"You Can't Make This Stuff Up"

An update from Matthew Williams, Lead Pastor of KingsWay Community Church, Midlothian, Virginia, USA…

“You can’t make this stuff up.”

I have thought as much on multiple occasions as my long-time friends, Josh and Lieze Kruger, step off the plane tomorrow to begin a 12-month church-planting residency at KingsWay. Lord willing, they will return to Windhoek, Namibia in early 2024 to plant the first Sovereign Grace Church in their country. The 17-year journey to this moment is a remarkable story of God’s providence.

Josh was born in South Africa under apartheid. He moved to Richmond, Virginia as a teenager when his dad, Josh Sr., accepted a forensic scientist position with the state government. Think NCIS with less office drama. The entire family arrived at KingsWay Community Church in 2005 hungry for expository, Christ-centered preaching that called believers to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel. That’s miracle number one.

At the time, Josh was like many young men in our church. He had a strong passion to serve the Lord and a lot to learn about the basics of Christian spiritual leadership. He was a sponge in the best possible sense, participating in book studies, volunteering on the facilities team, and doing anything he could to spend time with our pastors. He asked countless questions. A gift of leadership quickly became evident. People naturally followed him.

In 2009, we sent Josh to Fredericksburg, Virginia to support Ken Delage in planting Mercy Hill Church. A year later, he moved back to South Africa to get married and began working fulltime for Operation Mobilization, a global, Christian missions organization. We began providing financial support for the Krugers in 2015 around the time Josh assumed a new field leadership position with OM in Namibia. He was only allowed to immigrate to the country because his wife, Lieze, was born there. That’s miracle number two.

We had some pivotal conversations after I attended a conference in Zambia with him in 2017. We talked about the importance of expository preaching. We talked about how biblical missions proceeds out of local churches and results in new local churches. Around the same time, the Lord provided opportunities for him to preach at their local church in Windhoek. Josh loved it. He also developed a growing awareness that much of what he was hearing from the pulpit didn’t come from God’s Word. That’s miracle number three.

Two years ago, Josh and Lieze decided to leave their church after months of futile conversation with their pastor about the false teaching coming from the pulpit. The congregation deteriorated afterward, and many former members began asking Josh to start a new church. They were hungry for biblical preaching and said things like, “Josh, when you preach, you help us understand the Bible.”

To his credit, Josh refused. As his biblical understanding of the pastorate grew, so did his fear of entering ministry unqualified and unprepared. I encouraged Josh to rest and wait, trusting the Lord to confirm a clear call to ministry in his good time and provide the right opportunities to be equipped. I encouraged him to start taking online classes at Southern Seminary a few months later.

When Josh and Lieze began attending a new, evangelical gathering of believers in Windhoek, the Lord again provided opportunities for him to preach. A visit to Namibia in April 2022 confirmed Josh was fast becoming their functional lead pastor. During that trip, Josh expressed his growing confidence that God wanted him to leave OM and become a pastor, an aspiration Lieze readily affirmed.

That’s miracle number four for multiple reasons, chief among them the lack of biblical models of ministry in their context. Josh isn’t compelled to become a pastor by what he has seen in African churches. He grieves what he has seen. He’s compelled by what he reads in Scripture and by what he has tasted and seen of God’s Word lived out in KingsWay and Mercy Hill.

Before I left, I encouraged Josh and Lieze to pray about coming to KingsWay for a 1-year pastoral residency with the goal of returning to Windhoek to plant a church with Sovereign Grace in 2024. We brainstormed ways we could work with the Pastors College to provide a combination of practical and theological training for ministry. They asked insightful questions about Sovereign Grace polity and history. And I gave them a parting homework assignment! Work through our Statement of Faith and 7 Shared Values. I told Josh we had no interest in expanding our brand. But if we share the same convictions, it would be an absolute joy to labor together.

When I got home, I called Dave Taylor, Sovereign Grace’s Director of Global Missions and said, “Help! We’ve never trained an international church planter before.” His counsel was a gift. Three months later, Josh and Lieze told us they were all in. They love our combination of reformed and continuationist theology, the way we build relationally, the accountability we provide for our pastors, and our commitment to church-based missions.

A flurry of conversations with our local eldership, missions committee, and Regional Assembly of Elders followed, plus a grant application to the Africa Development Fund, discussion with the Pastors College staff, and several months of work with Tommy Hill and an immigration attorney to bring Josh and his family to the US. Here’s miracle number five. A visa petition that normally takes 6 months to get approved took 6 days.

The relational favor and financial support the Krugers have received on every front in Sovereign Grace is overwhelming. Gifts from our local church enabled their entire family to come to the US last fall for the Pastors Conference. One of our deacons invited Josh, Lieze, and their two boys to live in their second home for a year. Another member gave them a car. Families from CrossWay Community Church in Charlotte started collecting toys and household supplies. Mercy Hill made a generous financial pledge, as did our region, and the Africa Fund. Sovereign Grace central staff are lining up Pastor’s College housing, employment documents, and health insurance. The list goes on. There’s no way we could do this alone.

Josh and I will be together in Louisville next week for the first of seven classes he’s taking at the Pastors College over the next year to supplement his Southern coursework. Between classes, he will spend time serving with our local eldership, developing his preaching gift, discussing books about pastoral ministry, growing in his personal character, preparing for ordination, developing a church-planting prospectus, and getting a better sense for what biblical community looks like in action. They are eager to learn how our theological distinctives play out in church life and leadership.

Pray for grace to adjust to a new culture, wisdom to learn and retain all the Lord will teach Josh this year, favor in the ordination process, and faith that God will provide all they need to plant a church in Windhoek in early 2024. Josh and Lieze are known and loved in their city. The ethnic diversity in their relationships is remarkable given Namibia is only 30 years out from apartheid. We couldn’t be more excited to see all the Lord will do through them and in turn, throughout southern Africa.