By Sam Eyoboka
ON Christmas Eve, nine years ago, in an innocuous nursery school compound, a new Christian ministry known as The Lord Chosen

Charismatic Revival Ministries was born with a 3-fold vision of grassroots revival; revival of the Apostolic Christian experiences among the Body of Christ, and revival of heaven consciousness among the believers. The mission was to bring 10 billion souls to Christ even when the population of the Earth is seven billion.

But Pastor Lazarus Muoka, the man behind the mission, who in the physical is of an average height and of a cool and gentle mien, maintained an uncompromising stand on his vision, mission and approaches to accomplishing the purpose of the ministry.

Nine years down the line, not even a doubting Thomas would make any mistake about the clarity of the vision and the mission and the many infallible proofs God has given to this end-time mission. Given the very tall mandate, however, all that God has done through it, like Pastor Muoka himself points out, amounts to a mere scratching of the surface.

*Pastor LAZARUS MUOKA

According to him, with a 10 billion-soul mandate at a time when the world population is put at only seve
n billion, it could only be that God is just starting with the ministry. Said he in an interview with SAM EYOBOKA: “We have a mission to the whole world, including the unborn generations.

This is because even if the whole world were converted today, we would still be far away from our destination. As such, ours is a ministry that continues till Jesus comes.” Excerpts….

You are several things to several Nigerians. Who exactly are you?

I am Pastor Lazarus Peter Madukaejikwu Muoka, a human being. I am only dwelling in the grace of God. I am not standing by my power. In fact, of my own self, I can do nothing. By the grace of God, I am what I am. And I give all the glory to God. I have noth-ing to show for what is happening. What is happening is com-pletely God’s doing. I have only obtained the grace of Apostleship from Him like Peter of old. So, to God be all the glory!

What do you think is the contribution of ministers of God to the development of this nation?

Well, one unfortunate fact, which we must admit, is that the Church, no matter her contribut-ions to nation building, is not recognized in Nigeria.

All the same, it has contributed a lot to the nat-ion over these years. In fact, the Church has been the life of this nation in the sense that it has through prayers and preaching of the gospel, reduced armed robbery, prostitution and all other forms of wickedness; and in times of crises, through pray-ers, it has done excellently well.

That, however, is not to say that there are no more challenges; but I am saying that the Church should be appreciated for its contribution. I am happy though that the whole world knows that Nigerians are worshipping God.

What specific assignment did God give you for the ministry?

The Lord gave me a three-fold mission and a 10-billion-soul mandate. They are as follows: grassroots revival all over the world. By grassroots I mean getting to every nook and cranny of the world. The second vision is the revival of the apostolic Christian exper-ience of genuine salvation within the Body of Christ.

To be specific, this ministry was established on December 24, 2002 and at that time, it was like many people had lost their focus on evangelism and total commitment to God and righteousness. This specifically means the restoration of such experiences of genuine salvation, sanctification, baptism of the Holy Spirit, all the fruits of the Holy Spirit and accompanying gifts of the Spirit.

In keeping with those two aspects of the mission, we started off with a new appro-ach to evangelism, which ma-ny people could not under-stand at all. We started with moving to all roads and market places—and every-where we could find people became our mission field.

This approach looked very strange to people. At times you would see our brethren rolling on the ground just to attract attention. Again, we introduced the wearing of aprons to preach as well as to announce and advertise our programmes. We also took to bus evangelism as a means to deliver on our mandate.

This is why we invested a lot in buying buses so that our bre-thren can move to everywhere. We also realized that the lang-uage of communicating right-eousness and holiness in the church had gone so weak such that sin was being taken for granted because it was being communicated in the generic sense.

As such, we moved away from talking about sin generically to hitting the nail squarely on the head by talk-ing about sins in specific terms—fornication, adultery, prostitution, stealing, armed robbery, corruption, bribery, etc.

We take the pain to give explicit explanations of what sin is all about. We make peo-ple to understand that all un-righteousness is sin; that a Christian is not a sinner and a sinner is not a Christian. The liber-ating effect of this approach has been more effective and more impactful.

The third prong of our mission is the vision of revival of heaven consciousness among the Body of Christ. So many people have lost the consciousness of Christ and many go to church just to get the things of this world. But the Bible says if it is only in this world we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

That explains the emphasis we place on heaven at last. Our mandate is to bring 10 billion souls into the kingdom. This aspect of the commission is rather difficult to explain because the popul-ation of the world, as at today, is not up to 10 billion; but what this means is that God has given us a timeless and end-less mandate, that will outlive us.

Let’s look at the journey so far. What would you say are the main challenges you have faced in ministry?

At a point in time, when some of my pastors left the church, it was like a war. They brought allegations, which were not true. They knew that their claims were not true; but they refused to admit their fault. That was one of our most difficult times because the general public was drawing conclusions; but we thank God; the accusers came to this office and apologised, and I forgave them.

Apart from evangelization, are there other avenues through which the ministry is impacting the nation?

We have our welfare team that visits the prisons, hospi-tals, motherless babies’ homes with whatever God has provided for us. We also have established schools. I want to say with every sense of humility and responsi-bility that this ministry has done a lot for this nation even though it appears to be hidden. This is because the number of evil doers that have renounced their evil ways is so much and the society is the better for it.

What is your prediction for Nigeria and Nigerians as a people in 2012 ?

The year 2012 will be a perilous year. The Bible says; “in the last days perilous times shall come”. Many people that are professing to be Christians will even fall out of the faith. Economic problems will arise. There will be more crises all over the world.

God allows these things so that the world may return to their Creator and be saved.  But in the midst of these calamities and sorrow the Church will be kept. The world is heading for total collapse. But this year, for the Chosen ones, is the year of dominion and prosperity.