Barna, a research group based in the United States conducted a comprehensive study to see if Christians knew what the Great Commission was.
A whopping fifty-one percent of those interviewed said they had never heard of the Great Commission, while 17 percent said they knew what it was.
Speaking during the 12th Annual Prayer Conference on 12 December, 2019 at Kampala Parents School, Dr. John W Mulinde, the Founder and Global Overseer of World Trumpet Mission opened up about the Great Commission and urged Christians and Church leaders to be active in engaging and transforming culture outside of church walls.
“I cannot say my work as a minister of the gospel is just preaching in the church, no. My responsibility is the great commission but, what is that? It is a sum of the prayer we pray, ‘let Your kingdom come, let Your will be done on earth, just as it is in heaven.’ So, I am concerned [about] what is happening to marriages, children, youth, economies and governments among other things,” Dr. John Mulinde said.
“Go and make disciples of all nations. The urgency today is not that this commission is new. No. It is 2000 years old. What is fresh is, the time for us to finnish the commission is due because the Lord is coming soon. He is telling us to really focus and concentrate on completing the work of the great commission,” he continued.
Running under the theme, ‘the gates of hell shall not prevail,’ the prayer conference was attended by over 10 prominent Christian leaders from 9-14th December, 2019, including Bp Dr John Lwere, Ap Dr John Bunjo, Pr Micheal Kyazze, Bp Dr Steven Senfuma, Ap Charles Tumwine, Pr Wilson Bugembe, Dr Pr David Kunobwa among others.
In order to begin to understand the great commission, Dr Mulinde urged that Christians need first of all understand the mission of God.
“[God] is the initiator of the great commission. He is the one who sent his son into the world. His son then said, ‘as my father sent me, so do I send you’. So, we need to step back and understand the heart of the father,” he said, quoting John 3:16-17.
The passage reads:
“For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
The preacher urged that it is upon every believer to unfold the fullness of the mission of Jesus in-order to embrace the great commission, know how to position self for it, and bear fruit in due season.
“As I have interacted with men and women of God, I have found that our understanding of what the great commission means is very varied and, in most cases very limited. Most people consider the great commission simply to represent evangelism. Others take it for evangelism and discipleship,” Dr. John Mulinde said.
“The great commission is basically the entire mission that brought Jesus into the World. And if all of us are followers of Jesus Christ, He tells us, ‘as my father sent me, so do I send you,” he explained.
“When we talk about discipling nations, we are not talking just about evangelism, we are talking about preparing our nation for the time our Lord Jesus Christ comes back. When Jesus comes back, he himself told us what will happen. From Matthew 25:31–46: “But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. Before him all the nations will be gathered, and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” said Dr. John Mulinde. “When we do the great commission, we are literally contending for our nation to be on the right side of God when He comes back. We may not bring all the people into the kingdom, but we can bring the kingdom of God into our nations.”
