Around the Ministry - The Navigators


		You may know that The Navigators is involved in the lives of students in many countries around the world. But did you know that Navigators are influencing the lives of international students on 40 campuses right here in the United States? At the University of Tennessee alone, Navigators have relationships with students from 16 different nations.

“Raising up generations of disciples” can be a slow and subtle process. There is no template or curriculum for this. As a matter of fact, those who are becoming disciples of Jesus and learning how to pass this on to others are often not acutely aware of the transformation taking place in their own lives.

One Navigator working with students from East Asia at a larger Midwestern university recently experienced this first hand. This Navigator met regularly with a student—sometimes sitting and sipping tea in a public place as the two of them talked about the Lord and shared what they had been reading in the Scriptures.

The student was eager for more “tea and talk” mentoring and came to the Navigator’s house. After their initial conversation, the student reached for a sheet of paper on which the Navigator had printed out a brief presentation of his ministry goals and several verses of Scripture, including the following:

We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me (Colossians 1: 28,29).

After reading the verses, the student smiled and asked, “You did that with me, didn’t you?” The Navigator nodded in agreement and asked in reply, “Do you remember how we met?”

They reminisced about how their friendship had grown from practicing English to reading the Bible to talking about the Gospel to dealing with questions to accepting Christ to being baptized to growing as a Christian. The sparkle in the student’s eyes indicated his pleasure at being the product of God’s truth applied to his life.

Walking to the door and gazing out, he spoke from his heart: “I hope I can do the same when I go home to my country.”

In order to protect the identity of students from countries where embracing the Gospel could have serious consequences, we have omitted names and locations.

Rich Berry

Today one third of the population of the United States (approximately 100 million people) is comprised of ethnic minorities.

Navigators emphasize living and laboring among the people they are trying to reach. But how do we reach out to a population changing before our eyes?

Rich and Jane Berry have been doing exactly that with The Navigators for a long time. Over the past 40 years, they have maintained a focus on developing disciple-making leaders—especially within African-American communities.

There is still so much to do in order to reach the 40 million African Americans in our country. That’s why Rich and Jane are launching a Legacy Fund to resource African-American ministries.

For information about additional Navigator initiatives among ethnic groups in the United States, we invite you to visit http://www.navigators.org/us/ministries/ethnic.

–Chuck Swindoll
Pastor, Teacher, Author

During a hitch in the Marines (1957–1959), Navigator Bob Newkirk picked me out of a large group of military personnel on Okinawa. He believed in me, worked with me, encouraged me, and helped train me. Bob and I bumped around together for over a year. We played handball together, prayed and laughed together, and witnessed together. You name it, we did it . . . together. That was the best part of all. Together. In one word, that’s The Navigators.

At least 70 percent of all inmates entering prison are functionally illiterate. Most Christian discipleship efforts, however, are geared toward a reading public. How do we reach people who don’t read? Perhaps the prophet Isaiah had a clue for us:

The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed (Isaiah 50:4).

As part of an emphasis on oral learning, The Navigators has been working on a prison discipleship audio program called Running the Race Discipleship Program. It consists of 20 discipleship lessons. Each lesson has five sections: a Bible Story, Your Story, Plus Five Verses, a Memory Verse, and a Learning Tool.

The entire audio program is recorded and put onto audio players made by MegaVoice that can hold up to 140 hours of audio. Also included is a presentation of the Gospel and God’s story in English, Spanish, and hip-hop.

While these machines will never replace person-to-person discipleship, they do enhance the spiritual development process.

Jesus’ prayer for His disciples Many people think of The Navigators as “the Scripture memory people” and they associate us with tools like the Topical Memory System. Hiding God’s Word in our heart and meditating on it is certainly something we emphasize wherever we live and labor—among students, business people, in churches, in urban areas, in the United States, and abroad. I suppose you could even say it is part of our spiritual DNA.

For me, memorizing God’s Word isn’t just a “Navigator” activity. It’s important to me personally, as well. Recently, I committed this verse to memory:

Doug Nuenke
U.S. President, The Navigators

For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you (Isaiah 41:13).

As I review this verse I think of myself as God’s son, holding onto His hand, being led and helped by Him. That image—and the truth of that passage—is helpful and encouraging as I press through the challenges of life and ministry. It reminds me in no uncertain terms that God is with me.

Even as I see the promise of this verse being worked out in my own life, I’ve found it helpful to others, too, as I shepherd them toward maturity in Christ.

I remain convinced of the value of Scripture memory. Navigators from every corner of the globe remain committed to this discipline as well. We don’t do it to curry favor with God. We don’t do it to impress people or increase our knowledge. We do it because we’ve seen the Spirit of God use the Word of God we’ve memorized to change our lives and the lives of those among whom we live. My hope is that you are encouraged to hide the Word of God in your heart as well.