Faith put into action
Stuart and Jill Briscoe helped shape Elmbrook Church, which in turn helped them take their ministry worldwide
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| Gary Porter |
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| Gary Porter |
There's the general danger of the general mess of the world ... But there are also countries under communism or hostile to Christianity where there's another sort of danger. And this makes me more nervous.
When Stuart and Jill Briscoe came from their native England to shepherd Elmbrook Church in 1970, their global perspective helped shape the congregation as it grew into one of the nation's early megachurches.
"One of the fundamental tenets of our ministry has been that Elmbrook Church is not just a church serving an immediate parish but is part of the church universal," Stuart Briscoe said, noting that Elmbrook sends missionary members worldwide, raises disaster relief funds and spends $1.7 million a year to support American and indigenous missionaries.
Although he stepped down as senior pastor in 2000, you won't find him or his wife whiling away the summer on golf courses or fleeing to a Florida condo for the winter.
As Elmbrook's ministers at large, Stuart, 77, and Jill, 72, could be in East Asia, Africa or Polynesia one month, the Middle East, Southeast Asia or eastern Europe the next.
In 2007, they traveled together or separately to 18 countries on five continents, from China, India and the Congo to Korea, Indonesia and Ireland. Trips set for early this year range from Peru and Malaysia to Egypt and East Africa. In their travels, they sometimes face civil unrest, religious tension or primitive conditions.
Not bad for an Oconomowoc couple with three children and 13 grandchildren.
At Elmbrook, 777 S. Barker Road in the Town of Brookfield, members were concerned when Stuart Briscoe decided that he did not want to be a pastor who stays too long in the top leadership spot.
"My wife and I insisted that we had no plans either to retire or expire. . . . We were able to explain to them that we had become aware that 90% of the church leaders in the developing world have no formal theological training, that for most of them none is available, and even if it was, they couldn't afford it.
"Elmbrook immediately came behind us and said, 'Don't go. Stay here and do that as part of the global outreach and initiatives of Elmbrook.' "
That wasn't a total change. As senior pastor, he had traveled extensively.
Once, he was in Colombia amid political instability, about to go with a group into the bush to hold a conference for a mission agency.
"Their security director had been kidnapped, which gave some idea of the quality of their security," he said.
Security people told them not to go, but the missionaries made an urgent appeal to come anyway. So they did, without incident.
"How can we ask people to go where we wouldn't go ourselves?" Stuart Briscoe said. "We've been in places where there are huge, burned-out buildings, with banks of broken windows and clear evidence of recent riots. We've never actually been caught up in any of those things."
Jill Briscoe added, "There's the general danger of the general mess of the world . . . But there are also countries under communism or hostile to Christianity where there's another sort of danger. And this makes me more nervous.
"There are more of those places than people realize . . . some places in India, for example, where the Hindus and Muslims are killing each other and in the middle is the church. That's a dangerous place to be."
Since 2000, Stuart has slept under the stars in the deserts of northern Kenya and seen multiple, standing-room-only church services attended by hundreds of expatriate workers in the United Arab Emirates.
Last year, he was interviewed by reporters in Beijing, China, as his book on the Ten Commandments was published in Mandarin, with government permission.
"There are widely divergent and contradictory reports on the church in China, and we were told a long time ago they are probably all true because . . . the circumstances vary so dramatically from one province to another," he said. "In some places, the church is growing exponentially, and in other places, it is being persecuted."
Jill Briscoe has slept on tatami mats in Japan and used stories to teach the Bible to descendants of the Incas in the Andes Mountains in Peru.
Three thousand pastors' wives showed up for a seminar Jill Briscoe and daughter Judy Golz gave at a Presbyterian church in South Korea last year.
In addition to their travels, the Briscoes' continuing influence in evangelical circles is reflected in their more than 90 books, conference appearances, college visits and her service on the boards of Christianity Today magazine and World Relief.
Segments of their previously recorded Bible teachings are broadcast each weekday through their international "Telling the Truth" radio ministry, along with those of a son, Pete, 44, senior pastor of Bent Tree Bible Fellowship, a Dallas megachurch. Their other son, Dave, 48, is an associate pastor at Elmbrook.
Why have they been so effective?
Stuart Briscoe said he applied Scripture to daily life and showed people ways to put that faith into action, "truth made relevant."
"I think of the Youth for Christ motto, 'Anchored to the Rock, Geared to the Times,' " said Jill Briscoe, whose Just Between Us quarterly magazine for pastors' wives has subscribers in 75 countries. "We didn't lose our nerve in the Scriptures because we believe they have power, but it has to be applied in a contemporary culture."
