The founder of Calvary Worship Centre in Vancouver, Canada, Rev. Dr Samuel Owusu has said the mission of the Church to make all nations disciples of Christ is achievable in our time.
Speaking at the 2024 heads’ fasting prayer meeting underway at the Pentecost Convention Centre, Gomoa Fetteh, Rev. Dr Owusu said though it looks like the mission is a huge task because the harvest remains great and the labourers are few, the mission is possible and achievable.
Preaching on the theme ‘Mission on Reverse’, he revealed that the Church in Africa is at work to finish the unfinished task. He stated that there are more Christians in Africa than any continent in the world, and Africans are everywhere making it a reliable force for the gospel to spread.
‘It is our turn to send the gospel to the rest of the world just as the early missionaries came with the world. We dare not fail in this possible mission’, he charged.
He called for a new mind-set in doing missions to reach everyone with the word of God.
‘We need new strategies because God is taking us to places we have never been before’, he reiterated.
Narrating the story of the Church, he touched on the mandate, mistakes and methods that needs to be noted to make the right impact.
He said Matthew 28:18–20 is a call of God to the Church to disciple nations not a particular people or nation.
Referencing Mark 11:17, Dr Owusu said ‘until the Church begins to reflect the culture of the people they minister to, we are not doing missions’.
He noted that the Church has the people, the power and the resources to prosecute a successful mission.
‘Sometimes we leave the mission and complain about money but what we need is the power because Peter and the apostles had no silver and gold but they could turn the world upside down’, he reminded the heads.
Dr Owusu added that ‘The primary purpose of the Holy Ghost is to soak ourselves in power to do missions. That which was birthed in Pentecost at the upper room can only be maintained by Pentecost in the upper room’.
Touching on the mistakes of the Church, the contemporary Church has been repeating the mistakes of the early church in Acts 11:19 where the disciples spread to other parts of the world but preached only to fellow Jews. He lamented that when they were ready to preach to other nations, they still wanted other nations to be like them (Acts 15) until God has to instigate a change of mind in Peter.
He said the Church must be prepared to encounter new things, new territories and new people.
‘We are not just called to be chaplains over our own people but to be missionaries to others’, he emphasised.
‘In the Good Samaritan story, Jesus teaches us that true biblical love is to love people who are not like us. Loving a fellow Ghanaian is a natural affinity’, he mentioned.
He encouraged the gathering to be passionate about others and avoid stereotyping, appreciate power dynamics of servant leadership, work on church programming and also keep the preaching simple and sweet.
He reminded the heads that when Chairman Nyamekye talks of new territories it is not about new territories with Ghanaians or Africa but territories of the nations. Rev. Dr Owusu concluded that the method for the Church is to preach Christ where He has not been named (Romans 15:20–21).
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