Doug Pitman

Doug Pitman talks about his testimony, Kingdom International Ministries, vision and hope. Their mission is  to preach the gospel, equip and train pastors/leaders and mobilise the local church into the global harvest.

By the preaching of God’s Word and the power of the Holy Spirit, they have witnessed many miracles of healing, and transformed lives throughout the nations of Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Transnistria, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, England and Wales. Many doors of opportunity continue to open beyond the nations that they are currently serving. They live by faith and step through open doors to serve however and wherever possible as the Lord leads.


https://www.mykmi.org/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwKARH7oEft15BS_hcvlIZQ

Transcript

Nicola: Welcome to Cold Water Podcast. I’m Nicola Halton. We all know the importance of getting out there and doing a great work for Jesus. In this podcast we will learn more about the people who are involved in changing lives for good, for God. I would like to welcome Doug Pitman to the Cold Water Podcast. Would you like to share your testimony Doug?

Doug: Well Hello Nicola. Its good to be with you. 

Nicola: Hello 

Doug: and I really appreciate the invitation to have this podcast with you and of course my testimony goes back to well, I grew up in Church you know and as a young, young guy I have a lot of family history but you know how it is God works out His own plan for your life and so forth but to be in the ministry, I didn’t grow up with those aspirations. I grew up a Christian involved in church and my family were faithful in church and all but really I had a desire to play American football. And that is what I put my heart into and I ate, drank and slept it through my high school years with an opportunity for a scholarship up North in one of the states in the USA. The Lord literally took the desire away from me and that fall, that autumn I found myself at bible college and I thought I would go for one year. It can’t hurt you know. Then I happened to be at a missions’ conference that I attended there and God got a hold of my life and I realised I had the call of God on my life and so the rest is history. I said yes and I also met my wife Angie at bible college it was International Bible College and it had a good nickname, “International Bridal College.”  A lot of people met their mates there and of course got married there and we went into full time ministry 1986. So really truly the rest is history we went on to have two children who are married now. We have 6 beautiful grandchildren. Our 7th is one is due to arrive this coming September. Now we had been involved in the local church since 1986 in executive pastor roles, as elder and pastor and missions pastor and co-ordinators and organisers my wife in Christian education, Christian school for many, many years. And of course being on staff we thought we would be doing what we were doing, where we were doing it probably the rest of our lives but through a health crisis, it just drove us to see the face of God and you know what scripture says, “if you seek me you will find me, if you search with all of your heart.” You know I gained an understanding of God’s interpretation of that scripture through this time because we were flat out crying out to God in this crisis. This is 2010 and our God cry led to a God encounter ok and I don’t have time to go into all that but I just call it my burning bush experience ok. 

Nicola: Yes

Doug: And in this God encounter our hearts were aimed to a people oversees who we really weren’t even thinking about and it’s the continent of Europe. And a lot of the missionaries form our church would up in Mexico and Central South America, possibly Asia in Africa but not much presence in Europe but I hadn’t really thought about it that much but we found ourselves actually living in Austria. We made preparations the following year, pastoring a fresh pioneered work. It was five years old when we took it over in Austria and we were there about 8 months and we returned home with by our elders request to help with a crisis back in Texas and we helped the church through that and needless to say we weren’t able to go back to Austria. We couldn’t really apply for the visa that we had required because somebody was in the position we would need to be in. And so we said goodbye to that when we went back to Texas where we base our ministry now and so God had aimed us toward the continent of Europe so we just based here and we kept going to Europe and also all these countries kept opening up and people saying, “Come help! Come help! Come help! And so we are in about ten, eleven countries now. Just you know with the focus of preaching the gospel message, equipping and training leaders and mobilising the local church into the local harvest. SO our focus there our vision there, so that is what we are doing today. 

Nicola: Yes 

Doug: A lot of ministries, we had to, the whole covid pandemic, we had to adjust, we had to come out of our comfort zones. We were totally cancelled. I mean what do you do when you have international travelling ministry and there’s a global pandemic and borders are closed and so but God’s been good and we look forward to cranking things back up here soon. We have done what we could through internet and different things like that. But hey, that’s it in a nutshell. 

Nicola: Yes 

Doug: There’s a lot to say there really.

Nicola: You have, you have answered two questions because I wanted to ask you have ministered all over the world and I wanted you to talk about that so you have done that but your focus is on Europe, is that right, definitely but you have been other countries as well that’s right? Is that right? 

Doug: That’s correct a few other countries like Japan, Haiti and Mexico but if I am to buy an airplane and go somewhere what’s my heartbeat is to go to Europe. 

Nicola: Well we need stirring up. We do need stirring up. 

Doug: Laughs 

Nicola: I think you are definitely doing that, stoking the fire really, cos you know it’s alright having a fire but the coals sometimes sort of settle don’t they and you sometimes need to prod that and get the flames back up again and get more coal on its how it works, otherwise it will just go out and there is a lot of passionate Christians here but we do need to be stoked up and we do need to be fed. So thank you for doing that. I really appreciate what you do. You know. I was just, watching your message in a minute and I thought it was fabulous. I don’t know how you manage to do it so concisely and so well. And I think it would have been lockdown that inspired you to do that. Is that right? 

Doug: Pretty much, yes everybody became a TV preacher basically. 

Nicola: Yes

Doug: With the covid pandemic and I was thinking there were so many opportunities to watch sermons online or home churches and different ministries and there was so much and I just felt maybe people just needed a quick pick em up so to speak hopefully in about a minute. I went over a couple of times, a lot of times but it’s just something that is inspiring and gives hope in 60 seconds. 

Nicola: Yes

Doug: Around that you know. That’s what inspired the message in a minute. During the covid times. And it was difficult you know a preacher trying to say something in 60 seconds or less. 

Nicola: Laughs

Doug: or more you know. I apologised sometimes when I went over but you know

Nicola: No, it was great it was very effective and I would like to see a little library of those somewhere so they don’t drop of the Facebook system. That would be great if we could have those sort of .. 

Doug: I hoped to load them all up. I didn’t really load them all. A lot was just spontaneous God would give me a thought a scripture and I would just go with it. Hopefully I could just load them up to my Youtube channel and people could go on there and just click on.

Nicola: Yes

Doug: I am hoping to do that soon. 

Nicola: That’s brilliant well ill put the link on to this podcast as well so people can just click on and get more details about you, so that would be brilliant. I’ve got a question I want to ask you here and this is a spiritual one. Why do you think it is important for Christians to have vision? And that is what stuck out to me when hearing you talking.

Doug: We ok, I believe it’s important to have vision because if you don’t have something you are reaching for, I really don’t believe that you can fulfil God’s purpose in your life. Without that… You know we were born with a purpose and all our days are written in his book before we ever lived one day and God has a purpose for us all but you know we all need something that wakes us up in the morning. It drives us and without a vision sometimes the things that happen in our life, the contrary things, the contrary whims, the struggles, the trials, the fire that we walk through or the difficult times, you know it would be easy to lose our way. 

Nicola: Yes

Doug: if it were not for us to understand who were are and who our God is and that fire that he has put into our heart, what ever it is and not every body… it would be a boring world if everybody had the same exact vision and how that would manifest and how that would be played out but we are lively stones knit together and so God is working through His church, His body in the Earth today and so believe vision just comes just by drawing near to God. And he puts his heart in you and especially if you have the heart to say, “God what is on your heart, what can I do for you? How can I serve you?” That is a natural response to knowing that I’ve been bought with a price. 

Nicola: Yes

Doug: And my life is not really my own, and here am I send me. You see, our vision for Europe came to us in a time of crisis. We were serving God and I realise that what I am doing today might not be what I am doing forever, you know. That God is ever expanding, its faith to faith, its glory to glory, its strength to strength. Its ever progressing. What he’s doing in our life. He is ever bringing us into a broad place in other words. And I want to say that to anybody who is listening for today. That God’s vision for your life is to bring you to a broad place and the crisis that we went through in 2010 it was a season in our lives that brought us to such.. sometimes crisis has a purpose to bring us to a place of surrender to say God what ever you want me to do I’ll do it. Where-ever you want me to go, I’ll go, whatever you want me to lay down, I’ll lay down. Whatever you want me to pick up, I’ll pick up. I’m yours. And its in that desperation where God says, “aha.”

Nicola: Yes

Doug: Now I can show you what I’ve always wanted to show you. Now I can do with your life what I’ve always wanted to do. Because we come to such a complete surrender in that time. So don’t, don’t misunderstand a difficult time because you could be about to graduate to a new level.

Nicola: Yes

Doug: Ok and every difficult we have experienced in life we have realised through it all God’s brought us into new dimensions to new levels and so it’s important and so without vision we cannot accomplish what we are supposed to accomplish on this Earth. 

Nicola: Yes, yes

Doug: And everybody has a purpose. Not everybody is going to stand behind a pulpit. Not everybody is going to sing into a microphone Hopefully not. Errm I’m sort of being sarcastic there but ermm not everybody is a singer not everybody is a preacher. Errm and I’ve been in ministry long enough to know that people that are working behind the scenes a lot of times are the ones that are making it happen. They go unnoticed, they are unsung heroes but they get it done. But you know what, they are living out their purpose. 

Nicola: Yes, yes

Doug: so we all need something, that something that wakes us up in the morning and gets us going.

Nicola: And without vision the people will perish and I don’t know where that is in the bible because I am not really… I always get quotes but I can never remember where they are. But that .. so erm thank you, (laughter)

Doug: I am not an expert with the references either, it’s the word itself that has the power you know.

Nicola: It is, that’s right. Ermm you quoted Isaiah 25:1 in one of your messages in a minute. “For I am the Lord your God who churns up the sea so that its waves roar. The Lord almighty is His name. I have put my words in your mouth and covered you with the shadow of my hand. I have who have set the heavens in place, who laid the foundations of the Earth and who say to Zion. You are my people. How do we have a hope? That’s the question that I am asking now. How do we have that hope?

Doug: Wel,l you know. Hope comes from knowing who God is and how he relates to you. And its really about identity. A lot of Christian’s today have a confused identity. And without a correct understanding of identity its easy to lose courage. It makes it difficult to take a stand and go forward but I tell you what when you know who your God is and who you are, when you know what he says you have, you can do what he says you can do. He is the Lord your God.

Nicola: Amen

Doug: Your very personal God. I like what it says in Isaiah 43, “I am the Lord who takes hold of your right hand,” who says to you, “Don’t be afraid. I will help you.” Knowing that you are trusting in the very truth of His existence, that he is not a man that he should lie. And that what he says is established forever and if he says he is with us and he has us by the hand and he will help us. Well, you can go to the bank with that. So I think hope, you can’t really get hope from the natural realm, this sphere, this earthly sphere, and erm its when you draw near to the Lord. When you realise that through prayer, through seeking God and standing on His word, you are literally reaching beyond your human abilities in life and you’re laying hold of His ability because he is compassionate, and He is good and everything good and perfect comes from Him who put the lights in the heavens and sustains the universe. So hope comes in what you believe really about God. What you believe about God will directly affect your prayer life, it will affect your daily walk. It will determine the level of your courage. Ok. And so what you believe about God is important there and so people who walk in they say a vey shallow walk, and I know some people are just beginning to walk with Christ. Hey, we all have to start somewhere but you know what he doesn’t leave us there..

Nicola: Yes

Doug: Because he is always leading us deeper and deeper and if you just yield to His yearning that’s in your heart, that yearning for more. Because he want’s to reveal himself more and more and more. But sometimes we find ourselves in a difficult time when we are struggling for hope. We find that we are holding to tightly to this realm and we are depending on this realm, you know the economy, maybe the political atmosphere, friends and family to bring us joy, to bring us happiness. Hey, listen it’s a world that’s fading away. 

Nicola: Yes

Doug: And we only have one rock and that’s Jesus Christ and the word of God that’s established forever and it is hard to have hope beyond that. 
 
 

Nicola: Yes

Doug: You know and without hope its really hard for people to live. Hope is essential but its got to come from the right source. 

Nicola: Yes, Yes

Doug: OK

Nicola: That was absolutely beautifully answered. Thank you so much and you know we find sometimes that when we are at the end of ourselves. Sometimes it can be with people. And the Lord can give us that power and that strength to love in the most difficult circumstances and that is the hope that he has for us that we become more like Him. And we are changed to be like Him. So thank you Doug. You have answered those questions perfectly. I really appreciate it. Thankyou. 

Doug: well feel free, if I’m not very clear, maybe chasing a rabbit down the wrong road. Maybe bring me back to point.  (Laughs) So we can make sure we give it a clear message here. 

Nicola: No that was a clear message. It was absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you. I’ll say goodbye for now Doug. I’ll let you get on so God bless. 

Doug: Hey, God bless and have a great evening. 

Nicola: Will do, thank you. Bye bye. Thank you for listening to the Cold Water Podcast. Please remember to subscribe and join next week.