Lessons from Rev. Oliver DesBordes Acquah on OUTLOOK

The outlook of a Church was so important to him that he spent a whole chunk of space in his strategic manual writing on OUTLOOK.

An interesting incident happened on a certain Friday somewhere in 2011, two years after the FGAI had been inaugurated.

A group of people was bused to an all-night service and after the service, early Saturday morning he asked me, Sylva, do you think these are our target audience? For a moment, I was confused, because the Vision of the Church is "That all may come to live the only true life - Jesus Christ"

"So if people have come, why ask me such a question?" - I said to myself.

Then he took time to school me, It has to do with the kind of Vision you have and how you want to be seen. If you are like this today, and tomorrow you are like that, people won't know what you stand for.

A portion of Rev Acquah's notes. Note the neatness of the handwriting

Even though Church is for everyone, God has sent different people to different audiences for different purposes. You can't attract and keep everybody. And if you don't define who you are, people can't associate with you.

A Church must have a USP, he said, and he explained what USP was.
Unique Selling Proposition. (Another talk for another day) 

On that note, we ended the discussion and he ruled that the group that were bused to the meeting were souls, we would welcome them and keep them, however, we were not going to pursue more of their kind from where they came from because the person who brought them did not comprehend what it means for a church to have an outlook.

For Rev Acquah, Church was serious business, God's business and all knowledge and skill of a Marketer should be employed. For him, a church or ministry that does not define its outlook will stand for nothing but definitely stand for something unconsciously. That something, because there is no effort to stay within a certain boundary will be like the wind.

As his departure is remembered, this is one of the major lessons he left with his students of which I am proudly one.

It is said that legends don't die, they live on in VISION they wrote plainly down, and in the hearts of their students! As their students read and run with it, so do their footprints continue to last!

Rest well Papa.