Uncategorized

I just spoke at a missions conference.

Now I’m at the airport, heading back to Vanuatu.

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly…” (Colossians 3:16)

We can own multiple Bibles, hear preaching every week, access sermons instantly, and still treat the Word like a supplement instead of the substance of our lives.

Meanwhile, millions live with radically less access to Scripture.

That disparity should disturb us.

If the Word truly dwells richly in us, it must reshape our appetites, our schedules, our money, how we raise our children, and what we consider important.

We cannot gorge ourselves on biblical abundance while remaining indifferent to spiritual starvation.

The question is not merely, “Do you have the Word?”

The harder question is: Has the Word taken enough possession of you that you care who still does not have it?

Thank you for your prayers and partnership!

https://youtu.be/LOsxK6Wt5mE?feature=shared

Your feet to the Tiale people in the country of Vanuatu. Seth, Nicole, & Selah.

Why do the unreached stay unreached?

One reason is painfully simple:

“Long-term missions is dying because fewer people want to commit long-term.”

Bible translation, language acquisition, discipleship, and establishing a mature indigenous church cannot normally be accomplished during a summer trip. Sometimes the work requires one, two, three, even four decades.¹

“You do not reach the unreached in two weeks. Sometimes it takes a lifetime.”

Short-term missions can accomplish legitimate good. But I wonder whether we have also created a generation willing to visit missions without giving their lives to missions.

There is another major problem:

“We have forgotten what ‘unreached’ actually means.”

Unreached is not simply a synonym for neglected, unusual, disadvantaged, or insufficiently evangelized. In historic missiology, the term concerns ethnolinguistic peoples lacking an adequate indigenous Christian community capable of evangelizing their own people.²

And Scripture access must remain central.

A church may initially begin through oral witness or another language, but without God’s Word understood clearly in the heart language, how will that church independently teach doctrine, correct error, disciple believers, train pastors, and reproduce for generations?

“If they cannot understand the Word of God in their own language, the missionary task is not finished.”

Perhaps the unreached remain unreached because reaching them requires two things we increasingly avoid: precise understanding of the task, and a willingness to give decades to finish it.

References

1. Ethnos360, “Translation Questions,” accessed September 8, 2026.
2. Joshua Project, “Definitions,” accessed September 8, 2026.

https://youtube.com/shorts/oPK5SEc0BFo?feature=shared

Your feet to the Tiale people and the country of Vanuatu, Seth, Nicole & Selah Stokes.

Do not build your faith on anyone. Do not build it on a pastor. Do not even build it on the people you love most.

Build it on Christ and His Word.

On our wedding day, I told my wife in front of witnesses, “I will fail you. Do not rely on me. Rely on Jesus.”

That principle reaches far beyond marriage.

Biblical ministry should never make people increasingly dependent upon the minister. The servant should become less necessary as Christ becomes more clearly known: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

The goal is not to build your name, platform, reputation, or legacy. Serve faithfully, even if that means disappearing into obscurity.

The gospel does not exist to make us known. It proclaims Christ.

If people leave your ministry impressed with you but still dependent upon you, did you actually point them to Jesus?

https://youtube.com/shorts/ngJGlsyG4Zw?feature=shared

Your feet to the Tiale people and the country of Vanuatu, Seth, Nicole & Selah Stokes.

The purpose of training men is not simply to fill pulpits. It is to develop a church capable of reproducing itself and carrying the gospel beyond itself.

Pray for these two men as they continue training and prepare to assume greater responsibility in the local church. This transition will allow one of our most mature believers to focus increasingly on evangelism, taking Course One throughout the Tiale villages and, Lord willing, into sister-language communities and other language groups.

The pattern we are pursuing resembles Antioch: a maturing local church develops leaders, releases mature workers, and participates in sending them outward (Acts 13:1–3).

The goal is not permanent missionary dependence. It is a healthy, autonomous, self-replicating church reaching beyond itself toward the unreached.

The missionary may help establish the pattern. But ultimately, local believers must become the ones carrying the gospel to their own people and beyond.

If everything still collapses when the pastor or missionary steps away, did we build a mature church, or merely a ministry dependent upon us?

https://youtube.com/shorts/YGv1XWhAnmw?feature=shared

Your feet to the Tiale people and the country of Vanuatu, Seth, Nicole & Selah Stokes.

Biblical training should produce more than students who have completed lessons. It should produce men increasingly capable of teaching others.

One pastor has now taught through Courses 1–4 and nearly the entire New Testament epistle curriculum, with only Romans, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, and Revelation remaining. Another has completed Courses 1–4 along with 1–2 Corinthians, Galatians, and Ephesians. Two additional pastors in training have already taught Courses 1–2 and are now working through Course 3.

This is not merely information transferred from missionary to student. The goal is truth entrusted to faithful men who become able to teach others also (2 Tim. 2:2).

A healthy ministry should not remain dependent upon the missionary to do all the teaching. Maturity should increasingly reproduce itself.

If years of preaching produce listeners but not mature believers who can teach others also, are we actually making disciples, or just filling seats?

https://youtube.com/shorts/zdTDFELO8tM?is=WkLY0V7mgBd6XXbC

Your feet to the Tiale people and the country of Vanuatu, Seth, Nicole & Selah Stokes.

Strengthening the churches.

Early morning. Nearly an hour on foot. Up and down mountains. Across rivers.

Then several hours preaching and teaching the lessons the pastor had asked me to bring.

And the service kept going.

A wild boar can wander close. Dogs can come through like a pack. Babies can cry. Kids can make noise.

Church does not stop because life is happening around it.

That is something worth remembering in a culture where sometimes a whimpering baby is treated like a disruption that needs removed.

The church is a body, not a performance. Families belong together. Fellowship is rarely neat.

We taught. We prayed. We ate together. We encouraged one another. Then we walked home.

The pastor was strengthened. The church was strengthened. I was strengthened.

And maybe that is the point.

Do not let a short drive, some rain, inconvenience, or a little noise keep you from fellowshipping with believers this Sunday.

Some Christians cross mountains and rivers for it.

Maybe we should stop acting like twenty minutes in the car is suffering. We can even control the temperature on the way there.

We have an incredible privilege to gather with believers and worship God. Let’s be thankful for it, and actually use it.

Thank you for praying for us and the Tiale ministry.

https://youtu.be/ybsz3sYJnVY?feature=shared

Your feet to the Tiale people and the country of Vanuatu, Seth, Nicole & Selah Stokes.

Over the past two months, I have had the privilege of teaching nearly 60 Bible lessons. Opportunities like this allow us to teach foundational truths consistently and build upon them without long interruptions, which could same churches years to get through the content.

Over the years, this labor has grown into nearly 600 lessons covering more than 30 topics and every New Testament epistle. Yet the goal has never simply been to produce material; it is to equip faithful men who can teach others also.

We are thankful for the opportunity that the Tiale ministry brings, and we do not take it for granted.

https://youtube.com/shorts/hiTbSTq1Iz8?feature=shared

We hope you received our August Newsletter yesterday, thank you for following our journey.

Your feet to the Tiale people & the country of Vanuatu. Seth, Nicole & Selah Stokes.