The Sunday Mail
To the ordinary person it’s quite easy to mistake the Chivaura brothers – Danisile Prinsloo and Danisa – for twins but the truth of the matter is that the only two things that conjoins these two is the inter-denominational Bible study and the support ministry – Light from Heaven Ministry – which they co-founded last year in Chitungwiza. Tendai Manzvanzvike (TM) had an opportunity to speak with Danisile (DC) about the ministry and his Christian walk and here is what he had to say.
TM: You have indicated that you are not a pastor, but someone with a passion for the Word and spreading the Gospel. Can you tell us what you mean by that before we look at your ministry?
DC: I fellowship with Grace of God Ministry in Chitungwiza, and Danisa goes to the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe. I gave my life to Christ in April 1985 and it has been a long journey since then, this despite the fact that I grew up in a Christian family (Methodist Church in Zimbabwe).
It took me 20 years to become a born-again Christian. I have also fellowshipped with a number of churches namely; Faith Ministries, Hear the Word Ministries (now Celebration Church), Prophetic Healing and Deliverance Ministries.
I had my first experience with Pentecostal churches in Faith Ministries when I was in high school, and fell in love with it. I was born again in the Family of God Church when I had accompanied my brother who was following a girl who fellowshipped there. I then got baptised with the Holy Spirit in the Methodist Church where I had initially thought there was no Holy Spirit. It was a new experience and I was released from the spirit of lust.
A friend used to tell him, “wakaroiwa neakafa” because I loved women, this despite the fact that I portrayed a picture of righteousness.
TM: As you are aware, it’s as if ministries are being formed on a daily basis, we are tempted to think that eventually every believer will have his or her own ministry. What is Light from Heaven Ministry about?
DC: We are not a church, and have no intentions of being one anytime soon. We are what you could call a specialised para-church, modelled along the likes of Faith for Daily Living, Bread of Life, Focus on the Family and Faith for Today. We offer Bible studies, resources, and complimentary services to the Christian community (at individual and organisational levels).
Our desire is to see Jesus Christ placed at the centre of all human activity. We want to do this by taking back for Christ, the airwaves from the grip of the ruler/commander/prince of the power of the air (the devil) and his cohorts that influence communication practices that promote murder, witchcraft, pornography, abuse, homosexuality, abortion and other vices (Ephesians 2:2).
Our assigned corporate contribution to the body of Christ is to assist Christians harness mass-media platforms and technologies to spread the Gospel.
TM: How do you hope to achieve this, considering that churches and followers are already using these technologies and some of them control and own airwaves?
DC: As both marketplace and in-house ministers, we are focusing on three areas where we believe we can effectively make the Kingdom of God visible. We believe that we can reform and transform all sectors of society so that they apply biblical principles in their day-today activities.
At individual level we aim to assist Christians reclaim their identity and authority as kings, priests, and ambassadors of the kingdom of heaven, so that they manifest Christ like the early church did.
At church and ministry level, we support the body of Christ with general ministry management and growth services, as well as providing churches to access cutting-edge communication technologies for the spread of the gospel. This is crucial because communication is the life-blood of any successful ministry; it is at the heart of the Christian faith. Christianity is not a religion, but a relationship between us and the Lord Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
A body that does not communicate effectively within itself soon dies, and it is important to know that a body that does not communicate well with other bodies does not grow. So, our ministry’s vision is to ensure the efficient and effective communication within the church membership so that it doesn’t die, starve or shrink.
TM: Are you saying that individuals or groups outside the church must not have effective interaction with the church?
DC: Not at all. We also desire for the church to effectively communicate with those that do not know Christ in order for it to grow.
We have Bible-based tools and strategies to assist churches achieve this. I’m not talking about worldly marketing ploys to fill up churches with people who want to have “a form of godliness but denying its power”, people who want nothing to do with Jesus as written in 2 Timothy 3:5. I’m talking about true evangelism and life-long discipleship that births true sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty.
In my view, these believers ended their Christ-like exploits in Acts 28. It’s now our turn to ‘‘write Acts 29’’ and do even greater works. The Lord Jesus said, “Greater works than these will you do because I go to the Father . . . who will send the Holy Spirit who will dwell in you.”
For your information, the devil is right now effectively communicating, inside and outside the church. If you think I’m lying, just go into a typical church or watch a typical church service and you will hear demons communicating.
In short, there is too much demonic manifestation and very little Jesus manifestation or Bible teaching. The typical church-goer (not Christian) is feeding on the ‘doctrine according to demons’, and not the doctrine according to Jesus Christ.
Another unfortunate thing that we are witnessing nowadays is that of people flocking to churches and ministries not to seek salvation or to worship God, but to grab a miracle for this and that – what I best would call miracle mongering.
Like the prodigal son in Luke 15, they want God’s provisions without the relationship. You have no idea how this grieves God. I’ve had a conversation with the Lord and we have come full circle – back to the days of Noah, Sodom and Gomorrah where God regretted creating man. It’s bad enough that sin is in the world, BUT not in church!
TM: You sound as if you are saying that all hope is lost because you paint a gloomy picture when we Christians are now living under Jesus’ unmerited favour?
DC: Not all, for God is a God of solutions. He doesn’t allow adversity to manifest before putting a solution in place. Thus where sin abounds, grace abounds even more. The phenomenon of miracle mongers presents a huge opportunity for churches to leverage themselves and bring these people to Christ. So, instead of judging and being critical, we can turn this into an opportunity.
TM: Listening to your approach, it sounds like this is consultancy work where you will be paid to do the Lord’s work?
DC: No! Light from Heaven Ministry is simply there to support the churches’ efforts. We do not want to change the vision they got from God, attempt to run other people’s churches but work within the churches’ parameters.
Our duty is to share strategies of how to do what you do better, efficiently and effectively. In our view, it’s time that the body of Christ behaved like a unit and moving in the same direction.
Christians must act for the common good, and shouldn’t fathom seeing problems among the people: pot holes, poverty, etc.
As the body of Christ we should act, but we see everyday things deteriorating while people speak in tongues, fall and rise up. We don’t want to see thieves coming into church falling down as thieves and waking up the same on a daily basis as if it was fashionable. As for the future, we are going to see every member in the body of Christ fully engaged in the spreading of the gospel, everywhere.
The days of the mega churches are over, we are going to go back to those small churches in houses, like those in the book of Acts, because if you meet a member of your church and you don’t know each other or they die and you don’t even know, it means you are no longer effective. People like Paul grew because of cells.
