Moses Muguro pastors in Nairobi, Kenya. He completed his Doctorate of Ministry at Multnoma University. The focus of his research was evangelism in the local church. He is implementing his research in his church with innovative ideas like using sports for evangelism. You will be inspired as you listen to the story of what he is doing to reach people for Jesus in Kenya.
Connect with Pastor Moses Muguro on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/moses.muguro
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today I am in Nairobi, Kenya with my good friend, pastor Moses Muguro . Thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Moses Muguro (00:15):
Thank you very much Dr. Daniel King for this coming to Kenya and this moment to be with you. This is a miracle
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:23):
<Laugh>. Now, yesterday we had a wonderful time. I flew in 7:30 AM I landed. Yes. And you came to the airport. You picked me up, took me straight over to your church. And I had the wonderful privilege and opportunity of, of ministering. And you have such a beautiful church. It’s you, you’re so
Moses Muguro (00:42):
Blessed. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Yeah. The Lord has blessed us in amazing ways. But one of the things with our church is we are a church that has a focus to reach out, not to stay within the four corners of the church. We have an obligation and we usually, I usually tell the church and we tell each other, we are not just building a church. It’s Jesus who said, I will build my church. Our work is to go out and bring sinners to Christ. So we are there to be equipped in the church. It is an equipping station at the congregation. This is just an equipping station. You get equipped, but you don’t stay inside. The work is out there. We minister to the people inside when they get saved, and then we release them into their destinations, into their fields. That is what we feel as a church. God has called us for
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:37):
Now. What is the name of your church?
Moses Muguro (01:39):
It is called Pentecostal Evangelistic Fellowship of Africa. All Nations Gospel by Church Perfa per stands, Pentecostal Evangelistic Fellowship of Africa.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:49):
Wow. It was such a, a privilege to be there yesterday. Now, you and I have been friends for a while now. Yes. We first met at Multnomah University Yes. In Portland, Oregon. Yes. You were there studying with Dr. Tim Rob net. Yes. And he has one of the only evangelism programs at the doctoral level in the entire United States. And so you are going through the, the doctorate of Ministry program there at Multnomah University, and the focus of your research was evangelism. And so I, I had the opportunity to take one class, and so we met, we became friends. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And you also have a brother George. He a twin
Moses Muguro (02:31):
Brother
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:32):
George, who is your twin. And so both of you love Jesus and are serving the Lord. Indeed. Indeed. Now, now tell me a little bit about the research that you did for your doctorate to ministry.
Moses Muguro (02:44):
Yeah. it was a miracle meeting with you at the Morton University, and just God connected us. And my, the, my research, the focus of my paper is raising evangelist in the local churches. And I specifically gave that to my church because I began raising local evangelist in local churches. The evangelist, especially in Africa, is not the, the, the evangelist is not recognized. He’s not identified. Is that is a By the way, we are planning evangelism meeting next week. So where is the evangelist? But in my, in my focus, I began raising local evangelist. And every fortnight, every two weeks, I began a class for evangelist. Every Sunday afternoon, bring the evangelist from my church and other churches and just begin to train them to work with them, to equip them. We get to hear their testimonies, what God is doing.
(03:46):
And in my, in my church, I have evangelist and some of them are in the pay, pay payroll because the, the, the evangelist is a very vital part of the body of Christ. Christ gave us the apostles, the prophet, the evangelist, the pastor, the teacher. So the evangelist is part of the part of the minister to equip the body and also to go out. And so that’s what we do. Every fortnight, the evangelists come, and I also invite other evangelists outside to come and share with them to equip them. And it is amazing what God is doing when we begin to align ourselves and hear the voice of the Holy Spirit on the place of evangelist and then time harvest.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:37):
And so how have you implemented this research in your church? What results have you seen?
Moses Muguro (04:46):
Thank you very much. I have seen for the last actually more than three years, I have seen the evangelist gaining, number one, gaining confidence and recognize and being recognized in the body of Christ. As ministers, they’re being recognized and they’re being identified, and they’re being helped even financially. I mean, people standing with them and saying, yes, this is very important. This is very key. And even the church recognizing we have to embrace the evangelist, the office of the evangelist, and also the local evangelist. We have to work with them. We have to allow them to minister both within and outside. So I’ve seen churches, not just even my church, I’ve seen churches realizing this is important. Pastor Moses is doing this. I’m a pastor and an evangelist. I’m an evangelist and a pastor. I don’t know which comes first. I, I, I realize I, I operate in both offices. And by the grace of God, I have been able to identify, equip, and even empower and begin to release to release evangelist into the harvest field.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:06):
I think this is so important because often in the church, the pastor is recognized mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, if you feel called to be in ministry. Yes. Then people say, oh, you must be called to be a pastor. Yes. But the, the gift of the evangelist is a little bit different than the gift of the, the pastor. And sometimes what you find is that evangelists who are called to be evangelists, they get pushed into being pastors. And, and then if they, they try to do evangelism, there doesn’t seem to be a place for them. And so I think it’s so important to elevate and lift up the, the understanding of the office of the evangelists. We need evangelists in the church.
Moses Muguro (06:47):
And, and, and what you’re saying is very true, especially for Africa. It is been bad. We, we had stretched to the extreme where the evangelist was like evangelism work, and the evangelist was left for the young people, the guys who have nothing to do. If you’re called to the ministry, go to the Bible school. You are sent to the church to be a pastor. And many of them struggled because when you are an evangelist and you’re fixed into an office that is not yours or into a ministry that is not yours, you’ll always struggle. You’ll always have scam something like, no, there is something. I’m missing the calling of God. The mantra of God in my life is I am an evangelist. And when I began to equip evangelists, like some of them, I’ll buy them even portable public address system and give them, they’ll be so excited the following day I’ll see them reaching out, and I’m like, you are an evangelist.
(07:47):
You have been fixed to be a Bible teacher. But look, you are now your voice. Look at your passion. Look at the heartbeat, everything about you. You actually realize this is who God called me into. This is from the creation of the world. God wanted me to be a proclaimer of the good news of Jesus Christ, and to proclaim it as an evangelist. So I have, it is one evangelist, is one of the people who are actually, we are waiting for the ministry of evangelism to be fulfilled. Then Jesus comes the gospel to be proclaimed everywhere. And Jesus comes. So he’s one of the key persons who is very vital in this time season.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:35):
Take a moment to talk to other African pastors if they want to lift up evangelism in their church. First of all, how do they identify people in the church who maybe have the gift of an evangelist? And then second, how do they start to give opportunities to evangelists, to, to preach the gospel. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And then how do they train them so that they can be equipped to really do the ministry that God has called them to do? How can we here in Africa start to lift up more evangelists?
Moses Muguro (09:08):
Yeah. Thank you very much. The first and the most important thing is when, when, when, when a believer has come to Christ and has been discipled given raised and given the word of God and now reached, and then this person begins, usually you find people who begin to volunteer. They’re giving themselves, they’re saying, I need to serve. I need to do somewhere. And then you realize this is, this is a, it’s like a baby, and I can see a talent. They’re, they’re, they’re pulling well on this side, they’re doing well on this side. And then you begin to, to tap that talent. And all of the things I do is identify them in the church. And then I create a forum. You, you, you, you, you have a passion. You, you want to, and I begin teaching the whole church the importance of evangelism.
(10:00):
And there are people who will volunteer, call them out. Please come. If this is your heartbeat, if, if you feel that God has laid a burden for sins, come, we want to walk with you. So I identify them, and then I begin to see little talent. This person is flowing in the outdoors. This person has a talent in this area. I begin to sharpen them to walk with them. You, you are in the marketplace, evangelist. I want you to go there. You are a full-time evangelist. I want you to be quit. I have sent some to Bible school not to be quit as pastors, to be quit and nourished and given the right staff. Then when they come out, I begin now to give them to, we create the class. When we created the class, the people we had sent to Bible school, they also need to come to the evangelism class.
(10:50):
Then I give them public address systems, drugs, materials. And then I give them opportunity. I give these people opportunity even to teach, to teach in the church the importance of evangelism. Another teachings, some of my evangelists have given them topics. Topics. This is an evangelist who was growing up, teachers about Stephen was an evangelist. Bring to us a character of Stephen. And then I give the evangelist to do that homework, and they give, bring it out that well, but I’m building also these evangelists to pick these characters and to build up with them. And then I give them also Sunday service to minister to the church, because the ministry of evangelism and the minister of the evangelist has a lot of blessings. It carries with it healing and encouragement, comfort, both within the church and outside the church. And I see God using them in different aspects.
(11:46):
They’re releasing different encouragement to the body. And then they go out. They have a lot of boldness. The pastor has commissioned us because if they’re not commissioned, they’ll not be, they’ll be operating within any umbrella. I mean, outside an umbrella, they can be attacked. So I commission them go to this direction but come back and report and tell me what happened. Go to the school, come back and report what happened. So the pastors in Africa, we must first of all identify. They’re already there. They’re already there. The giftings of the evangelism evangelist is already in the church. Identify, then you recruit, beginning listing. In my church, I had to enlist. I had to write down, write down your name in that particular class. Then from there, train them, equip them, send them to Bible school, have classes within the church. Then opportunity, open opportunities for them. Because if you don’t also open opportunities for them, they might not have the strength to knock doors, but when they go with a, like, they need a letterhead, an introduction letter to go to this school, that gives them a, a very big platform. They’re recognized. You’re coming from this direction. So it is very important we begin working those steps by steps and begin to create an awareness in the church that evangelists are part of the ministry of the church.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:17):
Now, you have actually implemented these ideas in your church, and one of your innovative ideas is to do evangelism by sports. Yes. And so you are starting a basketball tournament inviting many different basketball teams from your neighborhood to come to the church. And then you plan to sponsor them playing against one another, then feed them and, and give them something. And, and then evangelize, tell these basketball players about Jews. So yesterday we went and we anointed the basketball court as a tool for evangelism. Yes. And then you also plan to do the same thing with football. Tell, tell me some about those plans and what you hope to see God do.
Moses Muguro (14:04):
Yeah. you know, evangelist King, one of the things that God is doing with the, this generation of evangelist is we just have to ask God for ideas. Yeah. because God is not limited with ideas. Even in Africa, we don’t have those big resources, but God can give us fresh ideas because God is a God of freshness every morning, fresh manner. Yeah. And so we’ve been doing different approaches, which I can share of evangelism going out street evangelism pray, walking in our estate evangelism. And recently we said, why don’t we now begin to be to create a very good awareness, friendship to these young people in the community. And we we, we just begin to brainstorm and say, Hey, what are the approaches? And one of the approaches, sport evangelisms evangelism through sports, and we said with the young people, we are starting with the basketball.
(15:08):
And guess what? We changed our parking lot into a basketball co a pitch. So Saturday, I called the painter, paint this place and make it a basketball pitch. And I had told the, the, the young people on Sunday, we’ll be anointing the ground and releasing the game. And the, by the grace of God evangelist King is here on Sunday. So we anointed that basketball pitch, which is our parking lot. And I’m sure some of the members of the church are like, oh, pastor’s bringing sports into the church. But you see, the thing is, when I went there yesterday after the church by five, I was in the, in the, in the church. And the boys were playing, and they were about a hundred and something boys and girls who had come to watch the game. And my, my, my evangelism, young people were evangelists, were the, my evangelism team were witnessing to these boys.
(16:11):
And we had put Christian music. And these are boys I’ve never seen in church. These are boys who are not Christians. And remember, we have anointed the field and we have said, whoever steps in here, the power of God must touch them. I was excited because the only way for us to reach this generation, like the young people, is to befriend them, is to go to them and tell them, I’m a friend. I am a parent. I have a, I have a, I have a young boy you prayed for who graduated my son wisdom. And for me to become a friend to wisdom, I mean, to reach him, I have become, to become a friend. And I know with sports, every boy loves sports. So I could see all these boys, and they are happy. They’re like, dads have not come here to bo bundles with the, with a gospel message.
(17:03):
But they are creating a forum for us to have fun. As they’re having fun. I’m also taking care of their health. They’re not at home just watching cheap televisions that we get from China, wasting their time. They’re exercising. Number two. Number three, I’m keeping them engaged in the right environment. They’re not going out there where they can do all kinds of things. Drugs. They’re within the safe environment. Every parent would want to release their boys and girls. I could see the girls there. I could see children there. Parents were very comfortable. Number four, it is an opportunity for these boys because many of them are not working. We have a lot of joblessness. Yeah. So now we are beginning to see, we can form a sports club that can go very far. That was begun by a church. That is a vision for the young people. And the vision for the, for president and the leadership in Africa is to engage in our young people in productivity. So they become product. And now the main thing, number five, we are winning them to Christ. Wow. So this is the focus for the men. We have begun, we have begun soccer evangelism through through sports soccer.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:21):
Now here in Kenya, do you call it soccer or football?
Moses Muguro (18:23):
We call it football.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:24):
Okay. So, so football, half, most of the world calls it football. In America, we say soccer. But let’s think about the math. Yesterday in, in, in church, you said that you had 20 teams that signed up for the tournament. And each team has 20 players. Yes. And so, 20 times 20, 400, 400, you are going to have the opportunity to impact the lives of 400 young people. And plus, when all the boys come to play soccer, all the girls will come to watch them. Yes. The parents will come to watch them. And you will have the opportunity to have a major impact in your area.
Moses Muguro (19:04):
I have never worked this way before, but I believe it’s the vision of the Holy Spirit. ’cause We’ve been praying, we have a prayer center. We’ve put the map of Africa, the map of the world, and we’ve been saying, Lord, give us a nation ask of the Lord. And he give you the nation for an inheritance. Yeah. And even for a community. And the men, as we were talking, they said, why don’t you do soccer, football? And as, as, as I told you, they have invited 20 teams and they have invited the member of Parliament for our community. They have invited the, the member of County Assembly. They have invited different groups. They have hired public address system. We have hired the biggest field in our community, the biggest field that is owned by the Kenya Airport Authority. They have allowed us, because it is a big tournament, tournaments are coming.
(19:55):
They’re hearing that this is happening. We are sponsoring as a church. It is not cheap. But the gospel is not cheap. The gospel is not cheap. And I think many times when we make it cheap, that is when we get cheap results. So we are saying, as a church, we will do everything possible. Let these things come, let them pray, let them play. Let them go the professional way. We’ll have professional coaches, professional referees, and everybody, but we are winning these people to Christ before the games. We pray after the games, we pray for them. We share the gospel with them. They have accepted that. And because we are we, we, we, they have accepted us. We are not condemning them. We are telling them, come, come on, come with your friends. This is a nice time. Because we have a lot of, you see these men and these young boys and girls, many of them are not working.
(20:51):
This will be holidays, especially for the soccer. So they’ll all be there. And we have three days. We are doing it for three days, three consecutive days. We have a winner, a cup that will be donated. We are asking the member of parliament to come and present it. And we want him also to hear the gospel plus his enter, plus his team and the whole community. And this is what we, this is what I’ve come to realize eventually is also have to keep asking God for step past. What is the next level, Lord, if you are in this community, how will you reach them? And Christ will use all these avenues. He’ll use the boat to sit down. Yeah. He’ll use the net. He’ll use all those things. And we now have to begin using the boats, the nets, the donkeys of our days, all those opportunities that are there to bring people the recreation.
(21:50):
Christ would go to the seaside and minister to people, because that’s a good place. That’s a good spot for people. There was grass where Christ was teaching, and he was organizing all these people. Disciples let them sit in 50. And when we begin to see the aspect of Lord, give us direction, give us freshness. Give us all these platforms that are in this planet for us to communicate the gospel, then these sins, they’re ready to receive the gospel. They’re ready to hear. Actually, I think we’ve, I’ve come to realize the biggest problem has been the church. Because the church, we closed ourselves to the four corners. And we thought our, our main business is a four corners. We have the best choir in the church. We stay there. Seniors will not come there. There’ll be one or two or three. And that’s why in our sports evangelism, like yesterday, all these bad boys were outside comfortable.
(22:52):
They’re comfortable. They’re like, oh, we don’t see here guys. The pastor with the collar and everybody chasing us and telling us, can you be seated here? Well, and can you be quiet? They were all cheering. They were all loud. Wow. I was telling them, cheer your team this is a beach and be happy, have fun. But at the end of it, I know I am breaking an ice. Where they have seen the church is like, I’m not welcome. We are telling them we are actually not inside the church. We are outside where God is. And I believe this is the direction the, the, the Lord is showing us as a church. We just have to keep out going out. We are an equipping sta station as a church to be equipped. And then we can’t stay with all this energy. If we stay with all this energy. Oh, they’re like the fallers. If we stay here, we die. We’d rather go out. We’d rather at midnight wake up, go meet this army. And we realize God is at work. The angels are at work. The Holy Spirit is at, and he’s waiting for just the fallers. So in Africa, we are like those people, but we are realizing the light has come. The light has come. Well, I
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:07):
Love your heart for evangelism, your heart, for raising up evangelism in the local church. And I believe God will give you a great harvest of souls.
Moses Muguro (24:18):
Amen. Through
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:19):
This evangelism by sports. Amen. It is a big investment for your church. Yes. But I believe that it will produce great results in the years to come. And, and God will give you many people that will, will come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. These young people. God’s gonna raise them up to be Yes. Leaders here in Africa. Amen. And pastors and evangelists and, and great business leaders and politicians and Amen. And so God’s gonna do many things through this outreach.
Moses Muguro (24:49):
You know, one young man who came there, had, had, had gone back was once a Christian and went back and he came and he was drunk. He was a young man. I knew him. Yeah. And his name is David. And he told me, you know, pastor, I’m back. I’m back to me, for him to tell me I’m back, it was like the prodigal son coming back home. And you see, I could try many ways to reach him, but he saw his friends outside the church court playing and his arm back. Wow. So we have to, you know, all these people they’re waiting to be received. Mm-Hmm. The, the, the, the, we have just to open our hands, our hearts and our resources, and receive all these sons and daughters because they’re the God loves them. God caress for them.
(25:46):
God is thinking while we are inside the church, God is saying, but I have other ship who are out there, and I leave the 99, I go and I go for those ones. So you have to partner with God when he’s leaving the 99 to go for the one ship. And that’s what, as a church, we are saying, there’s this one ship. And when Christ is leaving the 99, I don’t want to be in the 99. I want to be with Christ when he’s going for this one to bring this one to the 99. So that’s what God has put into my heart as an evangelist. And even raising other evangelist. We now have to be uncomfortable. We have to be uncomfortable where we’ve been so comfortable. Things are like everything is okay in the church. No. I believe even the reason why there is a stirring up in many churches is because we don’t go out. If we go out, then we’ll bring freshness. But if we don’t go out, there’s no freshness in the church. So that’s what I told my church. If you don’t go out, we’ll be fighting the choir. Do not sing good songs today. But let’s, let’s take the choir outside and you realize those songs are good <laugh>.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:55):
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you being on the Evangelism podcast.
Moses Muguro (27:00):
Thank you. Thank you, Dr. King. I appreciate you coming to Africa. This is very prophetic. And you, you released a prophetic word in my church. We are going far. Amen. We are experiencing a new level in Jesus
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:15):
Name. Well, we are a pair of docs. Amen. Dr. Moses. Yes. Dr. Daniel together. Yes. Winning the world for
Moses Muguro (27:22):
Jesus. Winning the world for Jesus. Amen. And thank you for your testimonies. How when you grew up, you are Jesus. That was
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:30):
<Laugh>
Moses Muguro (27:31):
What?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:31):
Thank Yeah. In the drama. I always play the part of Jesus in the drama to lead people to Jesus.
Moses Muguro (27:36):
Amen. Amen. You’re an encouragement to the evangelist in Africa. Thank
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:42):
You. And
Moses Muguro (27:42):
Keep coming to Africa.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:43):
Oh, I love Africa. Amen. It is wonderful to be here in Kenya.
Moses Muguro (27:47):
Amen. Amen. God bless you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:49):
Amen. I’ll come back.
Moses Muguro (27:50):
Welcome. And you are welcome, Kenya. Make it one of your headquarters and we’ll be very happy because we have to reach Somalia. We have to reach a Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan right now. Yeah. It is in chaos. Central Africa Republic. We have to Libya. Libya is in Kios, and we have to go out Egypt Malawi, Mozambique, those African countries. I, I’ve been to a few and I shed tears because they need a gospel. Amen. They need a gospel.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:24):
Amen. Well, I believe that God will raise up young people in your church that you’ll even begin to send out as evangelists and missionaries. Oh, yes. Across this entire part of Africa.
Moses Muguro (28:34):
Oh, yes. Oh yes. That, that’s, that’s our heartbeat. We have the map of Africa in our prayer room and actually the whole map of the world and also the map of Africa and rich people groups. And we have all these nations and we keep praying for them. But now I’m saying the harvest is playing for the laborers are few. Lord, send the labors. And we are the labors. Yeah. So we also have to begin hearing the Lord saying, now go. Now go. I mean, God answers, but he also comes and says, you, you are the solution. You have the answer. So I’ve been telling them, Somalia, we have to go. If you don’t go, then they will. There will be instability in Somali. They’ll come to us. When they come to us. They’ll disturb us. When they disturb us. We have no option but to go pray for them. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, go speak to them. And we have seen a little bit of that in Kenya. And I tell my Kenyan, my Kenyan ministers, we should be careful because, because we are not going to them. God will bring them to us. Amen. And he’s doing
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:33):
It. Amen. Amen.
