The Sunday Mail
Fatima Bulla – Religion Affairs Editor
AMERICAN author, preacher and entrepreneur Dr Bill Winston has implored Zimbabweans to work their faith to turn the country’s economy around.
Dr Winston was in the country for the recent annual conference hosted by Jabula Ministries International.
The founder and pastor of Living Word Christian Centre – a multi-cultural, non-denominational church with more than 20 000 members in the United States – Dr Winston said faith could work wonders.
“The way that this God expects us to operate is by faith ( Romans 1:16).So the just are going to have to live by faith. I know that your country or the city is going through some kind of an economic hard time if you will, but God has a way out.
“And the only way you are going to find that door is by faith. The Bible says,“But there hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.(1 Cor 10:13)
“I heard somebody say the problems that we have today are not going to be solved on the same level that they were created . You are going to have to get a Level Two solution for a Level One problem. And I think it’s the same thing here we are talking about in the church. God is launching an army of people with Level Two solutions and you are among those people. This faith is what we need to step into so that we can do what we need to do. One person in Harare, Zimbabwe can use their faith and change the economy,” he said.
Dr Winston is the founder of Bill Winston Ministries, a partnership-based outreach that hosts the Believer’s Walk of Faith television and radio broadcasts to an estimated 800 million households worldwide. In his sermon dubbed “Faith That Works” at the Jabula Ministries conference, Dr Winston said plans were underway to introduce a partnership location for his institution which nurtures entrepreneurs and business leaders – the Joseph Centre for Business Development.
“Whatever comes into your life, whatever temptation happens in your life God has a way out of it. It does not make any difference what it is. It does not make a difference how hard the times you are going through are God has a way out of it.
“God has loaded something in you – the measure of faith. He said the measure because he gave you the same amount of faith as he gave me. But the difference is that I am using mine. Faith has to be fed and the way faith has to be fed is with the word of God. Every morning you should get that devotional, every morning you should read that Bible.
“You might say, wait a minute, I am in politics. Every morning you should open that Bible! Wait a minute, I am in medicine. Every morning you should read that Bible! God is able to take you beyond what people can do who do not know God. I am telling you the church is the world’s only hope. If you are not walking by faith how is the world going to make it,” said Dr Winston, whose ministry runs two shopping malls. The ministry also owns Golden Eagle Aviation on historic Moton Field in Tuskegee, Alabama.
Born in Tuskegee, Dr Winston was inspired and influenced for leadership by the abundance of educators, scientists, and physicians who surrounded him as a youth, and by the historic aviation accomplishments of the black Tuskegee airmen who served as his role models.
A grandfather of eight Dr Winston is a graduate of the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), where Booker T Washington’s and George Washington Carver’s legacies loom large.
A fighter pilot with the US air force for six years, Dr Winston received his Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Friends International Christian University.
