A market profiling of the values and needs of the perceived target audience has a major effect on the strategy of a venture and its offerings.   A premise that the target audience are the souls, congregation inside or the lost outside  waiting to be saved cause us to adjust and align our ministry services – making them shorter, our music – making them trendier and  more exciting, our church halls – making them more contemporary: all to reach out to more.  Eventually we must preach and deliver what will retain this overwhelming crowd that keep coming … and contrive more entertainment and performance menu options to hold their attention and relieve their thirsts.  But what is the real issue? Who should be the target audience of our ministry? Why did the men of God of old pray and fast for 40 days before they began anything – even as Jesus Christ did.  Indeed, today God is no more the target audience for many.  This is a subtle and dangerous trap.  God will not play second fiddle nor will He be available to be used for healings and to supply miracles.  He must reign completely, totally, majestically and absolutely. He must be sought for, cultivated, enthroned and fully and reverentially worshipped or simply observe from afar.  He will not be ridiculed as a prop for another seven-steps-to-this-and-that seminar.

The one person that must be profiled is God.  The needs and values that must be understood and catered for and preached and taught are those of God.  The person that must be comfortable is God.  The one person we must be certain has not left when everyone else leaves is God.  We need therefore to hear more of God, pray for His divine visitation and learn from His word.  We want to know more of Enoch, Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Daniel and others with a record of a long walk with God – how did they do it?  Why do some people walk with God and others do not? We also note that absolutely no one has ever seen or walked with God and ever been bored.  It is completely impossible to see God and be remotely distracted talk less of bored – ask Isaiah, Ezekiel or Moses….they needed no special lights, marketing publicists, choirs, comedians, choreographers and oratory to sustain their conversations with God.  There is only one who declares is one and has seen the father – our Lord Jesus Christ…we need His Holy Spirit as our friend to guide and lead us.

John 14:9 … he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then , Show us the Father?

God is the target audience of all true ministries. When God meets with a people – His glory is unmistakeable and His presence cannot be ignored or confused for something else.  Again ask Ezekiel or Isaiah.  People in darkness are drawn to light and His glory.  Troubles vanish and sick hearts are cured.  We literarily have to plead to people to go home for they cannot imagine what else to do but remain in the embrace of glory.  My prayer is that His glory comes down again so that I have nothing to minister anymore as God visibly takes over. I pray that day comes soon for you too. I discover that the ministry had little to do with me in the first place.  It was God’s and He says who will I send?  Who will go for me where I want him to go?  I tremble before I can answer…for I am not Isaiah …yet.

What about the souls and the lost? What do they bring to the table apart from corrupted and depraved values and the stench of decaying flesh for they are long dead and need resuscitation that I cannot give?  The patient cannot write the prescription –even a dead one.  Not the minister but God must be present to administer the solutions otherwise the poor minister contrives all sorts of remedies and well-baked thoughts. There is a lot, I dare say,  to borrow these days from information technology, science, business management, philosophy, Hollywood, MTV and (God forbid) even the Occult – as the trapped godless Saul (the king of Israel) eventually ventured.

The large or small congregation (without God) becomes a trap.  Both minister and the ministered  have to keep innovating more performances …eventually all are misused by the devil who finds this the best terrain for his own devastating operations.  Or worse, the minister is exhausted and can no more raise new schemes for inadequate cash, cannot maintain growth or the competition next door does a better job of marketing his now disenchanted flock who have become accustomed to his fare but need a more enervating “fix”.  The minister loses the mega-church he (thinks) he has laboured for and wonders why everything did not work out. The congregation (who he targeted and made comfortable and excited) are absolutely scandalised to know that they actually are dead and cannot hear anything but the noise of the drums and the guitar and favourite soloist or songstress  ( sorry …worship leaders).  They never heard that there is a voice that wakes the dead.  The problem? Ichabod … meaning the glory has departed …or was never present.

When we see God as our target and primary audience, our marketing is simplified. We have one major customer…one major person to study completely…God.  The study of God becomes a lifelong effort and not a stint at a seminary or a one week retreat or convention/ program. Our study and walk with God becomes a culture …our new lifestyle. It causes an outflow that reaches out in a different manner as people encounter the glow, joy and love of God and other attributes through us.

Can we market and bring the people better than God who said in John 12[32]  And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. ?

Every consultant knows that the first step is to ask the target audience.  What does the target audience want and need to be pleased and remain comfortable?  We find the answer in His word.  Expository preaching of Christ and the complete word of God must therefore return to centre stage as this is where God is best revealed.  We have had enough of the theatrics, motivational declarations, pragmatism and toying with the emotions of the weak.  What does God say in His word?  It is time to hear the complete word of God again.  We need to be wounded and made alive by His truths. God help me to please you.

Amos 3[3]  Can two walk together, except they be agreed?

I Peter 1[15]  But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; [16]  Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.

God will come when He is in agreement with the completeness of preaching, reverence of manner of worship and appropriateness of environment designed for Him.  God will come where He is loved and His truth is exalted. No need for gimmicks.  Instead spend more time finding out about God and worshiping Him. God wants to visit His people again. There is a different revival.  When God shows up, we cannot but stand in awe … and all things are possible.

Bode Ososami releases his 3rd book published by Authorhouse in early December –The Majesty of God. This book delves into the glory of God and takes a glimpse into the majestic throne room to reveal a greatness that is often misrepresented due to limitation of words to describe the indescribable or completely obscured by deliberate attempts to introduce God as the old comical wise man high up somewhere – weary, exhausted and increasingly outwitted by the modern mind.

Indeed we are attacked more by lies of the enemies of God than by anything else and the most prevalent relate to lifestyle issues and expenditures…we are baited by self-pleasure, peer-approval and soon ensnared by debt and eventual frustration with guilt. Perhaps the Recession will help us find paths back to the true joys of contentment and restitution concerning past waste. Reflect on the video below on Lifestyle Creep.  The music is a track “Holy Spirit – Worship”  from my CD  ”Songs in the Night”.

Philippians 2[3]  Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.

The biblical reality is that wealth that belongs to God is not meant for lifestyle but to establish His covenant.  What has a gold-plated Jacuzzi, 6 pairs of tennis shoes or a corporate wardrobe shopping spree got to do with the covenant which demands simple contentment? Nothing…this often responds to the god of our sensual appetites and thirsts well stimulated by advertising and lifestyle media marketing. What happens as our income increases beyond our normal basic needs?  Normal basic needs you will agree refers to feeding, accommodation and care for our households and wards.

First our tastes are aggressively targeted and tempted with a buffet of expenditures, and even after we pay our tithes, offerings and give to the poor and God uses us to meet the needs of others, we come to the conclusion that we can improve our lifestyle and soon become accustomed to an idle car, expensive jewellery and lavish vacations and conclude this is God’s blessing to us.  But a subtle Lifestyle Creep sets in and when God asks for His money to be released – as a covenant need emerges we see our lifestyle decline marginally.  The flesh immediately screams and we do not perceive how any family possibly can live without a vacation in Europe, expensive education in private schools, a regular replacement of wardrobe and such luxuries which we now imagine are critical to the blessed life.  We imagine that we are cursed if our new lifestyle standards should ever fall slightly and begin to seek deliverance in our disobedience.

A friend who read my book told me as we returned from the Redeemed Christian Church of God 57^th annual convention that the most insightful part of Wealth out of Ashes, for him was Chapter 8 on “Lifestyle Creep”…so I have posted an excerpt from that chapter to bless someone reading somewhere. The previous blog post also touched on this briefly. Lifestyle Creep is only another item on the menu of the exotic cocktail hosted by mammon. The world even warns it can be destructive to all – but to the child of God, it is an advanced stage of apostasy.  

Delilah asked Samson how he could be destroyed and Samson strangely provides this information.  The seducer has discovered from us that if we are increased in wealth…our prayer life declines…our appetite for the world’s menu heightens and our spiritual hair falls off without a razor…and soon we can be captured with little sips of social alcohol, adultery only with our eyes and in our hearts as TV and modern fashion convert our worship auditoriums to parlours of lust. We give testimonies of our disobedience and glory in what should be our shame. 

Christian Media, magazines, literature, and entertainment tell us living well is God’s peculiar goodness to this generation and one cannot be blamed for believing this most relaxing pill.  Soon our surpluses meant for the covenant fuel a taste for whatever new thing the world has fashioned. A better lifestyle becomes a necessity for your joy – a simple lifestyle becomes a curse…and the imperative to needlessly spend soon becomes addictive until crisis forces the realisation that you never really needed more than a few things and can live happily without most.   The lost opportunity of giving for the work of God now brings guilt.  Wake up!

Remember, Moses had lived for 40years amidst the impressive and most opulent “Haute couture/Haute cuisine /Haute decor” palaces, gardens and pools of Egypt. He had seen great supernatural miracles of deliverance, judgements and the Red Sea parting…yet he later cried to God…”Show me your Glory”.  Abraham saw a glimpse of it and knew seeking after God was worth it. 

The Glory is not captivating earthly magnificence nor is it magical/spellbinding performance. Rather it is the manifestation of God’s heavenly presence that melts people to pray, walk in unconditional divine love, hate and separate from sin and hunger for Him like never before.  It is also a presence that mends hearts, causes troubles to vanish and defends mightily.

His Glory will defend you completely in all situations and always. It defended the children of Israel through a harsh and hostile wilderness desert for decades as they travelled in the days of Moses.  Be assured, in Christ, no harm in the Recession will come to you.  In these challenging times, as you seek God afresh – expect to encounter His promised Glory. Remember His word is true. We can expect divine protection, grace, glory…and His good things…as we walk uprightly and in a contentment found only in a life surrendered to Christ Jesus in us as Lord and Saviour – our Hope of Glory.  May God help us.

Psalm 84.11  For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.

Remain Blessed.

Bode Ososami