Ben Lippen Podcast

Changing 21: Leaving a Legacy of Faith

• Ben Lippen Podcast • Season 1 • Episode 16

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What happens when God redirects your carefully laid plans? Dr. Bill Jones knows this redirection intimately. Once determined to serve as an overseas church planter among unreached people groups, a pivotal conversation with three seminary graduates forever changed his trajectory, leading him to Columbia International University and an unexpected leadership path.

Dr. Jones shares how a simple yet profound analogy—comparing the world to waffles rather than pancakes—revolutionized his understanding of missions. This new perspective inspired him to found Crossover Global, one of the first mission agencies focused specifically on reaching cultural groups rather than countries. Today, that organization has planted more than 6,000 churches among Muslims and Hindus across over 30 countries—far exceeding what he might have accomplished alone.

The thread of breaking generational cycles runs powerfully through Dr. Jones' testimony. Having grown up in what he describes as an "unchurched, non-Christian, dysfunctional home" marked by addiction, mental health struggles, and broken relationships, he now leads a family transformed by faith. His daily prayer from Isaiah 59:21—that God's Spirit and Word would remain with his offspring and his offspring's offspring—reflects his passion for multi-generational impact.

As president of CIU and champion of Ben Lippen School, Dr. Jones advocates for education that equips students "from a biblical worldview to impact the nations." He believes deeply in developing both "professional ministers" and "ministering professionals," recognizing that all believers have a divine platform for influence regardless of vocation. His own family experienced the transformative power of Christian education, particularly through Ben Lippin's specialized learning support that dramatically improved his son's academic performance and life trajectory.

Listen as Dr. Jones shares practical wisdom on staying faithful in your current sphere, developing spiritual disciplines through his "five fingers" approach to Scripture, and embracing God's redirection for kingdom impact that spans generations and continents. His journey reminds us that sometimes our greatest contribution comes through surrendering our original plans to God's greater vision.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Ben Lippen Podcast. This is our summer series where we are getting to know people in the Ben Lippen community, getting to know their heart, and today I have with me Dr Bill Jones, and I just want to thank you for being here with us today.

Dr. Bill Jones:

My pleasure.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

I'm excited to learn more about you and who you are. So first share with us a little bit about who you are and how you are connected here to Ben Lippen.

Dr. Bill Jones:

Well as president of CIU and Ben Lippen's part of CIU, so that's how I'm connected, but the connection goes back many years. All four of our children graduated from Ben Lippen, so we have many precious memories here at Ben Lippen.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

So, Dr. Jones, tell us about what led you into Christian education.

Dr. Bill Jones:

Oh, great question. That was not my intent, I assure you. I was headed overseas to be a church planter and to share the gospel among unreached people groups and see those that came to Christ planted in churches and, by God's grace, see those churches multiplied. So in 1987, three graduates, three female graduates, of CIU Seminary. They visited our little church plant in Atlanta and after a while they came up to me one day and said these were precious, godly young ladies. All three went to serve on the mission field and they came up to me and said that I didn't have a vision for the world. And I was a little indignant when they said that. So I kind of puffed my chest out a little bit. I said yes, I do. And they said no, you don't. I said yes, I do. They said no, you don't. You think? In the gospel the syrup spreads to the edges of the pancake. The country, they said the world's not made up of 220 pancakes, it's made up of waffles. You take the syrup of God's love and forgiveness, you pour it on the waffle. It gets caught in these pockets and these pockets are cultural people groups and there are some that are reach people groups. They have the syrup, the gospel. But there are a lot that don't have the gospel, they're called unreached people groups. And I said I get it. They said no, you don't. They said you need to go to Columbia International University to really get it.

Dr. Bill Jones:

So that spring of 1987, I was in Singapore at the Younger Lausanne Conference on World Evangelization, their Younger Leaders Group. There were 400 of us and I don't know why they invited me, but I was there and there, at the University of Singapore, made two life-changing decisions. So came back to America and within weeks, two things we decided. Number one, to start a mission agency that targeted unreached people groups. Now you have to understand, in the history of the church, the history of missions, it wasn't until 1974 that this idea of reached and unreached people groups, cultures, had really entered into our vocabulary and most mission well, all mission agencies were focused on countries, not cultures. So we started one of the first mission agencies focused on reaching cultures with the gospel as opposed to countries. So we made that decision. And then the second decision was to enroll in the doctoral program in missions at Columbia International University.

Dr. Bill Jones:

So then one day I told the dean of the seminary, my mentor Dr Ken Mulholland, that God had called Debbie and me to go serve as church planters among unreached people groups and he said no, he hasn't. And that really hurt because that was my passion, my heart. But he was right, because my language acquisition skills are horrible. He was right because my language acquisition skills are horrible. So he said I would do better mobilizing than evangelizing. He felt my gifts were more in pulling teams together and casting vision and creating culture. He saw a lot more in me than I did, that's for sure. So we stayed, started building the little mission agency and I wanted to send me. I didn't see me as overseeing it and today one of the offices is across the street and it's planted Crossover. Global just surpassed 6,000 churches among Muslims and Hindus. It's exciting to see what's happened.

Dr. Bill Jones:

But while I was still studying, they asked if I would teach as an adjunct. I said that sounds fun. What does that mean? They said well, I want you to teach this course. I said great, can it count toward my doctorate? They said yes, but you have to pay tuition. I said well, great, would you pay me enough to teach it that I can pay my tuition? I didn't have any money. There were three businessmen in Atlanta that were putting me through school, so taught as an adjunct. Then the next year they asked me to join the faculty. It was the furthest thing from my mind and I said, well, what about Crossover Global? They said, if you'll move the ministry from Atlanta here to Columbia, we will furnish offices for it. So for three years we had our offices on campus until we could move across the street. So since 1987, I've been with CIU and with Crossover Global in various roles.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

So how have you learned to listen to the voices of others and compare that to what the Lord is calling you to do?

Dr. Bill Jones:

There's this principle in Scripture. We often have what I would say a perceived calling, but that has to be confirmed with the church. So you have a young guy who says God's called me to preach. That may be fine and well and good, but the church will confirm the conviction of God's calling. So it's God's calling. I feel the conviction, but it's really not genuine unless the church confirms it. So it's beautiful, the balance. There's an interdependency throughout Scripture.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

I agree with that. And when you speak about the church, are you speaking about the big church, capital C, lower church, little c? Good, good.

Dr. Bill Jones:

Good. It's the big church represented in the Little C church. It's those that know you and that's why it's so important to be involved in your church. It's the people God's called you to be with that. Hebrews 10, 24, 25,. Let us not forsake our siblings together, as the habit of some. We need to be plugged in to that local fellowship, giving to them and let them giving back to us.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

So, crossover, global, what is your role with them now and where are they?

Dr. Bill Jones:

Great question. I serve as the chairman of the board and have an incredible team. We have offices, maybe six different countries, I think we minister. We don't keep up with the number, you know it's not a big deal. We keep up with how many baptisms, that's important to us. How many keep up with how many baptisms? That's important to us. How many churches planted, how many fail, how many succeed. But I think we're ministering in about the low 30s. I think it's maybe 34 different countries, mostly Muslim.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

That's fantastic. This speaks to how, again, we might feel that we're being called in this direction, but the Lord has something so much greater for your life in order to serve His kingdom yes, that's just a beautiful explanation of that through your life.

Dr. Bill Jones:

Yes, and CIU and Ben Lippen does our mission statement. In both we have a little extra. We've added to the Ben Lippen mission statement, but the first part of Ben Lippen's mission statement is the same as CIU's mission statement is to educate students from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ. And so we see students graduating from Ben Lippen and from CIU going out and serving either as professional ministers or ministering professionals. But we want all of our graduates, high school to college, to PhD, we want them all going out to make a difference for Christ in their sphere of influences.

Dr. Bill Jones:

So if perhaps some listening today they say I'm not in the ministry, well, that's not true. They are. They may not be a professional minister, but they're a ministering professional and they need to see their position in the marketplace. They need to use let me say it differently they need to use that position in the marketplace as a platform for ministry. God has placed them exactly where they are for His purposes and His purposes. He wants us to fulfill the great commandment and he wants us to fill the great commission. And what a great opportunity to be out in the marketplace or in a neighborhood maybe it's an at-home mom to make a huge difference for Christ in the lives of those around them and their sphere of influence.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

Yes, and I love that you touched on that about the stay-at-home mom piece or the stay-at-home dad.

Dr. Bill Jones:

Yes, I have a dear friend who's a stay-at-home dad. Same thing Find that sphere of influence and use it to reach people for Christ and to grow them in their faith.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

Yes, and even with our children at home, having our children at home, being able to pour into them. I was a stay-at-home mom for 12 years and they were wonderful years. I wouldn't trade for anything, but they were hard, and sometimes you feel like you're just doing the same thing over and over again and you're not gaining any traction. I see the fruit of it now, but what would you say to someone who's kind of in that state whether they're a stay-at-home parent or they're a student who's just maybe not understanding what their next steps are, or somebody in the professional world? How would you explain to them staying true to the Lord's Word and being fruitful where they are?

Dr. Bill Jones:

That's great. Just the words you use reminds me of In Isaiah, chapter 59, verse 21,. It's a verse I pray literally every morning for my family, but the phrase you were was being true to His Word. The way I pray this verse Isaiah 59, 21,. It says May your spirit and your word not depart from my mouth, nor the mouths of my offspring, nor the mouths of my offspring's offspring, both now and forever.

Dr. Bill Jones:

So when it comes to parenting, I like to think of it in these terms when they're little, it's demanding physically. When they get to be teenagers, it's demanding emotionally. Oh no, it's 1101 and they're not home yet. What has happened? When they get to college, it's demanding financially, so mentally, when they're teenagers, financially. When in their college age, and then when they get married and have grandchildren and they live three states away, it's demanding emotionally. You know, I want those grandbabies.

Dr. Bill Jones:

So when we're as parents and it's so hard, the years go by quickly, but the minutes drag by, sometimes very slowly. We need to see ourselves as we're raising world changers. May your spirit and your word not depart from my mouth. I need to be faithful and true, right where I am, because God's called me. Right where I am, right here and now, and he's using me to raise up this next generation. And more than that, may it not depart from their mouths. But may it not depart from the mouths of my offspring's offspring.

Dr. Bill Jones:

A lot of times parents don't realize they're not raising children as much as they're raising future parents and the success of our ministries. And this is the hard part. It's all hard, but there are tremendous joys Grandchildren are the reward for not murdering your kids when they were teenagers. I mean, it's all hard, but I do not know how successful I will be, because I'll never see that fourth generation. It's that fourth generation. We're impacting, not just our kids, but our kids' kids and then ultimately our kids, our children's, children's children. Another verse in Isaiah, verse 44, verse three, says would you pour out your spirit on my offspring, your blessing on my descendants? Another verse, or two later it says May they all name your name with honor, so being true to His Word. It seems so hard today, but as the years go by, we see the faithfulness of God, we see His mercies, his grace poured out upon our children and then, one day, our children's children.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

Yes, absolutely, and we can do that, whether they are biological children, adopted children, Spiritual children. Spiritual children yeah, the whole gamut there. So the Lord, he's a very strong presence in your life and I know he's been a strong presence since at least 1987. But tell us about your story and how you came to know the Lord. Was it an introduction early in childhood, or how did that look for you? I wish.

Dr. Bill Jones:

I grew up in an unchurched, non-Christian, dysfunctional home. Four grandparents, two parents, a sister, three aunts, three uncles, seven cousins and myself. That's 21. That's why Isaiah 59, 21, means a lot and I'll explain why in just a second here. But of those 21,. Four alcoholics, one crystal meth addict, four in mental health hospitals, not all their lives, but in and out. If you understand, two suicides it doesn't count the suicides of married-in family to those cousins or aunts and uncles and four marital infidelity. The number four comes up a lot, but it's different fours, you understand. So it was just. It was sad, very sad. So I didn't want to be like them. I don't know why, that's just the grace of God. So there was a real seeking for God at a young teenage, so at age 15, I wasn't legal to drive, but my dad let me drive anyway. There was a monastery 13.3 miles from our house in Georgia.

Dr. Bill Jones:

I grew up in Atlanta and every I'd say on average every three months, I would go to this Trappist order of monks, this Catholic monastery, for three, four days, depending on if it was summer or not. I had my own room. I went so often it was in the barn, upstairs, in the loft they had boarded up a room, had heat but didn't have air conditioning. My job was to collect all the eggs every morning. I hated those chickens because they would peck or do a mess on my hand. I hated them. They would peck or do a mess on my hand, it was just I hated them. But then the afternoons I had the free run of 2,000 acres. During the vigils to vespers they prayed five times a day. I'd be with them, I had my little own cloister and those monks took care of me. I did that from age 15 to 18.

Dr. Bill Jones:

Then I went away to college. I went to college in Atlanta. Three students there that were believers, followers of Christ, genuine believers, loved Jesus, shared the gospel with me and I just didn't get it. I'd read my Bible through twice. I knew, if I just read enough in this book of incantations, that the magic would suddenly happen and I would be a different person. But it never did. I didn't go to church, I went to a monastery. I mean, Lord, what else can I do to make this change in my life? And they were saying you don't do anything, it's all grace, Receive the gift. I said, well, I'm going to work a little bit harder.

Dr. Bill Jones:

So then I went to Iowa State University representing Georgia Tech I don't even remember what I was supposed to be representing, what we were doing and a charismatic Lutheran pastoring a Methodist church as a 21-year-old student at Iowa State University. He just kind of took this young 18-year-old kid under his wing that weekend or week or whatever it was, and he asked me a question that navigated all the mental roadblocks in my mind. He asked if I'd ever made Jesus Christ Lord of my life. And I looked at him and I went, no, I haven't, but I want to. And it was two o'clock in the morning, 20 degrees below zero. It was horrible.

Dr. Bill Jones:

Went to the chapel on campus, got on my knees, prayed to receive Christ. Went to the chapel on campus, got on my knees, prayed to receive Christ, went back to my room, wrote the prayer down in the middle of my Old Testament and New Testament, my little King James Bible, and signed it and dated it March 24th 1974. And I still have that Bible in my study at home, open to that little prayer for salvation. And God changed me. So today, Debbie and I have four married children. So the two of us plus the eight of them is 10, 11 grandchildren, 21,. A totally different kind of family. Isaiah 59, 21,. May your spirit and your word not depart from my mouth, nor the mouths of my offspring, nor the mouths of my offspring's offspring, both now and forever. It's a special verse.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

That's a wonderful story. So, as you've gone through life and different challenges have come your way, because you've had your experiences in the secular world and then the world of a saved believer, how do you stay with the Lord, how do you keep Him Lord of your life when the difficult things happen?

Dr. Bill Jones:

We have a ministry. It's called the Ezra Journey. It's just some Bible studies that we have one that's popular downtown. I think somebody told me we have about 140 men going through it right now. It's a two-year study of the Bible from cover to cover, except we go through it chronologically and we break it down into 10 eras, five pairs of opposite words, so they can remember the story of the Bible and then make sense where the stories from the Bible fit. So nothing, something exiting, entering, united, divided, scattered, gathered, coming going. God creates the human race out of nothing, turns the Hebrew race into something great size of significance. They exit Egypt, they enter Canaan. The United keep stand. The divided kings fall. They exit, they're scattered to Babylon, they're gathered back to Judah. Four and a half centuries of silence, the coming of Christ, the going of the church, and then they can fit the stories. It goes down deeper. So we've had about 400 men go through that. And I say that to say when we stick to the Word of God, we don't want to just master the Word of God, we want the Word of God to master us, and it's that I have to stay in the Scriptures and studying it I've learned, as a young Christian.

Dr. Bill Jones:

Five ways to get a grip on the Scripture. If you think of your five fingers, the baby finger is listening to it preached in the church. The ring finger is listening to it preached in the church. The ring finger would be read it and a lot of people those two, but they're weak fingers. That middle finger study it. That's a much stronger finger than the other two. The pointer finger would be to memorize it. But those four fingers are not enough to keep a grip on anything. You can't hardly pick up a bottle of water with that fifth finger is to meditate on it and we have to be careful. It's just not a commitment to the Word of God. But as we're spending time in those five ways in the Word of God, as we're getting a stronger and stronger grip, the ultimate goal is to get to know the God of the Word. So we can't a lot of times we tend to to worship the Word of God, but the Word of God is just a pathway to stay committed and to know intimately the God of the Word.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

How do you incorporate rest into your life?

Dr. Bill Jones:

That's a great question. I think there's a rhythm and different people have different rhythms. So you rarely will find me at a breakfast function because the mornings I need the mornings and I have an extended time virtually every morning Not every single one, but virtually every single one and then I try to get after it as hard and fast as possible the rest of the day, but then I don't schedule a whole lot of nights out. And the way I like to say it is I don't want to burn out. Okay, as doing too much for too long, I definitely don't want to rust out. I would much rather burn out than rust out. Rusting out is we don't do anything, I just want to wear out. You know, eventually we come to an end, right, and I want to be that in God's timing. I don't want to accelerate it and I definitely don't want to sit around and do nothing. That's not who I am. I want to wear out for God's glory.

Mrs. Erin Kay:

I love that Wearing out for God's glory. So, as we wrap this up today, is there any closing thoughts that you would like to share with our listeners as we wrap up?

Dr. Bill Jones:

Oh, I'm just. I'm grateful to God for the ministry of Ben Lippen. To give you an example of our four children one of them three of the four had learning disabilities. One graduated from Furman, you know. Ben Lippen taught them how to cope in spite of their limitations, how to excel. But I'll mention one of the four specifically.

Dr. Bill Jones:

I wanted to keep them public school because my passion is evangelism. I want people to know there is a God that can change their life, that can change their 21s, right, I mean, if he changed my life as much as he did, I want them to know that he can change their life. So I want to stay in the public school system to reach people who didn't know Christ. But one of our children was testing in the 30 percentile and wasn't getting the time or attention. So understand how I say this reluctantly. I love Ben Lippen because it's part of our family, but I don't see a lot of lost people, non-christians there, right, most are strong followers of Christ. So we enrolled all of them at Ben Lippen, but particularly for the youngest one, and enrolled him in the NILD, the National Institute in Learning Disabilities, which was housed at Ben Lippen at the time, and in one year he went from testing in the 30 percentile to testing in the 85 percentile in just one year. Well, when he went to grad school he made straight A's in his MBA.

Dr. Bill Jones:

But he tells me this now. He says Dad before. I was eight years old, third grade. I don't remember anything before the age of eight, but he has like a photographic memory now and I attribute God gets the glory, but I give Ben Lippen the credit. I'm eternally indebted to Ben Lippen. It has an incredible ministry to our community and to other nations because we bring in international students. But it's changing families. I remember there was a time my youngest the one that was impacted perhaps the most came home and he said I will never send my kids to Ben Lippen. Well, today it's. I will never send my kids anywhere else but Ben Lippen. It's made a generational impact on my family and I'm grateful to be a part.

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