Most people find it really difficult to achieve their purpose because they never started from the heart. Jonah was called to go and minister in Nineveh but along the way he decided to make a different decision. So what is the 1st step towards igniting a life of purpose ? Pastor M of Mavuno shares.
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On his 45th birthday Pastor Muriithi Wanjau popularly known as Pastor M revealed a few things that people need to know about him as a christian. From marriage, to his journey of salvation, to his mentors, Pastor M looked back at his life and thanked GOD for walking with him through it.
This is what he said :
On my 45th birthday, I realize that this is as mid life as it ever gets! As I look back over my life, I am grateful to God for the life that I’ve lived and for the many good decisions He has led me to make. I’m also sobered to realize that the four most important ones were made in my teens and early twenties; important because they set the direction for the rest of my life. These were :
THANK YOU JESUS – for the gift of life, love, and purpose. You gave it to me all those years ago and I give it completely and totally back to you. It’s all about you. ‘For me to live is Christ and to die is gain’. Let’s do this
Senior Pastor at Mavuno Pastor M is a great man of GOD who has been saved by Christ and is living under the abundance of the grace of GOD. With that said, 45 years ago this man called Pastor Muriithi Wanjau was born and today he took stock of his journey as a christian and when he married his amazing wife Carol Wanjau.
Pastor M thanked GOD for the people whom he met on his journey to 45 and celebrated others who helped him to be the man he is today.
He said :
Any high school or college students reading this? The decisions you are making now will probably set the direction of your life forever, so make them wisely. No pressure smile emoticon.
Apart from my parents who taught me godly values and Pst Oscar who taught me leadership, I’ve had a couple of extremely important life-altering conversations. One was with my friend Tim Mutinda, who was the first person I heard speaking about purpose. Another was with a mentor Gerald Mahinda who shared some thoughts about life stages that have set the course for my life’s major transitions, including a really big one that begins this year!
By God’s grace, I have an amazing relationship with my sweetheart, and we are partners in every way imaginable. We have three amazing kids who every day cause me to marvel at God’s grace to us. We have awesome parents and siblings whom we love hanging out with.
I absolutely love what I do for a living and the people I do it with. And I am part of an amazing congregation of fearless influencers who are changing the world!
THANK YOU JESUS – for the gift of life, love, and purpose. You gave it to me all those years ago and I give it completely and totally back to you. It’s all about you. ‘For me to live is Christ and to die is gain’. Let’s do this
Some relationships or friendships are not planned but they just happen. The same applies for the case of Kanjii Mbugua who has led worship at Mavuno Church for years now senior pastor at the church Pastor M.
The two have led ministry in the church for years now and someone would ask how did these two meet ? Not worry Pastor M revealed how they met and how GOD has used them both to bring souls to his kingdom.
I met my friend Kanjii Mbugua in the mid 90s, when Carol and I were Masters students in the US. Several young people approached us to mentor them and so we began to meet them every weekend for bible study, something we did over several years. I mentored 4 guys and Carol would meet 4 ladies. The 4 guys I mentored had been friends since childhood and relocated at different times to study in the US. They were all musically talented and after a little while decided to form the singing group Milele.
The first time I heard them sing, let’s just say it wasn’t a very musical experience 🙂 They worked hard though and in a very short while, they began to sound amazing and get booked to sing at different events. It wasn’t too long before they were touring across the US and other nations and making quite an impact in the process!
Meanwhile, our little bible study grew and eventually, we merged with another group to launch a church called KICC, which continues to meet till this day. I and the pastor leading the other group were ordained to lead this community, with my primary focus on the youth, a group that soon grew to over 100 strong. The Milele boys formed the core of the church’s worship team along with some of the ladies Carol had mentored. Kanjii would often joke that when I went back to Kenya and started a church, he would become my worship pastor. At that time, it sounded rather farfetched!
So fast forward to 2005. Carol and I had resisted strong pressure to stay in the US and relocated back home to work with Nairobi Chapel (a story for another day) and we were now being sent out to start a new church. I prayed hard for a gifted worship pastor because I knew good music was important for the demographic I was called to reach. The person I was hoping would do it wasn’t looking at all interested and the clock was ticking!
So one day I’m coming from the barbershop and I have a strong urge to visit Kanjii’s studio (he had come back home and just began what would grow to become Kijiji Entertainment). I walk over and watch him record some music and then decide it’s time to leave. He escorts me to the door to say goodbye. At that point I distinctly hear God say, ‘Ask him’. Rather confused because this had not been my agenda, I ask Kanjii what he’d think about being worship pastor for the new church I was about to start.
I’ll never forget what happened next! He reached into his pocket, pulled out a piece of paper and said, ‘I thought you’d never ask!’ On that paper was a list of names of people he wanted to recruit for our band! By that evening, each of the guys had signed on and we had the first Mavuno worship team!
The rest as they say, is history. Kanjii played a huge role in defining who Mavuno became, as he led us in defining a new worship style for our generation that has impacted many churches in our city today. He and his team at Kijiji have had a huge impact on music and entertainment. I’m so excited this weekend that he gets to lead us in worship, with music from his first solo worship album, ‘Rauka’.
Surely, only God! Even way back when, our heavenly Papa was raising the leaders who would work alongside Him to turn ordinary people into #FearlessInfluencers of society, one person at a time!
We came across this article posted by Mavuno Church and we thought we should share with you.
Many a times we enter into these discussions of relationships without engaging both sides of the gender. Now Pastor M has indulged both parties and shares “What Women Wish Men Knew” on their Finders Keepers Series.
Lets begin as we did last week with a disclaimer:
Ladies need affection the way men need respect! A woman needs to regularly know that she is cherished and loved. Affection means that we need to know we’re the most important thing in our man’s lives. Treat us gently, show us care, pay full attention to us, look us in the eye when you’re talking to her.
We know you don’t get very deep in your relationships with your boys, but it can’t be the same way with us. Many times when you find a bitter woman, you will generally find that her significant other has starved her of affection. But the opposite is also true! Generally, ladies want you to treat them the same way after you’re married that you did when you were pursuing them! The bible affirms how important affection is for women: Ephesians 5:33 says, ‘each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband’.
What men hear: For most men, this sounds like a never-ending demand! You know men get into pursuit mode when they are looking for a mate. Once they find her, they move on to other important things like providing school fees and saving the world. If we were to focus on chasing you the way we did when we were in pursuit mode, nothing else would ever get done!
Men are extremely competitive, especially when it comes to work. It can also be a source of great insecurity for them. It’s easy for men to feel threatened by women’s success. She starts to do better than you or to earn more than you and all of a sudden, you’re very non-communicative or unhappy. You need not feel threatened by our positions or achievements; we prefer for you to celebrate them as though we are one! Even as we support you in your dreams, we want you to reciprocate.
What men hear: It can make men insecure, especially if women are not sensitive to the fact that we really do want to be providers to our family. Our egos are pretty sensitive on this one, and just telling us to get on with it doesn’t help. Men are in a very unfamiliar world that tells us to treat women like ladies and yet teaches the ladies to compete harshly with us!
As ladies, we want to feel you’re involving us in your decisions, and in your challenging times. Too many men go ahead and make huge decisions and then we have to live with the consequences together. Or they go through stress and their wives are the last to find out when the auctioneers show up at the door! We want to feel we’re your partners.
What men hear: You know as men we’re trying to protect you! It’s what we saw our fathers do! We die for the family! How can we practically involve you and still be your protectors!
Ladies want you to be involved with your children and with the home. In today’s world where both spouses are often in the office, we share the role of providing but you don’t always share the role of nurturing! We want you to be men who take up your responsibilities and honour your commitments.
What men hear: To be honest, many men hear you asking them to become domesticated. Men want to be wild at heart and the picture of a man in an apron is not very aspirational! We also want to provide employment to fellow Kenyans!
What are we saying here? Treat us gently. Guys can be very rough with each other and sometimes this translates to how they treat the ladies in their lives. It’s never cool to be rough with a woman. Also, don’t brush off our fears; we may not always be as brave as you but that’s why we need you to protect us! Even if we come across as independent and strong, we still want to be protected. The lady in us comes out when we’re treated like a lady. If men play their role, women will ease into being feminine and gentle!
What men hear: I think we resonate with this one. You’re saying, ‘look after the women in your life’.
We’ve learnt in this series that we are completely different as men and women. We don’t understand each other. We also don’t understand what love is. If you ask people today what love is, you’ll get definitions like…
love is holding her hand and feeling your heart skip a beat,
love is gazing tenderly into his eyes. Or as one person put it,
‘love is a feeling you feel when you feel that your are about to feel a feeling that you’ve never felt before’ .
But the bible’s definition is a little different… it’s described in 1 Corinthians 13:4 – 8. Here’s what it says…
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.
Have you noticed none of these things are ‘fun’ or ‘romantic’? Have you noticed nothing there about looking into her eyes? As someone once said, ‘Love is a dramatic action that goes against what I am naturally inclined to do and reaches out to the other even when I don’t feel like it.’ And the only way we can offer such unconditional love is because it’s the same type of love that God offers to us!
– Never give up on your marriage – because when you move to another person, you’ll find out that they were not the real problem! You need to determine even before you begin that divorce will never be an option. Incompatibility is no reason for divorce, every couple has areas of incompatibility (the primary one is that a MAN is getting married to a WOMAN!) and that’s why we need God in our marriage! None of us have what it takes to stay happily married.
As we said last week, the best marriages are not the ones where people have been able to change each other but the ones where people have learnt to accept each other. As someone once said, every good marriage is made up of two good givers and two good forgivers.
– I pray this begins to help you see how to be the kind of person that the person you hope to marry would hope to marry. And whether or not you do get married, I pray that you will learn to relate with honour to friends of the opposite gender, protecting and not taking advantage of one another’s areas of vulnerability.
(c) http://mavuno.wordpress.com/
“We will not play church as people are dying” Muriithi Wanjau – True Fearless Influencer! @muriithiw @mavunochurchorg @KTNKenya #checkpoint
DJ KROWBAR @djkrowbarPersonally I believe @mavunochurchorg had the best intentions with the ad. I just think human weakness got the best of us. cc @kanjiimbugua
Njeri @njeri_nelly@mavunochurchorg am a proud mavunite especially today. Let us continue to influence our society n transform people’s lives
Wandia Njoya @wmnjoy
Now Kenyan education needs a conversation like the one the church just had with @mavunochurchorg I’m now inspired to be a fearless academic
Ronald Okoth @RonaldOkoth_If ur looking4 a church with a youth 4 Christ agenda then go to @mavunochurchorg Pastor @muriithiw will lead u to Christ jus as he did to me
Violet Busaka @VioletBusaka@kanjiimbugua @mavunochurchorg @muriithiw go go Mavuno!! Preach Christ.God’s using you to transform lives through that series
Bree_Bree @breemokayaMavuno is a REAL church dealing with REAL issues. I am part of the #fearless #mavunochurch #checkpoint @mavunochurchorg Good work Pastor M
Victoria kenya @vickykenya“We will not play church as people are dying –@muriithiw @mavunochurchorg @KTNKenya # checkpoint #wearefearless
Roy Gitahi @GitahiRoy@mavunochurchorg As usual addressing issues that matter if parents were to honest Sex is a topic that they need addressed @muriithiw
@frankondere Thank you for the bold work you are doing at #TeenzKonnect @mavunochurchorg
Its been a while since we shared articles about our pastor’s and today we return back with another great motivational article
Meet Pastor M as he shares about Excellence and you can read below :
He was practically sprinting because of how late he was for the important meeting. He mind was on overdrive, striving to come up with an acceptable excuse. Finally, he opened the door to the boardroom. To his great relief, most of the other attenders had not yet arrived. Only the company secretary was there, and everyone knew she was always on time. After greeting her happily, he said, ‘Phew, I thought I was late!’
Okay, that’s a fictional story. But it’s one that is replayed many times every day in our city where we often run on AMT (African Mean Time)! The thinking is that if everyone else came later than me, then obviously I can’t be late. But this just a symptom of the fact that our standards of excellence are not based on an internal frame of reference but on what others around us are doing.
So guess what happens in Nairobi when you start an innovative business? Some sharp Kenyans will ‘copy paste’ it and soon everyone else will be doing it! This practice is not just the preserve of small ‘jua kali’ businesses. A few years ago, a local bank developed the innovative idea that they could lend to the ‘un-bankable’. After years of backbreaking labor, it finally began to pay off. So every other bank quickly rushed to copy what they were doing! ‘Copy and paste’ seems to be a national value. Have you ever noticed how identical most of our news programs are on TV, including the intro clock at a certain time? If you watch in black and white and ignore the company logo, it’s impossible to know what channel you’re watching!
Now I need to say at this point that there’s nothing wrong with doing market research or with adopting what is obviously working elsewhere! But we need to be careful that we’re not just following the herd, dependent on what others are doing. The inevitable result is inconsistency and mediocrity.
The good book has a great story about a civil servant named Daniel who regularly got promoted regardless of which government was in charge. After sixty years of public service, his envious opponents commissioned an audit of his work to try and get him fired. But it was futile! As the story goes, ‘Finally these men said, “We will never find any basis for charges against this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God.”’
Daniel’s excellence was not based on who was watching or on what the competition was doing. It came out of knowing who he was and what God expected of him. You see, excellence is not something you put on for show. It’s not something you do for money or promotion. If you develop a lifestyle of excellence, you don’t come to meetings late because you know no one else keeps time. You don’t change your game plan every time the competition changes theirs. And you don’t need someone to look over your shoulders to get your work done well!
Follow Pastor M on Twitter : @MuriithiW
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