Rob Welch never planned on entering the ministry. He was interested in business, and he says nobody he knew would have mistaken the hand of God on his life. He was fine with that.
About five years into his business career, however, Welch began to sense God had something else in mind for him. In 2001, he surrendered to God’s call on his life, left the business world, sold his home and enrolled in a master’s program at Wheaton College in Illinois. He became an ordained evangelist in 2004.
But more important is the impact his kingdom work has made. The result of his transformation is For His Glory Ministries and the Training for Trainers (T4T) program, which has shared the gospel with over 4 million people. More than 480,000 have committed their lives to Christ, and nearly 260,000 of those believers have been trained to make disciples who make disciples.
“I met this missionary couple on their first furlough from East Asia, and I met Wally [the husband], and he was telling me about Romans 10,” Welch told Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of Greenelines on the Charisma Podcast Network. “For Paul says, ‘How will they hear unless they have a preacher?’ I was talking with Wally, and he had the passion for the gospel and for reaching people for the kingdom. And that really lit a fire under me. Over the next 10 months, God brought me to surrender. …
“When I was at Wheaton, God confirmed my call as an evangelist. I was on a prison ministry trip to Florida, and the first time I preached there, there were 80 guys in the room and I’m preaching John 14, where Jesus says, ‘Don’t let your hearts be troubled,'” Welch said. “And of course, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life.’ Over the next three days, I just saw God’s hand on me as I was preaching the gospel and that He had called me to be an evangelist and not a missionary.
“I knew in 2004 that the end goal was launching church-planting movements or disciple-making movements, but it took until 2012 until we found the tool for multiplication and training for trainers, or T4T,” he said. “It really is New Testament discipleship that you see going out of the book of Acts. When we got that vehicle, I knew what we needed to do and, over the next three years, we worked to see that launched.”
And the T4T movement has produced disciple-making miracles on the African continent.
To hear more about the T4T discipleship movement and about Welch’s ministry, listen to the rest of this podcast. And tune in to Welch’s Kingdom Transformation podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network.
