evangelical 360°

Ep. 19 / Cultivating Faith Amidst Frustration ► Ajith Fernando (Part 1)

• Host Brian Stiller • Season 1 • Episode 19

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Often called the "John Stott of Asia," Ajith Fernando has become a global influencer—not only by building a thriving youth ministry in Sri Lanka but also through his theological writings, where he unpacks biblical texts and deepens our understanding of discipleship.

Step into a profound exploration of ministry and faith as we engage with Ajith Fernando, renowned for his impactful work in Sri Lanka. Ajith’s journey is one of resilience and dedication, shaped by his upbringing in a Christian family where foundational beliefs were instilled early on. He shares his experiences growing up during turbulent times, illustrating how these circumstances impacted his spiritual growth and ministry outlook. 

Throughout our conversation, Ajith provides insights into the complexities of leading a ministry amidst ethnic tensions and civil unrest. He emphasizes the power of dialogue, the necessity for cultural sensitivity, and the incredible strength that can arise from addressing frustrations head-on in community. Ajith's candid reflections on living a life devoted to service illuminate the framework of ministry that prioritizes community, particularly among the poor and marginalized.

As we navigate through the compelling stories of Ajith's experiences, listeners are encouraged to examine their own understanding of God's call and their role within their communities. This discussion serves to inspire us all to consider what it means to embody faith with courage and conviction, regardless of the challenges we face. 

Join us for this enlightening episode that promises to inspire and challenge your perspective on leadership and community in the modern world. Share this episode with friends and reflect on how you can step into God’s calling in your life today.

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Brian Stiller:

Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360. My name is Brian Stiller, global Ambassador for the World Evangelical Alliance and host of this new podcast series. On Evangelical 360, I interview leaders, writers and influencers about contemporary issues impacting Christian life around the world. My hope is that it will not only be a global meeting place where faith is explored from different perspectives, but that each person listening will come away informed, encouraged, challenged and inspired.

Brian Stiller:

Today's guest is a friend of many decades, leader in ministry, writer and teacher, Ajith Fernando, often referred to as the John Stott of Asia, ajit has become a worldwide influencer, not only building an effective youth ministry in Sri Lanka, but in his writings on theology, unwrapping biblical texts and helping us understand discipleship. His name has emerged globally as one of the most important minds and hearts, effectively providing guidance and insight on what it means to follow Christ and how that relates to our ministry leadership. It means to follow Christ and how that relates to our ministry leadership. What strikes me is that his walk and talk are aligned. Rather than leaving his home country for many enticing opportunities, he continues to reside and build ministry in his home country, even in the middle of civil war and enormous ecological disaster. I'm sure it's going to be a riveting, informative conversation. Ajit, it's wonderful to have you here in our Canadian studio, all the way from Sri Lanka. Thanks for joining me today.

Ajith Fernando:

Thank you, and it's wonderful to be here.

Brian Stiller:

We met back in the 70s. I followed your life both as a friend and as a colleague, and so today we're going to do a couple of things. One we're going to start with your life what it means to develop and lead ministry in your country and your influence worldwide. But people would be very interested in knowing about your life. Give us a sketch of your life growing up, the influences and what has made you who you are today.

Ajith Fernando:

As I think, of my own life, the biggest influence was my mother. She's a convert to Christianity, taught us the Bible Every morning. She would wake us up and teach us the Bible from the time we were little children, when the time was ripe for me to make a commitment to Christ. She's the one who led me to Christ. So she was one of those big influences, not only in my life, but in my siblings too.

Brian Stiller:

What was your world like as a child growing up in Sri Lanka?

Ajith Fernando:

My father was a government servant. He was a respected layman, christian layman, so I had that background of being coming from a non-Christian family. Otherwise, it was a typical middle-class family.

Brian Stiller:

How did that emerge into your youth ministry and engagement at a fairly young age and how did that integrate with your own education Ever?

Ajith Fernando:

since I committed my life to Christ. I was about 14 years old then, and immediately I felt a call to the ministry. I was a very shy person, never opened my mouth in public, was scared to tell anybody that I was going to be a minister, preacher of the gospel. How can this guy who can't speak preach? As a young person, I was nurtured in a very good church and under a very godly pastor who was an expositor of the Bible. He was from Ireland and so he had a great influence in making me want to join the ministry. If the ministry is such a wonderful thing, well, I'd like to be in that too. So that was the growth. Then, when I was about 17 years old 16, 17 years old I came across this movement, Youth for Christ, and I had a burden to reach lost youth, and this opened the door through involvement there, to be involved in ministry. And I've been with Youth for Christ as a volunteer and a full-time worker for 60 years.

Brian Stiller:

How does a 14-year-old hear the call to ministry?

Ajith Fernando:

year old, hear the call to ministry. In my case there was no audible or distinct sense that you have been called, just a burden to preach and the sense this is what I want to do. But I never had anything that sort of said you want to be, though I must say my pastor when he was chatting to me one day he asked me do you think God has called you to the ministry? Being a person who thought nobody would ever think of me as a minister, that had a big influence on my decision.

Brian Stiller:

Just a question by someone that you respect, how that influences your thinking and how strategic it is in guiding your thoughts down a particular track that eventually becomes vocational. That's pretty instructive for us, isn't it? As how we speak and talk to others.

Ajith Fernando:

Yeah, I think that is one aspect of what we call prophecy. Talk to others yeah, I think that is one aspect of what we call prophecy. You know where you ask somebody or say something to somebody and it becomes something that god clearly uses to a person's life. When I told my parents, finally, that I want to join the ministry, their advice to me was finish your university studies. But at that entering university was very difficult. Only about 2% of the high school students entered. So the first time I tried I failed. So then I tried the second year and I just managed to get in. I was right at the bottom of the list but I somehow made it and that was very helpful to me.

Ajith Fernando:

Those studies I didn't want to do that. It was very hard. I was doing a degree in biology and one third of the grades went into practicals and I'm very weak with my hands, so I could never. You know, I used to cut the things that I shouldn't cut and keep the things that I should have cut. But it was very, very helpful. For one thing, it was a university that had been a Buddhist seminary just a few years before, so I had the privilege of being in a completely non-Christian environment, learning about these people having grown up in a Christian home. This was very helpful to me and it taught me the meaning of frustration, which has become a major theme in my theology of ministry, because here I was working very hard, never doing well, because a third of the grade went for practicals. There was one time when I had the highest grade in the theory and the last grade in the practical for zoology. You know, to thrive in ministry you have to learn to live with frustration, and I think this was a very good training for me.

Brian Stiller:

But then your biblical theological training. Where did that come from?

Ajith Fernando:

When I began to feel that I'm going to join the ministry in university I started thinking of going to seminary, and my father was a layman but he was very active in the Bible Society and the Bible Society used to arrange World Vision Pastors Conferences, and among those who came for those conferences were Carl Henry Paul Rees, both of whom had contact with Asbury Seminary, and so they recommended me and I got a scholarship and I was able to go to Asbury.

Brian Stiller:

Was that a shock? Going from Sri Lanka to the US to study?

Ajith Fernando:

It was a shock. I went in February, so it was very cold and the food was so different to what I was used to, but it was such a thrill. I had been wanting to study theology from the time I was about 15 years old, so all of the inconvenience was forgotten. I must say that the culture clash wasn't there for me. I grew up in a westernized home. It was much later, towards the end of my studies, that I began to realize the cultural aspects of Christianity, and when I went back home I realized that there was a great need for cultural sensitivity. But while in my first few years just the thrill of studying theology was so great that I it didn't strike me, and what were those cultural differences then?

Brian Stiller:

that would give you a different understanding of the scripture.

Ajith Fernando:

Late in my ministry, I began to realize that a key to nurturing godliness among first generation Christians that's my background. The ministry I've done for the last 45 years or so has been with first generation Christians from poor backgrounds non-Westernized poor backgrounds, christian Christians from poor backgrounds, non-westernized poor backgrounds and I realized that a key is to understand that they are motivated by honor and shame more than they are by right and wrong. In fact, what they think to be right is what brings honor. And then, as I began to look at the scripture, I went through the whole Bible, tracing and noting, jotting down. I have thousands of references of every time shame comes in the Bible and there were so many and I realized that the Bible uses shame in a good way to motivate people to be godly Because, for example, lying is so much a part of our culture, it's just part of the.

Ajith Fernando:

Sometimes it's wrong not to tell a lie in our culture Because if you are bringing dishonor to your fellow colleague, it would be wrong to tell the truth and dishonor him. So lying and and truthfulness in that sense was different. So I began to realize that we will have to find new ways to motivate people to be truthful and to be holy, and the way I struggled with this is to work on the idea that we are collectivistic in our approach to life. We think as a group, so we have to make some of these christian values shared community values. Community truth is communicated best through story, so the stories help people to feel the reality of what we are saying, not only to understand the reality.

Brian Stiller:

So so these have been things that I've been working on these last few years do you view the church that's been established in sri lanka as kind of a colonial enterprise, or was the gospel that you were taught as a child? Did it have kind of authentic indigenous Christian life to it, or was it a European manifestation?

Ajith Fernando:

Yeah, actually it was very much of a European manifestation. Our church, we were going through what we might call the post-colonial blues. We were embarrassed by our colonial past, and the way that expressed itself was in liberal theology, because insisting on the uniqueness of Christ, for example, was considered arrogant and colonialism was associated with arrogance. So that's what I first encountered my first few years of ministry. I was trying to present a case as to why we need to preach the gospel, because we were being told you don't need to do that anymore. This was all a reaction to the Western dominance of our people, and so I had to. That was what struck me Then.

Ajith Fernando:

Youth for Christ decided around the late 70s that we are going to change our focus from working with churched youth to totally unchurched youth, which of course was people. The churched youth were westernized, whereas these people were non-western. So we got onto a pilgrimage of learning as a staff. We studied a little booklet the Gospel and Culture coming from the Lausanne movement. We studied a little booklet the Gospel and Culture coming from the Lausanne movement. It was a little booklet. We went through it page by page, discussing how can we apply this to our culture. We got our staff to go and learn drama and music from non-Christian musicians, because Christian music was so different to our music. So that was something that came much later in my life and it came to the church also a little later.

Ajith Fernando:

Actually there were some from the mainline churches who were pushing very hard for identification with the culture. They were not theologically evangelical but they were trying very hard and they did a lot of good that way. The evangelical church caught on to this a little later. And then of course, a lot of the West. Because of the war and all the problems in the country, a lot of the Christians left the country. We were left with a new generation of leaders who were not from Western backgrounds, not from affluent backgrounds, but were converts to Christianity from poorer, easternized culture. So naturally the church began to take on an Eastern flavor through those people to take on an Eastern flavor through those people.

Brian Stiller:

That's very interesting that the church was so Western in its orientation. Although it lived in the Sri Lankan world, it had to consciously try and understand its own national culture. Have you found that to be true in other countries where missions from Europe has been the prime introduction of the gospel Missions?

Ajith Fernando:

plus colonialism, one of the blessings of colonial rule. Well, I don't know if you can call it a blessing, but the church in some places thrived under colonial rule. Now, missionaries soon began to give people a sense of equality, a sense of dignity. That went against the colonial agenda and because of that a lot of missionaries were despised by their colonial rulers. However, where there was colonial rule, there was more of an opportunity for missionaries to work and the church took on a Western format. There wasn't that much of thinking on Eastern culture and things like that. There were stray missionaries who realized this and adapted but not many In the Western world, of course.

Brian Stiller:

we know of an enormous migration from Sri Lanka to other countries. I know you had many opportunities to leave but you chose to stay. Can you walk us through the emotion of that journey?

Ajith Fernando:

I would say there are two things that helped me. Firstly, it was a strong sense that this is where God called me to be and I had this assurance that if you are in the place that God called you to be, you're going to be happy. Actually, our family, when we were having a terrible revolution in the country children hadn't gone to school for months and people were leaving. Many of our friends left the country and I also got an invitation from a school in Massachusetts to come and teach. And I mean I was going through immense frustration because buses were not running, trains were not running, to keep our office open, we had to go by vehicle and bring people to office and you know it was a frustrating time. But when we got the invitation from the seminary, I immediately wrote back to say this is not.

Ajith Fernando:

And then my wife and I decided I had to ask ourselves we have to make sure that our children, they didn't have a call to Sri Lanka. We are the ones who had a call to Sri Lanka. What would make it worthwhile for them to stay, for us to stay? So both of us decided, if we can give them a happy home, that is the greatest legacy we can give and that we conscientiously sought to give. Whatever is happening outside, when they come home, there is a place where they are accepted, where we can have fun, where we enjoy each other. That was the first thing, the sense that God had called us.

Ajith Fernando:

The other was a theology of frustration that had been growing ever since I was in university and would study so hard but never did well because I was not good with my hands. I realized that if you're going to thrive in ministry, you have to learn to live with frustration, because people are unpredictable. Live with frustration because people are unpredictable. The people you expect to respond to your care and concern don't, and some of the people you least expect end up doing wonderful things for God. So I had to develop a theology of frustrations that says it's okay to feel bad, it's okay to think that you're wasting your time, it's okay because this is life. Here we identify with the people who are living with frustration, and if you are going to identify with them, we too must do that.

Brian Stiller:

But in that I saw your life, either deliberately or unconsciously, migrate to care for the poor. How did that come about?

Ajith Fernando:

Well, concern for the poor has been part of my life from the time I was a child. How so? I used to see all these poor people around and I used to wonder how come we live in luxury whereas these people are like that? In fact, there was a a time sometimes I used to sleep on the ground, saying the poor don't have uh beds, so why? Why should I sleep on a bed? And my mother used to scold me and send me back to the bed. And so that was one one thing. A second thing was my father was one of those evangelicals. In In the early years when the evangelicals were discovering integral mission, social concern, my father was one of those people who had a strong sense that evangelism and the concern for the poor must go hand in hand. In fact, after he retired from the government, he worked for World Vision. He started World Vision in Sri Lanka.

Ajith Fernando:

So I had a family that was concerned for the poor, and it so happened that I gravitated. God led me to work with these people and that, of course, has influenced my life immensely. Working with the poor, I realized if we are going to see leaders emerge. I mean, leadership development has been one of the things that has been very much part of my life being a leader of an organization, developing leaders has been. If we are going to develop leaders, our people are community-oriented. We have to be part of a community and they must feel that they are part of this community. So in Youth for Christ we developed some systems. I was heavily influenced by the book of Acts and by the book of Deuteronomy. That talked about concern for the poor all the time, respect for the poor, and so we developed some principles openness about finances, for example. We have an open salary book. Anyone can go and look. It's very inconvenient because people look at the salary book and say how come? So-and-so is getting much and I'm not, you know, but it was part of people. The poor can come to receive as receivers and if they come as receivers and stay as receivers they will never grow. So they have to be vital community members.

Ajith Fernando:

In the early years, speaking in English was called wielding the sword, because when you talk in English you're putting people down. Those who don't speak in English, you're putting them down. So we made a rule don't speak in English when you're in that community, because the tendency is you're with people who don't speak English, but with each other we talk in English. So we made a rule that we won't do that, because the donations that the poor give to our organization are as important as what the rich give. So we won't. We won't do that. This is all part of trying to foster a community of equals.

Ajith Fernando:

Now, when we began to do that, the result was very surprising. The result was anger. The poor suddenly realized they are equal and they were angry. We have been treated badly. Society treated us as second class, you know, and we are not second class. So I that was one of the things you know sometimes you think of godliness as humility and all of that, whereas here godliness expressed itself in anger because they realized the scriptural truth they had been deprived of and they were angry. And the way to do that, to get out of it, was to embrace these people, make them our children. So discipling was very much a part of our ministry, and so we began to disciple people and they became our children and we cared for them and they knew we cared for them. It influenced the way we adopted, the lifestyle that we adopted.

Ajith Fernando:

Ours, of course, is a country where there are extremes of poverty and wealth, so we tried to develop a lifestyle where the poor didn't feel distant from us. So our home, we tried to have a home like that, and I had this crazy policy that goes against a lot of what people are saying. You know, modern innovations are good for efficiency and innovations are very helpful. But I wouldn't go for a modern innovation until the poor didn't think it was extravagant. For example, we didn't have a microwave hour because the poor at that time thought it was extravagant. So, uh, my sister was trying and trying and trying to give me a microwave. I said no, I don't want, I don't want, we don't want. Finally, my sister and brother decided that they had to decide for me and they came and gave place for it at home, but by a microwave had become acceptable. So I felt so that the poor will feel at home among us, that we will adopt a lifestyle that doesn't make them feel distant to us, but you were leading ministry in the middle of a civil war.

Brian Stiller:

Civil wars replicate themselves in many other countries and people pastors, they lead churches, they lead ministries. How did that work out in Sri Lanka for you?

Ajith Fernando:

It was a very I could even use the word traumatic. I came from the majority community, so you had the Sinhalese and Tamil, the Sinhalese and the Tamil, and I'm a Sinhalese. 70% of Sri Lanka, 74% of Sri Lanka, is Sinhalese. The Tamils were asking for a separate state, but they had very legitimate rights and so it was necessary for us. We had ministries in both languages and we had to develop all sorts of principles to survive, for example, whenever I sensed all of us are prejudiced. You know, racism is one of the last things that the process of sanctification touches so all of us are prejudiced and all of us feel for our people. So in Youth for Christ, we realized that there are going to be different opinions on the ethnic issue, and so we had to meet regularly. Sometimes I sensed things are getting bad. Then I get our national leadership together and we spend maybe a whole day brainstorming what can we do? What should we do? I remember once things were really bad. There was a lot of ill will during the war. When a lot of people are dying, the Sinhalese people were rejoicing that the Sinhalese army was winning and the Tamil people were hurt and weeping that their people were dying. So we got together, I got our leaders together, we chatted from both races chatted, chatted, chatted, chatted, and then for about a month I studied the scriptures to see what does the scripture have to say to these issues. And after a month I prepared a talk and gave it to the whole body of Youth for Christ and I think God used that talk. So I think one of the things is dialogue. You know you have to talk, you have to talk. And when I used to talk about these issues, people used to say these are things you shouldn't preach about because it makes people angry. But if you don't give an opportunity for people to express their anger, there is never going to be healing. So that's one thing that we learned that we need to talk and we need to agree that there are some things we will disagree on, but there are other things that are non-negotiable. What are those things that are non-negotiable? What are those things that are non-negotiable?

Ajith Fernando:

Another thing I decided is that I'm going to visit the war zone which is not my race, it's the other race Once a year. I'm going to attempt to visit each center once a year. Now that was a bit of a scare. Sometimes I had to go by boat because the roads were closed, sometimes by plane, sometimes by bus and it was quite scary, but the fact that I came helped keep the connection. Then we took teams when it was possible. We took teams of Sinhalese youth to Tamil areas and it was amazing the response that people got. Sometimes they would go to a church and the members of the congregation in a Tamil church they're crying Because they always thought of Sinhalese as their enemies. Now they are seeing Sinhalese who are their brothers and sisters. So things like that we tried very hard to be proactive about this Ajit.

Brian Stiller:

Your life is remarkable, beginning at your childhood and how the influences shaped your choices, and then listening to this from the scriptures and from others as you make decisions through your life of leadership, For someone listening who is wondering about how the call of God applies to them.

Ajith Fernando:

What word would you have for them? You know the will of God is. Somebody said 90% obedience or something. Somebody said 90 obedience or something. You know uh, be obedient where you are and see what god is trying to tell you. Personally, for myself, I have always chosen uh to be under a community.

Brian Stiller:

For me it has been the youth for christ community so for someone who's wondering about how they hear God's call, how they're obedient to his will, what advice and counsel would you have for them?

Ajith Fernando:

That's a difficult situation question to answer, because God speaks to different people in different ways. So I would say the key is to try and arrive at some sort of conviction. The key is to try and arrive at some sort of conviction. This is what God wants me to do. How that comes differs.

Ajith Fernando:

In my case it was just this strong sense that I had a burden to preach and a strong sense that I had that God had called me For others. You know, my brother had in some ways a more influential ministry in the country than me. He worked within the structures of the Methodist Church and God used him powerfully when he told my mother that he wants to become a minister. He was an engineer. My mother thought this was a mistake. When I told my mother I want to be a minister, she was immediately she said she realized it was right. So God works differently in different people.

Ajith Fernando:

The key, I would say, is a willing heart to be obedient to God and to listen to people. In my case, I had to listen to my parents who asked me to go to university, which seemed to be such a foolish thing when you look at it, you know, because it was so much work. It was at a time when it was so difficult to enter university. But I listened to them, I obeyed them and even after that I have been part of a community. So you know, sometimes people ask me what I want to?

Ajith Fernando:

Be a missionary. I want to go as a missionary. What advice do you have to give me? I say are you part of a community? Commit yourself to that community, because a community brings frustration, but commitment is the thing that helps you go through frustration. Therefore, be part of that community so God can minister to us. Through the community, they can speak to us. Very often the call of God comes in community, set apart for me, barnabas and so on, while they were praying. So be part of a community. Ask yourself what does God want me to do?

Brian Stiller:

Ajit, wonderful to have you with us today. Thank you for your rich insights and conversation about your own life, so instructive and helpful to us. Thanks for being with us. Thank you, sir. Thanks so much, ajit, for joining me today on Evangelical 360. Every time I'm with you, I learn so much of what it means to be a follower of Christ and how that witness can radiate. If you found this valuable, please take a moment to subscribe and give it a like. We would appreciate it if you would share it with your friends and colleagues. You'll find links in the show notes of this episode for anything we've discussed today and if you haven't signed up to receive my free dispatches from the Global Village, it's an opportunity to join me and meet leaders in many different countries around the world. It's also a wonderful way to stay in touch with upcoming episodes and guests. Just go to evangelical360.com. Thank you for listening. Until next time.