Reverend and Doctor are just a few of the titles of this humble and down home man. James L. West was a pastor for many years before he accepted the post of Executive Director of the young missions organization called Heart of God Ministries.

How did you begin to experience God’s heart for those who have never heard of Jesus?

I suppose there could be many events, circumstances, and involve-ments that opened my heart towards the unreached. As a pastor I had been involved at a basic level for many years. I had led my family of LaVina and the three girls into a strong emphasis of appreciation for other cultures and peoples. Over the years of the girls’ childhood, we had six foreign exchange students live in our home, and God used this in a mighty way to tenderize all of our hearts to the lost in other countries.

However, as it is sometimes said, there is nothing quite like being there. When Jamie and John and our middle daughter, Julie, were serving in Taiwan, they invited us to spend Christmas there as a family. It was an adventurous time, as I visited that strikingly different culture. For the first time, I witnessed throngs of people falling and bowing to worship idols. I saw thousands and thousands of people with almost no hope of ever hearing about Jesus and His salvationary love for them. Here all of these years I had been working with people in America who largely had an idea of the Gospel. The Church was everywhere. I had conceived and implemented all kinds of outreaches to try to penetrate the American culture that frequently seemed disinterested in the Gospel.

The kids took us "caroling" from house to house, to friends they had developed there in Taiwan. Nearly all of these families had no gospel understanding at all. We had baked delicious cookies, and as we went house to house, I told the Christmas story of a God who loved us so much that He came, took on human flesh and dwelt among us and loved us, taught us, and eventually died for our sins. I explained that we deserved to die, but He took our place. It was the first time they had heard such a story! I was affected perhaps as much or more than my listeners. One lady shed tears openly, as she heard this moving story of God’s love. I was convinced that I must do all I humanly could to give the rest of my life in greater involvement in getting the Gospel to those who have the least chance of knowing about Him, those who are unreached by His love.

You used to have a salary. Now you don’t. How is it that you knew God wanted you to leave the security that it brought and go into full-time ministry for the unreached—just living by faith for whatever God brings in?

Ironically, I was in a Nazarene Pastor’s conference. It is a long story, but I will only briefly say that one of the speakers’ motivation was to convince us all that being a pastor was a blessed position. I don’t know about the others, but all of my life I’ve felt like that. I have known I was blessed. He told of an experience flying across America where he serendipitously was seated by a former pastor who had been wounded, burned out, abused by his congregation, and he now blamed God for his pain. He had turned away from God and had become a successful lawyer. The man had expounded the virtues of the law profession where he was well-paid and didn’t have to put up with the sufferings of the pastoral ministry.

The speaker’s remarks were well chosen, and I was saying a big amen to all that he was saying, for I too had experienced some impoverished times as a pastor, had suffered the reproach of bearing the name of Christ, falsely accused, etc.. I suppose in over twenty years of pastoring, I had felt a lot of the same kind of pain he was describing. But praise be to Jesus, I have always been able to take it to Jesus and remember that He is my King and that I must answer in integrity to Him, living as holy as He can make me in the midst of some difficult experiences.

The speaker commissioned us to a night of silence. I had never experienced this before. He said, "Go to your room and don’t talk. Just think and pray and ask God if he wants you to end up like this lawyer or be a happy contented pastor. Then ask God to cleanse your heart and experience His peace."

I’m quite sure that I could have never predicted what happened to me that night. In those silent moments as I stared at the dark ceiling, with as clear a Word as I have ever received from God, He said to me, "Jim, I want you to become an advocate for the unreached." I was to leave the pastoral ministry and begin to make my life become an advocate, an attorney, a lawyer, someone who would go before God’s people and plead the case for the unreached: those who are lost, despised, rejected, hopelessly helpless, spiritually impoverished, and dying and going to hell unless someone gives them Jesus.

Since that day my whole purpose in life has changed. As far as I know, until I go to heaven, I will be pleading the case of those who now have precious few representing them before the throne of God. I know Jesus is praying for them right now, around the clock. My daily prayer is for workers who will go into the harvest fields. You know, God has quite enough pastors ministering to America. Close to ninety percent of all missionaries are working among peoples who have had the Gospel for a long time. My burden is for those 2.1 billion who have no one in their midst to tell them about Jesus.