"We must reclaim our place in society, not as rulers, but at servants. We must be the best servants the world has ever seen."
Jim Gilbert is a man who know what it means to stand up for Christ. He has dodged the KGB, spoken at underground churches before the fall of the Soviet Union, and seen some of his best friends arrested, beaten and imprisoned. He sees the need and hunger the world has for Christ that we in the church often forget, and seeks to be a bridge-builder between the church and the world. But Gilbert says, "I find that it is sometimes as hard to stand up for Christ at home in the heartland of America as it is traveling in a country where the gospel is forbidden."
Ask the founder and president of The Nehemiah Project to describe himself, and the answer comes with a smile. "I suppose 'internationally unknown' would be most accurate," he says, then adds, "Success is best defined as faithfulness to God. I just want to be found faithful."
A powerful communicator, whether writing, writing, speaking, or singing, Gilbert has ministered in more than four dozen countries on five continents. "We've presented the Gospel of Jesus Christ in every kind of setting," he says, "from British television to the old Soviet 'underground.' We've lectured in Moscow's City Hall, sung the blues at a jazz festival, slept on at least 3,000 different beds and floors, and have been served everything from chicken heads to cowskin."
"The 1990s are proving to be a decade of worldwide harvest for Christ, especially in the former Soviet bloc," Gilbert says. "But I believe this could be eclipsed in the twenty-first century by the largest, most comprehensive ingathering in history. And the precipitating factor, if it happens, will be Christians reclaiming our place in society, not as rulers, but as servants--serving our communities so well that opposing us would be laughable and futile. We must be the best servants the world has ever seen."
It was this conviction, coupled with the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union, that saw Jim Gilbert Ministries transformed into The Nehemiah Project. Jim anticipated the need for such a project in the mid-1980s, when it became clear to him that the USSR was destined, in the words of Russian author Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, to "collapse under the weight of its own rottenness." The Nehemiah Project currently is producing Rebuilder Video Schools, a local church-based curriculum designed to impart practical skills and a biblical worldview to believers adjusting to the post-Communist realities of life in the former Soviet Union. .
As a communicator Jim Gilbert has written one book, How a Man Stands Up for Christ composed numerous songs, and recorded three albums, including Integrity's Hosanna! Music worship tape, "Lamb of God."
Today Jim and his wife, Dolly, reside in Clearwater, Florida, although they consistently have been on the scene of world news, whether dodging bullets in a terrorist attack in Colombia, ministering in Manila during the Philippine revolution, or conducting a mission to Russia just five days after the abortive coup attempt of August 1991.
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