Brad Mayer is a Canadian evangelist who is on Fire for Jesus. Recently he started LIFE – Local & International Fellowship of Evangelists because he believes it is important for evangelists to be in relationship with one another.
Questions we discuss:
- How Brad Mayer became an evangelist
- Evangelism in Canada
- International Evangelism and testimonies from overseas
- LIFE – Local & International Fellowship of Evangelists
Canadian Fire Missions Website: Canadianfire.org
Join the LIFE Facebook group – Local & International Fellowship of Evangelists: https://www.facebook.com/groups/lifeevangelistsfellowship
LIFE is about networking, collaborating, and connecting with others who share your calling to evangelism. It is about learning from and mentoring others who carry that same fire to share the Gospel that lives in you. It is a fellowship of evangelists, young and old, seasoned veterans alongside those new to the call…. all united with the same heartbeat to impact the world with the life-saving message of Jesus Christ.
City Center Church: https://www.facebook.com/citycentrechurch/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Brad Mayer is a Canadian evangelist who is on fire for Jesus. Recently, he started life local and international fellowship of evangelists because he believes that evangelists need to be in relationship with one another.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:18):
Well, Jesus said go into all the world and preach the gospel. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. 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 the event,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:56):
Angela ism podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited to tell people about Jesus. I have a special guest today from the snowy North up in Canada, Brad Meyer. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Evangelist Brad Mayer (01:12):
It’s good to be with you, Daniel. Always good to connect with fire, fire, your evangelists like yourself.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:19):
We’ve been friends for a while now. I think originally Dr. Ladonna Osborn introduced us and you came down here to Tulsa, to one of the meetings of the Soul Winners Alliance, a group of evangelists that I have here. And then together, we went to Brazil and got to participate in a great crusade there with my friend Rubens Cunha. And then last year when my wife and I were driving through Canada, we came by and visited your, your church and saw your, your ministry there and Canada. Tell me a little bit about how you got started in evangelism and how you knew you were called to be an evangelist.
Evangelist Brad Mayer (02:03):
Well, I’m here in the smaller Prairie city of Saskatoon in Canada. And I came out of a life of my father, was an alcoholic and my brother became a Christian first and he, he pointed me towards Jesus. And then as soon as I got saved, I just wanted to tell everyone, I just wanted to tell everyone. In fact, one of the first nations indigenous evangelists in this neighbor, he started calling me Sean Buck from my very first few weeks of being saved because I just wanted to tell everybody. And so I I was offered a position in my local church. I was going through university and my church said, we want a campus minister. We want somebody who will reach out to the university that you just spent four years. I got a business degree and I spent four years getting this degree and cared more about winning souls than I cared about getting the business degree, but I did.
Evangelist Brad Mayer (02:57):
Okay. And I got the degree and finished it. And so he gave me this position in my church part-time they sent me to Bible school in the morning and doing outreach in the afternoon. So we just started setting up outreaches from this local church. That was a sort of a bigger suburban church. And we just started setting up outreaches to the streets and to nursing homes and to hospitals and to prisons. And we started a drama company and we start reaching out into educational institutions. And before you knew it, we had 250 outreaches a year coming from this, this local church. And we were just going everywhere, including the campus that we started, you know, that that was the initial goal. And so, so I, yeah, I ended up being coming full time as this outreach director and and just whatever, there was a way to mobilize people into reaching souls and I was all over it.
Evangelist Brad Mayer (03:49):
And so, so we did that for many, many years. We planted an inner city church, which is where I am now. This is this is my office in city center church, which is in the rougher part of our city. And so we planted this inner city church close to 20 years ago now. And and so and we continue, you know, it’s a little tougher in this COVID season to, to, you know, get out into those public places. Our prisons are, are not, you know, not allowing us in right now and, and, and going to the streets is challenging when it’s cold in Canada. But nevertheless, we find ways to reach out. And so out of that context of doing so many outreaches God began to put on a heart, you know, you need to take this into other nations.
Evangelist Brad Mayer (04:35):
And so about 10 years ago, we birthed what we call a Canadian fire missions. And so we started to go in the context of not necessarily going and doing big crusades, but helping local churches with their outreach efforts, because that’s just really what I am. And 30 plus years of doing this and setting up outreaches and churches. And so, so the last 10 years or so been to 35 nations and and just helping churches with their outreach efforts. And then we have done some crusades and I’ve been pleased to join you inner crusade there in, in Brazil a few years back. And so and so we’ll do that when, when, you know, when the opportunity presents itself, but for the most part, my heart is towards evangelism coming out of local churches. And so I believe there are local church evangelists in every local church, just like God puts feet on the body.
Evangelist Brad Mayer (05:31):
I believe he puts feet in local assemblies of believers. And there are always those ones who are fired up. They’re passionate about souls. And my heart is towards those people because I were one of those people on. So just releasing them and mobilizing them and taking them into, you know, the places where God has called them to go, whether it be a prison or a children’s outreach or whatever it may be, you know, just getting behind those people who have that evangelistic call in their life. That’s that’s my passion as an evangelist right now in this season of where I’m at.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:06):
Let’s talk a little bit about doing evangelism in the context of Canada. What are some of the things that, that you’ve seen that have been successful in, in reaching people for Jesus in, in Canada? I know it’s very different going overseas. There’s, there’s certain things you can do when you’re overseas, but what are some of the things that, that you’ve done and you’ve encouraged other people to do in Canada?
Evangelist Brad Mayer (06:32):
You know, people are people and no matter where you go around the world people’s needs are not that much different, regardless of where you go, that we planted a church in the, sort of the toughest part of our city. There’s a lot of people on welfare, social, social assistance, or welfare in the, in the, just the direct vicinity of our church. And so they may get a a government check or some form of assistance, but many cases it’s gone in it’s, it’s gone towards addiction. What I, what I like to do with churches is I like to do almost like a little bit of a neighborhood inventory and just start to see, Hey, what, what, how can you tap into some of the needs that are right there in your neighborhood? And so for my own local church where, where I’m part-time I, in my own local church still has an outreach director in my church.
Evangelist Brad Mayer (07:22):
We saw that some of the biggest needs in our community were like kind of like poverty and addiction and when poverty it really related to food. We found that if we fed people, we’d get people. And so, so we do lots of, lots of food type outreaches, big, big Easter, and Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner, you know, with Turkey, dinner and such. We do barbecues in the warmer part times of the year where we get three and 400 people on the side of our church, in our parking lot, and just giving away free hot dogs and hamburgers, but always with the context of, we’re gonna give you this food, but we’re going to tell you about Jesus. And so, so we would, we would do many sorts of food type outreaches, and then whatever we can do to help people get out of their addictions, see these, these are the two big needs that I saw.
Evangelist Brad Mayer (08:12):
And he might be in another neighborhood where you might see that maybe divorce is a big, you know, a big issue in maybe a suburban neighborhood. I know churches that have addressed that are addressed you know marriage struggles, you know, those kinds of things, maybe financial pressures that maybe a businessman is facing. And so the context of a local churches neighborhood might define, you know, what might be the best outreaches that they could develop, because they need to know their, no, the people that God has called them to reach. And so we stepped into that by, by maybe doing, like I say, a bit of a neighborhood inventory, you know, what are the needs of your neighborhood and how it could you as a church? How could you as reach out and and touch those, those those needs. Because, you know, that’s when people hear, they hear the gospel when we tap into those, those needs in their lives. And and those things that, you know, those emptiness is that we can we can speak to those things.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:14):
And you’ve done a lot of traveling in the last 10 years overseas. You said 35 different nations share with me some of the testimonies of what you’ve seen God do in the lives of people as you’ve gone to these different nations,
Evangelist Brad Mayer (09:31):
You know, because I’m not necessarily a guy who does crusades. And that has often been the context of who an evangelist is. You know, evangelists, loosen evangelists, always the guy who does crusades. And so I get some of my supporters sometimes asking me questions, they’d say like, how many people did you win to the Lord and your crusades over there? And I remember I had just came back from Eastern European nation. And I was in Romania and my heart was really towards evangelists. So I think I spoke in seven or eight local churches. And in every one of those churches, I made a call who are the ones who are the evangelists in this, in this churches who are the ones who have you have this burning passion in your heart. I want to pray with you. I want to connect with you.
Evangelist Brad Mayer (10:14):
And in those seven or eight local churches, there were 10, and that’s not a big number. I know evangelists like to speak about big numbers. And we like to say, we led 10 million people to Jesus. And I came back and this person was pressing me for how many people did you win and your crusades. And, and and I, and God just told me, tell her 10. He says 10, but I said, I found Tammy Vangelis that I can multiply myself into. And one in particular we’ve stayed very close one young evangelist. And to me, one of the most awesome testimonies I think is that he called me a few months later. And I was running on my treadmill, just doing some exercise in my house. And I felt the Lord speak to me and say, go to Romania, take this young evangelist and taking them on an international missions journey.
Evangelist Brad Mayer (11:02):
So together we went and we journeyed into the neighboring nation of Moldova. So we preached together in Moldova. And then about a year later, he called me out of the blue one day and he says, Hey, Brad, guess what? I’m taking a team to Moldova myself. And to me, I have kind of a evangelistic father’s heart, I guess that made me so satisfied and so happy. And since that time we’ve been in two other, we’ve surrounded his nation now, and we’ve been to Slovakia and Ukraine and and eat Hungary together. And so levee, if you’re on he’s in this group. And so levy, if you’re, if you’re listening today, I’m talking about you. And so, and so it’s been, it’s been great to see, you know, us multiply ourselves. And I could tell that kind of story in Tanzania and Nepal, you know, so many different nations where God has just knit my heart together with young evangelists, who, who maybe didn’t have somebody who shared their passion or understood their calling.
Evangelist Brad Mayer (12:03):
And yet they’ve had someone then who could who could, you know, link arms with them and just say, let’s go harvest together. And so I think that’s so important because I had the same thing happened to me. There’s a well-known evangelist in my province, in the Christian and missionary Alliance denomination. And I was the president of the ministerial in my city. And he came to speak to the ministers of my city and I thought, wow, this guy has a passionate evangelistic heart. How come? I don’t know him. And he’s from another city in my province. So I said, let’s go for lunch tomorrow. So we did. And what was supposed to be a one-hour lunch meeting turned into a four hour hanging out together. And I came home. I was on cloud nine and I realized spending time with another evangelist. I got more out of that than going into five conferences. It just was so energizing. And so, so uplifting to me to share stories with him and then hear his stories and share my stories, and we understood each other. And I thought that, and so that’s, that’s something often me that you need to go help other evangelists as much as you can around the world and connect with them and just, you know link arms with them and learn from them, teach them what, you know, learn what they know. It’s been, it’s been an awesome journey is really hard.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:22):
I think that’s a tremendous insight. I think having relationships with other evangelists is one of the, the keys to really stay healthy. As in evangelists, sometimes evangelists, they, they go on a trip overseas and, and they see thousands of people get saved and they come home and, and people in the local church don’t really always understand the, the excitement of seeing all these people getting saved and the miracles and everything. And so it’s really important for evangelists to have relationships with other evangelists to sharpen one another, to spend time one another. And I just feel in this conversation, I’m excited just talking to you, and it makes me want to go do some more evangelism and, and take it through together and do something for Jesus together. You know, and that’s what happens when one person is on fire that fire spreads from, from person to person, and you can put other people on fire. So you, you really have a passion for raising up other evangelists and pouring into other evangelists and helping evangelists to, to develop these relationships. So you, you started a new group called life, which stands for local and international fellowship of evangelists. And so tell me a little bit about the group and who’s invited to be a part of the group and what your vision is for this, this group.
Evangelist Brad Mayer (14:52):
Well, my, my passion is, is as we’ve already been sharing, you know, to just, you know, mobilize and motivate and encourage and, and, you know exhort, those who have that evangelistic calling. But I think one thing that’s unique about this life group is that it recognizes the local evangelists and that Al that Helen LA life, is it a local and international there’s people who are doing some international things, but right in my city, there are 15, 16, 17 people that I connect with that have different forms of an evangelistic call on their life. And I love it. I love connecting with them, and it could be anything from a children’s minister to a prison chaplain and see sometimes people just need that, that confirmation, that someone else comes alongside them and say, you know what? You are an evangelist. And they were like, really me.
Evangelist Brad Mayer (15:43):
Yeah, yeah. You, and then that just sets them on fire to go do what they’re called to do. I remember one time I was preaching in the Philippines and I often will pray over people’s feet. I’ll get down on my knees. And the Bible says, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news? And I just, you know, I’ve always felt, you know, the evangelist, you’re like the feet of the body. And just as a symbolic thing, I’ll get down on my knees and I’ll pray over the feet of people. And so often make a call in a church for people to come and and we’ll pray over their feet. And as I was praying, sometimes you’ll end up prophesied and you’ll say no, saying something. So I’m not even seeing their faces. And there was this skinny girl, and I started to speak over her that you are a nation changer.
Evangelist Brad Mayer (16:24):
You are on a life transforming evangelists. And the whole church started going, Whoa, like, wow. I was like, how does he know this? It turns out this young girl, I love meeting people like this, this young girl, she would go and buy containers of rice and she’d go on a jeepney they the form of transport in the Philippines. And she jumped on a Jeep knee and she preached to the Jeep, me drivers. And she preached, preached to the people who would ride those forms of transport all day. And she just shared Jesus with people day in and day out. And she’s, she seems so meek and mild and almost crying when I was praying for. But when she’d get out there into the world, she was like a bold as a lion. And and she just received affirmation that day that she absolutely needed. And and we’ve stayed connected. I believe she may be on this life group as well. And so and so it’s good to, to make those connections. I remember a cab driver in, in Israel ministering in Israel, a taxi driver who does nothing but share the gospel. He says, I don’t care if it’s Jewish, Muslim Orthodox. He goes, I don’t care. He goes, I preach Jesus all day. Every day.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
I thought it sounds like an evangelist.
Evangelist Brad Mayer (17:38):
Exactly. I said that taxi driver is probably more of an advantage as the minivans in the world, just because he shares Jesus day in and day out every day. And when I meet guys that, I just like, I’m thinking, yeah, I found my people, you know, I’ve found one of my own. And so, so yeah, my heart is towards connecting. We, we set up a Facebook group. We had a more informal group before the Facebook group in terms of people who wanted to sign up and just become like a life member or start a life chapter in their city. And so we, we’ve done a little bit of work towards that. But as far as, you know, an easy way to connect yeah, just local and international fellowship evangelists, or life on Facebook. And, and and someone can find, find out about that or through our website, you know, Canadian fire.org, a person can find out more about connecting with other evangelists and learning from them and growing.
Evangelist Brad Mayer (18:35):
I learned so much from you, Dr. Daniel. I just, I really did. You’re younger than me, but you just had opportunities that I’ve never had. And so I’ve got a good evangelist friend in another part of Canada, and he says this all the time. He says, your mind is like an elastic band. And once it’s been stretched out, you know, and it’s been exposed to new things, it can never return to a state that it was in before. And and that’s what happened when I went to Brazil with you as a, I thought I should be doing more crusades. I should be doing what doctor Dr. Daniel King is doing. You know, I should be doing this. It just here in Canada though, where have I been exposed to that? Nowhere, you know, I haven’t, I haven’t, but you know, you’re in a city where you’ve had TLR born and you’ve had so many great evangelists coming out of Tulsa. That’s, that’s a, that’s an advantage you’ve had that I haven’t had. And so, so I learned everywhere I go, I always want to be a continual student. And if I can be a teacher to others then let’s do that. Let’s, you know, help mobilize young Angela sold evangelists and move around the world and, and bring Jesus.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:39):
Amen. Well, there will be more opportunities to do crusades and do amazing things for Jesus together. And, and I believe that you will see God do great things in the future through your ministry. And so if you’re listening and you want to connect with other evangelists, you want to build relationships with other evangelists find the Facebook page. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll post a link to it. And I’ve actually been posting episodes from the evangelism podcast on the Facebook page, just so people can get to know one another as I interview different evangelists. And I think it is really wonderful for evangelists to share their testimonies with one another, to tell everyone what they’re doing, because that encourages others. I think it also stretches our faith. When we see the testimonies see the pictures, see what God is doing in the lives of others. And, and it sparks ideas. I was like, Hey, I could do that. I want to do that. Let’s go.
Evangelist Brad Mayer (20:42):
Yes. Yes. So, yes, I think, I think it’s awesome when we can steal each other’s or borrow absolutely.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:50):
Any of my ideas you are welcomed to have, and
Evangelist Brad Mayer (20:53):
Yes, exactly. If it brings people to Jesus. Yeah, absolutely. Those are more important than, you know, owning an idea. And so
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:02):
Brother, Brad, thank you so much for joining me on the evangelism podcast. Love your ministry, love what you’re doing in Canada and around the world. God bless you.
Evangelist Brad Mayer (21:12):
You too. Thanks
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:14):
So much for listening today. Could you do me a favor? Go to Apple iTunes, find the evangelism podcast with Daniel King and leave us a review. Those reviews will help other people who are interested in evangelism find this podcast. Thank you so much. And God bless you
Evangelism Podcast Host (21:35):
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.
