Turn Your Hearts
God called Trudi and me to start a traveling ministry 18 years ago. The Lord directed us to preach specifically on what the Bible teaches about family: the importance of marriage and training our children. Our calling is to local churches, primarily in the USA. But 6 years ago we were invited to go to South Africa.
Through a series of events (which I won’t go into detail about here) we also booked another meeting in Zimbabwe. We set up our travel and a month or so before the trip, the meeting in South Africa cancelled. So in June we found ourselves in Harare, Zimbabwe ministering for 4 days with a pastor and church that I knew nothing about.
The church was a big church with over 2,000 people. The first meeting we did was to teach the pastor’s staff (over 200 people). This was my text: Malachi 4:5 (NKJV) Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. 6. And he will turn The hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”
The Elijah spoken of here is prophetic of John the Baptist. John came as a forerunner to prepare people for the coming of Messiah, Jesus. John’s message was this, get your heart ready. Jesus is coming. Fathers…men…(God designed men to lead in this preparation) get things in order. Turn your heart to love Jesus, your wife and children.
So much of the pain people experience in society points to wounds from the father. But if we will turn to Jesus it will trigger our children turning back to us so that God can heal our families. I told them that this was the message that preceded Jesus coming the first time. But He is coming back to the earth again. This message would also once again signal His return. The first coming was the “great” coming. Jesus came the first time as the lamb of God; as a servant, to bear the sin of all mankind. His second coming will be different. Notice the word “dreadful” is used. Jesus will return as the King of Kings, with a two-edged sword, to judge sin on the earth and make war to set things right!
I told the staff that day that this was the heart of what Jesus had called Trudi and me to do. We had come to Zimbabwe in the spirit of John the Baptist. Our message to them and to the body of Christ in general is get your house in order.
After I got done the pastor came up to close the meeting. He was very deliberate and calm as he began speaking, “While Pastor Ken was talking the Lord began to speak to me. I wrote it down on my phone and I’m just going to read it to you.” He said many things, but I’m just going to quote the end of what he gave us, “The Lord says that what Ken spoke is correct. Jesus is coming back and the message you talked about will be a message that will be seen and heard. The next 10 years will be the most significant time of your ministry.”
“I am calling you to be a general, a father in a new wave, a new move. I want you to be prophetic. That means, I want you to be a voice and not an echo. I want you to be apostolic, a builder, a builder of people, a builder of men, a builder of ministry. I want you to be pastoral and evangelistic as you teach the teachers. Teach the teachers! Lead my people into a living relationship with me.”
I believe with all my heart that the Lord led us halfway around the world to receive this prophetic word from a man of God that I had never met and who didn’t know much about us so that it would be cemented in my thinking moving forward. That was 6 years ago. I share this with you so that you can understand our calling.
Trudi and I continue to travel to churches, although the pandemic did slow us down this year. I am also an apostolic elder in our church here in Oklahoma City overseeing family ministry (Marriage and children’s ministry). Our pastor (my son, Joshua Blount) tells our church this all the time…”At New Song Church, we lead with kids.”
Even in the middle of this virus, our church has grown dramatically. And approximately 40% of our congregation is children under the age of 12 years. Many young families are coming to our church because they have heard about our excellent children’s program. One of the big parts of my job now is “teaching the teachers” how to effectively minister to children. We are also doing teacher training in a lot of the churches we are traveling to.
When you support us financially you are helping us fulfill this call. As I write this, the elections are tomorrow. We can’t know everything that we face in the future. But we do know that Jesus is coming back for a glorious church! God will see us through. Jesus is going to win in the end.
We just need to keep the main thing the main thing. By that I mean work on your marriage. Open your heart and ask God to help you. Teach your children God’s Word. If you need some tools you can find messages and music that will help equip you on our website, kenblountministries.com.
Pastors, we are starting to schedule speaking engagements for 2021. If you are interested in discussing doing a meeting specifically targeted for your church, we would love to discuss dates with you. Have a blessed thanksgiving season. We call you healthy and prosperous, in Jesus name.
Ken and Trudi