On Saturday 25 January 2025, lead Apostle Nwanza with his host Apostle Odili had a meeting with all the New Apostolic Church South Area District ministers.

To strengthen the district ministers, the Lead Apostle used a text word from 2 Timothy 4:2-4 "Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, encourage-with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear."

In his message to the District Ministers, the Lead Apostle said: “Jesus Christ entrusted the Apostles with the mission to teach the gospel in the proper manner (Mt 28:20). He told the District ministers that, the task of all the ministers in the New Apostolic Church is to preach the gospel as taught by the apostolate.

He said: Our preaching is based on the gospel taught by the apostolate and the fundamental points of the Apostle’s teaching are:

• The Old Testament must be understood from Jesus Christ’s point of view – we rely on Old Testament statements only insofar as they are consistent with the gospel;
• Jesus Christ performed miracles to prove that He was truly sent by God to proclaim His will – not to heal all the sick;
• He came to earth to bring believers eternal life, not to save them from poverty;
• To be saved, it is not enough to follow a certain number of rules – you have to conform to Christ’s example;
• The kingdom of Jesus is not of this world. The gospel’s aim is not to change society to eradicate evil, but to change people so that they can enter the kingdom of God where evil does not exist.

To conclude, the Lead Apostle added a special thought from the district Apostle who would also like to point out that we must be aware that, a divine service is a sacred event, our language and our entire appearance must reflect that.

He went on to say that, the District Apostle would like a sermon to be aimed at the head and hit the heart.

This means that it must be understandable, structured and coherent in terms of content, but it must also appeal to the inner being, the soul. This also means that the sermon should be kept short, especially the supplementary contributions by assisting ministers.