From The Ends Of The World To San Diego

In 2002, 24-year-old Brian Kelly left for Africa with his one-year-old son and his wife, Lynne, who was expecting their second child. They were part of a small team headed by a Senior Pastor from a church in Montana where Brian had worked after Bible College. Within the first year, the pastor was called back to the States. Brian was not yet a pastor and though he knew that God was calling him to be a pastor, he never thought it would be at the age of 24. Not wanting to see the new church come to an end, he began teaching. This set in motion a 9-year journey which led to the now thriving Calvary Chapel in Kampala, Uganda.

While this may sound to some like a wild adventure or perhaps the type of sacrificial life of a missionary, Pastor Brian contends, “We weren’t missionaries there, we lived there. That was our home. That was our home church. We weren’t missionaries, we were sending out missionaries from our home church in Uganda to Sri Lanka, East Africa and different places in Uganda.”

“When people think about missionaries, they think about the experience of a short-term mission trip and think that is how missionary life will be where you eat weird stuff all the time and you’re always running from rebel soldiers,” said Brian, “Crazy stuff happens but when you’re living in a place for a long period of time, it becomes your normal life so you develop normal patterns and ways of living. It was our life,” he said, “Now, it’s not like we’re home from the mission field. It’s just that we’ve moved from one place we were living to another place.”

Now Brian, Lynne and their children, Judah (10), Julia (9) and Liana (6), are living in San Diego as Brian begins a new season as Maranatha’s Missions Pastor. He’s excited to start this new chapter of ministry. “I’ll be on the sending end; so rather than working in one place, I’ll be able to reach many places through Maranatha’s associations throughout the world.”

The decision to return to the U.S. was not easy, but God led them one step at a time. Step one was both Brian and Lynne hearing God’s call to return to the States. Step two was recognition of the original mission’s completion: Plant a church, develop a healthy congregation and raise up local and international leadership. A member of the original team, Josh Carlson, became senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Kampala. “When I left, we had two Ugandan pastors,” said Brian,” a pastor on staff from India, a board of elders and a strong congregation. We were established in the community; everything was very good. I looked at that and knew that everything we had come to accomplish had been done.” He continued, “I’m more of a church-planter type pastor than a pastor/teacher who stays for a long time. I lay a foundation and then let others build upon it.”

Steps one and two were in place; the third step was their destination.

“I grew up in the church so I have a good foundation of the understanding of scripture,” said Brian, “but I rebelled and I came back to the Lord at 19. I was working at the Conference Center, which is now the Bible College in Murietta. I did landscaping there and went to Bible College. I never really had an older man be a mentor to me. There was my father, obviously, but there is a unique dynamic that happens in a pastor/mentor relationship,” explained Brian. “There are few pastors who spoke into my life. Ray Bentley is the only one who I respect in the way that I want to be like him. We were connected through Wes Bentley of Far Reaching Ministries just before Maranatha’s first trip to Africa in 2005.”

“Ray is someone I aspire to be like in his ability to teach and his compassion. I think it was a God-thing that I naturally gravitated toward him and looked up to him,” Brian said. “When we knew we were coming back to the States, still not knowing where, I spoke to Ray and told him that I wanted a relationship where I could be used and also where I could be mentored. I sort of figured out how to be a pastor on my own in Uganda. The success I had there is totally due to the Lord. He has blessed that church. I feel there are areas where I need input from mature, more godly men and Pastor Ray is #1 on that list.”

As Maranatha’s Missions Pastor, Brian’s vision is to work with groups, missionaries and organizations that are interested in spreading the Gospel and teaching the Word. “I believe that Scripture is the basis for everything we do in missions,” he explained, “We should look back to the early church in Acts and pattern ourselves after it. My philosophy about missions comes first from the Scripture and I don’t think there’s just one right way to do it.

“When we went to Uganda the first time on a short-term trip, we talked to many people including church leaders, Ugandans and missionaries to get their advice. We told them that we wanted to start a church teaching the Bible verse by verse, Calvary Chapel style. About 95% of the people we spoke to were negative. They told us that it wouldn’t work either because we were foreigners or we didn’t understand the culture or there were too many churches already. There was one guy who worked in the Bible College there who told us to try it out and see what the Lord would do. So we went over and did basically what the Scripture says: Go and teach the Word, make disciples, baptize them and then go out from there and repeat the process. It was successful and it broke some of the stereotypes of what missions should and shouldn’t be.”

“My Missions philosophy is kind of wide,” Brian acknowledged, “but it always comes back to the Scripture. It’s more valuable to have the local church teaching the Word and equipping the local saints to do the work of the ministry which includes humanitarian efforts. The best social work comes from the local church.

In addition to being the Missions Pastor, Brian will be teaching Sunday night services at Maranatha. “Teaching is one of my passions and I’m excited about the opportunity to not only work out of this church in missions, but to also work in the church equipping the saints,” he said.

Pastor Brian will be teaching Sunday night services beginning August 7.

Brian professed that he likes to start new things and new adventures and can get restless easily. He shared that his wife asked him how long he thought they would be here. He answered, “I’m not planning an end because God’s called us here and this is where we’ll be.”