Evangelist tells of latest mission trip to rural Zimbabwe at CMA breakfast

just spending time in the word with the Lord.

“We prayed, ‘May you be my soul’s desire and only satisfaction for the years left to me’. We took that to Zimbabwe with us,” Beadon said.

He said when John Chirenje had left a Pentecostal church some years ago, God had not allowed him to start his own church right away. Instead, he worked with several denominations.

“Only about three years later, did the Lord allow him to start his own church, Kingdom of Christ Assemblies. It’s a church without walls, without its own doctrine, other than the doctrine of Christ,” Beadon said.

“A problem in the church in Zimbabwe is that many pastors say the church is ‘their’ church – they’ve stolen the church from Christ.”

The Beadons took half a ton of books, Bibles, commentaries and devotional materials to spread across seven congregations of the Kingdom of Christ in rural Zimbabwe.

“We travelled more than 6,000km, 2,000 of that on dirt roads where you can’t travel at more than 20 to 30km/h. Not good roads for my little Renault – my car is held together by Beadon laughed.

Of the communities they ministered to, many had no electricity or running water, no cement floors, no windows, no shelves and no cupboards.

“We equipped disciples and leaders to walk in the kingdom,” Beadon said.

“There is a spirit of religion in Zimbabwe – just as in South Africa. Churches become little empires, with their own TV programmes.”

Beadon said there was also a spirit of plunder in Zimbabwe. “Everything sold in the store, every official you have to deal with – the money goes to the political elites. That spirit of plunder has invaded the church. It’s from the pit of hell. It’s a spirit that says, ‘I have to bribe my father to love me’.”

Beadon quoted John 13:34-35 – “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

“The church is disobeying that in Zimbabwe as it is in many places around the world,” he said.

They took seven basic teachings with them: First – God loves you, He has not forgotten you; Second – you did not choose Jesus – He chose you; Third – the kingdom is a kingdom of very different laws and constraints to the time/space continuum we live in, and we enter it through the obedience of faith; Fourth – justice, righteousness and peace for all in a nation depends on one thing only – the blessing of God; Fifth – three leadership questions: are you following the Father’s pattern that caused Him to send His Son?, are you in line with the mission priorities of Jesus (the kingdom of God on earth, to seek and save the lost and destroy the works of the devil)?, are you growing in the character of Christ?; Sixth – there are two kinds of churches: either a church that exists to follow the three questions or a church that becomes its own kingdom.

The seventh teaching was the resurrection of Christ. “Wherever we went we preached the resurrection,” Beadon said.

“We had Zionist churches celebrating the Bible, saying they had never understood it before. We saw repentance. We saw ZCC people ripping off charms and bracelets.

“How can we be satisfied with a normal, comfortable western life when Jesus offers us the kingdom?”