I was born in Portland, Oregon to a first generation immigrant family from Germany. My mom raised me in the faith and taught me a love for the Word of God. Out of this instruction, I grew into a deep pursuit of the life of David through grade school and junior high. The Bible became a book I wanted to understand.
My earliest memories are in 6th grade reading the Bible from cover to cover. In my teen years, I had a deep affection for the ministry of Billy Graham and would watch his telecasts, usually crying during the altar calls. Looking back now, I see all of this as foundational to where God was going to take me in my life. My passion for the lost was born during this time and became a central part of my thinking.
I attended Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) completing a business degree with a focus in marketing. A major influence in my college life was Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book, “The Cost of Discipleship,” which compelled me to pray in my dorm room at night for God to never let me forsake His call to reach the lost for any other pursuit.
God was using the campus of PLU as a training ground for what I was going to be called into across many universities. One of the fun stories was Nikki Cruz coming to Olson auditorium and the majority of the campus being able to hear the gospel clearly explained. I can still remember the great outpouring of salvation which further cemented and completed the foundation of the pursuit of the gospel and the lost.
I met my wife, Christy, in college and we both shared a passion for Matthew 10 and we often would sit on a park bench while on dates in Portland, Oregon, praying and dreaming about changing the world together. I spent the first 11 years after college in the marketplace where God trained me in leadership principles that would become pillar attributes in my life.
Faith says, "God Can, God Will, God Does.”
“Jesus is the center of all theology, yet to just grow your mind without letting your hands and feet go is only half the joy possible in this life. It is both knowing the love of God and freely giving that love away. Love and truth joined is Jesus.”
Brian Brennt
One of the defining moments was my wife Christy coming to me towards the end of my business career and asking me “Have we really done what we talked about on all our dates on those park benches?” We immediately moved a mile from PLU and as my wife began to lead these electrifying women’s Bible studies, everything soon exploded into evangelism in high schools, the training of young people, and growing revelation of the power we have in the freedom of Christ.
Later, while attending Reinhard Bonnke’s School of Evangelism with 50 other leaders, I would never have imagined that disruption that was coming in the midst of all that God was doing in the northwest. Reinhard approached me during the break and asked me a startling question, “When was the last time I had done something preposterous? He said I was in a ‘faithfulness rut’ and that the salary I was getting from the church was holding me back from living a life of faith for souls. The word was confirmed through many spiritual fathers including Loren Cunningham, Jerry Fry, Mark Anderson, and John Dawson. This began my family’s journey to Kona, Hawaii where we transitioned from local ministry to full-time missions.
Today, we find ourselves in Huntington Beach, California working with YWAM and Circuit Riders (www.crmovement.com). I enjoy training and speaking to young people and developing leaders for the purpose of reaching the lost and awakening the saved. I love seeing people get free from every area that hinders them from exploding in their full potential in Christ. I enjoy catalyzing gatherings that bring the body of Christ together.
We have four children who are all in full-time ministry. I am an ordained pastor and received my Doctoral degree in Strategic Leadership from Faith Seminary.
One of the backdrops to the writing of the material has been an extraordinary teamwork in working with my wife Christy. Her keen understanding of Scripture along with her passionate life of intercession, continually inspired and catalyzed the writing of these training materials that you will find on this website. What is worth noting is that Christy has done this through 34 years of chronic illness, which has now been determined to be Lyme’s disease. Her story of suffering has been a foundation for a greater revelation for the love of Christ and the joy that is ours, regardless of circumstances. True intimacy with Christ was forged and continues to be forged through the fellowship hall of His sufferings.
The Lord’s loving kindness indeed never ceases, His compassions never fail, they are new every morning.
“Now if any man builds upon the foundation with gold, silver, precious stone, wood, hay, or straw, then each man’s work will become evident for the day will show it. Because it is to be revealed with fire;
and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work.”
1 Cor. 3:12-13
Here is my wife, Christy Brennt’s, personal testimony:
5 Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time…
February 23, 2019 at THE SEND in Orlando, Florida, Christy Brennt was healed of 38 years of Lyme Disease. For 38 years she had held on to the promise that her body would be completely healed. In a single moment that testimony of enduring, persevering faith through suffering became an answered prayer and a life transformed by the power of Jesus Christ. Thirty eight years was a long time to wait, but God worked just as powerfully in the waiting as He did in the moment of promise fulfilled.
Lyme disease left Christy’s body weak and fragile, but her spirit grew stronger than ever. She didn’t waste a moment in self pity or sorrow, but gave herself wholeheartedly to the ministry of prayer. In words that ring of an uncompromising faith, she speaks of those years of intense suffering as a privilege filled with unending time to pray and intercede for her friends. In fact, it was in that time that she interceded for her dear friend Lou Engle and received a word that would change the course of the missions movement forever: “THE SEND. ‘The Call’ has gone out and we are gathering now to send. ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ A generation gathering to encounter and be sent, sent out ones”. As Christy prophesied about the Send, she was unknowingly speaking of the very day she would receive her long awaited healing. God used her life laid down in prayer to knit hearts together and forge friendships that would bring the Kingdom to Earth.
As Christy’s prayer life grew deeper, her disease grew harder to bear. In 2012, Lyme’s disease increased in ferocity, moving to multiple daily seizures and all consuming, unending pain. Her heros of days past like Amy Carmichael, Amy Semple McPherson, Catherine Booth, Harriet Tubman, and so many others continued to provide the same inspiring examples of overcoming faith in her darkest season as they had in her 20s. She clung to God’s promise of healing even as she physically declined, and weathered many storms with unswerving faith.
It was in the midst of these most aggressive years of disease that Andy Byrd and Brian Brennt were praying together in Huntington Beach (the first hub of the Circuit Riders). They were extremely burdened for the release of women into the fullness of their callings, believing that something would always be missing in the world until women were empowered to bring the breakthrough they alone were designed to bring. Knowing Christy was limited in health, they asked her if she would meet for just a few hours a day for two days with a small group of women: “will you share what God has burned on your heart all these years through suffering?” Christy’s answer was a firm yes and an invitation went out to a small group of women who were burdened for the things on God’s heart. That small gathering in the Garage became what is now Brave Love Women. The God who knows no limits of human weakness or frailty was able, in sickness, to birth a global movement. Christy’s message was simple: “women, we are catalysts and the time for us to bring God’s solutions to the world’s pain and suffering is now. It is time we arise with the power of the gospel and bring it to the 4 corners of the world.” That message transformed each woman in the garage that day, and continues to spread, transforming women throughout the world.
As God continued to move powerfully through Christy’s life, her family continued to contend for her full physical healing. They had no way of knowing that the day was fast approaching as everyone geared up for The Send. While a stadium filled at the tipping point of global revival, Christy worshipped just offstage, still held in the clutches of disease. Bill Johnson came to pray for her, and before praying he simply said “Lyme disease is no big deal for God”. In that moment God’s healing power washed through her body over and over again until all evidence of disease has been washed away. Why God chose that moment versus all of the other moments Christy had been prayed for will remain a mystery until Heaven. Grace happens on both sides of eternity, and God’s divine timing for Christy was evident at the Orlando Send. As they left the stadium that night, Christy asked her husband three times if he could hear the singing. He told her that there was no earthly singing because everyone had gone home. Her ears had been opened to the rejoicing in Heaven over what had just happened! In that moment, both Christy and Brian experienced Heaven’s joy over every one of God’s children in a deeper way than ever before, searing the love of God as a brand upon their hearts forever.
Christy’s life was a testimony long before her miraculous healing, and every year was filled with God’s mercy and grace. Even in the midst of suffering, she was given numerous gifts and blessings. If you ask which was the greatest, she will point to her children: Nick and Emily Brennt, Derek and Chloe Mack, Spencer Brennt, and Joshua Brennt. She has prayed for, served, and loved them as if there were no other assignment on her life and nothing holding her back. The bonds of family grow very deep in the soil of pain, hope, and healing. The fellowship of His sufferings produces the most beautiful pearls.
Christy and her husband Brian live in Huntington Beach with the Circuit Rider Family.
Partners
