Secret Church
PERSECUTED COMMUNITY // JOY BREEDLOVEPosted: 08 Apr 2011 11:00 AM PDT

Today we are interviewing Joy Breedlove. This is Joys second year in East Africa. Joy partners with Helping Hands Foreign Missions based out of Gainesville, GA (http://helpinghandsmissions.org). On the mission field she is partnering with Grace Calvary Christian Ministries which is a Baptist Association in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and the Congo. Joy has two children Bryan and Dana and 8 grandchildren. She would like the Secret Church audience to know the following:

God wants us to grow deeper in our relationship with Him. How that looks is different for each one of us, yet, Secret Church is an opportunity that will help us all. Our brothers and sisters who are suffering persecution need us to be aware of what is happening in their lives. The Bible tells us in James 4:17: “Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin”. Secret Church will open our eyes to what the right thing to do is and then we will have to make a choice in how we respond.

Follow Joy by going to http://www.joybreedlove.com.

SECRET CHURCH (SC) :: How do you plan to use Secret Church overseas?

JOY BREEDLOVE (JB) :: Secret Church will be used in two ways….first…the participants will be pastors from Uganda and Kenya. These men of God have little to no bible training and the bible study from Secret Church will be a valuable teaching tool for them. The second way Secret Church will be used is…most of these pastors live in remote villages and have little knowledge of what goes on outside of their communities, much less their country. Secret Church will open their eyes and help them grasp the reality of many persecuted believers living in our world. Also, because our population here is 70% muslim, they will be encouraged to learn they are not alone in this world taking a stand for Jesus.

SC :: How is the Lord preparing you for Secret Church?

JB :: Participating in Secret Church here in East Africa has given me the opportunity to seek Gods plans for this event. Through this opportunity He has been revealing how this will impact not only myself, but all those who attend. I believe His preparation began years ago, the night I attended my first Secret Church. He knew even then, that I would be here on April 22, 2011 participating via simulcast 8000 miles from Birmingham. He has given me a love for Secret Church and through that has now opened a door for others to as well.

SC :: As someone who has attended Secret Church live what has been your biggest take away?

JB :: Secret Church is the real deal. It is by far, the most intense bible study I have ever participated in. For months before I attended my first Secret Church, I had been listening to Pastor Platts podcast sermons. God had prepared my heart for the mission field, yet, most often I felt alone in the journey. Not alone in the sense of Gods presence not being with me, but alone because I didn’t have people surrounding me who were experiencing the same call on their life or walking along the same road with me. Often through Pastor Platts sermons I would find that connection…a connection to a group of believers who truly understood. I can remember as I was driving to Birmingham, I was having doubts that this was really as real in person as it had seemed listening to the podcast. However, once I arrived, I no longer had any doubts. From the moment it started until it ended, Pastor Platt allowed the Holy Spirit to use him as a vessel to teach us.

SC :: What do you expect others will learn after experiencing Secret Church?

JB :: Life after Secret Church…I think what can be learned is determined by ones expectations. If someone is truly hungry for the Word of God, then Secret Church will fill them up to overflowing. In my circumstances, not only did God use Secret Church as an in-depth bible study, He also used a pastor from the Gaza Strip to seal my obedience and surrender to the call of being a missionary. God will use Secret Church to open the eyes of His children who do not know about those in the persecuted areas of our world. No matter where one is in their relationship with the Lord, Secret Church will challenge them to go deeper.

SC :: What particularly challenged you at Secret Church that helped you come to the decision to follow the Lord overseas?

JB :: That first night during the prayer time for persecuted churches, the only evangelical pastor from the Gaza Strip spoke to us and followed with prayer. I was very moved by what he shared with us, but more importantly, his prayer was a prayer like none I’d heard before. It wasn’t the words he used, it was the obvious relationship he had with the Lord. When God first began to reveal His plan for me to go and serve on the foreign mission field, He helped me to understand that this was the avenue He was taking to bring me to the next step in my faith journey. He was pleased that I would go and share about Him and help others, however, He knew my hearts desire had been to know more of Him…to grow our relationship deeper. His decision to send me to Africa was what He knew I needed to have my hearts desires met. When the Gaza Strip pastor began to pray, I knew he had the kind of relationship with the Lord that I wanted. Immediately I understood that he attained his relationship through total obedience and total surrender.

Secret Church