Can You Believe Me for 1 Million Missionaries from Africa?

In 2016, whilst busy doing mobilization in Botswana we were not getting the needed results. A few people who were mobilized were eventually unable to go because their churches were unwilling and unable to send them. The main issue we later discovered was the lack of vision and understanding of the Church’s role in God’s Global Mission. That happened so many times that it got really frustrating. We knew that there must be another way to send those who are responding to the call but had no clue what that was.

I felt there was an urgent need to get answers but I had none. We cried to God again and again for a solution. I am very much aware of the urgency of the need to take the Gospel to the unreached and that is what unsettled me most. The needs among the Worlds unreached are huge. 3 Billion people are still unreached with the Gospel. Over 80% of those have never met a Christian. Many people, whom Christ died for, yet dying and going to a Christ-less Eternity not because they rejected Christ but because we as His church did not tell them. That cannot be pleasing to the Lord. The Church in Africa is growing and has such a huge potential to be a major player in Global Missions. But why is it that only a handful of Africans are taking the Gospel to the Unreached. According to Operation World, there are over 182 Million evangelicals in Africa today.1 However, less than 50,000 Missionaries have been sent from Africa, which is even less than 0.01% of the evangelicals in Africa.

This is a very saddening and disturbing state of affairs. It became very apparent to us that we needed a different strategy to get churches across Africa really involved in Missions. But how do we do that? I had no answers but this was a huge burden in my life? In August 2016 I joined 1400+ other young leaders from over 140 countries for the Lausanne Younger Leaders Gathering in Jakarta, Indonesia. I did not know what to expect. However, in Jakarta, I had a huge encounter with God that changed the course of my ministry and my total perspective of what my ministry will look like. During the Gathering, I attended a Workshop on Tent Making facilitated by Berit Kloster who is the Lausanne Catalyst for Tent Making. She then called forward Dr. David Lim to share a bit on his journey of Mobilizing Tent Makers. David Lim shared about the Filipino believers they are sending into China and all across the Middle East. He also shared about their Vision as the Filipino church to Mobilize 200,000 Missionaries. As he was busy speaking the Lord spoke to me. “Can you trust me for 1 Million Missionaries from Africa?”. Well, I was stunned? 1 Million? Could this be really God? Well, I heard His still voice again. This was a huge challenge to my faith and all that I have ever known and imagined. I could not answer God immediately.

Few months prior to this encounter I had a very strange dream that I knew was from the Lord. I had a vision of the Kalahari Desert. In the middle of this dessert picture, there was this huge fire that everyone could see from any part of the desert. There was however a disturbing thing about the picture. It was surrounded by darkness. It was pitch black. I got a second vision in the second Vision there was no huge fire but small lights spread all across the darkness. I woke up and asked the Lord what that was all about. I heard the words “Multiply Heralds of Light”. It was a vision of multiplying heralds of light who will take the light of Christ to every dark place on earth until every corner of darkness is covered with light. A scripture came to mind 1 Timothy 2: 2-17 “ 3  This is good and pleases God our Savior, 4  who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth”. When God challenged me to believe Him for 1 Million Missionaries He was putting a number to the “heralds of Light” that will be mobilized from all across Africa.

The call is not just to mobilize but to multiply these Heralds that will carry the Gospel. For that to happen we will need Missions mobilization movements that will mobilize thousands of Missionaries. This is definitely not a call for one man to do a huge job of mobilizing the Million Missionaries but rather a call to play a catalytic role in seeing churches across Africa mobilized for missions. I believe the answer to the huge task that still remains is for whole ministries and denominations to be Mobilized and infused with a Vision for Missions.

I am excited about the Vision of GMMI that seeks to get ministries and church groups to Prioritize the Great Commission. If ever we are going to see the task of World Evangelization completed it will take more than just a few missionaries mobilized. We will need to see thousands of ministries and church denominations fully mobilized to play a more active role in sharing the Gospel with the World’s

Remaining Unreached and Unengaged people groups. This I believe is the strategy God will use to Mobilize the 1 Million Missionaries from Africa.

1 http://www.operationworld.org/africa/owtext.html