Are You An Accidental Minister?

WHAT !!!! 

You say what is an accidental minister? well it just happened, God impacted your life and you started to share that impact with others. You started to minister the word of God as it was revealed to you, people listened, you asked people to give their lives to Christ - they did, your heart was filled with love for Christ and passion for His kingdom on earth and so you began, it wasn't something you prepared for, expected or planned, it wasn't something you went to school or college for and yet here you are - some time later - in the ministry - maybe pastor of a church or an evangelist - a gospel singer or some kind of leader in the church, because of the passion and the receptivity to the Spirit of God in you. 

Did you ever wonder how some ministers had so much understanding of the scriptures, did you ever wonder why some had such clarity of understanding of the things of God; did you ever wonder why you felt you had so little scripture knowledge? Training, study, development, mentoring; these things make a difference. It has been our heart and passion after being in Africa a few times to see a way that we might help passionate people like you build up their knowledge of sound doctrine to help prevent errors occurring in the church and prepare the next generation of trained and skilled leaders for the church. This college has been years in the making and yet it is not new, it is just new to BFTF in Africa. The Vision Bible College material has been developed over the last 40+ years, has been used in over 145 countries, has around 150,000 current students and around one and a half million have enrolled in its courses so far, however students at the new Africa Network Bible College | Kenya will receive special concessions arranged through BFTF to make it even more accessible to Kenyans.

JOE Ministries , Headquarters of  national college for
Africa Network Bible College | Kenya.

In August 2016 during the BFTF visit to Kenya we announced the launch of Africa Network Bible College | Kenya in cooperation with JOE Ministries (under the leadership of Bishop George Odhiambo) who have the personnel, skills, facilities and passion to train leaders for the ministry and so Africa Network Bible College | Kenya was born. Video report.

Now we are pleased to advise that a complete program has been arranged for training programs in 2017 and have attached the application form for you to attend in short blocks (and still maintain your Kenyan ministry or church). 

Rev Dr Howard Sands, International Director,
Beautiful Feet Task Force, speaks at the launch.

We  have made very special arrangements regarding the fees for Kenyans wishing to attend and receive an Australian internationally recognised or accredited award with the very best theological and practical ministry training.  Please consider your training (or those others under your care) and upgrade your formal qualifications (at a tiny fraction of the  Australian cost). If you are interested in getting full details or participating you should download the attached application form and submit to the national Kenya college headquarters.

This is a new day for Kenya.

Quality internationally recognised formal theological and ministry training education at an affordable price for Kenyans, facilitated by skilled Kenyan leaders in Kenya at an international standard.  Download the application now and submit for 2017 classes.    

Any questions you have regarding content in the application form and your individual circumstances can be discussed with the principal Ps Ken Ayiro Okuyo. 

Download application form here. 

I am looking forward to seeing you the next time I visit.

Rich Blessings

Howard 

Rev Dr Howard Sands is the International Director of Beautiful Feet Task Force, is available as a speaker for churches, outreaches, business & missions.

For more details or to book Howard for your college, church or event see how to frame an invitation here.


If you would like to assist BFTF in its mission to equipping Africa Network Bible College with chairs, tables, beds, linen, cupboards, filing cabinets etc etc so they can equip ministers with the word of God to empower their own generation you can donate to BFTF here. 

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East Africa gets BFTF Teaching, Training and Evangelism

We just want to say a REALLY BIG THANK YOU to everyone who supported us, prayed for us, hosted us, fed us, arranged meetings, conferences and outreaches, transported us, loved on our churches and families in our absence during our recent mission to Kenya and Uganda. 

 

Ministering in small churches in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. 

      

Large leadership training seminar in Mbale, Uganda. 

 

Leading crusade outreaches to win souls in Busia, Kenya.

Ministering at the Champions of Destiny believers conference.

Launching Beautiful Feet Task Force first African Bible College, 

Africa Network Bible College | Kenya 

Ministering at Kibaale Town ( a rural village in Uganda) to about 70 pastors and leaders. About 50 baptised in the Holy Spirit.

Ministering at Pastors Seminar in Kampala, Uganda. 

       

Ministering to pastors and one of the churches in the newly formed CRC Churches International, Uganda.    

Between Ps Wayne Lyons and Dr Howard Sands we ministered at:- 

7 weekend services over 3 Sundays in Nairobi & Busia, Kenya; and Kampala, Uganda. 

• Preached at an outreach crusade, (approx 150 decisions for Christ over 5 nights, 3 preachers) 
• Gave keynote addresses and workshops at Champions of Destiny Conference, (900+ delegates) 
• Launched Africa Network Bible College | Kenya in Busia, Kenya.  
• Held 4 pastors and leaders training in Mbale (600+), Kibaale Town (70+) and Kampala x2 (50 & 11) Uganda. 

We met a whole lot of awesome saints of God with passion for the Kingdom, won souls for Jesus, saw healings, deliverance and baptism with the Holy Spirit. Renewed friendships, made new ones and were thoroughly excited to see that God is moving in East Africa. 

More details and photos on https://www.facebook.com/BeautifulFeetTaskForce/ 

Next BFTF public mission trip from Australia to West Africa in April 2017; 

Sign up now to receive information when available. http://eepurl.com/3OcLf

Monthly Combined Christian Churches Victory Meetings at St Marys, NSW, Australia. 

Mailing list for notifications here. http://eepurl.com/H6EBz

If you are ministering to Africa you may like to join Africa Network BFTF for connections, resources, unity and sharing, over 2800 leaders from over 46 African countries now utilise this BFTF service. 

http://bftfafricanetwork.ning.com/

Rev Dr Howard Sands is the International Director of Beautiful Feet Task Force, is available as a speaker for churches, outreaches, business & missions.

For more details or to book Howard for your college, church or event see how to frame an invitation here.


If you would like to assist BFTF in its mission to equipping African and Asian ministers with the word of God to empower their own generation you can donate to BFTF here.

Follow BFTF 

Facebook  Google+  YouTube  Africa Network BFTF

Donations 

PayPal

or

Bank account Direct Deposit

Beautiful Feet Task Force

CBA Bank Wagga Wagga NSW Australia

BSB 062 614

Account 0094 0442

  

Unbelieving Believers

I read a challenging piece recently by Dr Bernard Etta when speaking of the 7000 prophets who had not bowed the knee to Baal (1 Kings 19.18); he said. "I have no respect for such prophets who lived in a nation taken over by Idolatry and evil but chose to remain silent. Not bowing to Baal is good, but not enough to transform a society or nation. True prophets confront the idolatry in the land and speak again sin in both high and low places with a vision of taking back the nation for God. You don't need 7000 prophets to change a nation, just one true prophet is enough."

A little similar to today's church I believe, 'and the love of many will wax cold.' 

They say they are believers but when it comes to issues of sin and righteousness and judgement they are cold and silent. 

It has been said "all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing," (often attributed to Edmund Burke but disputed) how true it is.  Burke also said, "Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference."  

If 7000 prophets who had not bowed the knee to Baal had spoken up, how different might the situation have been. If millions of 'so called' Christians learn to live with evil in the world and around them in their community instead of denouncing it and setting aright the ills of society, what will be the outcome of the Jezebels?

 

Today we have professing believers filling church pews with no moral fortitude, Jesus said, "These signs shall follow them that believe" Mark 16.17 our churches seem to be full of those with only the "DO NOT DISTURB" sign around their necks, dare we say that many of our churches are filled with unbelieving believers? 

To believe in Christ is to follow Him and be His disciple; "I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." John 14.12

Are we doing the works? 

Are the signs following? 

Are we expecting the signs to follow? 

or have we just become humanitarian tolerants? 

The words of Christ command obedience, if obedience to His way is not there, are we in fact His disciple at all? 

Society will always have its malevolent, those intent on their own perverted gain at the expense of good morals and judgement, its wicked, evil and sinister plotters to bring down anything that is upright, moral, good or godly for it is an affront to them, for they desire to remove any semblance of righteousness or God from their lives, for then (in their minds only) their is no account to give to God.

It is encumbent upon us to heed the warning given by God to Ezekiel, “Again, when a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before them, they will die. Since you did not warn them, they will die for their sin. The righteous things that person did will not be remembered, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the righteous person not to sin and they do not sin, they will surely live because they took warning, and you will have saved yourself.” Ezekiel 18.26/27

Society in many nations (not restricted to western nations) is crumbling for lack of absolute values, where everything is questioned and many outcomes are questionable, it behoves those that have the truth that delivers (and has delivered for thousands of years for those that follow it,)  peace, stability, prosperity and godliness to share it with those of the community hellbent on destroying righteousness in society and themselves along with it to a torturous hell for those who reject God.  

Don't let your religion crumble around you for lack of attention to it.

Dr Howard Sands is the International Director of Beautiful Feet Task Force, is available as a speaker for churches, outreaches, business & missions.

For more details or to book Howard for your college, church or event see how to frame an invitation here.

If you would like to assist BFTF in its mission to equipping African and Asian ministers with the word of God to empower their own generation you can donate to BFTF here.

Follow BFTF 

Facebook

Google+

YouTube

Africa Network BFTF

Donations PayPal
or

Bank account Direct Deposit
Beautiful Feet Task Force
CBA Bank Wagga Wagga NSW Australia
BSB 062 614
Account 0094 0442

The Return of Christ in 2021

That headline got your attention didn't it? 

Will Christ return in the year 2021? 

I don't know, but this makes us ask 2 very important questions to the church. 

1/ Will you be found in faith and ready if He does? 

2/ Will the church do what is required between now and then to bring that about? 

Continue reading to discover what is necessary and how possible it is for Christ to return in 2021.

"They will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and sit down in the kingdom of God." 

~Jesus Luke 13.29

Right from the times of the patriarchs is was apparent that God desired to bring all mankind of every race, tribe and nation into relationship with himself, this mandate of sharing the good news was ultimately passed on to the Hebrew people who held onto the truth of their revelation of God and mostly did not bring the gentiles into relationship with God and therefore the mandate of bringing the nations into the Kingdom of God was given to the church birthed through the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the sending of the Holy Spirit.
As we look around the world today we see that although the gospel has gone forth to some degree into most (but not all) nations, the majority of the church is still sitting in their pews, content to be pious or happy clappy but staying there. "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." ~Jesus Matt 24.14
Christ will delay his return and the judgement and the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth until the church has completed its assignment - and then will the end come.


The exciting thing about the day in which we live is that with today's travel and technology capabilities,the size of the church and finances of God's people, it is possible to translate the scriptures into every language on earth, deliver the good news to every ethnic group and establish the kingdom of God in them within the next five years. If only we would get of our comfortable backsides in our comfortable churches where we play religion and have services for our own pleasure and enjoyment and get out there delivering the good news of the gospel to those who have not heard, and persuading those who have avoided the message to listen and compelling those that have rejected it to come in; then the kingdom would be preached to the whole world, and Christs prophecy would be fulfilled, the end would come, judgement day and Christs return and His Kingdom would be established on earth and this prayer answered "thy Kingdom come."

The indictment on the church is that at least since the 1980's we have had everything in place to do this within 5 years. Although there are some that are passionately working for this end, we must conclude that the church generally has failed in its mission in this generation to preach the gospel of the kingdom in the whole world as a testimony to all nations. It falls on a new generation to take up the mandate, build on the strength of the past without taking on the complacencies of the forefathers who allowed apathy, comfort, smugness and sense of security to lull them into inaction.

Will the leaders keep on tickling the ears of their congregations with more personal development or get fired up with the Holy Spirit, prepare Gods people for acts of service and send them forth empowered to complete a mission and fulfil a mandate "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation." Mark 16.15 

Dr Howard Sands is the International Director of Beautiful Feet Task Force, is available as a speaker for churches, outreaches, business & missions.

For more details or to book Howard for your college, church or event see how to frame an invitation here.

If you would like to assist BFTF in its mission to equipping African and Asian ministers with the word of God to empower their own generation you can donate to BFTF here.

Follow BFTF 

  

Why Are You Asking People to Pray For You?

What we find through the history of God dealing with men and then through his chosen race, the Hebrews, that they found that God was too awe-inspiring, too majestic to have any relationship with individuals and so they decided that because he was so awesome and just and powerful and holy and couldn’t be approached because of all of this, and they were so evil and sinful and bad and couldn’t go near to God because he was holy and they were so bad, that they instituted a priesthood, someone who could be touched like they could be, yet was holy enough to approach God.

So the priesthood came and was the means of preventing the people of God from understanding the father heart of God because they said, “I am not holy enough because I have sinned. Therefore I will go to the priest and give him an offering so that he can pray for me to God because I can’t.”

You understand that concept of the Old Testament. Now think about these. That concept is still alive and well in a lot of Christendom. We think that we are not worthy of coming into the presence of God. Therefore we must have someone else to do that for us. One of the things that happens to me very often and still happens to me even when I’m not in a foreign country, they will come and they will say, “Please pray for me for ...” Please pray for my family. Please pray for my children. Please pray for their school. Please pray for my daughter to have a baby. Please pray for this. Please pray for that. Please pray for something else, as though I had somehow got more connection with God than they had.

No, I don't have any more connection to God than the next Christian, I have just realised the connection that I have with my father and they perhaps haven’t realised. You see the connection is that God made us his sons. He made us his sons, therefore he must be our father. If he’s our Father, then we can go to our Father. Now, it’s great that you can pray for somebody because they asked you to pray for them; but we don’t need someone to pray for us. We need to know that we have access ourselves. Amen?

Excerpt from coming book by Howard Sands
Your Kingdom Come


I would love to read your comments below how this message has impacted you.
You can listen to a live recording of this message here.

Dr Howard Sands is the International Director of Beautiful Feet Task Force, is available as a speaker for churches, outreaches, business & missions.

For more details or to book Howard for your college, church or event see how to frame an invitation here.



If you would like to assist BFTF in its mission to equipping African and Asian ministers with the word of God to empower their own generation you can donate to BFTF here.