on. Yeah.
• 14:30
  Yeah. The Father chooses, at any given moment, to speak into a pastor's heart or a church worker's heart about his heart for life. This is just a fascinating journey that all of us can keep going on because he's infinite, we're finite, so we can only get so much, decided glory. But I think we're gonna be learning about this for all eternity. His heart for life.
• 14:59
  Right.
• 14:59
  Alissa: Yeah. Same thing happened for me starting working here about three years ago. I had always been pro life in my beliefs, but hearing you specifically articulate the like you just unpacked it in a deeper way than I had ever heard before about the the attack on human beings being an attack on God, because Satan cannot directly attack God because obviously he's not powerful enough to do that. So then who is he going to go after? And it's the reflection of God.
• 15:37
  It's those made in the image of God are going to be his primary area of attack. And I was just like, Oh, yeah. I never really thought about it like that. And it made a big impression, just a deeper connection. So it is funny how God convicted you however many years ago with that statement.
• 15:59
  Kurt, you don't truly know my heart for life and drawing you deeper. But then those convictions that you have come to over the years and the way that you have been able to articulate those are having an impact on everybody else who hears them. It's been
• 16:13
  Chris: I think it personalizes it for everybody. Like, have you seen that a lot in your many years of traveling to other countries and speaking here in The States at events and small things, big things, where you recognize when people see that it's an attack on God, do you see them, it gets more personal for them because, well, God redeemed me and I'm grateful for what he did in my life. And I feel like that's what he did to me is that that's what made it very personal to me. I was like, Oh, he's attacking my father.
• 16:45
  Kurt: Yep.
• 16:47
  Chris: So can you speak to that a little bit? What have you seen I
• 16:50
  Kurt: guess when you're recognized as an under shepherd that you're not in sync with the shepherd, that by itself is profound. There's an awakening that occurs in your soul to step up, to join the Father, because Ephesians five:one talks about we are to be imitators of God. And so that's our calling. And so if we're not doing that part, then we're just out of sync. And so what is it that we're doing?
• 17:21
  And so we're seeing all over the world an awakening of pastors, church leaders, male and female everywhere, experiencing an awakening to that reality, which creates an immense unity around the globe like I've never seen before. And it's all coming around the whole idea of the Father's heart for life. Moving in that direction together. So wherever we are today, in that understanding, we can take another step in that direction tomorrow and grow more and learn more about what does it mean to know His heart for life. And it transforms entire ministries.
• 18:07
  We've had one friend out of Bhutan who was doing a youth ministry, and this awakening occurred in his heart, and bam, he says, I am changing everything that I am doing. This is going to be my focus for the rest of my life. Today, look what he's And
• 18:28
  Chris: he's taken that... I mean, this guy's in Bhutan. He's not just taking it around Bhutan. He's taking it to He many other is. Not even just in his region.
• 18:37
  He's gone everywhere.
• 18:39
  Kurt: And I think to date, he's... He has trained over 20,000
• 18:43
  Chris: Right.
• 18:44
  Kurt: Leaders on this journey of a life giver. Yep. That's what happens to somebody when we get our hearts lined up with the Father's. Yeah. When we run this journey of learning more about him, it just awakens us to a whole different agenda.
• 19:02
  Yeah. You know? Not your agenda, his agenda. Right? Agenda.
• 19:06
  That's right. It moves from academia into real life transformation. Yeah. Right. Which is really what our whole walk with the Lord is about anyway.
• 19:18
  Chris: Yeah. Which is one of the funny things is when we sometimes we have teams that go on trips and when we get back, because Kurt no longer is able to go on every trip because you're a pretty busy guy and you get kinda pulled in in many directions.
• 19:31
  Kurt: It's getting better all the time. So you guys are going on trips, and all these trips are getting better all the time.
• 19:36
  Chris: When we get back, Kurt's first question is always like, tell me about the transformation. Not about the numbers, not about, like, the specifics. It's more about what are the transformational things, and that's what happens. We see transformation happening everywhere we go with this message. And it's not just us.
• 19:52
  It's, like you said, our partner in Bhutan. Wherever he goes and wherever those team members go, they witness transformation. It's the work of the Father.
• 20:01
  Kurt: Yeah. It's so important for us to shift from what we see in the media, what's being communicated through all of these talking points out there in the news about what it means to be pro life, what is pro life, all of those pieces. And then how does the church respond to all of this? Because I believe, really, the issue itself is not primarily political. Right.
• 20:28
  It is primarily spiritual, and the rightful place for this is in the church. Right. But I'd like to do a little thing right now that might help us kind of illustrate what a pastor is facing today. And so in the past number of years, I've had the opportunity to speak in churches, and sometimes I get to be in a classroom with young professionals or college age. Right.
• 20:59
  And so I remember one time I went in, and they thought I was a Bible teacher going in. And so that's who they were told I was. I came in as a Bible teacher. And my first question to them was, when you think of a pro life person, what's the first thing that comes to mind?
• 21:20
  Chris: I bet you the answers were awesome.
• 21:22
  Kurt: They were awesome. So you guys, let me ask you the question. When you think about pro life person, what comes to mind? Well, I feel like that's not fair now because we work for Life International. Just be honest.
• 21:33
  Alissa: But before working here? Yeah. Yeah. I would say I definitely thought of it as a political point or like a a platform.
• 21:42
  Kurt: Okay. Right.
• 21:43
  Chris: Alright. Yeah. Would say outspoken and abrasive.
• 21:48
  Kurt: Alright. So that was the whole thing. They went out for twenty minutes. Right. They did not let up.
• 21:53
  Right. They were actually livid. And and these are Christians. I was gonna say, what is the group you're speaking Evangelical church. Okay.
• 22:01
  Yeah. And they had nothing positive to say about being a pro life person.
• 22:07
  Alissa: I mean, that's a big deal.
• 22:09
  Kurt: Yeah. Well, that's the impact of the media, isn't it? And that probably is also a calling to teach something different or do it different. And that also helped me start on this journey of how do we do pro life differently? Right.
• 22:26
  How do we live this out a little bit differently than what's being done out there? Because what has occurred is become primarily political.
• 22:35
  Alissa: Right.
• 22:37
  Kurt: And it turns into
• 22:39
  Chris: a whole different machine that way. Which becomes very divisive.
• 22:43
  Kurt: It's polarized.
• 22:44
  Chris: Yeah. It polarizes everything.
• 22:46
  Kurt: Yeah. Yeah. And so... Oh, where does it belong? Right.
• 22:49
  It belongs in the church. Right. The church needs to be the primary voice for this. Mhmm. And and how do we help the church with an on ramp for this?
• 22:58
  Because it's their rightful place to speak But into the reality is this classroom. Mhmm. And so and so finally, it it settled down there for twenty minutes. And I told them, Okay, let me tell you who I am. Because they didn't really know.
• 23:14
  Hush, it was quiet. Didn't want to And say anything after so it was an amazing moment. And then I just said, What would you like a pro life person to be like? That was my next question.
• 23:30
  Alissa: What were those responses like?
• 23:32
  Kurt: Well, the opposite of what they were describing. Because they were describing people, or yelling and screaming at people, and showing ugly pictures and doing all kinds of, I think, non life giving activities. So if we're truly pro life, are we really doing John ten ten? Jesus is the one who said, I want to bring life abundant. It's a whole different approach than what we're seeing happening out in the streets.
• 24:05
  That's what's being promoted through the media. Part of what they were saying was very good because they're saying, We don't want that. What we would like for pro life people is to be like Jesus. Oh, well, what's that? That was my next question.
• 24:24
  What would Jesus do
• 24:26
  Alissa: right now?
• 24:27
  Kurt: How would he speak into this issue? And then we started then a really deep conversation of how do we live this out in a way that is actually life giving, not life taking. With our words, with our thinking, with our actions,
• 24:44
  Chris: If all of we watch how Jesus approaches sinners, he usually does it with grace and mercy and kindness. Great compassion. Now, where he does express anger is toward the Pharisees and scribes.
• 24:58
  Kurt: The church.
• 24:59
  Chris: People who should know better. And that's where he actually expresses his righteous anger toward them. But toward the people who need to hear the truth, who don't know it, he actually expresses it in a very gracious, patient, kind, loving way.
• 25:16
  Kurt: I just love that discussion. Yeah. And we can be on that discussion for a long time. Yeah. You know, how would Jesus respond to each of these situations?
• 25:27
  Tremendous challenges in our culture. How does he respond to a young woman who dealing with an unplanned pregnancy? How would he respond to a politician? How would he respond to those who are for abortion and advocating for that? These are all...
• 25:48
  So you move from an issue focused type of approach to a kingdom approach. It changes everything when you do that. This is so primary for us at Life International.
• 26:02
  Chris: Right.
• 26:03
  Kurt: Because what we have done here, we have we have made an effort to to embrace fully with the kingdom approach.
• 26:12
  Alissa: Yeah. I think that we definitely are trying to live out what Christ taught in that you have your conviction and you have the truth and you stand by that. But when it comes to individual people in front of you that may be facing crisis is or whatever the case may be, you always treat that individual human as the image bearer that they are as well. So the the application of loving and caring for and valuing the image bearer is not only applied to the child in the womb, of course, but it is also applied to any other human being that is involved in whatever situation you have before you.
• 26:53
  Kurt: Right.
• 26:53
  Alissa: And so holding that... Holding your conviction, but loving the person in front of you is I feel like that's so much of what happens when we travel the world. And we also do our trainings here in The U. S. But talking to people and letting them know about how valued they are, but then how that also applies to the child in the womb.
• 27:17
  Chris: Yeah. The father's heart for life is not just the life in the womb. It's actually for every single I mean, every single person is an image bearer of God. Yep. So even those of us...
• 27:28
  And it's... I always... Something I've learned since I've been at Life International is to not have we they kind of a conversation because I'm like, have to recognize, like, I am also... I was redeemed from my sin. Like, I was affected by the Gospel.
• 27:45
  I would have been on a different track if it were not for Christ. So we need His redemption and we need grace and His mercy. And the Father's heart is for the person on the opposing side of that picket line, Exactly. Like what you're talking We see it as a we, they, like they believe this and they believe that, we believe this and we believe that, and there's this dividing line. Meanwhile, the more I learn, the more I realize, but the Father's heart is for those people.
• 28:16
  It's for all of us on the two sides of the fence.
• 28:20
  Kurt: So on that note, a little quote that I've developed over the years, it helps me think it through, helps us differentiate what we're all about, is the most profound pro life initiative ever to take place in the history of mankind is when the Father sent His Son to die on the cross for you and me. That's the pro life movement that we have joined at Life International. That one is a kingdom focus.
• 28:47
  Alissa: Now
• 28:49
  Kurt: there's lots of issues in the world. And you just addressed it, Chris. And we need to have a holistic approach to this.
• 28:56
  Chris: The
• 28:56
  Kurt: tip of the spear for us is that little person in the womb. Right. Yeah. But there's so many other dehumanizing things that are occurring around the globe. And why are we choosing to enter into this massive global mission field created by abortion or the dehumanization of God's creation?
• 29:17
  It's because of the treasure, Yeah. Which is the Lord Jesus Christ and a redeemed relationship with the Father for eternity. That's the treasure. We enter this whole mission field created by all of these dehumanizing activities around for the that purpose, not ignoring those issues. You're trying to address them effectively, compassion and love and care.
• 29:47
  But it's for the purpose of the treasure. And that's that redeemed, restored relationship with the Father through Jesus Christ.
• 29:57
  Alissa: Yeah. I think we spoke about that on our last episode, but why the gospel is so central here at Life International and the importance of that being the foundation from which we operate. And so I think I shared last time about just really valuing that Life International has kept the gospel at the heart of what we do and doesn't assume the gospel. We want everyone that we come into contact with to have the opportunity to place their faith in Christ. And so, I know that's always been a part of your story because you, you know, were an evangelist from the very beginning, sitting on
• 30:38
  Kurt: your grandpa's lap watching Billy Graham. Started. My grandpa's lap. You can write a write a little song about that on grandpa's I
• 30:45
  Alissa: would love to know, Kurt. I think I've seen so many ministries start out with good intentions, and they believe the gospel, but then over time, they start to assume the gospel and don't keep it central to their mission. What things have happened along your journey that have helped you remain so committed to the gospel?
• 31:08
  Kurt: I think that's summed up by our Lord's grace and mercy. And, you know, it hasn't been easy. Right. It's been a couple of road bumps here and Yeah. A lot of relational challenges, you know, and then you're in a spiritual battle, a warfare all the time.
• 31:35
  And the Lord through His grace and mercy, I think allows us either to be broken enough that we have to go to Him no matter what. Or an individual might enter the picture that just brings that message to us. This is His work. It's His ministry. And so we're all chosen, we're all part of it for His season.
• 32:03
  And He gets to choose, you know, how long that is for all of us. Sure. Right. And He'll bring people into the picture at the right times. Right.
• 32:12
  To keep his ministry on course. I've seen it happen over and over and over again that I know without question that Life International is the father's work. I've seen him repair, restore, redeem, where we've failed. There's been a whole bunch of failure. You don't want me to talk about that.
• 32:36
  Maybe on a different episode. He likes specialized an
• 32:39
  Chris: episode for that.
• 32:40
  Alissa: Failure episode. Yeah. Yeah.
• 32:42
  Chris: We'll call it we'll call it our transparency. You know? We'll it our blooper reel.
• 32:46
  Alissa: Yeah. We'll add it. Yes.
• 32:48
  Kurt: Yeah. Ministry bloopers. Yeah. Oh, boy. There's a lot of them.
• 32:52
  Well, and
• 32:53
  Chris: we say it all the time on our team when we're, you know, there's a couple times a year we spend some time looking back and just say, let's remember what the Lord did. And there's moments where I think we all look at each other and say, clearly this is God doing this. This is the Father's work. And we're kind of along for the ride. Because there's no way we could craft these things that have happened.
• 33:16
  Like the Malta Commission, for instance. Not even just the Malta gathering in 2023. That alone was pretty miraculous to get 108 nations present together, another 40 some online, and to come together in Malta for this global movement around the issue of life. But to actually, like, in the moment where we came up with this multi commission to set this... How do you have, I don't know, is there 15 or 20 people in this room that are all these bright minds and type A personalities come to life and what looking at.
• 33:53
  There was a moment that Alissa and I were looking at each other going, I don't know how this is gonna come together.
• 33:57
  Kurt: It kinda looks like a train wreck for
• 33:58
  Chris: a And then into this meeting, we were seeing this. And I just remember thinking, like, I'm just trusting that God is gonna pull some unity together in this, and we're gonna fit in. Yes. And all of a sudden, it just happened. And then we walk out in front of these 300 people out there and read this multi commission.
• 34:17
  I remember with tears in my eyes in the back just watching it be read, just thinking like, It's hard to imagine how this could have actually happened. But again, that just points to the Lord is doing the work, and we really have been these people that get to be involved in it.
• 34:32
  Kurt: Yeah. Well, Chris and Alissa, God chose you to be part of this. Didn't he? Mean, why else are you here? You're called.
• 34:40
  Chris: Yeah, I didn't plan. I just showed up at a banquet one day. Yeah.
• 34:44
  Kurt: That's what happens. Yep. You see his handiwork in it, don't you?
• 34:48
  Chris: You just
• 34:48
  Kurt: see him doing it.
• 34:49
  Chris: Warning, if you get invited to a banquet,
• 34:51
  Kurt: You something might might be working here. That's right.
• 34:55
  Chris: Well, well,
• 34:56
  Kurt: it gets contagious too. When you realize you're part of something that's not man made that God's doing, yeah, I think that's it. Look at who started it, this pretty imperfect, incapable person that God chose. But that was just there. All of us have starting points and He's doing the same thing in all of our lives.
• 35:20
  So we bring to the ministry what He has in mind, and it's through His grace that we continue to go on. He brings reminders, He brings focus, as long as we're open to Him and really on our knees. That's a big part of Life International too, is that we're on our knees every day. We make prayer a real thing. We seek Him earnestly with all of our heart, And even though we've got road bumps, we've got challenges, we've got things going on, we seek him.
• 35:48
  And he speaks in the middle of all of this stuff. And he guides and he directs. I would give him all the credit. Yeah. He's the one who
• 35:58
  Alissa: kept I think this thing that is a great way to conceptualize, you know, the question that I asked of how did you keep the gospel central? I think one of the main answers to that question is that you have always gone to the Lord in prayer and humility. And I think any time you're going to God in prayer, it's a recognition that you are not the one in control. So... And prayer being such a part of our DNA here.
• 36:26
  I mean, we get together as a staff every single morning and pray for a different region of the world, and we also pray for one another. And then every Thursday morning, we have staff Mhmm. Devotions that are usually about an hour and a half to two hours. That's... That doesn't look like to the world spending time on, you know, reading scripture and praying.
• 36:51
  That would look like a ridiculous waste of time. But we know
• 36:54
  Chris: On a spreadsheet that looks like
• 36:55
  Kurt: Yeah.
• 36:56
  Chris: Not productive.
• 36:57
  Alissa: Not productive. Exactly. It is so foundational.
• 37:01
  Kurt: Talk about this a little more because this is so foundational to who we are here. Yeah. And just tell a little story there how that, I mean, has been a battle zone over the years. This very thing, because we know the one thing that the devil does not want us to do. I mean, he loves excellent podcasts.
• 37:22
  Right. And he loves excellent strategic planning. He loves all of that. Yep. What freaks him out is when we go to prayer.
• 37:31
  That's the only place that we unsettle the wicked one. And that's where the Father does his incredible work. Right there when we're on our knees. So where is the role work? It's on our knees.
• 37:47
  Alissa: Exactly, exactly.
• 37:48
  Kurt: And so we should talk about that maybe a little longer.
• 37:50
  Alissa: Yeah, cut
• 37:51
  Chris: that down. Yeah, there's a banner right outside this office that said this house will be a house of prayer. And it's been here ever since we had a prayer service in this building when it was first given to us. So Yeah. Yeah.
• 38:05
  There's there's many episodes ahead that we have to talk about many things.
• 38:09
  Alissa: The foundational values and why
• 38:12
  Chris: Yeah.
• 38:12
  Alissa: It's unfolded the way that it has. Yeah. So we we have lots of episodes we could do.
• 38:20
  Kurt: It's just
• 38:20
  Alissa: a matter
• 38:21
  Kurt: of making the time and... Yeah. Yeah.
• 38:23
  Alissa: Alright. Well, thanks for coming in, Kurt, and for sharing your wisdom with us. We are super grateful for you and for what you've established here at Life International. We would love everyone who's listening to this podcast to ask yourself the same question that Kurt asked himself in that, do you truly know the father's heart for life and what that means for you personally? We would also love to have you join the conversation or ask any questions that might help us in our conversations in the future.
• 38:57
  So, feel free to email us at reimagedlifeinternational dot com and we will definitely do our best to answer those questions. And just thank you so much for your time.
• 39:09
  Kurt: Thank you. Yeah.
• 39:10
  Chris: See you next time.
• 39:11
  Kurt: Yeah. Join
• 39:12
  Alissa: us. Join us next time.