From time immemorial, open air crusades had always been a powerful and resourceful strategy adopted by Christians in winning souls to God’s kingdom. However, observation has revealed that two important necessities are usually omitted during the implementation of these crusades; one is the provision of physical meals along-side spiritual meals and the other is post-crusade mentoring, guidance and discipling for new converts.

In the book of Luke, chapter 9, when Jesus, the founder of our faith organized the first ever open air crusade/teaching, He taught it wise to make provision for physical meal for the consumption pleasure of His listeners because He understood that man is as much a physical being as he is a spiritual being. And we can see that God the Father also demonstrated His support for this thoughtful action by responding immediately to Jesus’ request for supernatural multiplication of the inadequate food supply. If Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith did this, why are we not doing same?

In a similar development, it has been observed that after a very successful crusade where many souls have been won for Christ, no far-reaching post-crusade tutoring and/or mentoring were put in place to ensure that the new born babies were given proper nurturing so that they can survive the turbulent times that normally follow new conversion. The best that most evangelists do is to advise them in this mechanical manner ‘Find a living church around you and always attend their services. God bless you.’ And then the crusaders move on in search of new grounds to conquer – they are always in a hurry to move on!

Now while this is a laudable effort, the downside to it is that these new born babies in Christ might indeed go on to attend a living church, but, they usually end up being fed with meat meant for adults rather than the milk that they need as babies. Apostle Paul said “When I was a child, I understood as a child, but when I became an adult, I put away childish things”. This goes to show us that for every Christian, there is a process of growth from childhood to adulthood. If there is disconnect between these two however, it could swell serious problems.

In addition, the commandment that we received of our Lord was to make ‘disciples’ of all nations and not just ‘believers’ of them. The primary difference between an ordinary believer and a disciple is that while believers merely believe in Jesus as their saviour and the saviour of the world, disciples go as far as accepting Him not only as a saviour, but also as their Lord and master who decides for them what is to be and not to be done. Now this does not come merely by accepting and confessing Christ following an alter call during a crusade, it requires training, tutoring, and discipling. People have to be schooled into becoming disciples.

It is therefore as a result of this understanding that The Global Harvest Mandate would design her open air crusades to accommodate these two important factors. Free meals would be made available to crusade participants and after-crusade classes spanning over weeks will be organized to strengthen and cater for the spiritual and/or physical needs (as the case may be) of new converts who would definitely require clarification on certain knotty issues/subjects and would most likely have a barrage of questions to ask.  The members of our team saddled with this responsibility will not move away from any community under their watch until they are satisfied that proper foundation has been laid.