Frank Amato gave his life to Christ when he was about 19 years old. Then, by his own description, he spent roughly the next 25 years wandering in the wilderness.
There was no dramatic rejection of God. It was more subtle than that. Frank knew who Jesus was, went in and out of church, and did what many people do. Show up on Sunday, spend an hour there, go home and assume everything is fine.
But there was something missing.
He did not have people around him intentionally investing in his spiritual growth. There was no one regularly walking alongside him, challenging him, helping him understand Scripture or showing him what it looked like to actually follow Jesus in everyday life.
Years later, after experiencing the death of his mother, a deployment to Afghanistan and a divorce within a relatively short period of time, Frank found himself at a low point. He got connected to a church again, but this time his relationship with God began to take on a different shape.
That experience eventually became part of the reason discipleship matters so much to him today.
On a recent episode of the 2000 Cubit Rule, Frank and I talked about his faith journey, hearing God, business, missions, healing, Biblical friendship and what happens when someone decides to simply say yes to God.
God Started Asking Frank to Do Things He Wouldn’t Have Chosen
One of the interesting patterns in Frank’s story is that God kept leading him toward things that did not make much sense from his perspective at the time.
After serving in Afghanistan, Frank remembered telling the guy next to him that he never wanted to leave the country again.
A few years later, he was sitting in church listening to missionaries from Kenya.
He sensed God telling him to go.
Frank did eventually go to Kenya, and that first response opened a door to years of mission work. He has since returned to Africa and traveled numerous times to Mexico, serving in communities, helping churches, building homes and putting the construction skills he had developed throughout his career to work for people who needed them.
During that same season, Frank also felt God telling him to go back to school.
Because he had spent most of his professional life in construction, his first thought was something practical like construction management.
Instead, he sensed God directing him toward theology.
That made even less sense.
He followed the direction anyway, eventually earning a master’s degree in Biblical studies and later a doctorate in pastoral counseling.
Looking backward, the connection becomes much clearer. God was preparing him for the work Frank now spends a considerable amount of his time doing, sitting across from men, listening, counseling, discipling and helping them grow closer to Jesus.
That is one of the strange things about following God. We often want Him to explain where the road ends before we agree to take the first step.
Usually, He doesn’t.
Hearing God Starts With Knowing Him
Because so many of Frank’s major decisions have involved sensing God’s direction, I asked him what hearing God actually looks like for him.
He did not describe a booming voice from heaven or a series of dramatic supernatural experiences.
Most of the time, it has been much quieter.
Sometimes it is a thought that comes strongly and unexpectedly. Sometimes God uses another person to say something that suddenly brings clarity. Frank mentioned a friend who once listened to what he was doing in discipleship and told him, essentially, “I think you’ve found your purpose.”
Frank had not been thinking about it that way, but the comment stayed with him.
His wife has also been one of those voices in his life. Frank joked that she may not always have a lot to say about everything, but when she does speak into something, it can be profound.
The bigger point, though, is relationship.
Frank compared recognizing God’s voice to recognizing the voice of a family member in another room. You may not be able to see them, but you know who is speaking because you know the person.
That familiarity develops over time.
The more we know God through prayer, Scripture and walking with Him, the more familiar His voice becomes. Frank was also careful to emphasize discernment. Not every thought that enters our minds came from God, which is why what we believe we are hearing needs to line up with His Word.
It is not primarily about learning a technique for hearing God.
It is about knowing Him.
Sometimes God Uses the Parts of Our Story We Would Rather Forget
Frank’s ministry with men also did not develop simply because he earned degrees.
A significant part of it came through his own healing.
His upbringing included instability, alcoholism, violence and the absence of a consistent father figure. His mother married four times. Her third husband adopted Frank and his sister, but shortly before Frank’s first child was born, that man died by suicide.
Frank entered fatherhood carrying the loss of the man who had become his father.
There were abandonment issues, questions of identity and wounds that did not simply disappear because Frank became a Christian.
In 2021, he attended a 72-hour trauma and suicide prevention program called Save A Warrior. He described the experience as one of the most profound things he had ever gone through.
For Frank, it became a point where he finally gave himself permission to heal.
That healing now influences the way he sits with other men.
He understands what it is like to carry things for years. He understands how experiences from long ago can continue shaping decisions, relationships and identity. He also understands that following Jesus does not mean pretending those wounds never happened.
As we talked, Romans 8:28 came to mind. God works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
That does not mean everything that happens to us is good.
It means God is capable of redeeming what was not.
Frank can look back now and see how experiences he would never have chosen have given him an ability to walk alongside someone else who is hurting.
The wound does not have to remain the end of the story.
Biblical Friendship Has to Be Honest
Frank talks frequently about Biblical friendship, and one of the things he means by that is the ability to tell someone the truth.
That sounds obvious until the truth becomes uncomfortable.
There is a tendency, even in Christian relationships, to confuse being loving with avoiding hard conversations. Frank sees it differently.
If he is discipling someone and sees something that needs to be addressed, he believes one of the most loving things he can do is talk about it.
Not harshly. Not with arrogance. Not as though he has everything figured out himself.
But honestly.
The relationship needs enough trust for one brother to be able to look at another and say, “There is something here we probably need to talk about.”
Frank expects that same honesty from the people around him.
That kind of relationship requires vulnerability, humility and time. It cannot be manufactured through a program alone.
And it points to something the church cannot afford to overlook.
We can introduce someone to Jesus, but then someone has to walk with them.
Frank believes churches can often be very good at evangelism while missing what comes afterward. Someone gives their life to Christ, walks into church excited and ready to grow, but who is going to invest in that person?
Who is going to invite him to coffee?
Who is going to open the Bible with him?
Who is going to answer the questions he is embarrassed to ask?
Who is going to notice when he begins drifting?
Frank knows what it was like not to have that person.
Now he tries to be that person for someone else.
The Goal Is Not to Keep Someone Dependent on You
One thing I appreciated about Frank’s approach is that his definition of successful discipleship is not someone needing him forever.
It is multiplication.
He told me about men he worked with for a couple of years who have now stepped into ministry, mentorship and discipleship themselves.
The relationship changes.
Someone who initially needed considerable guidance begins maturing. Over time, the relationship can become much more peer-to-peer. Eventually that person begins investing what he has learned into someone else.
That is the point.
We sometimes treat discipleship as though a mature Christian gathers a permanent group of people who continually need his wisdom.
Jesus modeled something different.
Disciples become disciple-makers.
The person being fed eventually learns how to feed someone else.
Building Houses and Building People
There is an interesting connection between Frank’s business life and his ministry that neither of us planned going into the conversation.
Frank is a builder.
He has spent decades in construction, including military engineering, residential construction, custom homes, renovations, rental properties and real estate projects.
In his late forties, after years working for an established company, he felt God leading him to go out on his own.
It was another one of those decisions where the safe option was obvious.
He could have remained with a large company where he had already spent more than 16 years and probably continued there comfortably until retirement.
Instead, he left and started building homes himself.
Frank described that season as one of the first times in his life where he had to completely trust God. There were properties to purchase, plans to create, contractors to hire and homes to sell, all while competing against large national builders.
God provided.
Today that business also gives Frank something that has become very valuable to him: flexibility.
He can organize portions of his work around the time he spends discipling men.
So professionally, Frank builds houses.
Increasingly, much of his ministry has been about helping God build people.
The two worlds are not as separate as we often make them.
In fact, Frank has seen discipleship opportunities emerge right in the middle of business. Contractors call when life is falling apart. A supplier becomes someone he has been talking to about Jesus for years. Younger family members working in the trades have an opportunity not only to learn construction but to see what it looks like to follow Christ in the middle of everyday work.
Your workplace is not an interruption to ministry.
It may be where a large portion of your ministry is supposed to happen.
What Is Already in Your Hands?
That same pattern shows up in Frank’s mission work.
When he travels to Mexico, he does not have to suddenly become someone else.
He knows how to build.
So he builds.
One trip may involve pouring concrete and laying block for a church. Another may involve framing and finishing a small home for a family near the border. In Kenya, the work may look different, including serving schools, helping communities and sharing the Gospel in areas facing poverty that is difficult for many Americans to fully comprehend.
Frank brings what God has already placed in his hands.
That is worth considering.
We sometimes make calling unnecessarily complicated because we assume serving God requires doing something entirely disconnected from what we already know.
Maybe it does not.
Maybe your profession, experiences, relationships and abilities are already pointing toward the people you are supposed to serve.
Say Yes
Near the end of our conversation, I asked Frank what he wanted to leave people with.
His answer brought the entire story together. Say yes.
There have been plenty of moments when Frank wanted to understand everything before moving forward. He has worried about outcomes, wrestled with fear and tried to figure out how all the pieces were going to work.
At one point his wife gave him some advice he has not forgotten.
He didn’t need to figure everything out.
He needed to listen to where God was calling him.
Frank is quick to acknowledge that fear and anxiety are real. He is not suggesting that following God makes every concern disappear.
He is saying they do not have to make the decision.
Sometimes following God will be difficult. Sometimes it will be uncomfortable. Sometimes He may ask us to do the exact thing we had already decided we would never do.
Frank had no intention of returning overseas.
Then he went to Kenya.
He did not see any reason to study theology.
Then he earned a master’s degree in Biblical studies and a doctorate in pastoral counseling.
He could have stayed in a secure job.
Instead, he started a business.
He spent years without someone intentionally discipling him.
Now he spends a significant amount of his life discipling others.
None of that happened because Frank had the entire plan mapped out.
It happened one yes at a time.
And maybe that is the question worth sitting with.
What has God already been saying that you have been trying to figure out instead of simply obeying?
You can connect with Frank on LinkedIn and learn more about his work at DiscipleshipConnections.com.
Is There a Message in What God Has Walked You Through?
Sometimes the experiences God has redeemed in our lives become part of the message He entrusts us to carry to others.
The Metamorphoo Method helps you identify that message, make it clear and build a pathway for putting it into the hands of more people. It is a 5-step process rooted in Habakkuk 2:2, “write the vision and make it plain.”
If you know God has given you something to communicate but you are still working through how to put it into words and move it forward, visit MetamorphooMethod.com and start with the free guide.