Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - How to Raise Mission-Minded Children | Practical Steps for Parents | Brooks Buser & Jonny Ardavanis

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

In this episode, Jonny Ardavanis speaks with Brooks Buser from Radius International about how to cultivate a heart for global missions in the next generation. After serving 13 years as a missionary translator in Papua New Guinea with the Yembi Yembi people, Brooks now leads Radius International, which trains, equips, and deploys missionaries all over the world. In this conversation, discover:• Practical ways parents can instill mission-mindedness from toddlers to teens• The impact of missionary biographies and strategic short-term mission trips• Why global missions reflects God's heartbeat from Genesis to Revelation• How to authentically model missions as a priority in your family• Steps for any parent—regardless of vocation—to align their children with God's global purposeWhether you're a pastor, business professional, or stay-at-home mom, learn why missions isn't just "something some Christians are into" but the very heartbeat of God for all believers.Watch VideosVisit the Website Buy Consider the LiliesFollow on Instagram

This isn't just something that Stonebridge Bible is into, Claremont Emmanuel Baptist, Radius, they just kind of like the missions thing. No, no, no. This is something that our God is into. From the fall of mankind to the wedding supper of the Lamb, this is the heartbeat of our God

that all peoples, all nations would be gathered to Him. Brooks, thank you for coming on. I wanted to just first maybe just introduce yourself, your background as a missionary, and then what you do now. I think it provides a valuable context for the question I want to ask you. Yeah, so my wife and I were over in New Guinea for 13 years, got to spend that time among the Yembe Yembe people. I was the lead translator on the team, so got to be involved with that. And then came back to the U.S. in 2016, have been leading Radius

since then. Thankful for nearly 400 students that have gone through the program, gone out to over 30 countries. So that's what I do right now. And Radius is primarily focused in with unreached people groups, right? Yeah, yeah. We train them up to go to places where no church exists. So that's the thrust of it. Now, a question I want to ask you, and we talked about this a little bit at lunch. You were preaching at our church this morning, and you talked about just as a church or as a family,

instilling in the next generation the priority of global missions. And I even think about my upbringing growing up. I've mentioned it before, but I remember my parents reading me, as I was telling you, missionary biographies almost every single night my entire life. And growing up, there was just this, I think, palpable sense of God's calling for every single Christian to be a part of God's global mission. Even as I think about my older sister, she's a missionary. I have a younger sister. She's going to be a missionary with her

husband, hopefully in the next couple of years. But that was something my parents cultivated. And I think the church environment I grew up in cultivated that, hey, you're either, as you said, and Piper, a goer or a sender or a disobeyer. And so my question for you is how do parents, how do churches cultivate that sense of commission, appropriate maybe term, in the next generation? How do we raise our kids missionally minded? Yeah. I mean, I think one thing you got to recognize is how the way your parents raised you, that's incredibly rare to have that at the forefront, so to speak. I think the two key times for kids when you're talking about significant things are around the dinner table and putting them to bed at night and putting them to bed at night with those biographies, even if they're just little snippets of these heroes of the faith that have come before the Adoniram Judsons, John G. Paytons, Gladys Allwards, Elizabeth Elliotts, Betty Greens. Betty Green's, if you keep that in their DNA, I think that's one thing from one-year-old

on to 18 that is kind of like a steady drumbeat. But I think the second thing is introducing them, not through a steady stream of short-term missions, but maybe just some key trips here and there in their lifetime. Most of the long-term missionaries that I know went on a short-term trip first. That's the huge payoff for short-term missions, in my opinion, is, one, it helps establish missionaries, but it also gives those who go on the trips this vision for what they may end up doing. They may end up catching a heart for, wow, if we stayed for 10, 15 years among this people or we got to go to that people that we've all been praying about that we kind of got to fly over from a distance or whatever. They could make an impact. So short-term missions and then exposing them to good podcasts, exposing them to good speakers that would talk about that, good conferences. You and I have both been involved in good conferences for young people.

But it's an intentionality. How kids turn out to me is 90% on the parents, 10% on what happens to the kids. If the parents are intentional about this and they're willing to put this stuff before them with courage, that's the thing. Most parents don't want to do it because in the back of their mind, there's a subtle idea they might actually do this. And kudos to your parents again, that they're willing to say, hey, these are temporary stewardship, so to speak, that we're going to say goodbye to in 18, 20, 25 years. And they belong to the king first and foremost. That's a wonderful stance, in my opinion, on parenting. Yeah. Even in that light, maybe just reference the hymn you mentioned this morning and

how maybe as parents, we actually believe something antithetical to the words that we may sing. So reference that hymn you were mentioning. Yeah. John G. Payton heard this hymn and he would reference it when he was talking to parents. They were singing it in Scotland when he went back for the first time after he lost his wife and son in the New Hebrides. And they were singing some version of, send our sons and daughters glorious to the nations abroad. Charles Spurgeon used to say, Christians don't tell lies, we just sing them. And this idea that we sing these wonderful, glorious anthems, Lord, I give my life, my heart, my soul, just don't take my kids. That's just, that doesn't, that's incongruous with the great songs that we sing, the great charters, the nations, and my life is short and I give my all to you, Father.

Those types of things, I think kids have this remarkable ability to smell inauthenticity. They can smell authentic and they can smell inauthentic. And if mom and dad are saying this one thing about this great God that's worthy to live for and die for, and yet we'd love to have you live on our block and take over the family business, there's something there that doesn't match up and kids kind of catch that, whether mom and dad want them to or not. Yeah, you were even mentioning at the beginning of this episode just the rarity of my parents, I would say, emphasizing the importance of missions. And I think it was truly – they weren't just willing. I think their ultimate dream would be all seven of their kids they never saw again, send them to the furthest corners.

Now, I think that is rare, and I'm grateful for that. And my parents, that I think partially was just because my dad was exposed to so many different, you know, missions, contacts. He was a pastor, and he would go, and we always thought, hey, when dad's older, when we're all out of the house, he's going to move overseas, and he's going to train pastors. That was what we, at 11 years old, that was like, my dad's going to wait till we're all gone, and then he's going to move overseas and he's going to train pastors. That was what we, at 11 years old, that was like, my dad's going to wait till we're all gone and then he's going to leave us to go train pastors. For someone that's not in a pastoral context, not a missions context, let's say I'm a dad,

I'm a business guy, I'm a CPA, I'm never going to go be a missionary. I'm not the son of a missionary like you. What would be your encouragement to an average father in the workplace? Here's why you need to give your children a heart for global missions, regardless of where they end up. And you should pray that they end up going, or what would be your encouragement to them? If I'm just going, I don't know if I care. I want them to have a heart for the Lord. Why global missions? Yeah, I would think first and foremost, it's clearly taught in the Bible.

I think the Bible speaks about the mission of the church. Kevin DeYoung's written a great book on this, What is the Mission of the Church? Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert. That whole concept of getting them closer to our Father's heartbeat. This isn't just something that Stonebridge Bible is into, Claremont Emmanuel Baptist, Radius. They just kind of like the missions thing. No, no, no. This is something that our God is and closer the heartbeat of our God.

And so that aspect of, yeah, I want to get them closer to this. And then I think through that, just taking these various tools, be they biographies, be they podcasts, good conferences, that's going to draw them closer to that. And I don't think everybody is cut out to be a Frontiers Pioneer missionary, but I think for everyone to have a stake in that, whether, and as I referenced this morning in your church, as a goer or a sender, they have a vision of heaven, of what that will be like and the variety that will be there, the love for our God that will be there. And as parents instill that in their kids, it's just this one, because they're almost like ahead of the game in their walk with God. If they can know, oh, this is primary to my God. This isn't like some secondary thing. You're into

the choir, you're into men's athletics, and I'm into missions. Like, no, no, no. This is something that is a significant theme throughout all of scripture, from the fall of mankind to the wedding supper of the lamb. This is the heartbeat of our God, that all peoples, all nations would be gathered to him. And so that to me, that would be a very big motivation for Christian parents to put this in front of their kids. It's such a regular, steady diet. Yeah, well, that's helpful. You know, I got two little girls, another girl on the way.

And it's one of the things that I think and pray through is just I want my kids to grow up knowing, as you said, the heartbeat of God. And this is the call of every parent. You know, it's not, as you said, hey, this is a soccer family, this is a theater family, they're the thespians, whatever it may be. And then there's the missions people. But this is something for every Christian of every age. We serve a global God. So thank you, Brooks, for your help in that regard. No worries, brother.