@LivingontheEdgewithChipIngram : ‘God, Where Do You Want Me?’

God uses Ordinary People I look in the mirror I in my mind I'm still a basketball coach that got a different assignment today Chip Ingram is a nationally recognized Bible teacher author and broadcaster he also leads living on the edge a Ministry that encourages people to live out their faith in Jesus chip shares his journey on this episode of GPS God people stories an Outreach Of The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association I'm Jim Kirkland what chip learned about God's willingness to use people is something Billy Graham also knew if you're totally surrendered and totally dedicated and say Lord here's my hand with all I've got God has a place for you he can use you you'll hear more of that truth from Billy Graham later in this episode but if you'd like to learn more about God using you right now visit our website find peacewithgod.net that's find peacewithgod.net net or if you'd prefer to talk with someone we're here for you at the 247 Billy Graham prayer line 855255 7729 that's 855255 pray GPS God people stories Chip Ingram grew up in a small two-bedroom rental home in the suburbs of Columbus Ohio with his parents and two older sisters they were a typical post-world War II family on the outside we looked really good I was a good student I was a good athlete my dream was to get a basketball scholarship but on the inside Chip's family struggled his dad was an ex-marine who faced survivors guilt after having fought in the Battle of eima where so many lost their lives my dad had huge unresolved issues that a couple beers made him feel better and then four made him feel a lot better as a result Chip's father struggled to deal with his emotions and to communicate his love for his children he felt like the way he would show his love is that his motto was successful people are happy I will help you be successful if you got four A's in a be we talked about wonder what happened if you got two hits out of four it was oh how many times have I told you that curveball that's why you stepped out and you grounded out the shortstop so perhaps not surprisingly ship became consumed by performance-based Love by the time I was 12 I was a workaholic I had two paper outs let my parents $3,000 at 6% interest had eight or nine yards was the Short Stop on the baseball team point guard on the basketball team very undersized overachiever during Chip's teenage years his father became more absent he often drank alcohol all day on Saturday and straight out after church on Sunday but by the time chip was a high school senior his mom gave his dad an ultimatum you can have us and the kids where you can have this bottle you can't have both Chip's dad chose his family he stopped drinking immediately and that wasn't the only notable thing that happened during Chip's senior year right before I went to play basketball in college a football coach I don't know why me I was walking in the halls and he said hey there's a a camp and the best basketball players in Ohio Indiana and Kentucky are going to be there I'll pay your way if you want to go for a week and I said well hey I've got a painting job with this coach and I I I don't think I can make it but it turned out chip could make it because the painting job was delayed a delay that chip has come to see as God's sovereignty so he attended the camp with about 600 other athletes he says it was a moment of Divine Providence I got there and I got they gave me a little bible a good news for Modern Man a t-shirt that said CA Fellowship Christian athletes with a cross on it and the only time I used Jesus name was in expletives I had a really bad mouth I was deeply insecure and since I was so small I always recruited the sort of the strongest guy on the team to be my buddy to be an enforcer and I was just arrogant filled with myself out of that insecurity the environment at this Christian athletic Camp was very different from anything chip had experienced before he says he felt like he got dropped in the land of Jesus freaks it was 1972 the year the big Jesus movement swept the United States so the first two or three days I was not going to open the Bible and they're not going to indoctrinate me and their stuff but I saw the gospel through men loving other men in authentic ways on the last night of the conference a man preached a sermon straight out of the Bible that was unlike any church service that chip had experienced growing up I had no idea what a personal relationship with God was like and never made any sense before but it actually made sense they explained the gospel clearly I prayed a very poor prayer I'm sure but a sincere one and ask Christ to forgive me come into my life with that decision God began a gradual and steady transformation and chip that would continue when he headed off to college at West Virginia University my second day there the fullback for the football team walked by I was in the athletic dorm and he saw I had one little tiny poster with a Bible underneath of it I thought well I'm going to live this out and he took me to a Bible study that night that is how chip ended up meeting Dave Marshall the man who would become his mentor I ended up getting to know him and his family for the next four years I eat meals at his house I watched him date his wife I watched him discipline and educate his kids he discipled me taught me to get in the scriptures how to pray share my faith we started leading Bible studies but during Chip's Senior Year Dave left to start a Bible study at another campus so Chip and A group of students began to lead the studies themselves what God did with that was remarkable we went from three or four students to about 250 students in Bible study men and women and God just did an amazing thing on our secular campus after chip graduated from college his passion for teaching coaching and leading people to the Lord continued in earnest my first job was a high school teaching and coaching job and had a Bible study with my players and the town I lived in I started a Ministry for college students then Chip's life took a surprising turn through basketball he entered full-time vocational Ministry I got invited to play on an international team that was playing in all the countries in South America playing Olympic teams and selection teams and you got to share Christ at halftime it was the pre- CER to athletes in action and so I found myself with guys from all these major colleges and at halftime one guy would shares testimony and for an hour or two after the games people would come down we'd share our faith over the course of two summers chip shared the gospel in nearly every country in South America sometimes he'd lead 10 to 15 people to Christ in one day at one Outreach a missionary who sometimes traveled with Chip's team heard chip share his testimony be grabbed my arm stuck a microphone in my face and said preach to these people right after the game and I said what do you want me to say he said kid I've watched you read the Bible every morning and teach these guys what did you read this morning that night at a big outdoor stadium filled with nearly 10,000 people chip quoted from Psalm 19 it was in an area of South America where not even one Evangelical Church existed and I said stop look at the stars the heavens declare the glory of God and I quoted two or three verses and I said come down here and I'll introduce you to the one who made all those stars and loves and knows you and people started leaving the stand and it came down and that guy was like after every game after that for a season he would grab me throw me up there up until this point chip had been thinking he wasn't qualified for Ministry because he'd say to himself I'm just a teacher I'm just a basketball coach however this experience completely changed Chip's understanding of how God can and will use people I thought for God to use someone they got to be way smarter than me and way more holy than me and yet what I realized was the power is in the message not in the messenger so with that in mind chip started praying for guidance on what God wanted him to do and this is when chip realized God was Illuminating his next steps I went home and to my surprise people started asking me to speak to their youth groups and this and that and I didn't have any big moment the only way I can describe it is I just kept following the little bit of light that God gave me one of those bits of light was to go back to school for a post-graduate degree that's where he met the woman who had become his wife Teresa chip calls her an amazing woman she had two kids being abandoned earlier came to Christ through that we got got married and about six seven months after we got married we put everything we owned in a ride or truck and two little boys that I became an instant dad and we drove to Dallas they didn't exactly go by themselves though my parents who were now Christians followed us and found a little apartment with the Dallas Seminary and I squeezed that four-year program into five and added another child along the way and that was really the call to Ministry it was just like you know I guess if you can use a basketball coach then here I am with the call to Ministry came a very busy life for chip and his family he worked full-time and went to school full-time but that season of Life came to an end when chip started pastoring country Bible Church in Kaufman Texas they taught me how to be a pastor and that little group of 35 grew to about 450 or so in that little town of 3,000 God used that as sort of a training ground and great wonderful people it fanned in him the flame of wanting to be a missionary of reaching people who were unchurched but that wasn't likely to happen where he was because in Kaufman Texas his church was one of 17 churches in a half mile radius and it was like God I I did not sign up for this to be stuck in a tiny town I thought he forgot my name I want to go where it's Cutting Edge I want to go where people don't know about Jesus I want to go where you know really makes a difference and I just didn't realize I had a lot more of refining that needed to happen well after a few more years of refinement God answered Chip's prayer and led the ingrams to leave Texas and head West God took me at my word and we went from this hyper rural environment to the most liberal City in all of America Santa Cruz California they kind of think San Francisco and Berkeley is a little too far right and it was filled with all the alternative Lifestyles satanic bookstores that would been 12 years at their next Church Santa Cruz Bible given how chip and Teresa had grown up they were uniquely suited for this assignment we were not very religious and Teresa and I both came from alcoholic homes we were pretty broken people and that's exactly what was there and we could just be ourselves and God just I mean shockingly if if Santa Cruz and that particular group with those particular needs was a glove we were the hand to fit into that glove at the same time though the problems from their pasts that helped chip and Teresa minister to those in their Church also caused troubles in their own marriage we had really big struggles early on in our marriage because we didn't you don't know you have a bunch of baggage until you put it together but we we worked hard and we got good counseling and we were committed to the Lord committed to the Bible and we thought option A is stay married and option b is stay married so option C is don't do anything about it and be miserable so that was not an option God used chips and Teresa's struggles and their transparency about those struggles to draw people to himself through their church I think much of the favor that God has had on my life particularly in teaching and just saying you know what the heck everyone's got problems why don't we just share it thank it takes too much energy and as a result thousands of people showed up at this church soon people outside of chips Church would hear his sermons a businessman got Chip's messages placed on a local radio station from there they eventually got picked up by hundreds of other radio stations and then after a few years it just kind of went like wildfire and a guy came to me and said would you consider taking some of these messages and making him a book that question was an answer to prayer I had privately I had this thing for years I did I wrote I called him desire cards and you know psalm 37:4 says delight yourself in the Lord and he'll give you the desires of your heart and so I thought what if I desired things that I knew were God's Will and so I would write on my desire card I desire to be a radically loving husband that raises my kids to know God's will with all their heart I desire to you know whatever they were and one of them was I desire to someday put some truth in the form of a book that would bless tens of thousands of people chip was now an author and a radio Bible teacher as well as a pastor of a local church when he asked God for help on how to navigate his increasingly busy life he sensed God telling him this chip I want you to be at a catalyst to transform how America thinks about God how pastors think about preaching how churches think about their community and how everyday Believers live out their faith at home and at work did you get that he did get it and God's calling for chip to help pastors churches and people became the rudder of Chip's life more book deals came and His Radio audience grew and then ship took the job as president of Walk Through the Bible a Ministry providing materials for 50,000 churches in America and 19 other countries all the Core teaching that I did in Santa Cruz became videos and traveled all around the world and got to see the world and we ended up in you know I think hundred countries and had 90,000 pastors and teachers as chips roll at Walk Through the Bible became one of CEO and fundraiser he began to miss teaching from God's word so he prayed about this and God led him to begin the ministry living on the edge and the next two or three years sort of living on the edge became this ministry all on its own and it went from kind of teaching to you know we've got a million people listening that now with the internet you can listen to great teaching anywhere any time shouldn't we come up with a plan and so we took some big Steps of Faith and began to create small groups and we launched them on the air and I think we launched like 350,000 small groups in like a three or four year period And as that all got started then it was like okay God where do you want me the answer to that question was Venture Christian Church in the San Francisco Bay area he served as senior pastor there until 2018 when he stepped down to lead living on the edge exclusively living on the edge we said we do three things for three groups for one purpose and that's kind of where I've landed is we teach the multitudes we train groups and we develop tools for leaders pastors primarily and high-capacity business people to help Christians live like Christians ((music playing)) Chip Ingram has devoted his life to helping people see the Fulfillment that comes when your life is totally surrendered to Jesus Christ you can experience that fulfillment that Jesus offers and we can help you get there visit us at fine peacewithgod.net that's fine peacewithgod.net or you can call the 24-hour Billy gram prayer line someone's waiting to speak with you now at 855255 7729 that's 855255 pray that phone number and links to our website are also included in this episode's show notes in just a moment you'll hear a final word from Chip Ingram a final word of encouragement you're listening to GPS God people stories a podcast production of the Billy gram Evangelistic Association if you're totally surrendered and totally dedicated and say Lord here's my hand with all I've got God has a place for you he can use you Billy Graham with God you can be sure that you are a majority that's the reason for the cross we find the Lord Jesus Christ dying on that cross for your sins and every time you see a cross it should remind you of what you mean to God Jesus not only died for for all he died for each I with you till the end of the age said Jesus he will be there with you you are a link in God's chain and God's plan to proclaim the gospel to the whole world right now at history are you as a Young Man a young woman ready to say I'm ready to go I'll be God's man I'll be God's woman you can find more encouragement about making yourself available for God's work at our website find peacewithgod.net that's fine peacewithgod.net our guest on this episode of GPS God people's stories is Chip Ingram chip is a husband father of four grown kids and grandfather of 12 and with all that joyous responsibility he also still has time to lead the ministry living on the edge it's an organization dedicated to training pastors and teaching people God's word around the world chip left us with one final word of encouragement God uses Ordinary People I look in the mirror I in my mind I'm still a basketball coach that got a different assignment I'm teaching the body of Christ and coaching them I've gotten to know because of what the Lord said in my life I've gotten to hang out with quote a lot of really really famous really smart really rich really powerful both you know Christian business people and people that have been my heroes and and I just say there are there are no super Superstars once you peel back the layers of this and this and that everyone in the entire world is desperately insecure we all need our identity in Christ God uses very Ordinary People to do extraordinary things we're thankful for Chip Ingram joining us on this episode of GPS God people stories if you've enjoyed listening to this episode would you please tell a friend about the podcast or leave us a review or both and also be sure you're Subs subscribed to GPS so you can stay in the loop with us our next episode comes out in just two weeks I'm Jim Kirkland and this is GPS God people stories it's an Outreach Of The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association always good news ((music playing))