We’re so pumped about our conversation with Apostle Kevin. Kevin is the Apostle and Senior Minister at Spoken Word Faith Ministries in Garland Texas and is also a content partner. Content partners help Voyage in so many ways from spreading the word about the work that we do, sponsoring our mission and collaborating with us on content like this. Check out our conversation with Apostle below.
Hi Apostle, thank you so much for sitting down with us again. For folks who might have missed our initial interview, can you start by briefly introducing yourself?
My name is Kevin Etta Jr. I am the Apostle and Senior Minister at Spoken Word Faith Ministries in Garland Texas. We are a trans-denominational Gospel organization, dedicated to the propagation and spread of the teachings of Jesus Christ; to preaching, teaching and counseling people, both inside and outside the organized Christian Church establishment, in the deeper truths of the Gospel, and help prepare for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. We do this through our local church outreach and community in the Garland area and through a variety of in-house programs and services, messaging portals and multimedia tools in the realm of social media and other content with the potential to reach and interact with wide swathes of people of diverse and mixed backgrounds, nationalities and ethnicities. Our church community in the Garland area is a welcome nexus and meeting place for all seekers of truth who are tired of playing religion and want a place where they can discover their true identity in Christ and grow their potentials and giftings to their fullest extent and possibilities.
Can you talk to us about how to maintain a balance between personal notoriety and notoriety for the sake of the Ministry’s goals and objectives?
The whole point of being in Ministry is to be seen and heard.
To announce and propagate the Gospel and the message of God’s Kingdom, and to press oneself with every opportunity and resource to devise ways and means of doing so and doing so effectively.
So, at the very base level Ministry is a task that requires a certain degree of audacity because you put yourself out there to be a herald and a messenger who purports to announce themselves as such and embark on the presentation of God’s truth.
However, as servants of God, we believe our calling is on the basis of His grace alone and not our own moral or other qualities and personal competencies for ministry. Like the first apostles of Christ, we see our failings and weaknesses as disqualifiers rather than qualifiers, and so we are humbled by the fact, despite our clear and present failings, flaws and inadequacies, we were still chosen by God to preach His Word and announce and propagate his truth, and this informs our attitude and disposition toward ministry –as it did for the first apostles. The Apostle Paul’s self-effacing attitude reflected in the description of himself and his ‘qualities’ for Ministry serves as a model for all Ministers everywhere:
“12. I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, 13. though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, 14. and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. 16. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. 17. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Timothy 1:12-17, English Standard Version).
It is very easy to become distracted by notoriety and attention, and the pursuit of same. Because we are, after all, undertaking a campaign that seeks to get and garner attention as far and as wide as we can muster by our preaching, teaching and miscellaneous engines and portals for accelerating and propagating our message. In our days, particularly, we see that Ministry has, in the main, and for a very large swathe and huge spread of it, become an engine for ministers to campaign vociferously for personal notoriety, attention and fame.
The fault is not with the mechanisms that are used to enhance and facilitate the spread of the Gospel message, such as Television in its various forms (i.e. traditional broadcast networks, social media networks and portals or the Internet), print and online media. Rather, the fault lies with the clear and obvious complexion, flavor and content of common-place, mainstream and popular Gospel messaging and media that, in our days, seeks clearly to promote the Minister rather than the LORD Jesus… seeks to prop up, glorify, benefit and enrich the messenger rather than the One who sent them with the message. This is a clear and unmistakable characteristic of present-day Gospel messaging that has colored and tinted people’s perception about Ministry and Ministers in general.
The quest for personal notoriety, attention, fame and pecuniary gain among practitioners of Christian Ministry has reached mind-boggling proportions today. Many of those who profess to be Ministers of Christ have a totally different view of Ministry than what the first apostles had envisaged, taught and practiced. Than what Jesus Christ envisaged. His own words were, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38, Word English Bible) and “A servant is not greater than his lord” (John 15:20, Word English Bible).
Alas! It is very clear that for many in Ministry today, the words of Jesus are not valid. They clearly see themselves as greater than their Lord, than their Master –because their programs and outreach –and the way they are packaged, presented and designed –are to enhance, project and swell their own personal profile, image and purse and not the LORD Jesus Christ. This is all to clear today. Albeit, they pretend to perform the ‘ministry’ for Christ’s sake and under the banner of His name. They clearly believe themselves to be greater than their Lord and that they are here upon this earth to do their own will versus the will of any other –because that is what they pursue under the pretext, guise and cover of Ministry. They are in a constant fever and fervor to pursue and extract every and any benefit that will swell their own public profile, image and purse versus swell and promote the image of Christ –whose servant they claim to be.
The challenge for Ministers of the Gospel is to task themselves on the basis of the question: whose will have you come to do?
Jesus said, “I have come … not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me”. So, whose will have we come to do? And how do our lives measure against Jesus’ and the first apostles? Do we truly believe that we are not greater than the LORD Jesus Christ? And if so, do our lives suggest that we hold this belief? Or do our lives and the way we conduct and perform Ministry, ostensibly on His behalf, reflect the sense that we believe ourselves and our own personal interests and advantage to be above Jesus’ wishes? Above His directives and his word?
For us and others that strive to adhere to and live by the charge of Jesus, we know that, like the Apostle Paul and the other apostles, we are grossly inadequate and morally unqualified to be charged with this assignment. And yet the LORD called and commissioned us to the task. And so, we operate constantly under the premise and the belief that notoriety and attention are not ours to pursue. Indeed, we have few to none as far as any qualities that would necessarily endear us to people in that way. And we are fine with that. Rather, our quest and charge is to pursue notoriety, attention and acclaim for Christ.
That is, after all, what the Gospel is about.
What do you see as the strategic goals of the Ministry?
Traditionally, Ministry has been about messaging. About conveying a certain strain of messaging that announces our emancipation proclamation from a decadent and deteriorating humanity and the creation of a speciation and race of beings in the image of Jesus Christ. This is and has been the basis of Christian Ministry since the LORD Jesus commissioned His disciples with the immortal words recorded in Mark 16:15…
“And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” (Mark 16:15, New King James Version).
It has been the charge and task of true disciples of Christ throughout the centuries to avail themselves of every opportunity and resource to propagate and publish the message of the Gospel as far and wide as foot, print, and in our days, media, will travel.
Unfortunately, and as is so often the case with the monotony and drone of task and purpose, a certain ‘mission creep’ has often and occasionally set in, where original objectives have become eclipsed and often overtaken by other lower-hanging ‘fruit’ and the constantly evolving objectives of such fruit.
And so, in our day, in many ways and many times when we cast our gaze out across the horizons of Christian Ministry, we might be forgiven for sometimes mistaking the flurry of Christian evangelical activity for some kind of carnival or circus whose objective is purely entertainment and profiteering. And, indeed, in many instances –even amid popular and widely accredited Christian ministry –this description and assessment would be very accurate.
So, it behooves us to reaffirm what the strategic goals of any and every ministry ought to be. Not ingratiating oneself and themselves to patronage by others. Not undertaking miscellaneous campaigns and employing various strategies to glorify and achieve notoriety for ourselves. Or for our achievements. Not seeking individual or corporate fame and wealth. These things are not and cannot be the strategic goals of Christian Ministry. But preaching the Gospel. Preaching the Word of God and propagating His Truth.
We are employed by the LORD –if indeed we are His ministers –to preach His word. To glorify Him. To achieve notoriety for Jesus and make Him ‘famous’, if you will –in every domain. In every realm. In every kingdom. In essence, to make the kingdoms of this world the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, in accordance with the aspiration of the Scriptures in Revelation 11:15.
This should be, and remains our ministry’s, strategic goal and objective.
What roles should religion and faith play in the development of social and cultural values in society?
The Scriptures say, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17, New King James Version).
And also, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3, New American Standard Bible).
Christianity offers the promise of new life in and through Jesus Christ, effectuated through His resurrection from the dead, having suffered for and paid the full price for our sins.
This is more than words alone. This is the GOOD NEWS that Jesus commissions upon his followers in His command to go and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20, New King James Version).
The Gospel is also God’s power to save all who will believe in Him through Jesus Christ (Romans 1:16).
This revolutionary ideal and agenda from the mind and desk of the CEO of Heaven and earth collapses all boundaries and dissolves all borders and delimiters of race, color and gender, as indicated in the words of Apostle Paul in Galatians 3:28, which state:
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28, English Standard Version).
Therefore, in its purest and unfermented form, Christianity answers and resolves all the questions of inequality, division and identity that are at the root of all conflict and distrust between human beings.
Indeed, it is God’s plan that, ultimately, all things should be collapsed, coalesced and melded into one unitary Commonwealth under the authority of Jesus Christ and having the texture of His grace, mercy and truth blended into their moral and spiritual fabric.
“making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” (Ephesians 1:9 – 10, English Standard Version).
The really cool thing about this ‘plan’ that God has is that it not only unites and harmonizes all races into the one race in Christ, it also harmonizes humanity with the celestial orders in the Heavens above, so that mankind, in and through Christ, attains, a position and a stature comparable to that of Angels. That superhuman race of divine beings that serve as God’s celestial messengers, valets and soldiers. Clearly, man has received a massive upgrade through Christ. A considerable upgrade in hardware and firmware.
This is an indication of just how powerful and transformational can be the effect of faith upon societal development and evolution. Because Christ provides a portal and a doorway through which natural, ordinary, man can aspire to be and enjoy everything that belongs properly in the domain of God, a realm that angels traverse freely and easily.
That is the promise of faith in its purest form. In the form that it ought to be preached and taught: it has the potential to eradicate social inequality and provide social mobility up to the highest mounts of human endeavor, experience, aspiration and potential that God has purposed for mankind, for His own glory and praise.
It was so great to reconnect. One last question – how can our readers connect with you, learn more or support you?
https://www.thevisionandprophecy.org/
https://www.facebook.com/ke.praise
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa0SCkp5AsEhrgFCuxk7B4Q?sub_confirmation=1
SPOKEN WORD FAITH MINISTRIES
2214 S JUPITER ROAD SUITE 250
GARLAND TX 75041
469-551-3698
info@thevisionandprophecy.org
Contact Info:
- Website: https://thevisionandprophecy.org/
- Facebook: https://fb.me/ke.praise
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa0SCkp5AsEhrgFCuxk7B4Q?sub_confirmation=1
- Other: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8O78M
