BraveMen S4E148: Steve Trevino - Sheep Among Wolves

It's Brave Man with Paul Lewis Cole, wisdom and courage for the journey. I'm with my friend Steve Trevino and Steve, you have ministered for years in Middle East. You've pastored in the United States in Texas and now you've moved into hostile territory to the San Francisco area, which I really speak of your desire to be what you preach, which is sheep among wolves. How did that start? Where does that come from? You know, let's start with this. Let's start with this. The underground church we hear about is there something really there? I mean, we hear things, but you've been there. You've been on the front lines. Tell me about that. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Paul, for having me. You know, this is a huge honor. You know, anything that you invite me to, I want to be a part of. So I love you. You've been a big impact in my life. And yeah, love talking about the underground church. You know, the underground church is the fastest growing movement of Christianity in the world. And specifically in the Middle East and the largest movement that we're seeing right now is in Iran. You know, Iran is a nation of, you know, 40 million people or so. And, you know, as little as 10 years ago, you know, it was being reported that there was maybe 2,000 believers inside of Iran. And now it's reported that there's over a million believers. Wow. Percentage wise, I mean, I think, you know, China is probably the largest church in terms of numbers. But in terms of percentages, momentum, growing, exactly real. I mean, you know the people. You get to the Middle East quite often. You're ministering in there, Steve. And so you meet the people. You know them. This is real stuff. And at the same time, it's dangerous, isn't it? Yeah, it is dangerous. You know, I mean, it's less dangerous for guys like me or you, you know, we have American passports and, but it's very much dangerous for the guys that are leading the movements. And, you know, I always, I always feel a little funny when folks say, oh, you know, you've planted a, you know, 800 or so churches and the Middle East. I'm like, yeah, I haven't planted anything like it's these guys that are doing it. These guys that are on the front lines, these are the guys that are risking their lives for the gospel, you know, and saying yes to Jesus and, you know, and I think that, you know, I've, I've had the incredible opportunity of being able to have my feet in both worlds, you know, as, as being a pastor in a church planter here in the US, and then also pastoring and leading and planting in the Middle East. And, and so that's been, you know, over 15 years now. And so, you know, it's been an interesting journey of being able to, to navigate, you know, spending time with, with leaders that are literally risking their lives every day. Tell me what that, tell me what that looks like. Tell me a specific without, you know, giving away anybody's. Well, so, you know, in any run, for example, I mean, if, if, if you're caught baptizing someone or you're caught being baptized, it's, it can be immediate execution. Wow. No judge, no jury. But, you know, one of the things that happens often is believers are being, you know, when they are captured or discovered, they're, they're, they're using intimidation tactics. And in some cases, I mean, this is really graphic, but, you know, men and women get satanized by electric batons. Yeah. You know, because the idea is like, hey, let's, let's, you know, put fear into the hearts of people and then send them back into their communities. And, and hopefully somehow that will dissolve the movement. Yeah, that's, that's, that's a kin to the, what the Romans did in the book of Acts when they crucified people. You know, they're the ones who invented that and that was to intimidate. Exactly. And it became intimidation of people of the way. Followers of Christ started with an intimidation of anybody who got in their way. Yeah. Yeah. And so people are really going through these things right now in real life. And the, and there's a different attitude, Paul, about, about suffering. You know, I think, I think in the West, we have a brand of Christianity that says, like, hey, the gospel can equip me for suffering. But at the end of the day, there's no, there's zero expectation for suffering to happen. Yeah. And what you see in the underground church of the Middle East is that persecution is an expectation. Wow. It's not an exception. Real persecution. You know, we get, we get upset when somebody says something bad about us on Facebook. It's like, yeah, we're really, we're really being hammered. What happened? Well, a guy, you know, we're on a long article on Facebook. Yeah. Read it. I don't know. And then you're sort of being beaten up. I mean, Beton, electric beton's atomization is is absolutely horrifically brutal. My wife Judy, now we're talking about this yesterday. We were talking about people are going, how, how terrible we can be, how the dark side can be, can take people and they can do things to other humans. They're, they're just beyond belief. Like, how do you even conceive of it? And yet, there it is. And if you will, that shows what evil is really like. These people are standing up against that. Yeah. I was having a conversation with one of the underground church leaders. And he shared this story with me. He said that that he sat down with his wife and he had a conversation with his wife. And, you know, he leads a, a house church in his home. And so, you know, he's obviously a target. And so he sits down with his wife and he says, Hey, babe, we got to have a conversation. You know, if secret police storm into our home, you know, it's very likely that they're going to rape you. And I need to know, like, what is your expectation from me in that moment? And so, you know, I mean, you want to talk about a conversation. That these aren't conversations that we think about having to have with our loved ones. And, and she sits for a moment and she says, you know, if that happens, then I'll be okay. And I'm prepared because what's 15 minutes of torture versus an eternity with Jesus? Wow, Jesus. God, talking to Steve Turbinho, who plants, who has planted the number of churches in the Middle East, as we talked about in a few minutes, says brave men, ministry of Christian men's network. You were a part recently of a meeting we had where we talked about going to the dangerous nations. It's one of our beehags, which is a, that's a business term. We call it a big holy audacious goal. It was a big hairy audacious goal in the original writings, but big holy audacious goal is to go to the 50 most dangerous nations in the world and raise up a thousand pastors who disciple. So that's 50,000 pastors who will each disciple a thousand men. You know, we're talking about five million men being discipled. But when it really comes down to on a granular level, we're really talking about a man in a house church in, in, you know, South Sudan, who, who that house church is a half dozen people because if they gather more than that, they're, they're subject to, you know, provocation, right? So he starts a little thing and then he gets one of those guys to start another thing. And Eddie Leo, who stood up from Jakarta, he talked about this at, or our summit, Lion's War summit. And he said, where there's greater persecution to church gross. I, you know, it's counterintuitive isn't. And yet, and yet you've led this charge. When you talk about sheep among wolves, what does that mean? What is that concept that now you're, you're going to be training people in the West about? Yeah, so when you think about, you know, Jesus sending out the 72 in Luke chapter 10. And I think it's, I think it's, it's an important thing to discuss because, you know, we've been given this, this assignment, we called the Great Commission. Yeah. And, you know, we believe that it's the most important thing that we can be involved with, you know, this side of eternity. And, and so Jesus hands this incredible responsibility to his disciples. And, and he doesn't just say like, all right guys, so I'm putting it in your hands, you know, go into all the nations, preach the gospel, baptize people, teach them to obey all the things that I've commanded you. Good luck. Yeah. You know, and so the question is, would, would Jesus have given the most important responsibility to his disciples and not give them the strategy on how to fulfill those disciples or how to fulfill that assignment? Wow. And, and so, you know, when you, when you look at Luke chapter 10, you see an incredible strategy that Jesus lays out. And, first of all, it involves, you know, 72 people that get assigned and then they get sent. And, you know, Jesus says, all right, we're going to send these folks into the towns and the villages that we're getting ready to, to go into. And so the idea is like, God is already moving. God already has an idea of where he wants to go. And so he just needs to send in the workers. And so the, the, the, the first idea is like a disciple doesn't just, you know, randomly pick a spot and go, but the idea is God wants to send us. We need to be sent. Wow. And, and those are, and those were teams. They were, they tacked, they practiced brotherhood, one another lifestyle. You're never on an island by yourself. That's right. Yeah. And that, I mean, and that's essentially what being an apostle is. I mean, an apostle in its simplest form just means a sent one, right? Right. And, and so I think one, I think it's phenomenal that, you know, God has, has captured your heart and, and, and this, and this mission of, of Christian men's network to go into the dangerous nations and, and the idea is like, we're not just, we don't just want to go into these nations. We're being sent by God. Yeah. This is, this is an assignment from the Lord. Yeah. And, and we're not going for photos and, and videos. Yeah. You know, we're not, we're not, we're not going for, you know, Instagram, right? Trying to get some things done. It's a hundred-year vision, Steve. It's a hundred-year vision. You know, it's sort of like this. When Disney World opened in Florida, there was a reporter that came to Mrs. Disney and Walt Disney had passed away about five years prior to that. And he said to Shane, Mrs. Disney, that your husband wasn't here to see this, to see Disney World, to see the opening and the grand opening. And she said, oh, no, he did see it. That's why it's here. And I feel like, because of men like yourself, a hundred-year vision, how reaching a hundred million dads and know how to love their children is, is within reach. It's something we can do. It's something that's real. It's tangible. Now, now, here you are going into dangerous nations, going into places, raising your daughters, past her in a local church, and yet you could have been comfortable with just doing that, though. What was it that caused you to say, like, man, I'm going to go out and put myself on the line. Yeah. Well, you know, I got handed a church at 25 years old. It was the church my dad started. And I walked into a hospital room one day. He had just come from open-heart surgery. He was recovering from a major heart attack. And my dad looks up at me and he says, son, I need you to take over the church. And, you know, I was fresh out of seminary, but very quickly learned that seminary does not adequately prepare people to lead churches. And so, you know, I step into this thing and a couple of years into it. I'm frustrated. I'm bored. I'm thinking about leaving the ministry and becoming a used car salesman. Wow. And then there was two things that happened. One, someone handed me a book called Maximize Manhood, and I started discipling men in my church. And the next thing that happened was I got a phone call from an Iranian businessman who was a friend of mine and he said, hey, I have someone I want you to meet. He just moved to Iran to become a missionary. And he stood on the ground churches. And, you know, can he come to your church and share? And so, you know, this guy walks in. And first off, like, I'm thinking leader of the underground church, this guy is going to come in and he's going to have a long beard and gray hair and big, you know, Eugene Levy eyebrows. And he's probably going to say things like when God calls a man, he bids him come and die, you know, he's talking about how much he's enjoyed eating Texas barbecue on his trip. And I'm like, wow. But then he starts to share about what God's doing in the Middle East and how people are coming to Jesus through dreams and visions and power encounters. Wow. And he starts to share that, like, literally, Muslims are, are, you know, waking up in the middle of the night from dream-like encounters from them in white. And they're wanting to know, like, who is this man in white? I had so much peace. I've never, I've never experienced peace before, like, I've had in this encounter. And so, I'm immediately gripped, you know? So Muslims are coming to Christ from dreams and visions. That's right. And then trying to figure out who that is. I heard that from the guys in Jakarta, they said across Indonesia, it's a phenomenon. It's like, like, they don't know who it is, like somebody appeared, like an angel or a, right? Man in white. And it's a phenomenon. What, you know, it's like, it's like God will reach a man no matter what it takes. Exactly. Yep. So that's your heart, man. So it started my heart. And so I pull this guy aside and I say to him, man, I know we just met. But I feel like God wants me to run with you. And I want to do something dangerous. I said to him, I feel like a David without a Goliath. Wow. Oh, that's so good, man. And he said, well, do you want to come to the Middle East and help me pastor some of my leaders? So two months later, I'm standing in the Middle East and middle of a conference hall. And having an opportunity to just build relationships, pour in to invest, train, teach, and we're just building really family, you know, and that would start a 15-year journey for me where I would have an opportunity to really pour in to invest into the top leaders of the underground church. And then that eventually opened the door for me to go around the world, training refugees and frontline workers and persecuted Christians on every continent, except Antarctica, you know, and specifically with the Persian community, because you know, a really unique thing that happens is you get these religious refugees who have to flee Iran for safety. And they end up being granted asylum. The United Nations places them in places like, you know, Canada or Germany or Sweden or Australia. And so once again, you see just, you know, the strategy of the Lord, you know, scattering the people and also spreading the gospel. Yeah, you know, now the thing about all of that is that that's Farsi speaking. And we've got Maximized Manhood in Farsi, working on the next book in Farsi. And that's Turkestani Iran. You talk about Persian people, parts about 30% of Afghanistan, and a million people in Los Angeles speak Farsi. And in London and Turkey. And really this thing, what's happened is an explosion of it. And what's the first, so you've got people all over the world who've been ministering to and helping. So when you train these leaders, what's the first thing you start with, Steve? Thomas Steve Trevino, who's who's got a ministry helping equip underground church leaders throughout the world. But literally, like you said, Persian people, what's the first thing in frontline workers? What's the first thing you start with, Steve? Faith in the resurrection power of God. Wow. And because, you know, one of the things that I've been able to identify my whole life is the times when I'm limited in my obedience. And I think the greatest enemy of Christianity in the world today is not Islam. It's not Communism. It's not Socialism. It's not the liberal agenda. It's Christians who put limits on their obedience and their unwilling to fulfill the great commission because they're more committed to their own comfort and their own safety. And I think that the reason we have that default posture in our hearts is, you know, if if all Jesus thought about was the crucifixion, if all he thought about was going to the cross and the pain and the torture that he would experience, then he might not have been willing to go through with it. But yeah, Jesus has a conversation with his disciples in John chapter 12 and he says, like, hey, the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. And then he talks about a grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying. And he says, but if it dies, it is able to spring forth and produce much fruit. And so when Jesus looked at the trajectory of his life and this calling and the cup that was being handed to him and when Jesus looked at his assignment, he was able to reach all the way into the future, pass the pain and the humiliation and the brokenness and the shame and literally see that as being glorified because he knew that death was not the end of the story. And so in the kingdom of God and the economy of God, death is never a destination. Death is always a doorway. Wow. Resurrection is the destination. Power is the destination. And so the experience of the cross is an opportunity for us to step through that doorway. And so at the center of being a disciple is a willingness to step into that pattern. Jesus said, you know, Luke 9, 23, if you want to be my disciple, if you want to follow me, you must deny yourself and take up your cross daily. And so what Jesus was saying, and he was saying, you know, there's a few things there that I think are relevant for us right now. One is Jesus was saying that my disciples are going to be people who have a lifestyle of denying themselves for the benefit and the safety and the blessing of others. Wow. You know, and I think Dr. Cole, you know, has an amazing way of saying, you know, that I mean, even just like in a practical sense, like men are willing to have their marriages die so that they can live instead of being willing to die to themselves so that their marriages can live. That's it. Right here. No, that's it. That's it. Because because when you're sharing these things, we have a tendency to push it off. Go, okay, let's go for those guys and Iran. It's good for those guys in, you know, Vietnam or Sudan or wherever. Yeah, yeah. Good for those guys. They need to know this stuff. But me, I'm, you know, I don't need to know that. I mean, what am I sacrificing? That is so good, man. Yeah, bring it back to the. Yeah. So I think death to self, I think death to self is a spiritual modality. You know, and, and I think, and I think the modality is, is, is love. It's humility. It's patience. It's kindness. It's considering others to be better than yourself. Like all of them, they're just mowing them back. Yeah. It's like what we read at weddings. It's first Corinthians, it's 13. We read it at weddings. And then, and then wonder why our marriage isn't, isn't happening well, because we just left it at the ceremony. Yep. So faith, Paul, is four obedience. Yeah. That's what it's for. You know, so, you know, we see this story in the Old Testament of Abraham being invited into an incredible act of obedience and sacrifice, you know, march your son Isaac up Mount Moriah and offer him as a sacrifice. And we learn thousands of years later in Hebrews, you know, the author of Hebrews tells us that in that moment, that Abraham reasoned to himself that God could raise the dead. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, you know, that's a tough one because I would have pushed back a little. I would have pushed back a little bit outside of me tomorrow, not to push back a little bit on that one, but nonetheless, that's exactly what Paul said in Hebrews. Yeah. So, so the point, the point being that the only thing that equips us for radical obedience, yeah, is radical faith. Yeah. Nothing else. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, radical faith that that produces trust. Mm-hmm. And, and uh, produces a, uh, Phil Pringle, my pastor said, uh, faith is a feeling, you know, because we often, most often teach, which the Bible says faith is a substance. So his faith is also a feeling, but it's a feeling of total confidence that God will do what he said he would do. And, uh, and so we so often don't have to do that here, but I think Steve, it's coming more and more to the place where we're going to have to either, you know, the, the, the tenacity of faith in, uh, where I live in the United States and where you're living out in California is that, um, is that we're going to have to actually live what we're talking about. We can't just do it inside a church building and expect that to be enough because it's not enough. Yeah. Yeah. And I think Paul, you know, like, one of the biggest differences that I've observed from believers in the Middle East and the Underground Church and believers in here in the West is one is they take personal responsibility for fulfilling the Great Commission. Wow. And, and, and so it's like, okay, well, if, if I don't reach my friends and family, if I don't reach my loved ones, nobody is. So there isn't this, you know, default like, oh, you know, I hope someone talks to them about Jesus. And, and so there's a, there's a personal responsibility. And so because of that, there's a, there's a, a willingness to, to open their lives and open their homes to people. And so, and so one of the principles is that we don't share our faith with people. We share our lives with people. And when you share your lives with people, then guess what happens to share your faith with people. So, so lifestyle evangelism and lifestyle discipleship is a key. So it's not event driven. It's not event driven, but lifestyle evangelism without saying anything. It's also, you know, in sipping, right? I mean, you can't just say, hey, the guy's going to watch me because I'm going to, you know, do the right thing when I check out of the store. I think a lifestyle has to be that people see you for your good works. They see you for your standup sense. They see you the way you treat your children, the way you talk to your life. Right? It can't just be, yeah, yeah, I, I didn't skate the guy when I, when I bought this lumber because he gave me four extra pieces and I paid for them. Well, you know, anybody can do that. You know, and but then he's watching you the way you treat, treat your worker. Yep. And you treat your work like a slave. The guy's like, yeah, that, I don't know who that guy is, but I'm sure we wouldn't want to work for him. What kind of witness is that? Yeah, that's really good. That's really good and really important, you know, because, you know, when you think about like believers in the Middle East, you know, versus believers in the West, you know, when, when it comes to like personal evangelism, you know, if, if I talk to the wrong person, you know, here in the West, you know, there's, there's some consequence, you know, maybe, maybe some social awkwardness, but not much, you know, I think cancel culture has maybe amped that up some and we're starting to, you know, have to deal with some things that, you know, we've never had two before, but in the Middle East, if you talk to the wrong person about Jesus, you could end up being put in prison, you know, or worse. So they have to actually, there has to be something they see, the spark of divine nature that's in you, you know, Christ in you, the hope of glory, there's something about you that they can become as different. I remember, I got a nickname. I was working as a, I was in college and went to my uncle's place in Nashville and I'm working as a teamster. I'm loading trucks at a, at a big depot, the healer. And I ended up with a nickname preacher, like, dude, we're not going to get that nickname. They're like, we're just, we're just different. Well, how do you know that? Well, because you know, say, talk the same way and carry yourself different. And we know your, we know your uncle's religious. And that was my nickname. And everybody had a nickname, by the way, in this warehouse. I mean, I mean, I'm with, I'm with guys whose nicknames, some of them, you can't repeat. Yeah. Like how my nickname be preacher, man, where'd that come from? But it was just that it stood out. And you know, the, the, the idea is learning how to be non religious, but spiritually conspicuous. Wow. That is so good. Not okay. I'm going to write this down. And when I, when I write this in my book, I'm going to look like a genius. And I'll just say, yeah, the Lord just, I don't know, Lord, just talk this on me. Non religious, spiritually conspicuous. So, so if I, if I may, let me share this analogy with you that I think really captures the strategy, the evangelism strategy of the church. So, you know, let's say Paul that you and I were given a 100 acres of wheat to harvest. Like it was, it was, you know, 100 acres of wheat was gifted to us. And so you and I are standing in front of this field. We have no idea what to do. We have no experience or background really training. And so I look at you and I say, hey, so you think it's ready to be harvested. And then you look at me and you say, well, I don't know. And I say, well, I guess let's go give it a shot. And first off, you, you already know that's going to go horribly. But so you stop me and you say, hey, why don't we go down the road to Farmer John who has generations of experience harvesting wheat? Let's ask him what he thinks. So we go down the road and we run into Farmer John and he's got his overalls on and, you know, piece of wheat sticking out of his mouth, hops off of his John Deere tractor and he says, you know, what do boys need? Well, we got this field we don't know what to do with and we're thinking we need to harvest it. We're not sure. It's our responsibility to harvest this, this wheat. Wow. And we're wondering if we should, if we should, you know, dive in. And he looks at us and he says, well, what color is your field? And I say, Paul, what color is the field? And you say, um, screen. Farmer John says, yeah, you never want to harvest wheat when it's green. You want to wait for it to be golden. And I say, wow, golden, man, that's good. Write that down, Paul. And then he says, uh, what's the posture of the wheat? And I say, well, the standing straight up. He says, yeah, you never want to harvest wheat when it's standing straight up. You want to wait for it to be bowed down. It's called nodding. They say, wow. And then Farmer John says, well, and you know, what month are we in? What season are we in? Well, it's, you know, a middle of summer is a yeah, you don't want to, you don't want to harvest wheat in the middle of summer. You don't want to wait for the right season. And so he says, if the season is right and if the posture is right and if the color is right, then you know, your wheat's ready to be harvested. And so what we've done is we've taken time and figured out how to teach people how to become experts at identifying when the harvest is ready. So good. So good. Talking with Steve Trevino, and that, that was a brilliant place for us to jump off. This has been a great conversation. I've taken a lot of notes. I'm going to be really brilliant the next time I share this stuff. But Steve Trevino, how do we get a whole of you? I know you're consulting with churches and organizations. You've moved out to San Francisco in order to be sheep's among the wolves. Check out the sheep among the wolves. And how do we get a hold of you? Yeah, just wanted to say thank you so much Paul for this opportunity. You know, it's a real dream of mine to be able to add value to churches, pastors and leaders, take tactics and strategies that are producing the fastest growing movements of Christianity in the world right now in some of the most hostile, dangerous environments. And they're surprisingly very, very simple. And so being able to equip believers and church members and pastors and leaders is a real passion of mine. So if I can help in any way, we'd love to get connected. You can email me at Steve Trevino at me.com. So just find me at me.com. So you know, a level of God's doing and grateful to be a part of this journey with you and let's go let's go reach some dangerous nation. Amen. And for the tools in our home here at home. And for the tools you need for this type of men, you can go to cmn.men, cmn.men. Brave men is a ministry of the Christian men's network. Thank you to all our friends and partners who are part of making this happen. And thank you to men like C. Trevino, who around the world are teaching us better how to be obedient followers of Christ, faith is the power to obey. We want to be non-religious but spiritually conspicuous as I always say. Thank you Steve for being on the brave men today. And look forward to seeing you again very, very soon and thrilled. In fact, while you and I are talking, we've got a team in India that's working on translations. We've got some other people that are working right now on what is the subwaino, subwaino, which I think is a part of Philippines. We'll have two languages there. And around the world doing things in this dangerous nation's outreach. And then the Arab bit, which I know is close to your heart, getting that cranked up with our with our mutual friend Ferris Abraham. And a lot of great stuff going on. Thanks Steve for being on the brave men. Thank you for having me. I love you. You've just experienced Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole. Paul is president of the Christian Men's Network. Connect with Paul at cmn.man or write to him at Paul at cmn.man.