Church and Mission: Other Titles, #20

By Theodore Andoseh

The pages that follow encapsulate the essence of the pathfinding message delivered by the author, Theodore Andoseh at the International Students' Bible Camp in 2020, Cameroon.

In the grand tapestry of faith, the Church stands as a beacon, entrusted with embracing her Lord's Great Commission. In humble prayer, she beseeches the Lord of the harvest to send forth labourers into His abundant fields. And as her petitions rise, God, in His divine providence, calls and equips individuals to embark on His sacred mission. This book endeavours to construct a framework for understanding missions, intended to guide the Church and its missionaries in their noble work. It serves as an introductory exploration into the mission of Paul and Barnabas, with Paul serving as the primary paradigm for missions in the New Covenant.

Through a careful examination of Scriptures and the author's personal experiences, this book illuminates various facets of missionary work, offering valuable insights into the missionary life and ministry.

The author passionately believes that a profound understanding of the Lord's missionary economy can alleviate the burdens of oversight and unleash the full potential of God's missionary purpose. It is our heartfelt prayer that this book, in the hands of those who genuinely care about God's missionary vision, becomes a vessel through which divine blessings flow.

May the Lord condescend to use it as an instrument of inspiration and enlightenment, touching the lives of many as they embark on their own transformative journeys of faith.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books4revival
• Release date: Jun 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223294535

Theodore Andoseh

The current leader of Christian Missionary Fellowship Internation

Book preview

PREFACE

The pages that follow encapsulate the essence of the pathfinding message delivered by brother Theodore Andoseh at the International Students' Bible Camp in September 2020, held in Koumé, Cameroon.

In the grand tapestry of faith, the Church stands as a beacon, entrusted with embracing her Lord's Great Commission. In humble prayer, she beseeches the Lord of the harvest to send forth labourers into His abundant fields. And as her petitions rise, God, in His divine providence, calls and equips individuals to embark on His sacred mission. This book endeavours to construct a framework for understanding missions, intended to guide the Church and its missionaries in their noble work. It serves as an introductory exploration into the mission of Paul and Barnabas, with Paul serving as the primary paradigm for missions in the New Covenant.

Through a careful examination of Scriptures and the author's personal experiences, this book illuminates various facets of missionary work, offering valuable insights into the following themes:

Missionary calling

Missionary send-forth

Missionary team

Missionary strategy

Missionary work

Missionary message

Missionary power

Missionary conflict

Missionary fruit

Missionary realignment

The author passionately believes that a profound understanding of the Lord's missionary economy can alleviate the burdens of oversight and unleash the full potential of God's missionary purpose. It is our heartfelt prayer that this book, in the hands of those who genuinely care about God's missionary vision, becomes a vessel through which divine blessings flow.

May the Lord condescend to use it as an instrument of inspiration and enlightenment, touching the lives of many as they embark on their own transformative journeys of faith.

INTRODUCTION

I want to make this camp a camp of destiny. The world is changing so fast that we don’t know what may be feasible in the next few days and years. Under our noses, the world is changing. Things that were very easy last year are no longer so easy. Travel was easy last year; frontiers were open; they are no longer so open. We are gradually being conditioned to live in prisons in the nation, prisons in the localities, prisons even in our habits. We are being conditioned and changed. So, we don’t know when we may have this opportunity. Make it the camp of destiny. You don’t know how free you will be able to move again in the immediate future.

Let’s pray that this camp will be a camp of individual and collective destiny.

Father, we pray, turn our minds from secondary and tertiary issues. Turn our minds from details, preoccupations, and distractions. Turn our minds from sensitivities and all other things, Lord, and focus us on You, and focus us on our mission, and focus us on the purposes of God for this time. Turn our minds, O God, to You. If ever You have done so, Lord, make us encounter You. Amen.

THIS TIME AND SEASON IN OUR MINISTRY

There are times and seasons in God’s purposes. Solomon identified 14 contrasting seasons:

A time to be born and a time to die. All of us will go through those seasons

A time to plant and a time to uproot. Every work will go through those seasons.

A time to kill and a time to heal. All war will go through those seasons.

A time to tear down and a time to build. Every construction will go through those seasons.

A time to weep and a time to laugh. Every human heart and emotion will know those vicissitudes.

A time to mourn and a time to dance. All social existence will go through those seasons.

A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them. All pioneering work will go through it.

A time to embrace and a time to refrain. All relationships will go through it.

A time to search and a time to give up. All aspirations and ambitions will go through that.

A time to tear and a time to mend. All property will go through that.

A time to be silent and a time to speak. All convictions will go through that.

A time to love and a time to hate. All our purposes will go through that.

A time for war and a time for peace. Our world will go through that.

There are seasons in God’s work. Then Solomon asked: What does the worker gain from his toil? All these seasons determine their own work. There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heaven. So, these conflicting seasons impose a change of activity. When seasons change and your work does not change, what will you gain? If you plant during the dry season, what are you looking for? As the seasons change, our work should adapt. If the seasons change and the work does not adapt, there is futility to all work.

What I am saying is that there is a particular work which we must do with the changing seasons. To believe that you will always keep on doing the routine things that you have always been doing and that it will all turn out well is foolishness. Times change! Times change!!

What our ministry must do with the present season that the world is going through, we must discern it and do it. If we continue to do things the way we did in 2019, we will lose our ministry, we will not accomplish our goal. There is work for dry season and there is work to do in the rainy season. There is work adapted to seasons of war, there is work adapted to seasons of peace.

David was told he could not build because he was a man of war. The Lord promised that He would raise for David a son, Solomon, and he would build the temple because God would give him peace. In peace, we build; in war, we kill. When it is war and you are buying cement, let’s wait and see how you will build. You will not even exist to be able to build. David waged war and God told him ‘You cannot build. Your calling is war. Handle the enemies of God!’ and God told Solomon, ‘I will give you peace. Build!’ If instead of building, Solomon undertook war expeditions…

The seasons are changing. What must we do? Our world is changing. What must we do to ensure world conquest? What must we do? To repeat the routines that we have always repeated… like many of you, to come now and tell Brother Theodore: ‘I have received the call to go to Indonesia.’ Can I open the borders?

If the main thrust of our ministry remains the sending of missionaries, we will fail. All this while, we have sent missionaries to Equatorial Guinea, to Mauritania, to different parts of the world. And we had the possibility of doing that. And Brother Zach was rushing us to do that, and we were sluggish. We were to rush missionaries to Russia; we were to rush missionaries to India. We were sluggish! That time has passed!! Even if you gave us now 100 missionaries for Russia, and if many of you students offered yourselves to us from Cameroon … The world is shrinking.

Insecurity in the nations is closing the borders. Technology and the internet are giving insecurity to the governments of the world. The whole idea of an internet kingdom to which Australians and the French people can belong without needing visa or anything has threatened governments. Recently, people were loyal to the Islamic States, a ‘country’ without physical borders, and the governments with all their weapons, technology, the conventional security systems could not do anything. So, when many of you come to me, ‘I have received a missionary call!’ you are anachronistic, even fossilising. Why are you not abreast with the times?

As far as our ministry is concerned now, if we don’t have all our literature and our message in 250 languages urgently, and if we don’t make sure that we make disciples through literature effectively, we will be sluggish in conquering the world. The priority of our ministry must shift from looking for many missionaries to send from Cameroon. The emigration wave from Cameroon has waned.

All this is simply to say that there is a work adapted to each season. Even for our ministry, with what the world is going through, we need to define new priorities for our work. We will not abandon the sending of missionaries. But we shall send them from countries where movements are easier. The season has changed; the work too must change. And you are our workers. You would better use that yam [brain] that God planted in there. To come back and speak the same spiritual language that you used to speak five years ago and believe that you are consecrated, you are a fool. You are not consecrated, and you are not helping me as a leader to say that we are advancing. Be consecrated! But there is a work and an activity for every season. Let us not be foolish and not make our work futile: the wrong activity adapted to a season is futile work, even in the missionary enterprise.

When we had to send missionaries out, we did not send them out massively. The world is shrinking. The insecurity of the nations has grown. The cyber republics have become a threat. If we don’t make sure that our literature enters and is solidly rooted in the Internet world, the world will start legislating cyber presence because they are afraid. If we don’t plant ourselves when we can still enter very fast, then we are sluggish.

There is a work for every season, a time for every work. When God begins to put pressure on our heart to do something and we don’t do it, by the time you plan to start doing it, you may not have a chance to do it. The season has changed, and the work adapted to that season needs to change. If your mind is in past tense while the season in present tense has changed, your whole life will be futile, useless, and unfruitful.

It is also your season. It is the season of the youth. If you keep waiting for somebody else to do it, to conquer the nations, to do the praying and the fasting, preach the Gospel, give, and go… It is the season of the youth. Do something, serve the Lord. If we keep struggling and knocking ourselves against the difficulties created by the seasons…

All fruitful work comes with flowing with the season. If you want to have corn, select when to plant it. You can have corn during the dry season, but you will water it every day, you will work very hard to get so little, because you are working against the season. But there is work that does not depend on seasons.

Preach the Gospel in season and out of season. The goal doesn’t change with seasons, and the Gospel does not change with seasons. The way we do it may change with seasons. Preach the Gospel… in season and out of season. Preach the Gospel during coronavirus confinement. Write on your face mask: ‘I want to tell you the Gospel’. Do something, but do it. Just do something. Buy the whitest mask and write there: ‘My mouth is closed but Jesus wants to talk to you!’ Do something mad, something creative! Do something because times are when you will not be able to work. We don’t always have the liberty to work. It is time to work, it is the season of the youth. Wake up and start thinking about how to conquer the world.

But if our youth are doing ‘sapology’, and the biggest burden of their hearts is how to nail down the eyes of one girl during the Bible camp (May you catch the eye, we pray in Jesus’ name), that is not the burden. Preach the Gospel in season and out of season. There are things that it will be too late for you to do in a few years from today. There was a time I read one book every day. Now, when I concentrate and read a lot, tears come out of my eyes. Use your eyes when you are young to read, you will need it. There is a time for every activity under the sun. For every fruitful work, adapt to the season, find the work adapted to the season.

Even in commerce, if you miss the season, you make no gain. In Douala, Caleb told me that this year, those who planted watermelon will not have much money because there is watermelon all over. He said that in Brother Martin Fatele’s farm, they have watermelon, big, healthy and goliath watermelon, but that the watermelon coming from Nkongsamba is all over, the whole place is saturated. This is because last year, water melon was very profitable and they received the revelation to plant it. They thought they were the only ones to receive that revelation, but many of them had that revelation, and so watermelon is abundant. This year, when watermelon will be abundant, they will think that watermelon is not profitable. So those who plant watermelon next year will sell. So, even in commerce, mind the seasons. Wealth comes to those who mind the seasons. Fruit comes to those who mind the season. But, in season or out of season, preach the Gospel.

This is the Season of the youths in our ministry, the season of the students, the season of the cosmopolitan, the season of those who have been to the ‘city of the universe’ (that is the university). But you may go to the city of the universe while your mind is in the village of your forefathers. You may walk in the streets of the city of the universe and never encounter the universe. It is the season of the youths.

It is the season for the effervescence of the students. Learning practices are changing. Communication methods in education are changing. Through these changes, they are teaching us how to preach the Gospel. Schools, universities, governments, nations are struggling to reach the children. They are teaching us how to reach the world. They are minor pedagogues; we are the pedagogues of eternity. Let us reach out to the world, come out of our cluster thinking, and let us reach the world with the Gospel in season and out of season.

This is the context in which we are holding this camp: changing global trends, a matrix of global change. Come alive! Come awake!! Welcome to the international Bible camp. We are in changing seasons, a flux of megatrends. Let us jump as one of the key vectors in the reshaping of the global matrix. Let us not be fenced out by our anachronism. Let us jump into the matrix of change as an imposing vector so that the New World Order that emerges will be part of the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus-Christ. That is what you people mean by revolution. Let it be a revolution. Jump into the flux of change and let us align it to the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus-Christ. It is the era of the youths. That is the context of this camp. We have come to a time like this, let us be men of our time.

Let us not be labouring to be the heroes of the past. Let us be the heroes of today. Don’t be labouring to rediscover electric light. It has already been done. All those who go to study electronics and electricity are labouring to rediscover electricity. The university is made up of sponge students to absorb the knowledge of the dead. It is the altar of dead bones and sepulchres. You are all disciples of the dead in philosophy, history … But we are disciples of the One who rose from the dead and is alive. Amen. We are disciples of the contemporary Christ. Hallelujah! He sits on the Throne: King of kings, Lord of lords, Alpha and Omega, spanning the past, controlling the present, Lord of the future.

And you and I are His pioneers of today. Paul has lived but he cannot win our generation. Brother Zach has served, but he is not the one sitting there, you are. God needs you. It is your time! It is your time!!

"Even a live dog is better than a dead lion" (Ecclesiastes 9:4).

Even if you only consider that you are a dog and all our dead leaders were lions, as far as today is concerned, we have only the living dogs. Say amen! Even if you only consider yourself a dog, you are a live dog. And as far as today is concerned, you are better than any dead lion.

Thank the Lord for bringing us to a time like this, for the day of our opportunity, for the challenges of our time, for bringing us to this day. We are all that God has. Let’s rise to the occasion.

THE WAR IS DECLARED

The devil is aware of the times also. In Egypt, when the Israelites grew in numbers abundantly, a pharaoh arose, who lived under the fear of the demographic menace. Our generation too has got into the fear of numbers. In the 1970 Centurion Plan of the Club of Rome (the Club of Rome is made up of all the Schengen nations), they identified five major world shaping parameters: demography, the total arable land, the available non-diminishable minerals as the base of global banking (gold, silver, diamond. Since the 1960s, they realised that petroleum is not a major parameter for world banking because it will be exhausted), the emerging power of technology and machinery and one last thing. Then, they began to map out the world: when demography grows, what will the world look like? When technology is fully developed, what becomes of demography? A growing technology will automatise work and thus make most people on earth useless as to the manufacturing of basic things. So now, technology is emerging, arable land surfaces are consistent, non-perishable minerals are diminishing, and now everyone is afraid of demography, because demography is the main threat to human welfare today. There will be less food because the arable land surface remains the same, and technology is increasingly making man useless. So, having all this heavy population will make life on earth difficult. Therefore they need to diminish some millions of inhabitants.

They know what they are doing. Germany had decided that in the 1980s, they would be half as many in 2025 so as to increase their living standards. It is only here in Africa that we just produce children without thought for the future. This is why, along with China and India, we are the dangerous continent.

We are living in a period of demographic threat like in Egypt. Satan is mobilising to kill many. Pharaoh was not the only one to seek the prominence of the Egyptian race. Hitler was not the only one to seek to prominence of the Aryan race. The world is frightened by numbers. We are living in days of demographic power, so we must have numbers. In our days, power is numbers. And the new oil for the powerful nations is data and statistics because money will soon because virtual. Everything will depend on data. The world is changing. Let’s wake up guys, wake up! Satan is not asleep. Gates, Bezos and all the sharks in the global ocean are frightened by numbers.

Let us give them numbers to be afraid of. The more the Israelites were persecuted, the more they multiplied. Let’s use covid to multiply. Use every threat to multiply. Like that old Pharaoh of that time, let us give the invisible satanic pharaoh of our generation a heart attack. Anthony Tchakounte told me, Brother Theodore, if you hear that Satan has had a heart attack, know that it is from me. I plan to give a real heart attack. Since the beginning of this year, he is attacking my finances. I plan to win a contract. When that money comes, I will show the devil how Satan is to be handled. I will give the whole money to the Gospel and the devil will crumble with a heart attack. Let Anthony not be the only one to give the devil heart attack. I laughed a lot and said "Ah! This guy has spoken’.

This Satan needs heart attack. It is not you who should be having heart attack because of covid. You should not be the one who is afraid. It is Satan who ought to be having a heart attack. Now stand up and pray that you will do something to give Satan some heart attack.

Satan is not unaware of the season. We have entered an age where numbers are a global threat, a spiritual threat. And Satan in raising many apostles against global demography. Let us give him something to really be afraid of. Let us win so many souls that Satan collapses, and that many demons will suffer demotion for failing to make you worldly, and you have ended up winning many souls. Demote many demons. Yes, put up your hand and say: I will cause the demotion of many demons by purity, by holiness, by sacrifice, by vision, by hard work, by love for Jesus, by joy, by peace! Amen!

We are at war; it is the fight for numbers. Satan wants to kill many. We want to save many. The war is declared. In one of the reports I read, it was said that the pandemic in 2020 is estimated to kill 10 million. Our phase 3 is to get us to 10 million and above. So, you see that the number we want to win is exactly what the devil wants to kill. It is estimated that by 2035, there will be a repetition of a more virulent strand of the virus that will kill 100 million. That is the beginning of the goal of our Phase 4 with the approximate date. Satan is committed to world destruction as we are to world conquest. He has raised his own apostles. What I am saying is written in the CIA report of global trends. I’m not guessing.

God told us to win the world. Satan told some of his servants to kill the world. Who shall get to them first? The Saviour or the killer? The Gospel or the virus? We are to decide whether the Saviour will reach them before the killer, whether the Gospel will reach them before the virus. We are to decide. We have come to a time like this. Even the devil takes us seriously and plans his strategy to mimic the goal of our ministry, following the same phases. We have come to a time like this. We have an enemy that makes our work an urgency. Let’s rise to our call! Let’s rise to our call!! I don’t know any other community that has the same goal. So, God is counting on us. God has so many other children, but he asked us for this. We have an enemy that makes our work an urgency. So, let’s rise to our call.

This is the conjuncture at which we have come. This is where we are. Satan at work, demography the issue, some killers, some savers, a viral pandemic, a Gospel explosion. Let’s fight! Look as if you are warriors instead of looking like one who already has Covid. I just want to situate us where we are. We have come to a time like this. The devil has made our work urgent. Shall the virus reach them before the Gospel? Let us decide today.

OBJECTIVES OF THE YOUTH AND STUDENTS’ MINISTRY

Our objectives have remained unchanged. We want to raise leaders and ministers from among the young adults, the students, and the youths to fill vacancies:

at the base,

in the lives and teams of the existing leaders,

in the church and in the churches,

in the ministry,

in the vision,

in the work and the mission fields,

in the future by ensuring continuity,

in the Gospel.

We have been labouring to raise 1000, 10000, 100000, a work force from the youths, from the students, from the young adults to ensure the success of our goal.

For a number of years now, we have also said we want to raise distinct leaders in our work. We want the emergence of distinct leaders:

distinct pastoral leaders. A distinct pastoral leader is one who has at least 1000 house churches under him.

distinct ministry leaders who carry an aspect or a department of the ministry with a massive team of at least 1000 dependable co-workers. To give somebody who does not have people massive work is not delegation, it is the self-destruction of your own vision. A person who does not have people should not be given a big department whatever his spirituality. He will fail because departments are not acknowledgements; departments are work. What is the use of giving work to those who cannot do it?

World Conquest Praise and Music, why give it to somebody who does not have people? The department of music and praise under David had people who were singing every day, morning and evening in the temple, every day! How can somebody carry it if he does not have thousands of people? Even if he works very hard, how many hours of singing and praise can he do every day? I have just taken that example.

If at the base here, we wanted that there be 8 hours of praise in the morning, 8 hours of praise in the night, and you give that department to somebody who does not have people, who cannot have people and who fears having people unless the people are called by his name – it is not the work that interests him, it is his acknowledgement. What will he do? He can work very hard, but he will fall sick and die very early because the work is too much.

The departments that are headed by people who do not have thousands of committed co-workers will not succeed. It is useless to expect success from them. It would be neither spiritual logic nor human logic. The Bible says, ‘If you want to wage war, count the people you are depending on. Don’t take up a war that you cannot win by going against something that requires numbers. ‘Departments’ is not sentimentality. It is not being close to Brother Zach or being close to Brother Theodore. It is resources: spiritual, human and financial. Anybody who cannot keep people and who does not have people will fail in the ministry entrusted to him. He will capsulise the vision to what he can swallow. Then, we will have a big name for a department with insignificant work and contribution because the person does not have people. We need distinct ministry leaders, those who can carry a ministry. Take this Youth and Students Ministry. How many people will follow up the last youth camp? How many people were here? How many people of the children’s ministry were here for that camp?

We want to raise distinct national leaders. A distinct national leader has at least 1000 workers (national missionaries or not) under him in the nation. He is a leader of 1000. What do you have in a thousand? The number of leaders under you who have churches, how many are they? You are measuring yourself by the number of people over whom you are placed from the work of others but how many people are there under you? (This person under you has 10000 people and this other person has 2000, and you evaluate yourself as a leader of 12000. You are a fool. You are a leader of 02 leaders of thousands. The one under you has succeeded; you are a failure, at your level.) Why are we so deceived? Hanon, you do not even have up to 100. You are a leader of less than 100. When you count the number of national missionaries and leaders under you who have churches, and you are the coordinator of our work in Adamawa, your coordination involves less than 100. But you can enjoy boasting before everyone that Adamawa has 100000 people, whereas there are less than 100 in your coordination. Let the brethren be saved from this mind-set.

[To the provincial leader of the Centre spiritual province] When you are told that you are the provincial leader in Obala, we don’t want to know the number of believers you have in the centre spiritual province. Rather, we want to know how many active leaders you are coordinating, how many of them are doing the work? But your whole life, you only evaluate yourself with the total number of people in your province. Then, you are not the coordinator, you are one of the leaders in the Centre spiritual province because you evaluate yourself like the others (with numbers, not workers). Do you have up to 100 people? You are a leader of tens because you have those lieutenants of yours who stand a long line to disturb me when I come. If you had 1000 co-workers, you would not spread the human red-carpet, you would not line them up for me to greet them, otherwise the whole visit will come down to handshakes. Whenever I come, you line up your famous 12 to 15 people in coats so that I greet them. And I see the same faces, some of them already bent with age. Brother Pempem is a leader of tens, not of thousands, because he has some ten people under him, who are in turn leaders of hundreds. As a coordinator, he coordinates about 10 people who have 100 each under them. If he thinks he is a leader of a thousand, he is mistaken because it does not evaluate his personal work. Brother, make sure you don’t die before you have got to thousands under your leadership. So, since you are young! Please, surprise me with new faces. At his level as the provincial leader he is failing though the work under him is growing, because he has only a few leaders in his coordination while the few leaders under him are working. So he is a leader like a ball over the waters, whose altitude is determined by the level of water. He is not working, he only floats over the water. When the water level increases, he says he is a great leader: it is not work. It is a figurehead leadership.

To succeed, each person, at their own level, should establish evaluation parameters with regards to their call. A provincial leader is not a national missionary or a local church pastor. He is a coordinator. And when he coordinates 10 favourites who carry his bag, he is a leader of 10. And amongst the 10, he could even have 03 Judases. At least, Jesus had 12 with only 1 Judas. But with us, in 12 we could even have 9 Judases. We want distinct national leaders who have under them 1000 workers whom they are coordinating. They are distinct leaders.

We want distinct missionary leaders who have under them at least 1000 local churches

We want distinct youth leaders who have under them at 1000 students in the universities.

We want distinct leaders of new horizons who carry us into new avenues of the ministry to ensure world conquest, who touch hitherto untouchable categories with the Gospel, who tap as roots hitherto unavailable resources. If somebody suddenly begins to bring us hundreds of millions every month, he is a root, he is bringing resources into the tree.

Those are the objectives we have pursued since we started the Bible camps: to raise a generation to fill the vacancies in the goal and to raise distinct leaders in the goal, and many workers. We want many workers to fill the vacancies and distinct leaders to accomplish the goal. Those are the objectives we have pursued.

Jojo came and asked me, What is your particular goal for this camp? I told him, Jojo don’t make me feel as if I have failed. You of all people ought to know what we are doing. Have I changed the objectives? We have used many expressions: seeds of our vision, new blood to rejuvenate an anaemic ministry… Do you remember those expressions? We have used many expressions to say the same thing: new blood for the transfusion of our ministry, from being led by septuagenarians, octogenarians, nonagenarians, etc. as of now. A sexagenarian-led ministry is a ministry going towards retirement. That ministry will lack energy, vision, enthusiasm. It will be plagued by the diseases of old