Hey, thanks so much for visiting and finding out more about our ministry. Here’s what you need to know about us: My name is Brian Lusky and I’m the Initiative Leader to the country of Japan with Converge International Ministries.
My Family
After God, my life revolves around the three women in my life. I married my beautiful wife Rachel over sixteen years ago and we have two daughters, Chloe (above, right) and Hannah (above, left). Rachel is a professional photographer and online health coach, as well as an amazing worship leader. Chloe loves to read and Hannah is obsessed with drawing.They both love laughing and beg me to chase them around the house so that we can have a tickle fight often.
Ministry
As for me, I’ve spent the last fifteen years working as a pastor in a multisite church of about 1800 people in Erie, Pennsylvania, first as a worship pastor and then as the campus pastor for our largest location. Most recently, I have taken up the role of global missions pastor, helping to shape and direct the vision for how our church is engaging in the world. Grace Church is an amazing place that God is using to have an impact regionally and globally, and our whole family is grateful to call it our home.
Over the past seven years I’ve also helped develop a church to church partnership between Grace and a Japanese church just outside of Tokyo. It’s been a gradual, rewarding process of investing in relationships directly to see each of our churches grow and learn from one another as we try to reach our communities. I’ve also had the chance to work with a variety of Japanese leaders and meet all sorts of people in my time in Japan…it became like a second home for me.
God’s Calling
During that time, I began to feel a prompting from God to step out of my role as a pastor in Erie and pursue a call to cross cultural missions work in Japan. This calling came from a growing conviction that I could no longer just encourage others about unreached people groups while at the same time staying put and refusing to make those sacrificial faith decisions myself. Simultaneously, God led Converge to approach me about taking up the position of Initiative Leader to Japan.
Though it sounds so clear and obvious, it was not a decision that was easy or that we took lightly. It’s been a journey for both Rachel and I to really discern what God was telling us to do. After much prayer and conversation with people that we trust, we made the decision in September 2018 to make this transition into cross cultural missions work.
God is still speaking to our hearts. We are constantly finding ways in which we’re not fully surrendered to what He’s asked us to do, or where doubt and worry are creeping in. But we’re trying to be faithful to grow and to trust Him for the details when we don’t have all the answers.
What’s Next
We’re just beginning this journey to transition into full time missionary work–over the next few years, we’ll remain in Erie as we build a prayer and financial support team of individuals and churches. We’ll also be recruiting and training other people to join our team and become a part of Converge’s initiative to help be a part of a gospel movement in Japan. After that, we’ll be moving our family to Japan to work directly with our team and our Japanese partners there. Please pray for us.
If you’d like to get updates from us so that you can be in prayer, or if you’d like to join our support team financially and help fund God’s mission among the Japanese people, you can do that below: