Rob Welch has developed an innovative method of discipling new believers called T4T also known as Training for Trainers. Today he shares about how he got started in evangelism and about how he follows up on the people who get saved at his festivals.
In 2001, when Rob Welch surrendered to God’s call on his life, he left the business world, sold his home and enrolled in a master’s program at Wheaton College. On completion of his studies, he received his Master’s Degree in Missions and in 2004 was ordained as an evangelist. For the next three years, Rob served as Evangelist-in-Residence at the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. In 2006 Rob followed God’s leading and established For His Glory. Since its inception the Lord led For His Glory to share the Gospel with over 4 million people with 840,087 committing their lives to the Lord Jesus and 259,421 believers trained to make disciples who make disciples.
What is T4T? Training for Trainers (T4T) disciple-making model. You can find more about it here: https://forhisglorymin.org/training-for-trainers-t4t
Why Disciple Making Matters:
- This is very important to God. One of the last instructions Jesus gave His disciples was to “go and make disciples of all nations”. This clearly means that the Lord expects us to be disciple makers.
- Disciple making is very effective. The early followers of Jesus focused on making disciples and evangelized the entire known world in a lifetime!
- When disciples train others it leads to multiplication. When disciples are trained on “how” to train others to make disciples, their impact on God’s kingdom multiplies.
Website: https://forhisglorymin.org/
Daniel King is often called The Evangelism Coach because of all the evangelists he talks to on The Evangelism Podcast.
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Rob Welsh has developed an innovative method for discipling new believers called T for T also known as training for trainers today. He shares about how he got started in evangelism and about how he follows up on the people who get saved.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:16):
His festivals. Jesus said go into all the world and preach the gospel. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord. Welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews, full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host missionary and evangelist Daniel King. Welcome to
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:54):
Evangelism podcast. I’m Daniel King and I am super excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a special guest. Rob Welsh is a full-time evangelist back in 2001. He surrendered his, his life to God’s call. He left the business world. He sold his home and he immediately enrolled in a master’s program at Wheaton college. And then he did his master’s degree in missions and was launched out into full-time evangelism. And so, Rob, thank you so much for joining me today.
Rob Welch (01:30):
Great to be here with you, Daniel.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:31):
So tell Me a little bit about your history. That sounds pretty intense. You left the business world, sold your home and launched out into ministry. What was that?
Rob Welch (01:41):
Well, it was kind of like a wrestling match and the Lord pin me I had four main idols of why I felt I couldn’t do God’s will. And one by one, he stripped me of them. And in essence, he asked me, is this your daughter? Am I? And one by one, I had to lay down my idols. And finally he brought me to surrender and that was in October of 2001 and never looked back.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:09):
And so after you did your master’s degree in missions, you served as an evangelist in residence at the Billy Graham center at Wheaton college. So, so what was that like? What are some of the things you learned from Wheaton college and learn from being around the Billy Graham center, which of course has got that beautiful library and museum up there, which I’ve gone through several times. Just looking at the history of Billy Graham. It’s always inspiring. Always makes me want to be an evangelist every time I’m there.
Rob Welch (02:39):
Yeah. Glad you are. It was it was interesting because as a fellow of Angelist, you know, we, we were made, I think for the field and it, it was hard for me to it was great and it was really challenging at the same time. And I knew God had me there for a season for, for what he’d call me too. And, and for my, my future wife who, I didn’t know who that would be immediately, but God, God brought my wife to me while I was serving there. And, and so so it was really good and I’ve met some amazing people, learned a lot. And at the same time, I, I just struggled being in an academic environment. Mckenna was trying to keep my head down and I’m not gonna do much trouble. But, but it was a great place, I think for me to have a platform and to be exposed to some wonderful ministries, got to go to Billy Graham’s last crusade in New York city in 2005, that was really special and went to a couple of Franklin Graham’s festivals. And I worked with students in evangelism there, encouraging them in evangelism and mentoring and going out and doing it. So it was a good experience. And then God led me to start for his glory. So, so it was the right transition, I think, from the, from the business world and being in school to eventually leading the ministry, God had called me to, so it worked out well.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:06):
So you launched for his glory back in 2006. And since then you’ve been traveling to a bunch of different nations doing large evangelistic crusades. Has it been mostly in Africa? What are some of the countries that you’ve been to?
Rob Welch (04:23):
Well, I ministered in India seven times, but it’s been a while since I’ve been there with the current conditions there it’s, it’s not as open to get in as it was. When I started 2006 or 2012, I went there a total of seven times, five times in the South and twice in the North. And I’ve also been to Sri Lanka and New Mexico then the Haiti right after the earthquake been to Columbia, South America, a couple of times in Argentina and ministered a lot in Africa. And really, I would say since 2008, almost all of our ministry really has been there. And that’s really where our focus is. We have a regional team there and right now that’s really, everything is poured into Africa. Eastern central Africa is where we’re administering.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:15):
And tell me about some of what you’ve been seeing God do there in Africa.
Rob Welch (05:21):
Well, really, and I know you see this to Daniel, but it’s so much like the book of acts. I know you see this a lot at, at, at your crusades, our festivals, we really see God move. It’s like Peter getting up at Pentecost, preaching the gospel. And we, we usually see most of the people responding. So often, especially in Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, they’re just so hungry and ripe and ready. So we’re seeing an overwhelming response to the gospel, a great spiritual hunger. And we’re also seeing God working. Miraculously are lots of people that are set free from demon possession. We saw a lot of that, our last mission, a couple months back in Tanzania so many people delivered and, and many, many people healed. So it’s really the, the book of acts and we get to be a part of it and see God doing more and more. So it’s exciting stuff.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:19):
Now I saw that recently you were in the city of Goma Congo, which really caught my attention because Goma is the place where I met my lovely wife, Jessica. I was wanting to learn how to do crusade evangelism. And so there was a, a Canadian evangelists, Peter younger, and who I wanted to learn from. So I called him his office up in Canada and said, can I come in and meet you? And he said, I’d love to meet you, but don’t come to Canada. Come meet me in Goma Congo. So I got on the plane, flew all the way to Rwanda and then went through the Hills of Rwanda all the way there. And my wife was the one who was assigned to take care of the VIP guests. And so she met me right there on the border between Rwanda and in Goma and picked me up. And at that time, Goma was a very difficult city. There’s a volcano there that had recently erupted. The entire city was covered in black. Is it still that way?
Rob Welch (07:25):
There’s the, the, the lava is still there. Yeah. And it, you know, that doesn’t go away, you know, so it’s it’s there and it’s still a rough city and that hasn’t changed either.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:38):
I remember when we would take a shower, the lava dust would just pour off of our bodies and you’d have to shower for several minutes before the water stopped being black, going down the drain.
Rob Welch (07:51):
No, we didn’t have that. You know, at least that it’s settled. When, when were you there? What year?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:56):
Well, we’ve been married 13 years. And so it was two years before that it was about 2006, something like that.
Rob Welch (08:06):
Yeah. So we were just there in 2019. So, so you have a lot of dust had settled, but the lava’s still there. So it’s okay.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:17):
Tell, tell me about the results your, your newsletter said that you had 75,369 people receive Christ during your, your five days there. That’s amazing.
Rob Welch (08:28):
You know, it’s interesting Daniel, there was a not a good thing, but there was the Ebola scare going on. And, and, and we had a couple of cases of Ebola right before we came. So there was a real challenge just getting in the country. And there was a lot of fear, like what’s going on now with COVID for so many people, there was so much fear. We struggled fact crossing the border, the rewind days, a border officer said he wasn’t going to let us back through. And I was like, that’s fine. Just let us get, get across the border because we did the same route you did going up through Wanda. And he said, he wasn’t gonna let us back through. And I thought, well, we’ll reroute getting home and we’ll get our team home and like her team in Africa. And so they just, we got to get across the border if you’re not gonna let us, and we’ll go through consortia, we’re gonna find a way I didn’t say that, but I’m thinking we’re getting there one way or the other, we got to get the gospel to the folks there.
Rob Welch (09:29):
So there was this huge fear. And in fact there was so much hand-washing and, and the taking your temperature and all that, you know, it’s not all that different than what’s going on now. But there was fear in the city. And so many people kept from coming to the festival because of fear of Ebola. And yet as, so the crowd was probably a third of what we were expecting. I’m just being very open here, but yet almost everybody that came responded. So you had really committed believers that came Daniel and, and they, they were all in for Jesus. You, you know, the time you minister, you know, those folks, but they’re in life or death, they’re following Jesus. So they were there and their counseling, they did an amazing job and all that, the people that were lost and hurting and broken that wanted God came.
Rob Welch (10:22):
And these are not the church folks. I can assure you that when almost all of them responded, we had a militia leader come to Christ and his friend had just come to Christ a few weeks before. And it was starting to do a T for T group, which maybe we’ll get to talk about in a bit, but he was started to a discipleship group and his friend who had been in the militia with him he invited him to come. And, and so, so Thomas came and I ended up preaching on Zachias and you know, the story, well, we’re Zed Kia says timing, the Sycamore fig tree to see Jesus as he’s going through Jericho. Nobody’s laughing, man. So I started climbing the speaker tower, you know, you know, the speaker towers and yeah. And me being Mr. Mr. Nimble I’m a little big guys.
Rob Welch (11:09):
I can see that on the screen, but I’m not a small man. So I go up on a speaker tower a little bit and to illustrate Zachias you know, climbing this tree to see Jesus. And, and when I’m preaching from the tower Thomas was converted because he thought that’s me, I’m Zacchaeus. You know, cause he he’s hurting people. He’s robbing him all sorts of bad stuff. And he’s thinking I’m Zach is I’m that man, I need Jesus. And he didn’t wait for a call or anything. He just surrendered right there. And and after that he told the mayor that he had just come to Christ and mayor of course knew who this man was. And the mayor Daniel had dealt with. And think of the environment we, we deal with here in other places, the mayor had the governor and like kind of his, his his cabinet go with him to pressure the mayor to stop the festival.
Rob Welch (12:14):
And the mayor said, no, I gave a promise to the men of God and I’m not going to take the blessings of God away from the city. So he stood up against the governor and all of his staff who are trying to bully him into pulling the plug on the festival. So when Thomas comes to Christ, he tells the mayor and the mayor says, we got to get your story out and tell everybody. So here’s this man who’d been harassing the people and leading an opposition grew up in there over 130 militia groups, just outside of Goma. You know, the, you know, the environment, Daniel, a lot of folks listening don’t, but it’s a rough place. And so this guy then started going around with the mayor to tell what Jesus had done in his life. So that’s the power of the gospel. And he’s one of the 75,000 plus that came to Christ. And now they’ve got like 30,000 people that have been trained to multiply it, discipleship groups in there to the attempt generation. We just got a report today. We get monthly reports on results. So, so God’s launched a movement in that city. It’s bringing transformation. It’s really awesome.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:16):
That’s so wonderful to hear. So you mentioned T4T, which stands for training for trainers, and this is a major component of your ministry and how you follow up on the people who get saved at, at the festivals. So tell me, how does T 4 T work, how do you train trainers?
Rob Welch (13:38):
What really Daniel, it’s going back to the new Testament model. So it’s not actually something new. It’s how the apostles did it and how you see it happening in the book of acts. You look at acts chapter two, you know what well, I’m sure you’ve probably preached on a lot is have I, you got Pentecost. And then you got the, the early church. They devoted themselves to the apostles, teaching the fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayer. You see that new Testament model. This is just getting back to that. And what it does is it’s small group, how’s church, cell group, whatever you want to call it, but it’s small group discipleship multiplication. And it’s just getting back to what we see going on in the new Testament. And second Timothy, two, two, where Paul says to Timothy, what you’ve heard from me in the presence of many witnesses and trust a faithful man who in turn will be able to teach others.
Rob Welch (14:30):
So what we’re doing is we’re equipping every believer to be a multiplying disciple maker and do it in small groups. And people enter into these groups and they’re discipled, but then they, many of them immediately start reaching others, seeing them come to Christ and then discipling them. So let’s say you lead me and let’s say eight or 10 people. So think eight to 12, or at most 15 people or six to 15 people, you led me and a bunch of others to Christ because you’re an evangelist. You start training us. And so I’m in your group. I stay in your group, but I go out immediately evangelize and I reach another eight, 12 people. I started discipling them while you’re discipling me. And then the people that I’m discipling, then they go out and evangelize the disciple others. And once you get to the fourth generation of these groups, a movement’s been launched and that can reach millions of people. And the vision God’s given us is to see a billion souls reached eternally with the gospel and that’s through these disciple-making movements. So T for T or training for trainers is really just going back to the new Testament model we see at work in the book of acts and it’s empowering every believer to be a multiplier, say, God can use you, tell your story, tell what Jesus has done. Invite people to receive Christ and then disciple them as you’re being discipled. So it’s rapid disciple multiplication and small groups. So that’s going on,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:57):
Tell me how it works logistically, because when you go in for the crusade, you’re, you’re just there for a week for a short period of time. Are you doing intensive discipleship training that week and then leaving trainers that are starting those groups out?
Rob Welch (16:15):
No, we’re looking at the way we do it. Daniel, our, our model really is probably seven or eight trips. And I’d encourage you at other evangelists. I think this is a way we need to multiply our ministry. So we’re doing two or three often three training trips beforehand, where you literally end up training thousands of people to multiply and they start doing it. And if you can get to the third generation and by that, I mean, the first groups are first-generation once they start a second generation, when’s the second generation starts third. But if you can get a couple generations down, all of these discipleship groups going at the same time, you pretty much have the net ready for the harvest. And you immediately want to plug in the new believers that come to Christ at the festival, into these groups, because then they’ll start growing and multiplying.
Rob Welch (17:05):
So this is months before the festival that you have two or three, usually three trips. And they select the leaders who will be leading the movement. So they select the leadership team because this has to keep going after the festival. And most of the work is after the festival. The festival is just a launching pad for the movement. The engine is the T for T and those that are the parents that will lead it are the church leaders and those who lead in T for T they’re, the ones that shepherd the movement. And then you have a couple of followup trips after the festival to just ensure, you know, that it’s really been effectively launched. We have monthly tracking reports. So it’s, it’s really about a two year process if we’re doing it right. And, and we have to have a regional team to do it.
Rob Welch (17:55):
That’s why we’re just ministering in Eastern central Africa right now, because for our model to work effectively, there’s a lot of advanced work. There’s a lot of follow-up and there’s a lot of communication. So it’s a little different model than just focused on the events and the training around it. It’s, it’s kind of more of a holistic and more of a longer term approach. But the final point I make is you don’t want to go too long because this is empowering the believers there to lead it. And you don’t want to in any way, create dependence. So there’s wisdom and passing the Baton because it has to be theirs. They have to own it. They have to lead it. They have to know how to do it. And we just are in a support role after the festival to encourage them as it continues. So I hope that made sense, but that’s what it’s about.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:43):
So you are actually forming these groups long before the festival even happens before you, and you have a team. How many people do you have on your team there in Africa who are helping to organize everything?
Rob Welch (18:59):
Well, we have four plus we have a coordinator in the city we’re ministering in. So they’re coordinators working in different cities that we’ve previously administered in that are continuing the work. But we have four on our regional team that I would call full time with us that are working with us in that. And we, we need to add some more and we’re looking to add a second team this year because right now we can do two missions at most three missions a year with the way we’re doing it. We want to double that as soon as possible, because you know, like, you know, we want to reach everybody, our goal, every so we’re with you there, you know, we’ve got a world of rage, so we’re totally with you there, brother. And I appreciate your ministry, but yeah, so we’ve got a multiply and we’re looking to get our second team, hopefully going this year so we can see our impact expand.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:52):
Awesome. You’re you’re, you’re obviously concerned about more than just making converts. You are working to make disciples. Why do you feel that disciple-making is such an important part of the evangelism process?
Rob Welch (20:07):
Well, if we’re doing it right, I think it needs to be central because Daniel has gifted as you are. And I know you’re anointed when you preach. And I know you see, God work a lot of miracles when you pray. I see God working powerfully too. You know, there’s only so much we can do those of us that are called like you or me as proclamation of Angeles. I think we need to seek to activate every believer. And you see that, you know, the scriptures well in Ephesians four, that the office of the evangelist along with a possible prophet pastor and teacher is to equip the saints for the work of ministry. And as evangelists, I don’t think we’re doing our job. If we’re not equipping believers to multiply and make disciples. Now, I’ll be honest. I love preaching. I am not ashamed of that.
Rob Welch (20:57):
I love preaching in front of large crowds, the bigger, the better, the more people that come to Christ, the better I get really excited like you do. I jump up and down. They all think I’m African. My skin color kind of says something else, but in my heart, I think I’m African, but, but you know, I’m there for eight days, nine days, and they’ve got a mission that goes on for the rest of their lives. And if we’re not giving them that, then I think we’re, we’re not fulfilling our calling in the way we’re supposed to. So, so God put that on my heart. In 2004 and 2012, I finally saw the vehicle. And three years later, the 2015, we actually started executing it. So it took like 11 years from, Hey, we need to be watching movements to, okay. Here’s how and then, and doing it. But God’s been gracious in it. We’re staying at it’s really exciting.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:53):
We have a lot of different evangelists and missionaries that are listening to this podcast. What advice would you give to other evangelists, especially young evangelists who are just getting started.
Rob Welch (22:10):
I think you could give this to Dan. You know, we gotta stay the course and you know, it’s a marathon, I’m a talk to you and anybody else listening. That’s great, but you know how hard it is. And you know, the, the trials we go through and for anybody listening, brothers and sisters, this isn’t an easy call, but God who causes is faithful. So realize it’s really dependent on him and you’ve got to keep believing him. You know, I, I love this scripture in due season will reap. If we don’t give up, don’t become weary of doing good produce season. You’ll reap. If you don’t give up the call of an evangelist, we’ve got to persevere through trials, expecting them not to come is very naive. I have all these, I should know, better being close to 20 years in. You probably know better. Cause I think you’re smarter than I am, but I always hope that this mission will be easier than last. Do you ever have that Daniel or are you smarter than I am? Are you, are you not going to be honest and say, I hope, or it looks like things are going better here and I’m always hopeful. Maybe this mission will be easier and it like pretty much never is. Yeah. I know like persevere
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:24):
Sierra Leone this month with my friend Jones and we have to get four COVID tests too, before we get there. And two, before we come back, I mean, it’s doubled in difficulty.
Rob Welch (23:39):
Yeah. We had to do that going out and I got COVID last fall in my family too. So but yeah, it was it’s hard for our team the COVID stuff, but, but it just seems like when you think, Oh, this time it’s going to be easier. I think of the flesh. You want it easier? The Lord never said a BZ, but he promised to be with us. So I would say stay the course persevere and fix your eyes on Jesus. And remember that he’s faithful. It’s really not dependent on you. Your role is being faithful to him. He’ll work it out. I let me, let me end with this because I know our time’s about I had a vision where I was with the Lord. One time, this is going back and that’s not normal for me. Some people regularly have stuff, but I’m with the Lord in the car and I didn’t see him, but I’m with him.
Rob Welch (24:27):
He’s in the driver’s seat, I’m in the passenger seat. And I just told my partner at the time that God gave us the vision so we could do it. So here what I said, God gave us the vision so we could do it. So now here I am. After 20 days of fasting and praying, I just broken the fast and I have this vision of the Lord early in the morning, I’m with him in a car. And I see this little thing. I don’t see it clearly. It’s under the steering wheel, this, this little square. And the Lord speaks to me. He says, I show you the map so you can see where I’m taking you. Not so you can grab the wheel and try to drive there. See, I thought God was giving us the vision so we could do it. And he graciously said, no, it’s all me.
Rob Welch (25:15):
It’s all me here at Pasadena. I ain’t doing it. It’s kind of I’m with you. I’m doing it. I will accomplish my work. Cause I had this idea of me grabbing from the passenger’s seat, you know, grabbing, you know, 10 and two on the wheel from where I’m supposed to be sitting, just enjoying the view. I think we get caught up and I need to be reminded of that. He will do it. He is faithful. He’s never failed me. He never will. He doesn’t fail his people. We go through trials, but God’s faithful. He’s going to do it. We need to believe that. And just rest in him, abide in him. It’s his spirit working through us. It’s his gospel is bringing salvation and it’s just our job to believe him and be faithful and stay in the car. That’s as, I guess my last word for everybody, because it’s not an easy journey, but when the Lord’s driving, you know, he’s going to get there and you just gotta trust him. Okay.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:18):
So let Jesus drive the car. Well, if someone that’s listening wants to support your ministry or find out more information about the training for trainers discipleship program that you’ve put together, what’s your website. How could they get in touch with you?
Rob Welch (26:37):
Yeah, thank you. Cause I I’d love to get the materials we’re doing with T for T especially certainly welcome to support too. But boy, where these seeds multiply our website is for his glory, men.org. That’s F O R H I S G L O R Y M I n.org. So for his glory, men.org, and there’s a tab that’ll help on the equipping side. So we’ve got a lot of great material on T for T and anybody that wants to know more about T for T and how you can implement it in your ministry. I would love to talk to you personally, my partner, Mark Laveck, who is providing really our content on that would love to talk with you. So any way we can help you, we want to reach out to us and we’d love to encourage you and help you any way we can to see the kingdom multiply. Thanks for letting me be on today. Daniel, it’s good to see you. And I really appreciate your ministry and your faithfulness and your wife, Jessica, his faithfulness and the gospel and your kids who go with you sometimes. That’s that’s really exciting. Well, thank you
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:46):
So much for being on the evangelism podcast. God bless. Hi, I’m Daniel King. Thank you so much for listening to the evangelism podcast today. I love going around the world, telling people about Jesus, but I can’t do it without people like you. See, every time we go to preach the gospel, we buy a plane ticket. We have to do advertising. We have to pay money to rent a sound system. And we’ve found that takes an average of about $1 for every person we’re able to reach for Jesus. And so I’m asking people to go to my website, King ministries.com and give at least $1 a month, just $1 a month. That’s less than the cost of a cup of coffee for $1 a month. You can start a party in heaven every single month. And while you’re at it, go to Apple iTunes and leave the evangelism podcast. A positive review. Your five star review will help other people who are excited about evangelism to find this podcast. Thanks for listening. God bless you
Evangelism Podcast Host (28:52):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches. Visit King ministries.com. Again that’s King ministries.com.
