Watoto Church founders, Gary and Marilyn Skinner on Friday opened up about faith in uncertain times and their pursuit of excellence for God’s glory and purpose.
For almost 36 years, the couple has through Watoto Church shared the gospel of Jesus Christ and also cared for thousands of orphaned and vulnerable children. Furthermore, the two have committed to restoring dignity to women, left to bear the brunt of AIDS, war and social injustice.
Pastor Gary and Marilyn candidly responded to several questions raised during ‘Power, Sex, and Money’, this time around hosted by Pastor Edward Mwesigye.
Pastor Gary said that is it important for Christians to embrace the culture of excellence, for in so doing, one reaches his or her God given potential. He cautioned against the startling trend in our culture to accept and settle for mediocrity.
“My life, what I say, and how I live, should bring honor and glory to God. What brings a society down is an attitude of ‘anything will do’. What brings a society up is when everybody does whatever they do with a standard of excellence,” Pastor Gary started.
He then quoted Ecclesiastes 9:10 which says (in part), ‘Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.’
“Our relationships and conduct must exemplify God’s excellence. We are made in the image of God. We have creative ability. The things that we make or create must be done excellently,” he said. “Whether you are a policeman on the street and you are guiding traffic, or you are an electrician or teacher or doctor – whatever you do, do it to the best of your ability.”
Citing Genesis 1:31, Pastor Gary urged that during creation God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. He also led viewers to 1 Corinthians 10:31, which says, ‘So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.’
“The whole world is falling into a state of lethargy and half-heartedness, where one says ‘anything will do.’ The attitude of a believer needs to be, ‘let us do, over, above, and beyond.’ If we live that way, not only will we raise the standard of life in our community, but we will be successful. People will want us, because of the job that we do,” he explained.
Do not compromise on doing things with excellence, he said.
“Excellence opens up the door for you to be blessed, to succeed and prosper. In bussiness, if you do things halfheartedly, your customers are not coming back. And they are not going to tell their friends about your product,” he went on.
On the other hand, Marilyn Skinner used her address to point out among others how many today confuse excellence with perfection.
“You will never be satisfied if you are a perfectionist because nothing will be good enough,” she stated. “Excellence is simply ‘over, above and beyond’ what is required. If you go to your job, do over and above what is required . What I have learnt about excellence is that it is not in the big things. It starts with the little things. It starts in your heart and spirit.”
She quoted Daniel 6:3 which says, “Then this Daniel became distinguished above all the other high officials and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him. And the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom.”
Faith Over Fear: What does it really mean?
Soon after they had arrived in Uganda’s war-torn capital, Kampala in the early 1980’s, Marilyn Skinner was deeply troubled about her husband’s decision to leave Canada.
At that time, Uganda was experiencing a series of civil wars and coup d’états. Many lives were lost and properties destroyed. Marilyn nearly came face to face with 25 rebels who attacked their house, but was supernaturally preserved, as she revealed during the broadcast.
“God said to me, ‘I din’t bring you to Uganda to be paralyzed by fear. I brought you here for a purpose.’ I had to make a choice. You know, life is made up of choices,” she said.
“I had to choose, was my fear going to be stronger than my faith or was my faith going to be stronger than my fear. In my flesh, I wanted to choose fear, because that seemed like the logical thing to do. Logic told me, ‘you cannot stay in a place like this with three children. Get back to Canada where you are safe.’ But you know what, faith is sometimes illogical. And I had to make that choice. I had to choose faith over fear. I chose to believe that if Jesus could keep 25 (twenty five) men from (penetrating) a simple wooden door that I could break through, there is nothing in this world that He cannot do. There is no problem so big that He cannot solve, and there is no life so broken that he cannot put back together again,” she said.
“Uganda was in a ‘shake up’ phase when we first moved there. Jesus has done so many things since then, and the exciting thing is that, He is not finished yet. He has so much more that He wants to do,” she said.
“It is one thing to read the word of God, it is another thing to believe the word of God, and it is another thing to live on the word of God. And I believe that is what faith it. It is living and acting on what the word of God says and not on what we feel.”
Africa: A continent of excuses?
Marilyn Skinner observed that it is high time today’s generation, and those to come, stopped looking at Africa through the lens of hopelessness and despair.
A generation needs to rise up that will say no more excuses, she urged. Through God’s Holy Spirit, Marilyn explained, believers have more than they need.
“When we start to blame people, we always live like victims. When we start to make excuses, we never rise up and take responsibility for our own problems. We do not see our problems as an opportunity to solve them and grow, but rather as an opportunity to blame other people,” she said.
“My prayer is that God will raise up a generation of no excuses. Bad things happen, and wrong things were done in the past, but that was the past. We cannot go forward in a race (while) looking behind. We have to keep our eyes focused on what is ahead,” she added.
