Author: Pastor Ben Hiwale

One hundred years ago, if you had the capacity to survey every person in the world regarding religious belief, you would have discovered that 34% of the world’s 1.65 billion people had checked the box “Christian” in one of its dominant forms of Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox. Today, with the explosion of conversions all over Africa, Latin America and Asia, with prolific church planting strategies and effective evangelistic outreaches like the Jesus film, the percentage of Christians is still at 34%. With our current population near 6.5 billion people there are, certainly, many more Christians today than in the year 1900; but the percentage has not changed. To create a different future–to change the trajectory of the church– we need to think differently and act differently. What is the one thing that is most deadly to the spread of the gospel to every tribe and tongue? Many would say the lack of money, manpower or vision. I believe it can be safely argued that dependency and the passivity it breeds is the most deadly problem for the spread of the gospel. Whether it is dependence upon foreign missionaries and foreign funds or even our own dependence upon the pastor of our local church.  Dependency is a ministry killer. It burns out the people and ministries that people are dependent upon and it prevents God’s people from realizing their full...