My son sent me a note from Bucharest, Romania, sometime last month, that he met some Nigerians who are followers of my posts on social media. The world is a global street; they have never met me physically before.
As said previously, I get calls and messages from nearly every corner of the globe from people I have never met. My blog is read in more than 103 nations and territories as at the last count. These are nations I have never been to, and might never, reach in my lifetime and people I might never meet.
On the 19th of May, 2021, a lady that came from Ughelli to buy garri from my producers was shocked to realize that I was the Dr. Charles Apoki she listens to every Wednesday, 6:30 a.m., on Quest FM Radio 93.1. She could not imagine that I was producing and selling garri.
This is the point: I got tired and stressed out by the conventional ministry of “Power of God move” and “take it there“. At a point, I didn’t stay in my home for more than 90 days in a year. I spent the rest days of the year in hotels. There was a time I spent 21 days continuously with my wife and children and they were rejoicing.
I also found out that several of the people would fall down severally, but they never changed on the social ladder or got better intellectually. I found out that they lack understanding and knowledge. I felt guilty that we were creating a false reality in our people and I desired a practical and illustrative Christianity. I also noticed that many people who were attending my programs, were coming expecting a miracle, and they went home empty, without a substance to work with or work on.
When we see the miraculous and display of spiritual gifts as the major proof of God’s presence in our ministry, we are not too different from native doctors, if the minds of the people are not renewed. If we must be sincere to ourselves in this dispensation, you can do ministry in several ways without the present style of everyone called into ministry must run a church.
I am under less pressure; I am able to spend more time with my wife, children, and granddaughter, and I even reach more people globally at less cost. I even don’t need a pulpit or altar. Everywhere is my ‘church’, the whole world is my crowd, every activity is my program, and every place I stand with my phone is my altar. I am very free from church committee wahala, and I don’t have members I need to package to impress.
It is very easy to miss the kingdom of God because of church politics. Raymond Ugbeh taught me about the church without walls and breaking the barrier of space and time, and I took it seriously. It’s cost effective and flexible.
Finally Petra Institute, Effurun-Otor, will be able to transfer knowledge to your phone real-time, because retailing knowledge as it is presently done, will not be fast enough to reach the one million Africans we want to train as entrepreneurs.
I predicted what I’m doing now as far back as 1998, about reaching out to the world from Ughelli.
God Bless You.