The most beautiful work God has done through this ministry has often been unscripted by us.
Years ago, Phil began mentoring some of our Verse of the Day translators, studying Scripture together and walking alongside them as they grew into leaders. Their relationships with Phil deepened as these men began gathering believers in their own communities, forming home-based fellowships devoted to Scripture, genuine fellowship, prayer, and the shared pursuit of becoming more like Jesus in their thoughts, words, and actions. Through that partnership and shared mission, a movement began to take shape.
That work is now called JESUShaped Ministries, and it is “The Spring” of Heartlight, Inc.'s ministries. It's a ministry built on multiplication: leaders equipping new leaders, who gather and disciple others, who in turn carry the message of Jesus into their own communities. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, it's been quietly growing through networks of hundreds of house churches and ministry partners across India, Pakistan, and parts of Africa. Phil has shepherded the movement's leadership as it multiplied over the past six years.
We invite you to learn more about JESUShaped from Phil as he shares more about this calling and what JESUShaped means to him:
Read Phil's LetterDear Friends in Jesus,
My love for people of other cultures began with my mom and dad when I was a boy in another world in the early 1960’s. My dad openly shared loving fellowship with our brothers and sisters whose skin was darker than our own and whose songs filled my young soul with joy. My dad was friends with many in the African American community in deeply prejudiced East Texas. Sadly, such loving fellowship was not widely accepted culturally or in our churches. However, I was blessed to be raised in a family that didn’t see the color of another person’s skin but saw us all as “different shades of our Savior’s grace.”
One of my earliest memories was meeting Juan Antonio Monroy. This happened shortly after I had confessed Jesus as LORD and Savior, then was baptized by my dad. On a joyous day in May of 1966, and shortly after my baptism, I was carrying a stringer full of nice red ear perch up from the stock tank where we fished. I bumped into Brother Juan, who said in his version of English, “Aye, yai, yai! Those look muy delicioso!” Even as a preteen, I loved to listen to Juan preach and be simultaneously interpreted by Glen Owen. Juan’s passion, word choices as a skilled writer, and love for Jesus as a former atheist, grabbed my heart.
As I followed God’s call into ministry, I was blessed to serve congregations with a deep commitment to international missions. These congregations enabled me to visit and minister all over the world and meet many wonderful people. As Heartlight.org, and later, VerseoftheDay.com, exploded in growth internationally, I was blessed to travel with Compassion International to Uganda and Brazil. As a board member of Come Before Winter, I was blessed to be on a team for international renewals in Thailand for Asian church leaders, Austria with European church leaders, and Namibia for African church leaders. God led me to some incredible young men and women who loved Jesus and were highly gifted. Along the way, God challenged me to find a way to translate VerseoftheDay.com in additional languages. Trips back to Thailand, China, Africa, and South America quickly followed as God opened the door to connect with translators.
These translators were breathtaking in their passion for language and for their people. Not all of our translations were as well done as we would like initially, but they were done lovingly and God began to lead us to people who could re-do or improve them. To this day, they are still a work in progress. Out of these translators grew a connection with several young men who were passionate to evangelize and plant house churches. Out of my work with them grew a commitment to see our ministry move from something primarily focused primarily on encouraging believers, new believers, and returning believers. God was calling us to reach the lost. However, we didn’t want these new groups of believers now gathering house churches, to be dependent upon American money and focus on starting “church in the box” ministries where church buildings and paid staff exhausted their financial resources.
Over time, our core group transformed into what we call KEEL – Key Evangelistic & Equipping Leaders. Like the essentiality of a KEEL on a sailing vessel, these people were essential in evangelizing and then equipping these groups of new believers to become house churches that were self-supporting, that developed their own leaders, and that multiplied themselves by planting more house churches. Our focus the first two years with new believers is Jesus and how Jesus used the first disciples in the book of Acts. The first year, they read the four Gospels through four times – 1 chapter a day for the whole year. The second year, they would read the four Gospels and the book of Acts three times. Each day they are challenged to pray, asking the Holy Spirit to help them know...
- What Jesus wants them to know.
- How Jesus wants them to feel about it.
- What Jesus wants them to do in response to it.
- What is something from that week’s readings they should share in their house churches.
After a bit of time, this beginning became a movement. The Spirit-led name for our “little movement” became JESUShaped ministries. Since January of 2020, hundreds of house churches have been planted and thousands of people have come to the LORD in India, Pakistan, and now Africa. Yes, we have had a few in our fellowship network face hardship and persecution. In the early days, we had a translator and his family barely escape a bombing at a children’s park on Easter in Pakistan. But despite the setbacks and hardships, the Spirit-empowered growth continues. We support the work of a few International KEEL and help the new house churches with Bibles and point them to Jesus video resources available online. Like in the early chapters of the book of Acts, hardship seems to galvanize and inspire growth. This has been true in India, for sure. In Pakistan, this past weekend, we saw the remarkable result of commitment as 33 people confessed Jesus and were baptized. This is despite the incredible shortage of gasoline for their motorbikes to get to the villages where these people live, the shortages of food, and the hard reality that saw us lose one of our KEEL who was killed on in motorbike accident going to take the confession and baptize those same 33 two months ago. Despite anti-Christian pressures, the sadness of losing one of their two evangelists to this tragic wreck, and the delay in time, not one of these people backed down to their commitment to honor Jesus as LORD!
I am now well into my seventies. The LORD has convicted me to use my remaining time on earth to love my family and to lead the JESUShaped Ministries channel of his multiplication of our ministry. If Heartlight.org is “The Well” of resources developed over the years, VerseoftheDay.com is “The Stream” of the moving waters of refreshing resources, JESUShaped.org is “The Spring” of new disciples, new house churches, and new believers. This will be my focus and receive the lion-share of my passion going forward. As an older believer, being around these young, inspiring, passionate, men and women from other cultures reawakens that 11 year old boy who first met Juan Antonio Monroy and fell in love with international people and international missions.
My plea is two-fold:
Please know that I love and support Heartlight.org and VerseoftheDay.com. I have full confidence in Ben to deepen and further develop the reservoirs of their usefulness, freshness, and blessing. Pray for him and trust that he will not allow them to go away or diminish, but will continue to see that they grow, expand, and endure.
Please pray for me, and for Donna who assists me, in the work of JESUShaped. We are known as Daddio and Mamma Donna to our KEEL. We need your prayers for both us and for our KEEL. You may feel called to support JESUShaped Ministries going forward. You will given the opportunity to bless all three channels of our multiplication of ministry later in the year. We would appreciate every form of support and pledge that all financial gifts will be used wisely.
Finally, I switched from pre-med to ministry right before entering college because of the call of God on my heart. I never anticipated the incredible grace and adventurous life God was about to provide. Thank you for being part of that and sharing the journey. Once again, thanks to my family, each of whom supported and encouraged me in this crazy, wonderful, God-led journey. It has been, as Juan Antonio Monroy said so sixty years ago, “muy delicioso”!
By God’s grace and for God’s glory,
Phil Ware
At the end of this year, Heartlight, Inc. will be transitioning its nonprofit mission to this work under the name JESUShaped Ministries Inc., shifting its focus to supporting discipleship and church planting. Heartlight.org and Verse of the Day will continue through Infinite Publishing, LLC and will no longer be part of the JESUShaped Ministries, Inc. nonprofit.
The Multiplication of Ministry
What began thirty years ago as a single ministry has multiplied into three distinct expressions of the same mission:
“The Well” — Heartlight.org, will continue as a permanent, freely available archive of thirty years of devotionals, articles, and artwork — a deep resource that readers can return to for years to come.
“The Stream” — Verse of the Day will continue as the daily home for Scripture and encouragement that millions of readers already rely on, and the place where new development and future offerings will take shape.
“The Spring” — JESUShaped Ministries will carry forward the discipleship and church planting work that grew out of this ministry's international reach — led by Phil Ware as the continuing mission of the Heartlight, Inc. nonprofit under a new name.
Each is becoming its own distinct ministry best positioned to faithfully continue what they've started but now each with their own focus and future in the best formats suited for their longevity.
All born from the work you, our readers, have supported, shared, and shaped over these thirty years. We thank God for your faithfulness, and we are grateful to continue this work alongside you.
By God's Grace and for His Glory,
The Heartlight, Verse of the Day, and JESUShaped Teams
— 2 Corinthians 4:6 —
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