REACH YOUR KIND In Diaspora Missions: 'People Groups' Among Migrants

By John Idoko

There are different kinds of people moving out of rural areas into urban centers, moving from the North into the South daily; different kinds of people among northern migrants and immigrants in the neighborhood of the Church. And there are also different kinds of believers in the Church who interface and interact with th

• Language: English
• Publisher: Midas Touch GEMS
• Release date: Jun 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088178461

Book preview

We Have a Dream!

In Diaspora Missions,

We have a dream that one day migrant churches will emerge in all corners of the states in the southern regions.

We have a dream that someday all churches and ministries in the South will rise up with great zeal, understanding, fervor, compassion and passion to join in the pursuit of the scattered northern tribes in order to gather them into the kingdom of God. And they also will establish Hausa-speaking, Chinese-speaking, Hindi-speaking, and Arab-speaking migrant churches among northern migrants and immigrants in all corners of Nigeria.

We have a dream that someday these migrant believers will return back to their natal lands with the light of the gospel in their hearts to become change agents in their own communities, bringing their kith and kin to Christ.

We have a dream that someday pastors and church leaders will understand that the ends of the earth have come to us. They will rise to equip and release every member of their congregations into ministry to migrants within their orbits in cross-cultural, cross-religious outreaches, exploring the multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-tribal, multi-lingual, multi-dimensional, multi-tasking, and multi-pronged approaches available in diaspora missions to gather multitudes from the ends of the earth into the kingdom of God in a borderless world of heterogeneous peoples.

We have a dream that someday professionals, artisans, lecturers and leaders of academia, students; men, women, youths, and even children; clergy and laity will all rise to go into the byways, street corners, alleys of towns, country lanes, slums, campuses, marketplaces, and migrant settlements to engage them with the gospel and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame among migrants, compelling them to come in, for there is enough room in the Father’s House for all.

We have a dream that someday Muslim and non-Muslim migrants, even indigenous Muslims will turn to the Lord en-masse, forming multitudes of MBBs and CBBs into communities of faith in Christ, worshipping God in their own styles, and spreading the aroma of Christ to regions beyond....

We have a dream that someday ten migrants will take hold of your garments and say to you, We will follow you to church to worship the Lord your God; for we have seen and heard that the Lord is in you and has done you good. We want Him to do to us as He has done to you.

We have a dream that someday the gospel will be broadcasted in Hausa and Fulfulde through the airwaves in many radio stations across all the southern states, scattering the word to the scattered tribes in scattered locations...reaching scattered ears and hearts that we may never know.

We have a dream that someday the northern church and the southern church will come to be on the same page and same wavelength in the practice of diaspora missions, seeing and exploring the vast kingdom opportunities that abound in the scattering of nations from everywhere to everywhere.

We have a dream that someday churches in the North will train and release diaspora workers into every northern migrant community in the southern regions to pursue the raiding party from the North, and rescue them into northern migrant churches and into the kingdom of God.

We have a dream that someday every ‘people group’ among migrants will be adopted by churches, groups, mission agencies, and individual believers for prayers, evangelism and church planting, thereby discipling all nations within our Jerusalem.

We have a dream that someday men and women called of God, with inescapable convictions, will rise from at home and abroad with kingdom resources to support all aspects of diaspora missions and uphold all diaspora laborers scattered abroad among migrants.

To this end, we labor, according to the power of the Lord at work in us, traversing villages, towns and cities, trailblazing a diaspora church planting movement; teaching, writing and training everyone in every church...everyone among the clergy...everyone among the laity in every fellowship among Pentecostals, Evangelicals, and Orthodox in every region; envisioning, instructing, inspiring, kindling and stoking the vision, and rejigging the entire Body of Christ to get involved in Diaspora Missions in order that we might present migrants as trophies to the Lord our God...perfect in Christ Jesus.

To this end is this book written so that everyone who reads and hears the sound of the trumpet through this book will arise and join us in this pursuit; for the Lord our God has promised us that we will succeed and recover them (migrants), not by power or by might, but by His Spirit.

May we all see this vision come to pass in our days as we keep dreaming and toiling on to rescue the perishing among migrants scattered abroad like sheep without a shepherd. Amen!

Sunday, 7th October, 2018; 23:56

SECTION ONE

WINDOWS INTO ‘PEOPLE GROUPS’

AMONG MIGRANTS

The WHOLE CHURCH giving the WHOLE GOSPEL OF PEACE to ALL THE MIGRANTS in the WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD of the Church.

1.  Muslim Migrants

A large percentage of northern migrants in the South are Muslims comprising majorly of young men, women, and children. These Muslim migrants are numerous and fill everywhere in every village of every town and city. Though many of them are involuntarily coming because of crises in the northern region, many of them are voluntarily coming for jihad purposes to expand the frontiers of Islam into every nook and corner, amidst search for greener pasture.

God may have allowed them to be dispersed out of their difficult-to-reach communities in the North into the South so that they can easily be accessed with the gospel and be saved. If they remain in their native lands, some may never meet Christians, hear the gospel, and be free to embrace it. But now that they have migrated into Christian communities, they are likely to be open to new ideas; they are going to be exposed to some kind of Christian influences as they circulate around, and certainly, in the mercies of God, some of them will be saved.

Their migration into the South has a lot of kingdom advantages which the Church in the South must understand in order to work assiduously for their salvation. This first step for such labor is daily intercessions for their salvation. Churches, fellowships groups, and every Christian everywhere we meet for any kind of program, should set aside some minutes deliberately to pray for the Muslim migrants in our neighborhood. If our night vigils can be massively dedicated to this prayer project, if clusters of churches in a given locality, town and city can coalesce together in united prayers, if mega-churches like RCCG, Living Faith, Methodist, Anglican Communion, and so on, can set aside Migrants Prayer Days, if student fellowships on campuses can devote a few minutes of regular, persistent and prevailing prayers for the salvation of Muslim migrants in our towns and cities; if during churches’ conventions, congresses and synods, specific times are allotted and allocated to praying for the Holy Spirit’s move among migrants, if women fellowships in churches will create time to raise their voices to heaven to wail for the salvation of migrants God has brought close to us; if in every Sunday school, in every children’s class and youth fellowship, a few minutes are dedicated for prayers for the salvation of Muslim migrants; if Chaplains of Chapels on campuses, pastors and priests will intentionally lead their congregations to raise uproars and wailings to heaven regularly and consistently every time we gather in chapels and churches; if General Overseers, Arch-Bishops, Bishops, Presidents and Founders will catch the burden for this kind of prayer movement and instruct their state/regional and district overseers and so on to mobilize their congregations for massive prayers for the outpouring of the Spirit of God upon the migrants in our states and regions; if in every Christian home, voices are regularly raised to heaven for an unprecedented move of God among migrants, if all the church camps along Lagos-Ibadan expressway (RCCG, Mountain of Fire, Foursquare, GOFAMINT, Deeper Life, and so on in other places like Living Faith Shiloh) key into this vision of generating regular and massive prayers for the salvation of migrants in Lagos and the entire Southwest; if Christian schools/colleges/universities will make it a habit to spend a few minutes of their assembly/chapel times to pray for God to open the hearts of Muslim migrants to the gospel; if all conferences and retreats are deliberate and devoted to this prayer project, if every church in every village, town and city can be mobilized by God through this book to catch this burden and be ignited, spreading the fire of concerted prayers for massive conversion of migrants; if every missions agency across the land becomes committed to regular prayers for migrants; if Christian bodies like MANI, NEMA, CAN, PFN, FCS, NIFES, and so on rally all their member agencies and churches to blow the trumpet in Zion for regular/irregular, ejaculatory, organized/unorganized, prolonged/short, group/individual prayers for miraculous movements of salvation to begin to happen within migrant communities across the land; if Christian professional and business bodies like CMDA, CVN, FGBMFI, NCCF, and so on, can be ignited by God into a widespread wind of prayers for the manifest move of God in migrant communities; if such prayer quakes can be galvanized in the Body of Christ for heaven to open wide the door of salvation to migrants, then thousands and thousands of migrants will daily experience salvation in unique ways in diaspora. Then migrant churches will spring up in all neighborhoods where migrants of different groups will gather to worship the God of heaven in their own ways and styles, leading to spontaneous migrant church planting movements. And I have a dream that one day diaspora churches will spring up, spring out and spring about in different nooks and corners of their host communities.  

This is the vision that this book is out to stir in the hearts of all who will read it. May the Holy Spirit kindle the fire. Amen!

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Common excuses:

Two most common excuses people give in engaging the Muslim migrants are I am (we are) not called to reach Muslims, and I don’t speak their language. These common excuses have made many Christians not to do anything about engaging the migrants in close proximity to them, even though they enjoy the services of the migrants in one way or the other.

I am (we are) not called to reach Muslims. In the beginning, God put the responsibility of working for the salvation of Ishmael and his descendants on everyone among the descendants of Isaac. He said, "And everyone’s hand against him. Genesis 16:11-12. God expects that everyone among believers, everyone in every church, everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord, everyone among clergy, everyone among the laity, everyone in every fellowship, everyone among Pentecostals, everyone among Evangelicals, everyone among Orthodox, everyone" everywhere who has got a hand should work in one way or the other to bring the blessings of salvation to Ishmael’s descendants in their orbits. And this is the reason why God strategically located Ishmael in the presence of Isaac and his descendants.  

Everyone has got a hand. And in your hand is the gospel of peace, in your hand is salvation, in your heart is the Prince of Peace. All these Muslim migrants in your neighborhood don’t have this peace. God commands that you stretch your hand out against them to give them those things in your hand. When you do so in obedience, they will hear the gospel, and the Prince of Peace will be born into their hearts, they will be brought into peace with God, and then they will begin to experience and enjoy the peace of God. It is only then they will live in peace with us in our communities.

Some have said "I am called into the prophetic ministry, and not into reaching Muslims." It is good to be called into the prophetic ministry, but God commands that you extend your prophetic hand to Muslim migrants and prophesy salvation to their souls and prophesy against the door of salvation shut against them by the Devil; prophesy good things upon them instead of cursing them.

Some would say, "We are called into youth or children ministry, and not to Muslims." Thank God who has called them into such ministry among children and youths. There are also thousands of Muslim migrant children and youths. They are also among the targets of your ministry. You will not need to look too far before you see Muslim children roaming our streets begging and looking for alms. Open your eyes and look at the field and you will see migrant youths swarming your neighborhood picking scraps, and hawking wrist watches, carrots, and other produce. Migrant youths are into drugs and all kinds of substance abuse in their camps. And they are ready for harvest, if only you will focus your attention on them as targets of your youth ministry.

Whatever ministry one is called into, there is need to adapt that ministry to also benefit Muslim migrants God brings into your path.

I don’t speak their language. This is the weakest excuse I have heard some giving for not doing anything about the salvation of migrants God has brought from the ends of the earth close to us. Nothing can be farther from the truth. When you go to buy cows, goats and meats from them in the market, what language do you use to communicate to them in doing your purchases? When you go to them in Bureau de Change to change dollars into Naira or vice versa, what language do you use? When you need to repair or polish your shoes and you call shoe shiners, what language do you use? When you need the services of the migrants around you in one way or the other, what language do you use? Whatever language you use to transact business with them, be it English, Pidgin, Hausa, or any local language, use that same language to share Christ with them. And many of them have learnt our local languages. A lot of Fulanis in the Southwest speak Yoruba fluently. I have met Kanuris speaking Igbo as they beg on the streets. And almost all the migrant youths speak English, even if it is Pidgin. The good thing about Diaspora Mission is that it is done in a multi-lingual, multi-tribal, multi-cultural, multi-religious context, with multi-pronged approaches. Any language can be a medium of