Francis Mkandawire is the General Secretary of the Evangelical Association of Malawi. Today we discuss the strategies the church in Malawi is developing in order to reach people for Jesus and some of the challenges they are facing.
Website: https://www.eamalawi.org/
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Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Reverend Francis mud candle weary is the general secretary of the evangelical association of Malawi. Today we discuss the strategies. The church in Malawi is developing in order to reach people for Jesus. And we talk about some of the challenges the churches in Malawi are facing Jesus.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:30):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King we’re Daniel interviews, full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies, and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:54):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast. I’m Daniel King. And today I have a very special guest Reverend Francis Mkandawire.
Francis Mkandawire (01:05):
I’m the general secretary for the evangelical association of Malawi.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:11):
And so you have been helping to lead the evangelical association of Malawi for many years, brother. Can you tell me, what is God doing here in the nation of Malawi?
Francis Mkandawire (01:22):
God is doing a lot or necessary. Possibly if we are much more obedient to him, he would have done even far, much better. We’ve let him down many times, but God is doing a lot. We w people are getting saved machetes are reaching out, I think, to, to Accra across the country. We seen churches that are getting together awaking together, which was not the case before. You’re talking of the, the mainline churches, which are there, they’re there, the Presbyterians angry, Cannes Baptists. And then the other side, the Pentecostals charismatics, and I now United, they never, you do. They used to work together. They were waking in isolation, but now we’re working together. And and the reaching out Malawi for Jesus’ love Milan festival is a clear, clear testimony of that unity of mind and peppers for the churches when it comes to evangelization of our nation. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:21):
I think that makes Jesus very happy. Jesus prayed that the church would be one as he is he and the father are one. And so when unity comes, that makes God so happy. Tell me, how has the unity come in the church? What has brought more unity among the various denominations and churches?
Francis Mkandawire (02:42):
I think there are a lot of factors. First and foremost, I think it’s a, we’ve done a lot, especially through the evangelical association of Malawi. Most of them are members. Most of these are members of India question Malawi and the, through the, the it providing platforms, join platforms for them to, into, to network share experiences. I think many, many of them are discovering that DVT. We w we are, we have one ma one, one goal and so on. So I think there they’re setting aside the boundaries between them are breaking as it were, and now they’re getting closer to each other, but also the challenges that we’ve had as a country we Malawi is we are facing a lot of challenges for, especially from the, from the the Islamic faith and many other fits men at that groups in Malawi. And because of that, you’ll find that the church is really being squeezed to a corner and they there’s, you know, each one of us realizes that on our own as individuals, we cannot survive. So we need each other. So I think challenges tend to help you budget together and, and so on. And that’s exactly what’s happening. The, we have the, the Islam is growing now in Africa especially in Southern Africa and Malawi has not been spared to that from that. So I think all those challenges are forcing us to,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:10):
Yeah, there’s last week I was up in Bellanca and we saw so many mosques that have been built, and I even saw an Islamic reading center where they’re asking people to come in and ask questions for, and even schools where I was told that the, the Islamic faith is, is paying for people to go to school. So it seems like there is a real, real strategy among Islam to actively turn people towards Islam. And I think it is important for the church of Jesus Christ to, to also think strategically because we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood. We’re not against people, but we do know that there is a spiritual battle, which is being fought in the heavenlies. What are some of the strategies and the thinking of the churches here in Malawi for evangelization and reaching people for Jesus?
Francis Mkandawire (05:07):
Yes. We talk about reaching out to possibly Muslims in this country. What has happened is that many churches in my Laue do not know how to handle people have to handle Islam. I mean, people from Islamic faith, and they don’t even know how, what they believe in, in terms of or that, so what we’ve done is we’ve gotten it, we, as, as a, as an association is we’ve come up with trainings to make sure that we, we orient them on what it is easy so that they can understand what Islam is. And I know how best they can reach them out. That’s why, so we’re working closely with a number of, or edgy says that are specialized, especially in, in, in, in the ministry to Muslims. And then we, we, we are also encouraging churches that look at the tendency sometimes to stop them that the Muslims that have this strategy and they preventing their strategy building Buddha, building mosques, they are building schools and so on.
Francis Mkandawire (06:17):
And because we are Malawi’s predominantly Christian country want to say, no, no, no, no, this should stop it, but I would tell them, no, that’s their strategy. I mean, it’s this freedom of worship in this country. And people can have a free to, to, to propagate their faith Jude, to come up with the strategy, let’s come up with a strategy or now based. We can reach out to those people and so on with our own strategy. So, honestly, right now, as I’m speaking to you, we have churches that are working on, on, on coming up with a very, very clear strategy that will disseminate that across the country, in terms of reaching out, especially to our colleagues, Muslims, we are not as you say, we’re not fighting against flesh and blood. Okay. We are, we are
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:04):
We love everyone. I love Muslims and Muslims love me. And I love having relationships with,
Francis Mkandawire (07:11):
By the way, we talk about relationships in Malawi here, we’ve got wonderful relationships with Muslims. I mean, we have the Christian Christian religious bodies, we have the Malawi [inaudible] evangelical association, Alma, which, which we belong to and then work very closely with the Muslim, the Muslim association of Malawi at the top work very well. Actually, we, we, we have, we have we jointly make representation before government or many other issues. And we speak with one voice there, of course would have loved what is happening up here at the top at the national level should also be reflected on the grassroots because that’s where the rubber meets the ground. Unfortunately, I think our people on the grassroots at sometimes they they tend to collide. So we have always to go back and help them. And with recent, we have, we have had a number of crashes here and there, but to praise God, because at the top here, we are able to talk. We’re able to read it to, to bring peace down here. I think that’s very important. So we have a solvent that yes, whilst we’re trying to, to reach out to them with gospel our Lord Jesus Christ, the key issue should be relationships because we lit where with them, it’s easier for us to do that. I think very important. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:34):
Let’s talk about the love Malawi festival. You’ve been helping to, to organize this. And of course, Andrew Pulau came to long way several years ago in 2016. And now here in bland tire, a second big gospel festival. Tell me what impact these festivals, these loved Balawi festivals are having on this nation. Well, puff.
Francis Mkandawire (09:01):
Oh, awful. I think the first impact is the unity of the churches, churches, you know, they, they they, they work together. I love my old festival has managed like you’re talking about, but five years ago, 2016, when we were in a very long way churches we saw the, you need that, that that that CA came about because of love Malawi changes that it worked together well, they had one goal and so on and seminary in Atlanta, we sing a weekend together that we’ve never seen before churches opening up there. They are, they are, they are congregations and and participating and helping each other and so on. And wherever you go at, at, at, at the city level, as well as at various zones zones, churches are really working together. That to me is possible.
Francis Mkandawire (09:56):
I know the best best thing, but secondly is the training. We’ve received very, very good training when it comes to evangelism, very good training when it comes to canceling and all that that these teachers have had. They have people trained and that training will go beyond even love Malawi. So we, we are saying love malware has lived a powerful deposit, and we, we will look in, we’re looking on to, to to, to ask continuing beyond the love Malawi. And as a [inaudible] one thing we’ve done is to do, to get to these churches and tell them to say, look here, love Malawi’s here. It will go. But we want to, you have been trained, you’ve been trained, you’ve been trained to reach out and we want you to continue and we’ll be following you up. And that’s basically, so we were expecting a lot of things to come out of this love Malawi trend, besides the so many sores that are, that are likely to be, to be saved, who we hope there’ll be trained and developed in the churches.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:05):
Yeah. That’s awesome. Well, pastor, thank you so much for being on the evangelism podcast. You are a great blessing.
Francis Mkandawire (11:11):
Oh, thank you. It’s it’s a pleasure. Thank you. God bless you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:15):
Thanks so much for listening to the evangelism podcast today, our ministry is supported by people like you, who help us go to the nations to preach the gospel. Our goal is every soul. It only costs us an average of about $1 for every person. We’re able to tell about Jesus. And so could you do me a favor, go to my website, king ministries.com and become a partner with us for as little as $1 a month, you can start to partner with king ministries and help us lead. At least one person to Jesus every single month. For $1, you can start a party in heaven every single month. So right now, go to king ministries.com and partner with us and help us to preach the gospel to those who need to hear the gospel. The most, the least reach people in the world. Also, I’d like to ask you to go to apple podcasts and give the evangelism podcast a five star review. Your positive review will help other people find this podcast who are excited about evangelism. Thank you so much. And God bless you
Evangelism Podcast Host (12:35):
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Speaker 4 (12:55):
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