Church Planter Conversation: Joshua Kruger Jr
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Benjamin Kreps:
Welcome to the Mark Prater podcast — where our aim is to connect our global family of sovereign grace churches with our executive director. Mark speaking of our global family of churches. We have a friend with us from Windhoek, Namibia, Josh Krueger, who in the past year has been busy planting Sovereign Grace Church in Namibia, and we're so glad to have you, Josh. Thanks for being on the podcast.
Joshua Kruger Jr:
Thank you. It's a privilege to be with you.
Benjamin Kreps:
So lots of updates. Guys have been getting email updates about the church plant, we've been watching and praying over the last couple of years as we received those updates. So it's so good to have you on the podcast. Let's get right into it. Josh, tell us about your family. Tell us about your wife, how you guys met. Just tell us about your family.
Joshua Kruger Jr:
Firstly, let me just say we appreciate the prayers. Thank you for keeping us before our family of churches, and thank you for everyone who has at any point prayed for us. We appreciate it.
Yeah, I met my wife actually as a 10-year-old. They lived right down the street from us in South Africa, but eventually, in 2001, my family moved to the States. I was a 14-year-old teenager at that time, and many years later I would go back to South Africa, find my wife again, and we started dating. We dated about two weeks and I asked her dad if we could get married, and he gave me the thumbs up, and so I'm grateful that we just recently celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary.
Mark Prater:
Oh, that's great. Congratulations!
Joshua Kruger Jr:
Kudos to her. She's definitely a huge blessing. I'm thankful for her. And then we have two boys, Joshua and Matthew, and they are 10 and eight.
Mark Prater:
That's wonderful. That's wonderful. As you mentioned, you were born in South Africa, so then how did you hear about Sovereign Grace and then how did you get to Namibia?
Joshua Kruger Jr:
Yeah, so I mean, when we moved to the States in 2001, my parents immediately started looking for a church. We ended up at an Assemblies of God church that we actually loved, I think the kids probably more than the parents. We had a really good youth group - on a Wednesday night, we had 250 plus high school students, and the Lord really used that to cultivate in me at an early stage, just a love for him and a love for his word, and a love for singing, worshiping together. Then, in my freshman year of college, I was at a University in Tennessee, so I wasn't at home. And during that year, my mom had a conference, a women's conference that was hosted at Kingsway Community Church in Richmond, Virginia, and she met some of the members of that church and just said, "Hey, these people seem really excited about their church.
They really love their church." And so the following Sunday, my parents visited the week thereafter, they went back to the Assemblies of God basically just to give notice, and they've been diehard Sovereign Grace church members ever since. So when I came back after my freshman year at college, it was a bit of a shock coming home to a new church, but by the end of that summer, I knew that the Lord was calling me to be part of that church. And so I ended up never going back after my freshman year to Tennessee and stayed in Richmond, started studying at VCU and serving at the church as much time as I had possible, just serving there even throughout the week serving, getting chairs ready and cleaning stuff up. But it was a joy to just be sort of inundated in that sense with being able to be there and then sitting under guys like Matthew Williams who at that time was just about to leave for his PC years. So getting some time with him over the summer and reading a book together, it was really instrumental.
Sorry, that was the first part of your question. That's how we got to Sovereign Grace. The second part of the question was about Namibia. Yeah, so my wife was born and not raised in Namibia, so she's a Namibian citizen by birth, but her parents fairly soon after she was born, moved back to South Africa, and she was raised in South Africa. When I eventually moved back to South Africa in 2010 as a 20 something year old, I fairly quickly became involved with this missions organization that both she and my in-laws served with, Operation Mobilization, so I became a missionary. We served in South Africa for a number of years, mainly office work, sometimes getting to go on outreaches we were planning, but for the most part administrative work in the offices. And then in 2015, we were asked whether we would move to Namibia and become the national leaders of OM's work for Namibia. So to come and oversee the team here, and for us, that was something we had longed for, not so much necessarily to oversee Namibia's work, but to get to Namibia, to move somewhere else and serve the Lord in a little bit more of a hands-on context. And so that was a fairly easy move for us. We moved here January, 2016, so this coming January it'll be 10 years.
Benjamin Kreps:
Wow. That's quite a journey and it continued because you were a missionary in Namibia for a number of years, and then at some point you found this desire to plant a Sovereign Grace Church in Namibia. Why did you do that? Why not continue a missionary work or perhaps you still are?
Joshua Kruger Jr:
Yes, and yes. There's a lot of things in play. We loved the church that we were at early on in Namibia. There were things that we thought the church could grow in, but we loved the church. I had opportunities to preach there from time to time and saw the need for good expository preaching, biblical theology. So that was one element. The second element was that as a team leader of work in Namibia, we had teams all over the place, and most of them were frontline workers working in rural areas. And I realized often when I visited them that what they needed most was not a pat on the back, was not resources even. It was to be reminded of good theology that God is sovereign in the work that they're doing, that he's not looking for them to measure the success of their ministries by how many Bible studies they've planted, how many people have come to faith, but that they're called to measure the success of their ministries by their obedience.
Are they planting and are they giving water? And if they're doing that, then Paul said, neither one of us is anything except God brings the growth. And so when I would encourage them with biblical theology, it made tremendous differences in people's lives and in their ministries. And so I just had this growing desire saying, okay, as a leader, I had these administrative responsibilities. I have responsibilities for resource raising, but what I loved the most and where I saw the most impact on the missionaries was when I had this opportunity to be a little bit more pastoral, a little bit more shepherding and speaking into their lives. And so that grew the desire. And then at the very same time, we have to give a lot of credit to Matthew Williams because he hounded me for many years. You know the saying, "it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck."
And for many years I just said, I'm not ready, I don't think. Now I'm not ready. And then eventually we became part of a new church here in Windhoek, which was actually really a church plant. And so we were not part of the planting team as such, but we did have sort of roles of serving. And when Matthew saw that happening, he sort of just pressed on me again and said, Josh, you're busy planting a church and doing exactly what I've been calling you, challenging you to consider. And I think at that stage, both my wife and I were ready and realized, yes, this is something the Lord has been doing in preparing us for. At that time, we realized the cost that was involved with doing that because it meant having to come to the States, do an internship, and then obviously pursue ordination.
Benjamin Kreps:
Yes. And that's exactly what you did. You came back from Namibia and did an internship with Matthew Williams. A shout-out to Matthew, a dear pastor in Sovereign Grace. So you did an internship with Matthew and his guys at King's Way. How did that help prepare you for the plant?
Joshua Kruger Jr:
Well, I have to say selfishly, one of the greatest blessings of that year was that my dad at that point was still himself an elder on that team. So being able to serve alongside my dad for a year and being with my boys close to my parents, their grandparents, was a great blessing. I just knew having been part of Sovereign Grace as a younger man, late teens, early twenties, then having moved to South Africa and Namibia, not having had anything quite similar to Sovereign Grace for many years in terms of church, I just knew. And I told Matthew, listen, if this is going to happen, then it's not going to happen by me just studying correspondence. I need to somehow, at some point, sit next to other elders, preferably Sovereign Grace elders, and learn from them, see how they handle stress, see how they handle mourning, and how they handle situations in the church.
And Matthew was like, well, that was his next point. We need to come stateside. And so at that point, he actually was already in the move. So he came and visited us and made that pitch here. And he said, so I'm inviting you to come and spend 2023 with us. And I think, initially, especially for my wife, that was a sad thought: taking the boys out of school, leaving friends behind, leaving the house, dog, vehicles, and everything behind. But we both knew that that was what the Lord was doing. And so had the opportunity, got state side, and I would say I loved being able to cherry pick a few classes from the pastors college. I loved being able to preach and be able to get feedback on my sermons, which I hadn't had. But I would say the greatest preparation was that it wasn't a six week crash course or something, but that it was a whole year of being totally inundated involved in every eldership meeting and every eldership conversation and just being thrown in the deep end, so to speak, of getting to rub shoulders with them.
And then obviously at the same time, realizing that for the first time in a long time, I had people who were keeping a very watchful eye on me, giving me feedback on how they were seeing I was doing with leading through communion, how I was doing with personal disappointments, whatever it was, just realizing that for a whole year there were men sowing into me and the whole church sowing into me, right? The church loved us and knew us, knew me at least from my earlier years at Kingsway. And so my family was just brought into that, and I think that helped us to sort of be, what's the saying, baptism by fire, just get back into what Sovereign Grace stood for and what Sovereign Grace looks and tastes and smells like. And for that, I think it gave us much confidence in being able to come back and hopefully by God's grace to be able to replicate that to a degree.
Mark Prater:
That's wonderful. Grateful for the elders at Kingsway in Richmond, Virginia for their investment into you and for Matthew challenging you. And now you obviously after that you moved back to Namibia are in the process of planting now Sovereign Grace's church in Windhoek. As you do that, what is your hope and vision as you plant this church in Windhoek?
Joshua Kruger Jr:
Again, I was back from the states, so essentially back out of a Sovereign Grace Church from 2010 all the way through 2022, so 12 years plus. And we were of a number of good churches, churches that love Jesus, people that love Jesus, but I frequently found that they were not confessional. That was one of the greatest things that I loved about coming back into Sovereign Grace after 12 years out, is seeing the statement of faith that had been developed and how clearly we had articulated our positions. It protects us from drift and just clear fallacy. So really grateful for that. That was a big help. But so one of my biggest desire would be just that God would establish a healthy reformed continuationist, gospel teaching church that can be a home for people that have maybe for a long time felt like us like having church, but there's things missing, things that they wish were different.
We've already had people joining us saying, Hey, we've always loved our church, but there were things that we felt were missing and we see that here. And so they've joined us. So a strong healthy church is obviously our first desire and focus, but the second has to do with our internship. It took a lot from us as a family to move to say goodbye to everything we know for a year. It took a lot financially for the whole Sovereign Grace, the region, the Mid-South region that we formed part of it took a lot of effort from many people to make that whole year happen. And so what I would love to see is that as our church does become a healthy local church, that if we have more guys, especially sort of in the southern part of Africa, that we might be the church where someone could come and do an internship where we could say, Hey, why don't you move your family here from Botswana or Zimbabwe or South Africa, Angola or Zambia, all of these bordering countries to Namibia and bring such a guy here.
And he could potentially go back because it's much closer. He can go back every two to three months just for a Sunday, just to be with a group of people that are potentially waiting for him to come back. I think financially it would be a lot less strain on the whole organization. It would be less strain on someone having to only go so far as a neighboring country versus so far. So I would love for us to be able to do that in the future. And then obviously the desire from that is clear is that we want to see more churches planted in Namibia and in Southern Africa and all of Africa. We are eager to contribute to whatever God is doing in Sovereign Grace as a whole in Africa and be part of that.
Mark Prater:
Amen. That's great vision.
Benjamin Kreps:
Yes. So you've been actually at this church plant for a little bit since last year. So talk to us about how long you've been meeting, how those recent services have gone, including you told us before we started reporting, you actually added your first members recently. Talk to us about all that.
Joshua Kruger Jr:
We moved back January last year. Our school year runs January through December, and so we were eager to get back before the school year started just to get the boys back into school. We came back early January, 2024. I took just a of months just after a year crash course of ordination studies and almost a dozen years with OM. And so on the 7th of April last year, we started meeting at our home, although I made it very clear to everyone at that time, we were not yet a church. That's what we're going to towards. And so we got to spend some time teaching through our seven shared values. I took a couple Sundays to teach just on what a church is and what is the purpose of a church, who should be part of a church and what that looks like. Immediately after we finished with that here in our home, I did Jonah, and we then started in the gospel of Mark.
That's mainly where we've, we've been. And then in February of this year, we found a place where we were able to meet, so we were able to move out of our house, started meeting at a location, and I think that was really good. The number of people started visiting, being able to put up a banner every week that says There's a church meeting here in the mornings at 9:00 AM that was very good, so I had more visitors coming that way. I think it's also a little bit less of a captive audience. When you go to someone's house and you sit in their living room, you can't exactly come and go as you please. You feel a little bit more captive. But anyways, that was a good time as well. But again, telling everyone, listen, we, we've not added members, and until we do, and it's a real sense, we're not yet a church.
And so about five or six weeks ago, we were able to add our first nine members, which included me. Everyone laughed when I told 'em, Hey, I've been teaching you for a year and a half. I'm now a member of this church. So I was grateful for that. Even Matthew Williams sending us an email saying, Hey, we just made the very joyous decision as an eldership to remove you from membership at Kingsway because you've become a member of the church you've planted in Windhoek. And just thinking of what that means, I think it's not always the case that that's a joyous moment, but to realize that God has been doing this, he's been doing it all along from my early years and connections he's made, bringing us to the states, bringing it back to Africa, bringing us to the states again, but this time with my wife and kids. So just being able to see the Lord doing it all along. And so, yeah, just recently nine new members and the Sunday after, I already had more people saying, Hey, Josh, when are you teaching the membership classes again? So grateful that the Lord's doing that.
Mark Prater:
That's wonderful and exciting at the same time. Church planning is this front row seat of watching the Lord build this house, and I'm glad you're having that opportunity. Okay, so somebody's listening to this podcast by chance from Windhoek and they live in or near Windhoek. They might be interested in checking out your church, or maybe there's someone here in the States or at different parts of the world listening to this and they know family members or friends that live in the Namibia that might be interested in checking out the church. Or let me just give you one other category. Maybe there's someone listening to this and thinking maybe we need to move to Namibia just to serve there for a while. You just never know how the Lord might use a podcast. How would they find out about your church? What would be the easiest way?
Joshua Kruger Jr:
Well, the easiest way, we have a website, sgcwindhoek.com so that would be the easiest. Our website, our times are up there. We're busy working on it so that we can get some messages on the website. We don't have that ability quite yet, but we're working on it. And then obviously people can just get in touch with us on either WhatsApp or email. My email is josh@sgcwindhoek.com or they can get in touch with me via WhatsApp as well. Can I get my WhatsApp number? Is that fine?
Benjamin Kreps:
Sure.
Joshua Kruger Jr:
Yeah. It's +264817082135.
Benjamin Kreps:
Nice. Well, thanks for joining us and for sharing your story with us. Before we go, how can we be praying for you and your church?
Joshua Kruger Jr:
Thank you. I appreciate that question. I never want to rush into that question because someone being willing to take of their own time and say we want to intercede on behalf of someone else is a blessing.
I think you can pray that the Lord would continue to add to our numbers. We've been growing slowly but strongly, so grateful for that. You could pray that the Lord would give us gospel opportunities that we don't want to just see those that are coming, and most of them have already been believers growing in their theology, but we want to see people saved. We want to see people who had no relationship with the Lord realize the depravity of their sin and the grace that's to be found in Jesus. So pray that the Lord would give us such opportunities. You could pray that the Lord has been very kind and gracious to us financially that we have all we need, but the Lord would continue to do that right now because the church is still small. We're not even up to 20 adults. We're not yet at a point where we're necessarily financially self-sustaining.
So just pray that the Lord would give us faith for that and grow all of our faith for giving as well. One category that I didn't anticipate early on that I really feel a need for prayer for is only my wife and I know Sovereign Grace. We've been to Sovereign Grace churches, multiple different ones. We've been at Sovereign Grace churches. We know people from Sovereign Grace churches, but the people we're planting with here, we didn't have a core team that flew across the ocean with us and came and started. So none of them know anything about Sovereign Grace except what we tell them, except the exposure they get from us. They have no Sovereign Grace friends. They've never been in another Sovereign Grace Church, and so just pray that the Lord would give us wisdom, how we can plant that DNA in such a way that if they ever would walk into a Sovereign Grace Church, they would say, oh yeah, this feels like home. We want people to know that there is a big denomination behind this church that loves them, that prays for them, that cares about them, that gives towards this church plant. We don't want them to feel sort of just like this little island, this little church plant in Windhoek, but that they realize that we're part of something much bigger. And then finally, I would just say we're going to start Genesis in January, so you can also pray for that series.
Mark Prater:
Wonderful.
Benjamin Kreps:
Yes. Well, will do. Thank you. And listening to your story, you just hear a couple things that are excellent, an excellent part of your story. You can see how God has his hand has been on your lives guiding you into this church plant, you and your wife, but also it's another sweet story that expresses partnership in Sovereign Grace, which is multiple Sovereign Grace churches, part of your story, and even that dynamic of Matthew and urging you in the church plant and create an opportunity for the internship. I mean, that's a realistic way that maybe a church that isn't ready to plant themselves could actually participate in planting by serving a church planter like they did at King's Way. And so thanks for getting on the podcast, sharing your story with us. We'll be praying and watching what God does in Windhoek in the days ahead. And thank you all for checking out the podcast. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.