Sacred Ambitions: Pursuing Jesus & Church Planting in the Regions Beyond

by Dick Brogden

Sacred Ambitions is a day-by-day record of the first months of Dick Brogden’s church planting journey in a new pioneer field. His daily entries record what he learned, what he did, what he did wrong, and what God did despite him in his first sixty-plus days in a new country. Each day includes an abiding reflection from Scripture and a thought about church planting. Alongside the daily journals are numerous articles and thematic thoughts that Dick has written on church planting, leadership, character, and ministry.

This book provides a practical reference on what to do and what to avoid in the work of overseas church planting, with the hope that this combination of reflections will benefit new church planters who are fired up to represent Jesus among the unreached but wonder where to start.

382 pages

Published January 1, 2021

About the author

Dick Brogden is an Assemblies of God missionary to the Middle East.

Dick and Jennifer Brogden’s passion in ministry is to bring the gospel to the Arab world by church planting in those nations. The Brogdens have lived and ministered among Muslims for the last 19 years in three African nations. Dick and Jennifer have two boys, Luke and Zack, both of whom were born and raised in Africa. They currently lead a church planting team that will equip team leaders to plant churches throughout the Arab-Muslim world.

Since university, Dick has dreamed of God using his life to bring one million Muslims to saving faith in Jesus Christ; he humbly acknowledges, however, “I may never lead many, but if I can influence some who will influence others and be a catalyst for ministry in the M*slim world, I would love to see that happen. I want to live a life to make much of God.”

Dick ministers alongside many multi-national missionary teams and strongly believes in the power of spiritual multiplication, as well as the importance of developing self-sustaining ministries. His next goal is to train 33 teams to plant churches in various cities in the Arab world. Dick hopes that God will enable his teams to accomplish this, and then he hopes that another 400 teams will be sent to preach the gospel to every unreached people group in the Arab world. “Then I can die happy,” he says.

Through God’s grace, Dick and Jennifer have been blessed to see their ministry in one African nation multiply seven times, after they faithfully raised and equipped leaders to run home churches. These churches currently feed several hundred believers and are now ministering to third generation Christians. Through the use of spiritual multiplication to create self-sustaining ministries, the believers in that country are now equipped and enabled to continue to reach their country with the gospel through their international church, international school, ladies’ community centre, indigenous development agency, as well as several English centres and cooperative training networks.

Reviews

[Jenel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Personally the most impactful DB book yet. His writings make me think he’s an Enneagram 1, which gives me a lot of hope for my own journey. Either way, I’m thankful for this resource and I’ll use it again and again.

[Buddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

So so good. Dick does an excellent job of revealing the day to day of early church planting, with a daily reminder of the necessity of abiding. I found the articles included throughout to be the most helpful as he touches on team life, conflict, pride and authority that are replicable and useful outside of a church planting context. There were also many great pieces on the simplicities and difficulties of pioneer church planting, including what would be required of individuals in these contexts. Many of which challenged me to take an honest look at myself, recognizing my weaknesses and strengths. Will be returning to many of these articles for myself and others.

[Lainey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dick Brogen's transparency in this book is so humbling. I will come back and read this book every couple of years for sure. He is raw and full of the Holy Spirit, and although this was written for someone who is in the context of church planting overseas, I learned SO much from every chapter and was able to apply it to my own context. I am in ministry, but even if I was not I would still learn so much from his teaching!

[Johnnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The transparency Dick chose to include throughout this book is deeply impactful. I feel both challenged and encouraged. I look forward to going through this resource again in the future!