Transitions and Training; With Brad Smith

On this episode, Joy and Geoff talk with Brad Smith about his life story and the transitions he faced when moving overseas and coming back to the United States. As Communitas' Training Director, he shares how training has played a pivotal role in his emotional health and spiritual development.

About Brad

Bradley Smith grew up in California, on the central coast, San Luis Obispo area. He met his wife Hannah while at University and they have two children, Hudson (12) and Sawyer (10). Brad and Hannah have both been following Jesus since a very young age. Brad comes from a fairly long line of Jesus followers. His Grandfather was a pastor and missionary. His father was a pastor and now runs a missions agency called Global Sharing.

Brad is a middle child with a younger sister and older brother. He originally went to school for engineering but transferred to music, a passion, halfway through. He has led worship teams at church since high school. In 2014, He and Hannah purposed to leave the secular work force and pursue a full time position for him in Worship leading. The only door that opened however was a position in France at a small International church called ICCP. This is how they became “missionaries” and connected to Communitas. In the process, Brad felt God tug his heart with Matthew 28, namely, that he didn’t know how to make a disciple, which lead him to discover the DMM methods (Disciple Making Movement) and learn the Discovery Bible Study process before leaving for France. With a group of guys from work, he started a bible study at a coffee shop / bar. Those nine months were a watershed for Brad, as the Spirit trained him in disciple-making and he had the privilege of leading a coworker to Jesus. He recognized that helping others discover God was the most fulfilling thing He had ever done in his life. In France, they started a few groups and trained people in the process. Later they moved to the Netherlands to train people in this “DBS” process, as well as another training they ran in France that helped find spiritually receptive people. Brad and Hannah loved the Netherlands, but God brought them back to the USA for family reasons. Now he gets the awesome privilege of making sure people get the training they need as the Training Director for Communitas.

He loves seeing people develop. He loves to help them prepare and also get excited about helping others discover God. He has a huge heart for people serving the Lord cross-culturally, believing and experiencing it as one of the most difficult things a person can do. It is his heart to make sure they have access to whatever tools they need. In his spare time, he enjoys cycling with Hannah and the boys and loves playing guitar. He enjoys most artistically driven music. Right now he listens to and plays a lot of Dream Theater. If he got stuck on a desert island and could only listen to one band for the rest of his life, it would be Led Zeppelin. He likes thinking deeply about things and loves principles and process. He loves to laugh and not take things too seriously.

He loves the adventure of following God, and is learning to be content not adventuring ;-) He’s always available for a good talk about God, life, politics, sports, music, or just about anything, especially if a descent beverage is involved.

Resources mentioned

https://www.contagiousdisciplemaking.com/ https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/ https://learninghub.gocommunitas.org/courses/co2-the-church-of-two/

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