^^ The purpose was clear but let us counter it!

I live in YorubaLand and am trusted/feared/whatever there. So when I speak, Yoruba's listen and usually try to obey me. Let us now suppose I desire to help people in Hausaland. I mean, why not - we all have the same characteristics and needs, don't we?

So I call upon the Yorubas as a leader and tell them that God has told me to tell them that they MUST bring 10 million for the stated purpose. In addition, I inform them that anyone who does not help me fulfill MY OWN DREAM will be cursed by God. I also tell them that I am not the same with them but have a more special relationship with God and thus, nobody else except me can hear from God or understand what He wants - in effect, whatever I say must not be questioned about this bring bring bring.

So they dig to the bottom of their pockets and bring. Some go hungry just to bring and go deeper into poverty. Some enter debt to satisfy me then take other loans to pay the first loan then take another loan to etc. Some commit crime to satisfy me and go to jail. It becomes a competition because they believe that satisfying "me" is the key to satisfying God. It gets so they stop bothering to even try God directly - all that matters to them is nuclearboy.

In so doing, are we still seeing what outsiders are seeing? That my Yoruba people are becoming debtors, are sinning, are turning away from God and replacing Him with me, are lying and going into trouble, becoming criminals etc? Are we seeing what outsiders also see? That the desire to get new converts is making the "current" converts property of Hell and Satan? Because they no longer remember EACH MAN HAS A PURPOSE - what it has become is that they have thrown their own purpose away and made themselves part of my own purpose! In doing so, they have also turned my own purpose into a problem because it looks fine on the outside but is rotting on the inside.

Because I have taken money, I MUST make them feel good. So I start to tell them what they want to hear. Plus I have to live "larger than life" so that they continue to fear/respect/whatever "ME". Otherwise they will question me. So I have to dig into the 10 Million - so 10 Million is no longer enough. So I find another tactic to increase needs to 15 Million. And the circle starts again.

But wait a minute - what happened to my desire to help hausas? Seems to have gotten buried in "churchese", hasn't it? So we go out, give a few people money, take pictures, buy buses to bring people into YorubaLand Church and clap for ourselves because we didn't labor in vain

The complication that ambition brings into our lives is not quantifiable. But we all see it - as an example, it is what makes a politician steal 10 Billion which he cannot utilize.


Deep inside, we all know the problem. It is easy to correct a 2 minute mistake. Correcting a 5 year mistake (like following a creed or belief) is more difficult. What of those who believe they got born-again at 7 and are now 38 following the same creed.  Which is why God HATES pride - it does not allow correction. It cannot bear light. It clings to "Chairman said so" rather than "This is the truth".

A free Gospel has NO encumbrances - you do what God gives you to do. A man, an idea, a cause! No baggage, no extra weight. Jesus did His own. Peter did his. Paul too. These understood WISDOM - God said He would hold His Hand until the good news went round - that was the promise that Jesus gave. Does it have to be in your own generation? Can you do everything? Seed time and harvest - can you make them the same day? "What God has made crooked, who can make straight?" If you think you can move what God holds fast, you're a baby in understanding!

It is the encumbrances (the logistics, the "extras", the "swagger" that cost money, not the Gospel. The Gospel was designed to be based on your light shining and people coming to it. Man to man.

It is NOT a macabre dance on satellite television - impersonal, shallow, fraught with logistics and therefore costing so much that it cancels the news it was meant to spread.

Joagbaje:

That's why  the missing link to be ironed out.

There is no missing link, you are the one attempting to pad a free service with hidden charges

Joagbaje:

If anyone feel it is wrong to give for the gospel sake . Let them state it clearlly .

Well, if you must know, i will never support the funding of the kalo-kalo (give & receive) gospel

Joagbaje:

If the gospel is free to the world , it is costly to the church. And it is appropriate for the church to sponsor it. On tv, radio, Internet ,Satelite ,and the print media.

Good for you. I don't think anybody is complaining But i think you will worry less bout funding if you reduce the amount of church resources spent on branding

^^ As an addendum to my post above, an EXAMPLE of how God has given each of us a purpose

Some people could be given a special gift to "paint"! That gift could be used to spread the Gospel plus of course, God's gifts bring joy so such gift would also provide more than enough profit to live a good life.

But such person could bury the gift and enter under another person thereby leaving God and accepting Man.

And who told you I'm not painting. I have major exhibitions before me already lined up. If I dont paint I'm killing myself .

Zikkyy:

There is no missing link, you are the one attempting to pad a free service with hidden charges

Well, if you must know, i will never support the funding of the kalo-kalo (give & receive) gospel

Good for you. I don't think anybody is complaining But i think you will worry less bout funding if you reduce the amount of church resources spent on branding

What do you mean by branding

^^ what he meant by branding is what I called the "encumbrances".

They are the cost of your "Gospel"

Enigma:

^^^ I always felt that you guys bothering to respond were wasting your time. The whole thread was engineered for a purpose, to promote a particular agenda.

It is a manipulative thread: while I agree that the thread could be productive if the manipulation is countered, I still take the view that the thread is a waste of time because the main manipulators will not repent anyway.

There is no hidden agenda. The agenda is to separate issues one from another instead of blanket utterances. You cant say yorubas are bad. That's a blanket approach. And at the same time I'm not advocating name callings. Let's deal with the issues and have clarity by the scripture.

Why don't they tell us how "Offer 7" advances the gospel? [/quotes]

Lets avoid getting personal. Offer 7 is not a levy it's what a people choose to do. Let's leave it out. And it's wrong to criticise what you don't know about. Let's prove our points scripturally.

Or how "tithes" which some say are exclusively for "ministers" advance the gospel? Or how "giving to the pastor" or "sowing into the pastor's life" so that you can be blessed in exchange/return (which one of them recently called debit and credit account, exchange of giving and receiving etc) advances the gospel?

I'm the one that quoted debit credit account. What about it? I quoted from scripture. If it's right , reason with it. If it's wrong kindly counter it, not with abuse but with the Word .

Why do you want to leave offer 7 out?

Why have you also avoided the issue of giving/sowing to pastors?

How does either of those advance the gospel?


Otherwise as the thread starter, please identify for us the types of giving that advance the gospel?

^^^ i was just bout to raise this

It'

Enigma:

Why do you want to leave offer 7 out?

It's because you're trying to turn it into a CEC issue. We are dea
Ing with general issues

Why have you also avoided the issue of giving/sowing to pastors?

How does either of those advance the gospel?

Otherwise as the thread starter, please identify for us the types of giving that advance the gospel?

Okay if that's what you want let's discuss it. Do you have anything against sowing into a pastors life? It's based on biblical principle from my understanding .

You see the problem now: is offer 7 not also sowing into a pastor's life?

Anyway your task remains: please identify for us the types of giving that advance the gospel!

Joagbaje:

Lets avoid getting personal. Offer 7 is not a levy it's what a people choose to do. Let's leave it out. And it's wrong to criticise what you don't know about. Let's prove our points scripturally.

We are not leaving anything out most of the criticism you complain of relates to giving like offer 7, tithes, seed sowing e.t.c. and not funding a missionary project to zikkyy's village

Joagbaje:

What do you mean by branding

nuclearboy:

^^ what he meant by branding is what I called the "encumbrances".

They are the cost of your "Gospel"

@Nuke, thank you jare

Zikkyy:

Good for you. I don't think anybody is complaining But i think you will worry less bout funding if you reduce the amount of church resources spent on branding

This branding you talk about, is it of the church or of some persons?

Enigma:

Anyway your task remains: please identify for us the types of giving that advance the gospel!

giving for the work of ministry advances the gospel
or should the work of the ministry be explained to u?

^^ OK O Enlightened One; please explain the "work of ministry"


Meanwhile @ Joagbaje your task still remains: please identify for us the types of giving that advance the gospel. Thanks.

mabell:

This branding you talk about, is it of the church or of some persons?

Both. i.e. church as a registered entity and pastor

All this kalo-kalo nigeria pastors go kill person .

Money money Money Money Money Sha!!!!!

mabell:

They didn't need to because they already raised funds for that purpose
do a study on it

You are right, money was already raised for the early missionaries and most were " Imperialist state money", in simpler terms,Government funds, not money from the New Converts.


Perhaps ms Mabell, you ought to do a study on it too.

www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/essays/comp/cw25colonizationafrica.htm


"As for missionary work in the French, British, and Belgian colonies, missionaries, either Protestant or Catholic, had freedom to work in any of the British colonies. They gave medical aid through hospitals they built, education through mission schools, worked at translating the Bible into the local dialect, and of course tried to win converts to Christianity. Missionaries in the French and Belgian colonies did not have as much freedom. Around the beginning of the 20th century, the French government fell out with the Roman Catholic Church. As a result, the French government stopped supporting all missionaries in the colonies. Nevertheless, the missionaries had the freedom to remain in the colonies. Ironically enough, the severance did their evangelism a good turn. "The blacks are far from ignoring that the colonial authorities are hostile to us and that our religion is not that of the whites who live in the [French] Sudan," reported one Mgr. Bazin. [12] However, missionaries in the Belgian Congo had the toughest time of all. Before Belgium took control of the Belgian Congo (from Leopold II) in 1908, Leopold II had expressly forbidden any Catholic missionaries to work in the Belgian. Despite this, he did let several Protestant missionaries into the area. But of the three countries, Leopold limited missionary work in Africa the most."

Joagbaje:

How many days they went was not stated. For the fact that they didn't go with anything means ,they are to get supplied on the course of their jouneys.

Every giving must be with revelation and faith and not by compulsion . I'm yet to see a pastor that will force anyone into giving. Maybe there is.

Like you, I also have not seen any pastor "force" or use physical weapon to make anybody give. But that assumes that physical compulsion is the only form. No, there's also psychological compulsion and spiritual compulsion or manipulation (withcraft). In fact, if Paul was speaking of physical compulsion, that would have been almost meaningless because there is hardly any history in the Bible or elsewhere of people being physically forced to give to God's work.

Madison Avenue understands psychological compulsion that's why they craft their adverts to influence consumers. Wonder why in some places, cigarette adverts or very glossy cigarette are not permitted or frowned upon. Reason is that kids will be made to adopt certain habits like smoking simply through subliminal messages sent through adverts. Spiritually, we know or hear of people being made to do things they didn't want to do because somebody spiritually stronger was 'remoting' them.

The church should be careful about practices that smell like psychological or spiritual control (in giving) especially because of the special vulnerabilities of people in church. The church is where people let their guards down because we're all supposed to be God's children and the leaders are seen as fathers and mothers. This makes them more susceptible to influences they could more readily resist from TV and forces outside. Some people in church are also wounded and weak-willed, which is partly why they're in church - to get healing and be made whole. Any form of manipulation worsens their plight and many are suffering in silence.

If advancing the gospel means using underhanded tactics, especially at the expense of inflicting hidden harm to people Jesus shed His blood for, the gospel is not worth advancing.

Enigma:

^^
Meanwhile @ Joagbaje your task still remains: please identify for us the types of giving that advance the gospel. Thanks.

Several ministries have their different ways of reaching out. Of course one of the primary ways of reaching out to people is the one on one evangelism. But to reach the world on a larger scale. These outreaches are necessary . From crusades to television preaching , Internet ,Satelite, relief outreaches , Innercity outreaches ,prisons ,and others. These outreaches require financial commitment .

Enigma:

Meanwhile @ Joagbaje your task still remains: please identify for us the types of giving that advance the gospel. Thanks.

Joagbaje:

Several ministries have their different ways of reaching out. Of course one of the primary ways of reaching out to people is the one on one evangelism. But to reach the world on a larger scale. These outreaches are necessary . From crusades to television preaching , Internet ,Satelite, relief outreaches , Innercity outreaches ,prisons ,and others. These outreaches require financial commitment .

Jo as usual is avoiding the question television, internet and satelite are communication tools, not type of giving

Joagbaje:

to reach the world on a larger scale. These outreaches are necessary .

Is there an unexplored territory that you are reaching out to? I wonder why a church in nigeria would spend so much money preaching to christians in America, if not to sell it's brand You are not even successful in your backyard, you are spending big money to convert Christians in western nations. Kindly advise oyaks to hold the next crusade or night of bliss in Maiduguri, we need to win over the boko haram people abeg i will gladly provide my share of financial support

Joagbaje:

From crusades to television preaching , Internet ,Satelite, relief outreaches , Innercity outreaches ,prisons ,and others. These outreaches require financial commitment .

I also don't understand why so many pastors/ministries will queue up on cable television to preach to the same audience/crowd, aside selling their brand

Zikkyy:

we need to win over the boko haram people abeg i will gladly provide my share of financial support

U just spoke my mind.

nlMediator:

If advancing the gospel means using underhanded tactics, especially at the expense of inflicting hidden harm to people Jesus shed His blood for, the gospel is not worth advancing.

My brother, i beg tell them jare if only they truly understand the damage/havoc they caused with the kalo-kalo gospel

livin:



U just spoke my mind.

Don't mind them jare Oga oyaks is chilling in Lagos, Madam oyaks is relaxing in London, brother oyaks is hanging with his homies in S.A (or is it America); who is in Maiduguri (or even Iraq) sister Jo and they want my money

Zikky, you need to give them your money because they need to "spread" the Gospel to places that had it before we even did in Africa, healing schools and "outreach programs" don't come cheap either.

Plus you need to be able to provide them with the same lifestyle as big bank CEOs, Governors, etc.

Zikkyy:

Is there an unexplored territory that you are reaching out to? I wonder why a church in nigeria would spend so much money preaching to christians in America, if not to sell it's brand

What brand, can't you get it? there is no brand to be sold, it is moving with global trend and you are even narrow in your thinking to think that any specific country like you mentioned America is the target; NO! NO! you are wrong, the whole world is the mission field and what better way to do it than to take advantage of current global technological trend. . . it that a wrong thing to do

Zikkyy:

You are not even successful in your backyard, you are spending big money to convert Christians in western nations.  

For once imagine if the several missionaries many of whom came from Europe who paid the ultimate sacrifice in denying self and families had reasoned that until they were successful in their backyard Africa does not deserve to hear the gospel. . .hmmmmmmm this "dark continent" well till tomorrow their backyard remains anything but successfully kept

Zikkyy:

Kindly advise oyaks to hold the next crusade or night of bliss in Maiduguri, we need to win over the boko haram people abeg i will gladly provide my share of financial support

who needs your change   you might as well pay your fair their anyway just for the records we do have a church at Maiduguri

Zikkyy:

I also don't understand why so many pastors/ministries will queue up on cable television to preach to the same audience/crowd, aside selling their brand

that probably explains why it also would be difficult for you to understand how the prophecy below would be possible
"Mt 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come"

Zikkyy:

Jo as usual is avoiding the question television, internet and satelite are communication tools, not type of giving

I've answered. These outreaches require financial contributions. So giving for such outreaches help to further the gospel.

Joagbaje:

I've answered. These outreaches require financial contributions. So giving for such outreaches help to further the gospel.

Jo it is pointless making any further effort trying to make him get it. . .haba for how long na do telivision stations collect the "blood of Jesus Christ" as payment for services rendered? or may state of the act equipments are purchased with a "holighorized God blessssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhh you" abeg let us be reasonable

[i][/i][color=#990000][/color]
GOSPEL IS NOT FOR SALE,PEOPLE WAKE UP!!!

[i][/i][color=#990000][/color]
GOSPEL IS NOT FOR SALE,PEOPLE WAKE UP!!!

What is the purpose of this purely nonsensical thread?

People who believe in giving in church do it and it works for some.

Those who don't will still stick to their views; and it has also worked for some as many are still prospering.

So admin, stop putting these silly threads that make absolutely no sense on the front page.