GEORGE KOURI’S PERSONAL TESTIMONY
The Lord’s Apostolic and Prophetic Call upon my life and His Preparation to Fulfill His Calling
1. The Lord’s Call to be a Prophet to the Nations and an Apostle
I have been in the ministry for over 63 years, and I have been actively involved in apostolic restoration and reformation for more than 46 years. However, I was only a youth of seventeen years old when the Lord called me to be a prophet to the nations and an apostle of Jesus Christ. This was in 1954, my senior year in high school. The Lord spoke to me through Jeremiah 1: 4-10 and John 21: 15-18. Because the denomination of which I was part, like many denominations at that time, taught that apostles and prophets had ceased and that speaking in tongues and miracles had ceased, I did not understand what the Lord was saying to me. I thought He was simply calling me to preach and to serve as a pastor in a local church. Also, when I shared with my mother that I felt in my heart that God was calling me to preach she responded, “Son, I knew that. The Lord told me before you were born that you would preach His Word.” It was not until a good many years later, after I had received the gift of the Holy Spirit and after I had been forced to leave the Southern Baptist denomination, that I finally understood that the Lord’s call upon my life was to be a prophet to the nations and an apostle, called by the grace of God to restore the foundations that Jesus Christ and His original apostles had laid in the beginning of the Christian era and reform His Church on the basis of that foundation.
I graduated from High School in the Spring of 1954 and enrolled in Oklahoma Baptist University in the Fall of that year. Shortly after enrolling in OBU, I was also called to pastor the Washington Street Baptist Church in Hobart, Oklahoma. On June 19,1956 of my Sophomore year at OBU, Sandra Jane Beall and I were married. We have been married for 64 years and have 5 married children, 21 grandchildren, and 5 great grandchildren. God’s Word says, “If a man finds a wife, he finds a good thing.” Aside from God’s salvation and the Lord’s call on my life, Sandra is the best thing that has ever happened to me.
2. My Years of Formal Theological Training and Pastoral Ministry
For the next eighteen years I gave myself wholeheartedly to prepare myself to preach the Word of God and to shepherd God’s people. Thus at my pastor’s direction (Tom Wiles – Pastor of the First Baptist Church in Lawton, Oklahoma) I attended Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, Oklahoma where I received a Bachelor of Arts Degree with a major in History and a minor in Philosophy.
During my four years at OBU, in addition to studying history and philosophy, I also studied New Testament Greek, Old and New Testament Survey, and Church History, and I received my Bachelor of Arts Degree.
After graduating from Oklahoma Baptist University, I went to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas, where I continued my studies of New Testament Greek, as well as, Old Testament Hebrew. I also studied Old and New Testament History and Survey Courses, numerous courses in both the Old and New Testament, Church history, Preaching, Evangelism, Missions, Pastoral Ministry, Church Administration, and all the courses required by Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary to receive a Masters of Divinity Degree.
Years later, Antioch University, originally founded by Apostle John Kelly and the Antioch Apostolic Network, awarded me a special Doctor of Theology and Ministry Degree for my work in writing “The Sign of the Kingdom” and for my many, many years of apostolic ministry and labor in seeking to rediscover and restore the apostolic foundations of authentic Christianity that were laid in the very beginning of the Christian era by the Lord Jesus (the Apostle and High Priest of the New Covenant Administration of the Kingdom of heaven) and His original apostles, and also for my many years of apostolic and prophetic labor in seeking to reform (i.e. reorganize and restructure) and thus to unite the present denominationally divided Church. Of course, I am talking about the restoration of the foundational doctrines, practices, strategies, architectural patterns and structures, governmental order, and our Lord’s Kingdom mandate to disciple the nations established by Jesus Himself and entrusted to His original apostles, and an authentic reformation of the today’s modern Church, or Church as we know it today,
Several years after this, Dr. James Bradshaw and the Apostles Theological Seminary (www.atsvirtual.publishpath.com). awarded me a Doctorate in Apostolic and Prophetic Studies for my work in founding ATS and developing the core courses in apostolic and prophetic studies for our degree programs.
However, it is important to keep in mind that throughout my years of formal theological and ministry training I was also actively involved in pastoral ministry. During my 4 years of university training at OBU, I was served as the Pastor of the Washington Street Baptist Church in Hobart, Oklahoma and practically engaged in caring-for and seeking to grow the flock that the Lord had entrusted to me. And during my 3 years of formal seminary training at SBTS, I served as Pastor of the First Baptist Church in Briggs, Texas, a small town in Central Texas near Austin. Thus, throughout my 7 years of formal university and seminary training I was not only deeply involved in my biblical and theological studies, but also serving the Lord Jesus and His people as a pastor of local churches.
(I searched for photos from my years serving in these churches to share with you, but none were available. This was before “smart phones,” so there weren’t as many photos taken or saved in the “cloud.”)
Also, bear in mind that while I was in seminary, I was exposed to several kinds of Biblical criticism (historical, textual, and form criticism). I was also exposed to a number of different and contradictory theological systems or camps, These included Neo-Orthodox Theology espoused by Karl Barth and Emil Brunner, the Existential Theology of Paul Tillich, and the demythologizing theories set forth by Rudolph Bultmann (i.e. the bible is really a book of folk tales or myths, and in order to understand it properly, we must “demythologize” or strip away these folk stories or myths and discover the “kernel” of truth).
During this period, I was also exposed to Albert Switzer’s controversial, "Quest for the Historical Jesus” and the very “hot” issue of that day, as to whether or not Jesus was merely a “good man” or great “ethical teacher,” as liberal theologians theorized, or really an “eschatological prophet” who prophesied the end of the world in the disciples’ particular generation, as Dr. Switzer supposed.
(Of course, not accurately understanding the eschatology of Jesus concerning the end of the age of Moses and the Old Covenant administration of the Kingdom of heaven that actually took place in the disciple’s lifetime with the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 AD, Albert Switzer and others thought Jesus was wrong in what He had prophesied.)
As you can imagine, this was a very difficult time for a young pastor responsible for the care of souls, who was trying to understand the true apostolic faith once for all delivered to the saints, and who was being bombarded with the unbelief and skepticism of liberal theologians and with various and contradictory denominational traditions and belief systems.
The only thing that kept me grounded in my personal faith in the Lord and Biblically and theologically sane was the “high view” of Holy Scripture and the Biblical conservatism of my Southern Baptist professors at Southwestern (Curtis Vaughn, Cal Guy, C.E. Autry (who was the head of the Department of Evangelism for the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention) and other Southern Baptist seminary professors like renowned Greek scholar A.T. Robertson and New Testament scholar Frank Stagg).
I was also strengthened and encouraged in the faith of Jesus witnessed to in the New Testament by the writings of a number of conservative British scholars like William Barclay, F.F. Bruce, C.H. Dodd, and A. M. Hunter, as well as, several conservative German scholars like Oscar Cullman.
Thus, in spite of the historical, doctrinal, and theological skepticism, controversy, and confusion to which I was exposed during this period, I came out my seminary training with a very “high view” of Scripture and with absolute confidence in the trustworthiness and authority of both the Old and New Testament Canons of Scripture for which I am very grateful to God and to my professors at Southwestern.
3. Full-Time Evangelism
After graduating from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, for the next two years I served as the pastor of Pollard Avenue Baptist Church in my home town of Lawton, Oklahoma, until the Lord led me into full-time evangelism. At the time I attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, it was well-known among Southern Baptists for its evangelistic fervor, and for its emphasis on church planting and world missions. Thus for a period of four years, I traveled in full-time evangelism leading revival meetings and evangelistic crusades in Southern Baptist churches throughout Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri.
Note: my hero or role model during these years was Evangelist Billy Graham.
It was during this 4-year period of traveling in full-time evangelism throughout several different States that I discovered from personal experience how spiritually dry and barren Southern Baptist Churches really were at that time.
During the period of which I am speaking, Southern Baptists as a denominational group were “cessationists.” This is the widely held, but erroneous belief or theological doctrine, that “after the New Testament Canon was formed, then the super-natural gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased.” What this doctrine means practically is that apostles, prophets, speaking in tongues, prophesy, gifts of healing, and the working of miracles have all ceased.
As a result of this false teaching, during the particular period of which I am speaking, Southern Baptists, as a denomination, resisted or opposed the move of the Holy Spirit that was taking place in many parts of the world and that was being called “the Charismatic movement or renewal” because of its New Testament emphasis on the importance and necessity of receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit and activating spiritual gifts or the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which included speaking in tongues and the working of miracles. (However, I have been told by some that in more recent years there have a number of spiritual breakthroughs in the area of Holy Spirit renewal and that Southern Baptists as a denomination are in the process of changing.)
4. The Charismatic Renewal, the Gift of The Holy Spirit, Speaking In Tongues, and Miracles
While I was at the seminary (1958-1961), the Charismatic movement had begun. In response to Pope John the twenty-third’s declaration, “Let us open the windows of the Church and let a fresh wind of the Spirit blow…” as he opened Vatican Council II, and also to his opening prayer, “O Holy Spirit… pour forth the fullness of your gifts… Renew your wonders in this our day as by a new Pentecost…” the Lord Jesus had begun to pour out a fresh wind of the Spirit on the whole Church, even across denominational lines.
As a result Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and others, even including Southern Baptists were receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit and being filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues and prophesying. The Lord Jesus was apparently pouring out His Spirit afresh in order to raise the water-level of the river of God and lift the modern Church above the many, many denominational walls that have divided it, so that together, we might rediscover the original Kingdom foundations that Jesus Himself and His original apostles laid in the beginning and upon the basis of that authentic apostolic foundation we might be re-formed by the Lord into One-Holy-Apostolic-Church throughout the earth and be empowered to fulfill His apostolic mandate to disciple all nations and fill the whole earth with the glory of God.
Throughout my formal years of training at OBU and SWBTS, I had been on a personal journey, an earnest spiritual quest, to rediscover authentic Christianity—the Christianity of Jesus and the original apostles. I had been on a quest to fully understand the Gospel of the Kingdom preached by Jesus and the original apostles and also to accurately understand the revelation of the mysteries of Christ, His Messianic Kingdom, and His Holy Apostolic Church that Jesus had entrusted to his original apostles in the beginning and that has been preserved for us by the Holy Spirit and the providence of God in the Canon of the New Testament. I was in fact on a spiritual journey to rediscover the apostolic foundations of New Testament Christianity.
And what I had discovered after more than 7 years of university and seminary training was that, while the Canon of the New Testament has preserved these authentic apostolic origins for us and is truly a trustworthy and reliable historical witness of the life and ministry of Jesus and of the ministry of His original apostles in the beginning, most of the theological world, as well as, the modern Church is somewhat confused as to what authentic apostolic Christianity actually is, and as a result, is divided into diverse theological opinions and doctrinal camps.
Now, to make matters worse, my four years of ministry traveling in full-time evangelism had shown me just how spiritually dry Southern Baptists were as a denomination (at least at that particular period of time) and worse and much more personal, how spiritually dry I was without the Holy Spirit’s infilling presence, and without the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit to speak in tongues, prophesy, or to work miracles.
It was during this time that Carl Bates, who was the Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Charlotte, N.C. and who was serving as the President of the Southern Baptist Convention, declared in General Convention, “Southern Baptists have so much momentum that the Holy Spirit could withdraw His presence from us, and it would be many years before we realized He was gone.”
Of course, this declaration greatly disturbed me!
Thus, it was in 1969, because Sandra and I were so spiritually dry and thirsty for the presence and the power of God that we began to attend a some of the Charismatic home-prayer-meetings in our hometown. And it was in one of these home-prayer-meetings, after hearing the ministry of the Word about the promise of the Father, I opened my heart in faith and received the gift of the Holy Spirit. The man leading the meeting who laid his hands on me to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit was the Post-Master for Wichita Falls, Texas, a precious brother in the Lord who was working closely with Apostle Bob Terrill in those early days of the present apostolic reformation.
Later that same evening, I also spoke in tongues and prophesied!
5. Leaving the Southern Baptist Denomination and Baptist traditions
By this time I had stopped traveling in evangelism and my wife and I had started a ministry in Lawton that we called the “Fish Market.” We were reaching out to the young soldiers who were based at Ft. Sill’s Artillery Center and the college students at Cameron College in our home town.
This was during the beginning days of the so-called “hippy movement” and also the “Jesus movement.” Sandra and I were ministering to many young people that frankly most of the churches in the city did not want in their services. And in order to relate to those we were seeking to reach, I wore my hair long (I still had hair at that time) and wore a full beard. We also met for worship and the preaching of the Word on Sunday mornings Lawton’s Diana Theatre in downtown. During the week we met in our own home for Bible study and discipleship training. We also hosted “rock” music concerts in our City’s Civic Auditorium to help us gather the GI’s and College students, so that I could then preach Christ to them, and as a result of these outreach strategies we won many young adults to Christ.
A year or so later the First Southern Baptist Church in Costa Mesa, California heard about what we were doing and invited me to become their pastor. As I said this was in the beginnings of the "Jesus Movement" which started in Costa Mesa, California with Pastor Chuck Smith, Calvary Chapel, and the Maranatha music groups. Sandra and I flew out to California, and we met with the pulpit committee for a week of interviews and dialog before finally accepting their call. And for the record, I was up-front or straightforward with them, telling them from the start that I was not interested in building a Southern Baptist church, but was very interested in building Christ’s Church. I also shared with them that I had been filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke with tongues. In spite of these revelations, they asked me to preach for the congregation on a Sunday so the congregation could vote on whether or not to call me as their pastor. Because I had not cut my hair or shaved my beard, when I walked onto the platform on Sunday morning to preach there was a very loud gasp, as the congregation saw me for the first time and almost fell out of the pews. However, they must have liked my preaching, because they called me to be their pastor.
For more than two years we experienced a wonderful move of the Spirit of God. Many were converted, baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit, and added to the church. We also saw numerous miracles of healing and deliverance from demonic oppression in that Southern Baptist Church. On Thursday mornings, I attended a weekly miracle service at Melody-land Christian Center in Anaheim, and afterwards, I carried the anointing released in that miracle service back to the First Southern Baptist Church in Costa Mesa and released it on the Lord’s Day. Finally, the Holy Spirit was moving so powerfully, and we were reaching so many new people that the Deacon body, which was made up of hard-core Baptists originally from Oklahoma and Texas, decided “If we don’t get rid of this guy, we won’t be a Baptist Church much longer.” So they called for a congregational meeting and tried to fire me.
The first time they tried to fire me, they failed. However, being relatively young in the Lord and inexperienced in this type of spiritual-warfare, I made the mistake of not removing the old Deacon body. As a result, after several months of secretly campaigning against me and recruiting a number of long-time members, who had not attended in years but who had not been removed from the membership rolls, they brought the matter up for a vote a second time. This time I lost by one vote. To say the least, I was devastated. I had been trained to pastor Baptist churches, now that I had been fired over the issue of the gift of the Holy Spirit’s infilling, speaking in tongues, healing, and the working of miracles, I felt that I probably would never preach or pastor again.
One of the false accusations or charges they brought against me was that I was “sectarian,” because I was having fellowship with Charismatic Christians from different denominations by attending the miracle service at Melody-land on Thursday mornings. This deeply wounded me. However, in response to the Devil’s accusation, the Lord said to me one evening, “You are not sectarian, they are; but I am getting ready to show you my Church.” It is very interesting to note that according to the Lord Jesus, it was necessary for me to leave or come out of my denomination in order to be able to see the Lord’s Church.
Please understand that I have taken time to share these particular things with you, because this separation was a major change or shift in my life and ministry. The Lord Himself was in the process of preparing me to fulfill His apostolic and prophetic call upon my life. And He used this time at First Southern Baptist Church in Costa Mesa and the events that transpired to adjust my life and ministry direction, bring me out of the Southern Baptist denomination with its limiting religious traditions, deliver me from the bondage of denominational-ism, and bring me into the freedom of the Holy Spirit and the present apostolic and prophetic move of God, so that I would accurately understand and eventually be able to fulfill His call upon my life as a prophet to the nations and as an apostle—called of the Lord to help restore the authentic foundations of the Kingdom established by our Lord and His original apostles and reform His Church.
6. The Lord Renews and Confirms my Call as a Prophet to the Nations and His Apostle
Shortly after accepting the call to pastor the First Southern Baptist Church in Costa Mesa, I had a very unusual and powerful “upper room experience” that I must share with you because I know it relates directly to the Lord’s call and His mandate on my life, my ministry, and also to all that He has been doing through the years to prepare me to ultimately fulfill my calling. Several of the young men who we had been led to Christ and discipled through our ministry in Lawton had followed Sandra and me to Costa Mesa to work with us in the Baptist Church in Costa Mesa. And it was our pattern to pray together each week-day morning in one of the Sunday School rooms on the second floor of the educational building. This particular morning, as we began our time of prayer together, I began by asking, “Lord, how do you want us to pray?” Instantly, the word of the Lord burst forth through my mouth prophetically, “Pray for the healing of My body!”
Immediately, we were all picked up by the sudden wind of the Spirit and violently (it seemed to me) thrown to the floor, although without injury. As soon as I hit the floor, I also went into travail in the Spirit. I had never experienced anything like this before, and I remember thinking, “…this must be what Sandra felt when she was giving birth to our children.” I really don’t know how long we were in travail, but after the travail lifted the Lord spoke to me and said, “I have healed you, and I am going to use you to heal my body”.
Now just two years later—because of the powerful ministry of the Holy Spirit and the miracles the Lord had been performing in our midst—I had been fired by the First Southern Baptist Church of Costa Mesa and had received the left foot of fellowship from my denomination. A few days later, I was walking down the hallway of our small Baptist parsonage in Costa Mesa were we lived—I felt totally desolate—certain that my life and ministry were over, and that I would never minister again. Remember, I had been trained in a Southern Baptist university and a Southern Baptist seminary to pastor Southern Baptist churches, now I had been fired because of the ministry and work of the Holy Spirit. Suddenly, in spite of my feelings of hopelessness and despair the Lord spoke to me audibly and said, “I am going to make you like Abraham, the father of many nations. You will be my witness and speak for me in High places.”
The Lord’s voice was so unexpected and so loud that I remember looking around to see who was speaking to me. Of course, I did not see anybody, but looking back I know that the Lord actually spoke audibly to me because at that particular time in my ministry I barely knew who Abraham was. As the Lord spoke to me, in my spirit I saw myself standing before kings or civil rulers and bearing witness of Christ and His Kingdom (see Acts 9:15). And at that moment I knew that the Lord was reminding me of the apostolic and prophetic call that He had placed on my life as a 17-year old youth, and He was saying to me, “I have called you to be a prophet to the nations and an apostle of Jesus Christ.” I finally understood what the Lord was saying to me years before, when I was 17 years old, and I knew in my spirit at that moment that the Lord Jesus Himself had sovereignly intervened in my life to change my direction and bring me out of the sub-normality of denominationalism. I also knew in that moment of spiritual encounter that the Lord Jesus Himself, the prophet like Moses and the Apostle and High Priest of the New Covenant administration of the Kingdom of heaven, was renewing and confirming His call upon my life to be a prophet to the nations and an apostle to which He had called me many years before.
7. My Transition or Shift from Southern Baptist Life and Ministry to Apostolic and Prophetic Life and Ministry, and my Connection with Ern Baxter and Spiritual Fatherhood
After we left the Southern Baptist denomination, it seems like everywhere Sandra and I went God’s prophets were saying to me, “I have made your forehead like flint.” It happened so many times that I began to ask, “Lord, why does my forehead need to be like flint.” I was soon to discover that it was because the Lord had called me for the purpose of restoring the foundations and reforming His Church. He would use me as His battering ram to break downs the denominational walls that separate and divide His Church today.
Once Sandra and I left the Southern Baptist denomination, we began to give ourselves wholeheartedly to the work of preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, making disciples, and planting house churches in several cities throughout Southern California. The Lord blessed our labor, and before very long He began to connect us to other fivefold ministers throughout the region and form us into an apostolic company of fivefold ministers and Christian workers. Before long our sphere of influence spread throughout much of Southern California, and eventually, together with several other apostolic, prophetic, and pastoral leaders we formed what we called South Coast Christian Fellowship.
We were winning many to the Lord, baptizing them in water and into the Name of Jesus (i.e. into His death on the cross, His descent into hell, His regeneration, His resurrection and ascension, and His enthronement at the right hand of God in heaven), laying hands on them to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and helping them find placement in small groups or house-churches for spiritual fatherhood and pastoral care so they might discover their gifts and callings in the body of Christ. We were also connecting or joining these house churches together under apostles and elders and forming them into “allotments of believers” or churches, and then connecting or joining these allotments together as the Lord’s Church or Holy Nation throughout Southern California.
It was during this very formative period of my life and ministry that the Lord joined or connected me to Ern Baxter for spiritual fatherhood and apostolic oversight or government. At that time Brother Ern was widely recognized by spiritual leaders throughout the body of Christ as a man of the Word and the Spirit. I am convinced that he was a prophet to the nations and an apostolic teacher to the body of Christ. I personally believe that Ern Baxter was to this present apostolic movement what John the Baptist was to Jesus and the original apostles in the beginning of the Christian era. He had a vast knowledge of the Scriptures and an amazing revelation or understanding of the mysteries of Christ, His Kingdom and His Church. As very few others today, Ern truly understood the Gospel of the Kingdom proclaimed by Jesus, Peter, Paul, and all the original apostles. He also understood what it means that the Kingdom of God is in the Holy Spirit and the absolute necessity of the Holy Spirit’s initiation into Messiah’s Kingdom (which includes a valid baptism in water, the receiving of the gift of the Spirit, and the Holy Spirit’s placement in the Lord’s Church). He understood the true nature and the architectural structure of the Lord’s Church as the Holy Nation—the Israel of the New Covenant Administration of the Kingdom of God—i.e. One-Holy-Apostolic Church made up of many, many churches or allotments of believers in geographic localities throughout the earth. He also understood the ministry of apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, teachers, apostolic companies, and the governmental order of the Lord’s Church (i.e. that apostles and elders govern the Lord’s Church together in the fellowship of the apostles).
Remember throughout my university and seminary days, and my early years of ministry in Southern Baptist Churches, my quest had been to truly understand authentic apostolic Christianity, the Christianity of Jesus and the original apostles. Brother Baxter was the man of God that the Lord Jesus put in my life to fulfill my quest by opening the Scriptures to me more fully than ever before and helping me to understand the Word of the Kingdom —i.e. the things that Jesus actually accomplished in His life and ministry, as well as, the revelation of the mysteries of Christ, His Kingdom, and His Church (i.e. the keys of the Kingdom) that the Lord personally entrusted to the original apostles and that have been preserved for us today in the Canon of Holy Scripture. For more than 18 years before his “home going” in 1993, I also had the distinct privilege and great joy of serving as one of Brother Ern’s Timothies or apostolic deputies. As such, I learned to preach the authentic Gospel of the Kingdom, teach the apostles’ doctrine, train apostolic and prophetic and pastoral leaders, and structure and order Church life in accordance with the Spirit and the Word. But of all the wonderful things I learned from him during this strategic period of ministry training and development the most important of all is what it actually means to be a servant of God, steward the Word, and serve the Lord’s people as an under-shepherd of the Great Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Apostolic and Prophetic Ministry in India
Shortly after the Lord Jesus placed me under Brother Ern’s oversight for spiritual fatherhood, ministry training, and governmental oversight, He started sending me to India to begin to fulfill my calling as a prophet to the nations and as an apostle of Jesus Christ. In 1976 I ministered for K. Krupadanam in his annual Pastors’ Conference in Ongole, Andra Pradesh (Southeast India). During this conference, I ministered prophetically and apostolically the things I had been learning from Brother Ern (i.e. the Gospel of the Kingdom and the need for restoration and apostolic reformation).
It was during this particular Pastors’ Conference that I first met Paul and Diamond Rabaverapu. Diamond was Pastor Krupadanam’s daughter. As a student in the university, Paul had been an active communist, but his wife Diamond had led him to the Lord before they were married. Paul and diamond were hungry for the Word, and the things that I ministered caught fire in their hearts. And as a result of this conference, the Lord joined them to me for spiritual fatherhood and apostolic oversight.
From 1976 to 1987, I continued to travel to India several times each year to minister apostolically and prophetically, Eventually, Paul, Diamond, and I formed the India Christian Mission, and together with Paul and Diamond we hosted leadership training conferences and evangelistic crusades, preaching and teaching the things the Lord had imparted to me through Brother Ern, planting churches throughout South India, and laying foundations for an authentic apostolic reformation of the Lord’s Church in India.
Paul and Diamond also visited us in the USA well into the 90’s, often spending weeks at a time in our home in San Diego and later in Oklahoma City. Sandra and I enjoyed many wonderful hours with them in the Lord, praying together, studying the Word together and imparting to them the treasures of the Kingdom of heaven that the Lord was entrusting to us, imparting apostolic grace and strategizing together for our apostolic and prophetic work in India.
As most of you know, my wife and I returned to India in October of 2016 to launch the CAC’s India Apostolic Campaign. As Sandra and I returned to India we found that the seeds of the Kingdom and apostolic reformation that we had sown during many years of ministry had grown into more than 2,000 churches throughout South India. From October of 2016 to September of 2018, we lived in Hyderabad, while I traveled throughout India and blew the trumpet of the Kingdom and the need for an authentic apostolic reformation of the Church in leadership training seminars and apostolic summits in key cities throughout the nation. The apostolic purpose or strategy of these events was to gather and awaken the apostles (and other fivefold ministers) and the spiritual fathers or elders of the churches (i.e. ruling pastors or bishops) throughout India and bring them together in the fellowship or communion of apostles that Jesus Himself established as the governmental foundation of the unity of His Church in the beginning of Christianity. The Kingdom purpose of this fellowship or communion of apostles (the CAC India) is for the apostles, elders, and the churches that they lead to work together in geographic councils to restore the foundations of Christ’s Kingdom and His Apostolic Church that Jesus and the original apostles laid in the beginning and reform or unite the Lord’s Church in India so that it might light and transform the cities and villages throughout the nation.
Today, Ravi Paul Darci, my son in the Gospel, continues to serve as the National Director of the CAC’s India Apostolic Campaign. Ravi, together with literally hundreds of apostles, prophets, and ruling elders (i.e. shepherds or bishops), continues to host leadership training seminars and regional apostolic summits in key cities throughout India. These faithful servants of God are faithfully blowing the trumpet of Rediscovering Christ’s Messianic Kingdom and God’s Requirements for an Authentic Apostolic Reformation and gathering their fellow apostles, fivefold ministers, and ruling elders and working together in the Lord to form valid geographic or governing councils in the cities and regions or states throughout the nation. In 2021 I hope to return to Hyderabad with some of the other senior leaders of the CAC Global to participate in the CAC’s first India National Congress of Apostles and Bishops or Ruling Elders.
8. Founding Apostolic Ministries and Churches International…Ministering as the Lord’s Apostle and Prophet in Africa…Writing the Message of the Kingdom and Apostolic Reformation…Founding the Communion of Apostolic Churches…Founding the Apostles Theological Seminary…Fleshing-out the Message of the Kingdom in Jacksonville…and Launching the CAC’s Apostolic Campaigns Globally
Note: In this part of my testimony I will share the practical outworking or implementation throughout the last 30 years of the revelation of the mysteries of Christ that I have received from the Lord Jesus and from Brother Ern Baxter of the present administration of the Kingdom of God and the great need of an authentic apostolic reformation of the Church. Such a reformation is absolutely essential if the modern Church is ever going to be one and fulfill its Kingdom mandate to conquer the Devil’s kingdom, possess cities and nations, and fill the earth with the glory of Kingdom civilization. Because of the practical importance of these last 30 years in my own personal transition and the shift that has taken place from widely held denominational paradigms, doctrines, and traditions to the actual doctrines and traditions of Jesus and His apostles (i.e. authentic Christianity), it is of necessity the longest section of my testimony.
However, while what I share here may appear to be very comprehensive, please keep in mind that I have only been able to touch upon or highlight the various strategies and outreaches that the Lord has led us to undertake as we have walked out and implemented His call and direction in our lives and ministry.
The so-called “Discipleship or Shepherding Movement,” of which I had been an integral part for a number of years, unraveled in the late 80’s. Brother Baxter’s own personal observation to me concerning the reason for this break-up was simply, “Man’s carnality spoiled a true move of God.” Because of abuses of spiritual authority and the carnality of leaders, many, many people were hurt. Tragically, many have never recovered or been restored to God’s Kingdom purpose for their lives or found their place of service in the household of faith. However, it is important for me to personally testify at this point that Brother Baxter never taught the principle of “blind obedience” or some of the other distortions and errors that others in the forefront of the discipleship/shepherding movement taught. Instead, Brother "Ern" always taught us that a Christian believer should never violate his or her personal conscience, and that a follower of Christ should only obey his or her under-shepherd or overseer, because they hear the Chief Shepherd’s voice in what the under-shepherd was saying. This is exactly what the Lord Jesus, the Chief-Shepherd of the Sheep, taught His original apostles, saying in John 10:27, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me,” And earlier in John 10: 5, He said, “A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.”
Founding Apostolic Ministries and Churches International
In 1990, through a powerful prophetic word, the Lord directed Richard Hogue (whose faith and marriage I had labored to restore) to return from Southern California to Oklahoma City to gather the scattered members of his former flock who had been pleading with Richard and his wife Marilyn to return to OKC and pastor them. Through Brother Ern’s counsel and apostolic direction the Lord directed Sandra and me to move to Oklahoma City with them to give ongoing pastoral support and apostolic oversight to Richard and oversee the full restoration of his pastoral ministry. My wife and I obeyed the Lord and moved to Oklahoma City in 1991.
Several of my spiritual sons and daughters from Southern California also felt led by the Lord to move with us and become part of the apostolic company that I would lead and serve as part of the pastoral team that would help Richard care for the flock and raise up CitiChurch. In addition to working with Richard and serving as the pastors or under-shepherds of the groups of believers being formed in different parts of Oklahoma City, as the “allotments” of CitiChurch, this emerging apostolic company also worked together with me to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom, adjust the foundations and reorganize or restructure a number of existing churches, as well as, plant a number of new churches in several of the towns and cities in Oklahoma.
Together with this apostolic company, I hosted a monthly Pastor’s Symposiums in OKC dealing with the topic, “Rediscovering Authentic Christianity.” We also hosted numerous leadership conferences on, “Rediscovering Christ’s Kingdom and Apostolic Reformation.” Eventually, after the Lord had given us favor with a number of leaders and churches throughout the State and aware that a genuine spiritual awakening or authentic apostolic reformation simply can’t happen without the power of God, we launched a statewide prayer campaign that we called, “The Oklahoma Prayer-Breakthrough.” Our purpose was to rally the apostolic, prophetic, and pastoral leaders and churches throughout the State and pray for a genuine spiritual awakening and authentic apostolic reformation.
Also, throughout this strategic period of implementation and development some of the lead brothers in our apostolic company and I were often in one-on-one dialog and interaction with other networks of apostolic and prophetic ministers throughout Oklahoma, Texas, and several other states.
Therefore, in 1991, as a direct result of the things we were doing in Oklahoma City and throughout the state, my spiritual sons, the apostolic company we had formed, and I founded Kingdom Ministries International. Several years later, we changed the name to Apostolic Ministries and Churches International. 1992, we launched Christ College, as an outreach of Kingdom Ministries and Citi-Church, which became the forerunner of the Apostles Theological Seminary.
Ministering as the Lord’s Prophet and as His Apostle in Africa
In 1994, the Lord began to open doors for me to minister in Africa. At the invitation of Bishop God-do-well and several other apostolic and pastoral leaders who were spiritual sons of Archbishop Benson Idahosa and who headed up networks of ministers and churches of their own, I had the privilege of preaching and teaching apostolically and prophetically in leadership conferences in both Southern and Northern Nigeria. During this particular period, there was great political strife and turmoil between the Christians in the Southern and the Muslims in the Northern parts of Nigeria. The City of Warri where Bishop God-do-well was based was under martial law with machine gun placements in all the major intersections. Armed soldiers stood guard in the huge tent each time I ministered in order to protect the crowd and keep us safe. Once Bishop God-do-well’s leadership conference ended, He and I climbed into his Burgundy Mercedes with our armed guard and drove all the way across Nigeria from Warri in the South into the Muslim North to minister for Bishop Peter Makanto in another major leadership conference and to minister to the graduating seniors of the seminary in the Northern region.
It was during this trip I had the privilege of ministering to several tribal kings and the governor of one of the Northern Provinces to bear witness of Christ’s Kingship and release an apostolic and prophetic blessing to them. As I ministered to these African Kings and to the governor of the Province, I was reminded of the words of the Lord who had declared to me audibly many years before, “I will make you like Abraham, the father of many nations. You will be My witness and speak for Me in high places.” And I realized that what I was experiencing in Nigeria was a partial fulfillment of what I had seen in my spirit about standing before kings and speaking for the Lord in high places when the Lord spoke to me in the Baptist parsonage in Costa Mesa and confirmed my apostolic and prophetic call.
Following my apostolic ministry in Nigeria, the Lord sent me to Kenya as His apostle and prophet. Many years prior, while still a student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary I had surrendered my life to serve the Lord either in India or Africa, whichever He might choose. In 1995 I was invited by Bishop Maurice Arao to minister in his “King of Kings Apostolic and Prophetic Conference” in Kisumu, Kenya. I had met Maurice at a Kingdom Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Now as I was ministering in Kenya, it dawned on me in one of the meetings that the Lord had collected on my commitment, and that I had been privileged to minister as the Lord’s prophet and His apostle in both India and Africa.
Afterwards, I continued to make numerous ministry trips to Kenya together with the apostolic company that I lead and with other apostles and prophets. From 2002 to 2004 my wife and I even lived in Kisumu, where I led the CAC’s Apostolic mission to Kenya. We established an "Apostolic Consulate" for the Communion of Apostolic Churches in Kisumu, the 3rd largest city in Kenya, located on the shores of Lake Victoria near the border of Uganda, and I ministered as the Lord’s prophet and as His apostle leadership throughout the nation of Kenya, hosting leadership training workshops, teaching seminars, and leading apostolic summits dealing with "Rediscovering Christ’s Messianic Kingdom and Apostolic Reformation."
From that first “King of King's Apostolic and Prophetic Conference” conference in Kisumu in 1995, throughout the remainder of the 90’s, and well into the new millennium the Lord Jesus continued to open strategic doors for me to minister as His apostle and prophet in Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa. I have had the privilege and joy of making many ministry trips to Durbin, Capetown, and other cities in South Africa where my AMCI brothers and I have hosted many leadership conferences and apostolic summits on “Rediscovering Christ’s Messianic Kingdom and an Authentic Apostolic Reformation,” eventually even forming an apostolic council of apostles and ruling pastors or elders to work together to extend Christ’s Kingdom, plant churches, and govern the AMCI related churches in Durbin.
In 2005, I also had the privilege of ministering with Kelly Varner and Sam Soleyn in several Apostolic Conferences in Pietermaritzburg, Praetoria, and Durbin, South Africa hosted by Thamo Nadoo, Franz Duplesis, and the Judah Alliance. The following year, I was invited to return to Praetoria and Cape Town, South Africa to minister in those cities. Sandra went with me on this trip, and we celebrated our 50th Wedding Anniversary at Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe.
Writing the Message of Christ’s Messianic Kingdom and God's Requirements for an Authentic Apostolic Reformation
Over the years several well-known and respected prophets have prophesied the word of the Lord to me that He has placed His architectural blueprint and plumb-line in my hands, and that I would write the apostolic and prophetic vision and revelation that He has entrusted to me. I especially remember a powerful prophecy given to me in the early 90’s by Bishop Mark Chirona in a leadership conference on "Christ’s Kingdom and Apostolic Reformation" hosted in Tulsa, Oklahoma by Terry Crist. After having preached a powerful prophetic message based on the life and ministry of Joseph to the conference delegates, Mark stepped down from the platform, laid his hands on my head, and began to prophesy, “…you will write books. The Lord has placed many, many volumes inside of you, books and training manuals….” (There is more to Mark’s prophecy that I will share with you as I conclude my testimony.)
Just as Mark Chirona and others had prophesied, in 1997 I wrote “The Sign of The Kingdom,” a Biblical exposition of “the last days of the Old Covenant Administration of the Kingdom of heaven" or “the end of the age of Moses and the dawn or establishment of Messiah’s day" that Jesus taught His original apostles as they sat on the Mt. of Olives overlooking the Temple the last week of His earthly ministry and that is recorded for us in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. A couple of years prior to writing this, I was in India on an apostolic preaching and teaching mission, and the Holy Spirit led me to these vitally important "eschatological" passages and began to open my spiritual understanding and unveil or reveal the true meaning and significance of these often misunderstood, misquoted, and misused Scriptures and the Lord Jesus’s great eschatological prophecy to me.
When at our Lord’s direction I wrote "The Sign of the Kingdom," it was with a deep heartfelt conviction that the prophetic declarations found in these key passages in the Gospels in which the Lord Jesus prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple and the end of the age of Moses and the dawn of Messiah’s day are in actual fact a critically important part of the authentic Gospel and the doctrine or teaching of Jesus Christ Himself. The good news is that these eschatological or “end-time” events that Christ prophesied in these passages are not still ahead of the Church, but they are in fact behind us. They are the historical events that took place in 70 A.D., i.e. 40 years (the length of a Jewish generation) after they were given, when the armies of Rome under the command of the Roman General Titus finally burned the “harlot-city” and destroyed the Temple, tearing it down stone by stone until, just as Jesus had warned His apostles on the Mt. of Olives, “not one stone was left standing upon another.” Jesus called these “eschatological” or “end-time” events—“the sign on earth that the Son of Man is ruling the nations from the right hand of God the Father in heaven.” And He prophesied in these same Gospel passages that these particular “end-time” events would take place in the original apostles’ lifetime or generation (Matthew 24:34, Mark 13:30, Luke 21:32). All these things happened in the apostles generation just as Jesus had prophesied that they would.
During the many months spent writing “The Sign of the Kingdom,” the Lord taught me and those who were helping me that—if we are going to accurately understand Christ’s Messianic Kingdom and if we are going to truly understand the identity and destiny of the Lord’s Holy Apostolic Church as the body of His Kingdom purpose to conquer the Devil’s kingdom, possess the cities and nations of the world, and fill the whole earth with the glory of God (i.e. with Kingdom civilization)—then it is absolutely necessary in our day, just as it was in the first century, for His fivefold ministers and the members of His body to understand the true meaning and significance of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple that took place in 70 A.D.. ACCORDING TO JESUS CHRIST, THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE IN 70 A.D. WAS AND IS THE SIGN ON EARTH THAT THE SON OF MAN IS RULING OR JUDGING THE NATIONS TODAY FROM THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD IN HEAVEN.
The Lord made it very clear to me, that If you and I don’t understand or accept the teaching of Jesus about the “last days” or “end of the age of Moses” and the dawn or establishment of Messiah’s day—then we will be tempted by the Devil to create our own doctrine of the end times —which is exactly what has happened throughout Church history, resulting in much of the confusion and great division in the body of Christ today.
The same year as “The Sign…,” I also wrote “The Last Watch,” a small apostolic and prophetic book based on the crossing of the sea of Galilee by Jesus and His apostles, as recorded in Matthew 14: 22-32 and John 6: 21. “The Last Watch” deals with the prophetic significance for today of the apostles crossing of the Sea of Galilee in a small fishing boat, while Jesus and Peter walk on water in order to get back into the boat with them. “The Last Watch” declares prophetically what the Lord Jesus is doing today in His sovereign dealings as King of kings with civil governments and nations throughout the whole earth. It also declares what the Lord Jesus is doing today in His dealings with the churches throughout the earth as the Apostle and High Priest of the New Covenant Administration of the Kingdom of heaven in order to revive His work, restore apostles, prophets, and the authentic foundations that He and the original apostles established in the beginning of Christianity, and thereby supernaturally enable and empower His Church to get to “the other side” (John 6:21) and succeed in its Kingdom or apostolic mandate to disciple the nations and fill the whole earth with His glory.
Founding the Communion of Apostolic Churches
In 1997, at the Lord’s direction and in partnership and council with a number of other apostolic fathers or the spiritual heads of several apostolic networks of ministers and churches, we formed the Communion of Apostolic Churches. Please understand that the CAC is not a new denomination. Instead, it is a global fellowship or communion of apostles, fivefold ministers, and churches whose commitment and purpose is to work together at the Lord’s direction to recover an accurate understanding of the things that the Lord Jesus accomplished in His life and ministry and the revelation of the mysteries of the Christ, His Kingdom, and His Church (“the keys of the restored Kingdom and House of David”) that Jesus entrusted to His original apostles, and on the basis of this authentic apostolic foundation reform ourselves into an authentic fellowship of apostles, ministers, and churches.
Also, please understand, we are not saying that we are it, or that the CAC is in fact the One, Holy, Apostolic Church. We are merely part of the scaffolding for the Lord's Church, an apostolic strategy if you will, aimed at developing a prototype or model of the Holy, Apostolic Church, an example or pattern of what the whole Church could be if we were all properly connected to the Lord and to each other and built together on the same foundation. Our ultimate goal in all that we are seeking to do is to provide an “alternative wineskin” to the modern Church’s denominationally-divided wineskin and thus restore the authentic apostolic unity that Jesus prayed for in His High Priestly prayer in John 17, a functional unity that is of such a nature doctrinally (the doctrine of Christ and His apostles), experientially (the baptism and fulness of the Holy Spirit), architecturally or structurally (One Holy Nation and up of many allotments), and governmentally (apostles, elders, and geographic councils governing the Lord’s Church together in the fellowship of the apostles), so that the whole world might actually be able to see or behold our unity as a demonstration that the Church of Jesus Christ is truly One, Holy, Apostolic Church and thereby know for certain that the Father has sent the Son and come to the knowledge of the Son of God (John 17:1-26).
In 1997, at the request of the apostolic fathers or heads of the connected networks, I wrote the “CAC Constitution,” in further fulfillment of the prophesy given to me by Mark Chirona and others. In the CAC’s Constitution I sought to articulate the communion’s resolutions, corporate vision, statement of doctrinal beliefs, architectural structure, governmental order, protocols and practices, and relational or covenantal values. This document was adopted unanimously by the spiritual fathers and heads of the related networks and became the “founding or constituting document” for the CAC’s global communion or fellowship of apostles and churches.
Among other ministry functions, the New Testament Canon clearly teaches that apostles are "master-builders" or architects of the Lord’s Church (1 Corinthians 3:10-15). And in his Ephesian letter the Apostle Paul admonished the Lord’s servants and His saints to do all things for the edification or the building of the Lord’s Church. Thus, some of my fellow apostles have called the CAC Constitution “an architectural blueprint” for the Lord’s Apostolic Church. And as I mentioned earlier, throughout the years a number of prophets in the present move of the Spirit have prophesied that the Lord has placed His plumb-line in my hands in order to enable me and others to accurately measure Zion and truly understand the present condition of the work of God.
Note: Any apostolic, prophetic, or pastoral father or ministry head (together with the ministers and churches that are part of their ministry or governmental spheres) are invited to become part of the CAC Global, provided they are wholeheartedly in agreement with the resolutions and articles agreed upon in the communion’s founding documents. They and the ministers or churches that make up their governmental spheres may not yet be fully walking in or practicing everything contained in the CAC’s founding documents, but they must be wholehearted committed to and willing to teach these great apostolic truths and Kingdom principles and also adjust the foundations in the lives and ministries for which they are responsible and lead their ministers and churches into alinement with the ministers and churches that are already part of the CAC Global.
The CAC’s Apostolic Consulate and Kenya Mission
In 2002, at the request of the apostolic fathers and overseers that the Lord had joined to us during our CAC’s Global Apostolic Summit in 2001, my wife and I moved to Kenya. We went to Kenya to serve these spiritual fathers and help them understand Christ’s Messianic Kingdom and His Holy Apostolic Church (i.e. the architectural structure, governmental order, and Kingdom mandate). We also went to blow the trumpet throughout Kenya and seek to awaken the apostolic fathers and elders of the many, many new streams of churches and to bring them together in the fellowship of the apostles to form the CAC Kenya.
Africans are great evangelists, miracle workers, and church planters. But they do not know how to bring the many, many new streams of ministers and churches together in apostolic unity as one Church or transform their nations for Christ the King. The apostolic fathers and overseers in Kenya often expressed their gratitude and appreciation for the apostolic revelation of the mysteries of Christ, His Kingdom, and His Church that I imparted to them, saying to me that they had never heard the great apostolic truths that I was sharing with them, adding, “…the missionaries have come and told us what we already know, but you have come and told us the things we need to know.” As mentioned above, Sandra and I lived in Kisumu for 18 months, and during this period I hosted apostolic and prophetic dialogs, taught leadership seminars, and convened summits in key cities throughout the nation, blowing the Gospel trumpet and laying foundations for an authentic apostolic reformation of the Church in Kenya.
Note: Apostle Dave Vijoen, the apostolic father of AWC and member of the CAC’s General Apostolic Council, heads our Africa Apostolic Campaign today. The purpose of this campaign is to blow the trumpet in Zion and awaken the apostolic, prophetic, and pastoral leaders of Kenya and bring them together in the fellowship of the apostles and raise-up the CAC in Kenya as an apostolic model or catalyst for birthing an authentic apostolic reformation in Kenya and throughout East Africa. Apostle Dave continues to labor with some of the same leaders with whom I had interacted during the 18 months my wife and I lived there.
After returning to OKC in 2004, just as Mark Chirona had prophesied, I wrote, “Rediscovering The Keys of The Kingdom,” “The Non-Negotiables Of Apostolic Christianity,” and “God’s Agenda For The 21st Century.” These are my teaching notes that came out of the apostolic and prophetic workshops, seminars, summits, and my dialog with apostolic, prophetic, and pastoral leaders in Kenya.
Founding the Apostles Theological Seminary
As my wife and I left Kenya to return to the USA in 2004, the Lord spoke to me by His Spirit and commanded, “Build Me a leadership training engine for the 21st Century.” After returning to the States, Mike Daub (one of my spiritual sons and fellow apostles) and I began to put together the leadership training engine's mission statement and philosophy of training. We also developed a core curriculum and came up with the training engine’s name, The Apostles Theological Seminary. In consultation with Apostle Daub and me, my oldest son Mark Kouri built the online platform and website for ATS. Offering a Masters and Doctorate in Apostolic and Prophetic Studies, Mike Daub and I launched the Apostles Theological Seminary in 2007.
ATS is an “online” seminary, because as a “leadership training engine for the 21st Century”, I understood that the Lord was instructing us to utilize the world-wide web, so that ATS could become a global campus and train apostolic, prophetic, and pastoral leaders all over the world. Because ATS is on the internet, it is truly mobile and available almost any place in the world today. I also knew that the Lord meant that this “leadership training engine for the 21st Century” had to be a "seminary" or “seed-bed” for the Word of the Kingdom and apostolic reformation. It’s apostolic mission or mandate is to rediscover and restore the authentic Gospel of the Kingdom and the revelation of the mysteries of Christ, His Messianic Kingdom, and Church that Jesus Christ entrusted to His original apostles in the beginning and thereby raise-up a new generation of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers in every nation to serve Christ’s Messianic Kingdom, restore the foundations for His Holy Apostolic Church laid by Jesus and the original apostles, and reform the churches of the 21st Century, disciple the nations, and fill all things with the glory of God. Thus ATS seeks to follow the pattern or model that Jesus Himself established in the beginning as He trained the 12 in His own “mobile seminary,” as eye-witnesses of all the things that He accomplished in His life and ministry, and as stewards of the revelation the mysteries of Christ, His Kingdom, and His Church (i.e. the Keys of the Kingdom of David) that He entrusted to them.
Thus, at the risk of repetition, I repeat that the Lord’s two-fold purpose or mandate for ATS is:
1) To rediscover the authentic apostolic and prophetic foundations that Jesus and His original apostles established in the beginning.
2) To train a whole new generation of apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers to restore the foundations and reform the Church in the 21st Century and fill the earth with the glory of God.
Of course there are many great seminaries today, including the one in which I was originally trained. However, most seminaries and Bible Colleges have been established to train ministers for a particular denomination or sect of Christianity, thus perpetuating the present denominational division and sub-normality. This is not the case for ATS. I personally don’t know of any other seminary whose philosophy of training, core curriculum, or whose mandate is to rediscover the authentic foundations laid by Jesus and the original apostles or to reform the modern Church so that it functions as One Holy Apostolic Church in the earth.
Dr. James Bradshaw currently serves as the President of the Apostles Theological Seminary, and I serve as the Chancellor. ATS’s Mission Statement and Philosophy Training are published on the ATS website (www.atsvirtual.org).
Note: It is important to understand that both the Communion of Apostolic Churches and the Apostles Theological Seminary are still in the early stages or beginning phase of implementing the revelation, vision, and fulfilling the mandate of Christ’s kingdom and His Church that the Lord has entrusted to us as an apostolic movement. And simply because of the size and scope of our vision it will take longer to build a working model of the Holy Apostolic Church that the Lord Jesus can use to provoke the modern denominational-divided Church to want what He has given to us.
“Fleshing-out” the Kingdom Message
In 2008, Sandra and I moved to Jacksonville, Florida to assume the pastoral care of the King’s Church, an allotment of believers or congregation that had been part of my apostolic sphere for a number of years. While taking on the pastoral responsibility for this congregation, I continued to give general headship to the CAC and to travel as needed to minister in AMCI related churches and also in leadership conferences in other parts of the USA and Africa. Thus from 2008 until I released the pastoral care of the King’s Church to one of my colleagues in order to move to India in October of 2016 to oversee the launch of the CAC’s India Apostolic Campaign, my ministry time in Jacksonville was largely spent in prayer and the study of the Scriptures for the purpose of structuring apostolic doctrine, developing and ordering church life, and teaching the saints at the King’s Church in Jacksonville to practice doing everything Jesus had commanded His original apostles.
Two of my favorite apostolic messages that I taught while Sandra and I lived in Jacksonville are, “How Jesus Became King, The Forgotten Message of the Four Gospels” and its sequel, “How Then Shall We live?” In "How Jesus Became King" I dealt with what Jesus accomplished in His earthly ministry and especially His passion. In “How Shall We Then Live” I taught a series of sermons on the commands of Jesus and His apostles concerning the Christian life, marriage and family, work and the market place, giving and the stewardship of money, and how Christians should relate to civil government. These commands of our Lord and the teaching of his original apostles are the essence or substance of Kingdom civilization.
I also ministered a series of apostolic and prophetic messages on “The Last Days, According To Jesus” in which I critiqued a number of Charisma Magazine articles that had been written by Perry Stone and a couple of other well-known “postponement preachers” published under the title, “The Great Convergence.” These articles purportedly were written to show how the signs of our Lord’s imminent return are multiplying rapidly and coming together or “converging” in our day, as signs of the “soon return” of Jesus Christ to set up an earthly Jewish Kingdom in Jerusalem. Of course, these articles are mistaken or “contrived”. So I titled my series, “The Great Convergence or The Great Contrivance?”
A true mother in Israel and an excellent teacher in her own right, my wife Sandra also ministered at the King’s Church from time to time. When she did, she usually dealt with practical areas of Christian living such as, “Love, The Great Commandment of Our King,” “Hospitality Evangelism,” and one of her favorite prophetic messages on Esther, “For Such a Time as This.”
(Videos of these messages mentioned and many others are available at GKI and on the George Kouri Institute's YouTube Chanel.)
Launching the CAC’s Current Apostolic Campaigns
In August of 2016, the CAC's Executive Council convened a CAC General Apostolic Council at the King’s Church in Jacksonville, Florida. Out of the dialog and our seeking the Lord together, the CAC’s General Council launched our current India, Africa, North America, and First Nations Apostolic Campaigns. Apostle Dave Viljoen of AWC was commissioned to head the CAC's Africa Campaign. Apostle Manfred North Peigan of AMCI was commissioned to head the First Nations Campaign, and I was commissioned to head our India Campaign. At the time the General Council met in Jacksonville no one had yet emerged to head our North America Campaign.
Over the last 2 years you have heard much from Sandra and me about the CAC’s Apostolic campaigns, especially our India Campaign, so I will not elaborate on these again except to remind you that the purpose of these campaigns is to blow the trumpet of the Kingdom and apostolic reformation in these geographic areas for the purpose of awakening the apostolic, prophetic, and pastoral leaders of the many, many streams of churches and bringing them and their ministers and churches together in the fellowship of the apostles to restore the foundations and reform the Church in these particular areas, so that the Church of Jesus Christ might ultimately be one and succeed in our Lord’s mandate to disciple the nations and fill the earth with the glory of God.
The “Joshua Generation”
This has been my testimony of the Lord’s apostolic and prophetic call upon my life and ministry, and also the things that He has done throughout the past 68 years to prepare me to be able to fulfill His call and accomplish all the things our gracious heavenly Father, the Lord Jesus, and the blessed Holy Spirit purposed and for me to accomplish before I was even born.
First, in reviewing the major events over the past 68 years since the Lord’s original call, I must confess that I have been on a rather steep “learning-curve” and that, although I have earnestly sought to be faithful to the Lord and to His call throughout these many years, I have made more than my share of mistakes. But in the midst of my mistakes the Lord has graciously and faithfully chastised, disciplined, and corrected me. And over the years, I have found that I learned more from my mistakes (and the mistakes of others before me) than from my successes.
Second, over these more than 68 years of ministry, as I have sought to rediscover and lay hold of the apostolic truths and Kingdom realities that have been lost throughout the centuries and reform myself and the governmental sphere entrusted to me and for which I have been responsible, I have experienced no small amount of suffering for the Lord, His Kingdom, and His Church. I am talking about personal rejection, ridicule, disappointments, betrayals, failures and defeats. Of course, this has been no different than what the Lord has actually promised all who would live righteously and godly in this present evil age and seek to serve His Kingdom purposes.
Third, even after all these years (68 years and still counting) I am very sorry to have to tell you that I still have not arrived at full maturity, nor fulfilled my calling or destiny as a prophet to the nations or as an apostle of the Lord, nor have I completed or finished my course.
Fourth, I rejoice in the fact that I can tell you in all good conscience that after many, many years of prayer, Bible study, apostolic and prophetic ministry experience, and all the Lord’s dealing and chastisement in my life (I have been to the woodshed more times than I care to remember), I am much better prepared today than ever before to fulfill my apostolic and prophetic calling and to accomplish the things that the Lord has purposed and ordained for me to accomplish.
You see my friends, whether we admit it or not, none of us have ever been part of the Holy Apostolic Church that Jesus and His original apostles of the Lamb or first ascension-gift apostles founded in the beginning. The reality is that all of us alive today have been born in the wilderness of the modern Church’s sub-normality. Whether we know it or like it, we are all in the midst of the process of coming out of that sub-normality and being brought into alignment with the Lord Jesus, our great Joshua, and with each other, so that together as one holy nation (the Israel of the Spirit), and as a mighty army we might cross over into our heavenly Father’s Kingdom purpose and conquer the Devil’s kingdom and possess the cities and nations that dwell in the land and filling all things.
Therefore, like each of you, I am part of a “Joshua generation,” a generation born in the wilderness of the Church’s denominational immaturity and divisions. And like you and the rest of my fellow Christians today, I have been on a very long and difficult journey aimed at correcting the flagrant misunderstandings, doctrinal errors, and distortions that separate and divide the modern Church, and rediscovering the revelation of all that Jesus actually accomplished in His life and ministry, as well as, the mysteries or secrets of the Kingdom and the Church that He entrusted to His original apostles in the beginning and that have been preserved for us in the Canon of the New Testament. Of course, once we have finally done this, we still must enter in by faith and lay hold in our own personal lives all the wonderful things for which He has laid hold of us and possess the Kingdom.
Thus, as I conclude my personal testimony about the Lord’s call and His sovereign preparation in my life, I want to express my gratitude to the Lord for the many, many people, influences and experiences He has used over these last 68 years to bring me out of the wilderness of the Church’s immaturity and prepare me to cross over into His Kingdom purpose and fulfill His apostolic and prophetic call on my life.
First, I am grateful for my formal years of theological and ministry training many years ago at OBU and SBTS and for my Southern Baptist professors who were faithful to the light they had, and as a result imparted to me a high view of Holy Scripture. By doing this they have helped me to depend upon Holy Scripture in order to deal with the huge learning curve that faces all of us who have been born in the wilderness of the Church’s immaturity.
Second, I am also grateful for the many conservative biblical scholars who have impacted my thinking and for the many scholarly books that I have had the joy and privilege of studying over the last 61 years. They have helped me to discover authentic Christianity.
Third, I am especially grateful to the Lord for joining me to Brother Ern Baxter and for placing me under his governmental oversight and pastoral care for spiritual fatherhood. I am more indebted to him than to any other man for “connecting the Scriptural dots” and "imparting to me the revelation of mysteries of Christ, His Kingdom, and His Church that Jesus entrusted to the original apostles."
Fourth, I am grateful for my spiritual sons and daughters, that the Lord Jesus has placed in my life and entrusted to my spiritual oversight and pastoral care over the years. Because of their partnership with me as members of the apostolic company that I lead, the Lord has enabled us to accomplish many, many things through the years. I am referring especially to Mike Daub, Marsha Daub, Herman Bradley, Manfred North Peigan, Michael Babin, Cookie, David and Ines Kowalski, and Marie Howard Kooms. Sadly, there are numerous others who began the journey, with us, but who for one reason or another, have fallen by the wayside.
Fifth, in a day when so many apostolic and prophetic ministers and churches are still too independent or too busy building their own apostolic ministries and churches, I am very grateful to the Lord for the apostolic fathers or heads of the apostolic networks or jurisdictions of ministers and churches to whom He has joined me, who currently make-up or constitute the senior apostolic and prophetic leadership of the CAC. I am referring to Dave Viljoen of Apostolic Working Company, Jim Bradshaw (President of the Apostles Theological Seminary), Jim Hodges of the Federation of Ministers and Churches International, George Runyan of CityChurch Ministries in San Diego, and Abraham Sekhar of the Spirit-Filled Churches of India. I also am grateful for the apostolic fathers and heads of the many, many apostolic networks that the Lord has joined to the CAC in India, Southeast Asia, and in Africa since launching our Apostolic Campaigns in August of 2016.
Sixth, I am grateful to the Lord Jesus for my beloved wife of 62 years, Sandra Jane Beall Kouri, who is the mother of our five wonderful children, grandmother to our 21 amazing grandchildren, and the great grandmother to our 5 great grandchildren. Dear Sandra is truly a godly woman, a loving and attentive wife, a gifted teacher of the Word of God, a devoted mother in Israel, and my partner and companion in life and ministry.
Seventh, having humbly acknowledged my indebtedness to all of these wonderful men and women of God, both living and dead, I must quickly hasten to testify that I am more aware today than ever before that the Lord Jesus is actually the One that has taught me throughout all these years. As Jesus said in Matthew 23:8 , “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ because you have only one teacher, and all of you are brothers.” Truly, the Lord Jesus is the One that called me in the beginning, and He is the One that has faithfully and graciously taught, disciplined or corrected, trained, led, and worked in me by the power of His Spirit and His Word and through His providence to prepare me to accomplish everything that He has purposed and ordained for me to accomplish before I was born. He has used many different people, many different experiences, and many different influences, but in and through them all the Lord Jesus is actually the One that has prepared me by His mercy and apostolic grace to be able to fulfill His call that He placed on my life many years ago as a youth of 17 to be a prophet to the nations and His apostle. He is the One who has equipped me to fulfill all the ministry priorities, goals, and plans that He has laid on my heart for this new season service. (See Part 2 of my Ministry Update for a list of these.)
Conclusion:
I want to conclude my testimony about the Lord’s call on my life and His preparation to be a prophet to the nations and His apostle by sharing that in the same prophecy that Bishop Mark Chirona prophesied over me in the early 90's in Tulsa, Oklahoma, declaring that I would write numerous book and training manuals, he also prophesied, “You are an apostolic father and your sons will call to you from the East and even from the Far East.”
To God’s glory, I testify to you that what Mark prophesied in the Kingdom conference years ago in Tulsa, Oklahoma has in fact come to pass, at least partially. Just as the Lord has worked in my life by His apostolic grace to enable me to write books and training manuals, He has also worked in and through my life and ministry over these many years to make me an apostolic father with many spiritual sons and daughters in the USA, Canada, Africa, India and Southeast Asia or the East.
As mentioned already, the Lord Jesus worked in and through my apostolic and prophetic ministry of the Word of the Kingdom and my apostolic fatherhood of Paul and Diamond Rabavarapu and the India Christian Mission a number of years ago to give me many sons and daughters in the East. And the Lord has continued to work over the last two years through my ministry of the Word and my apostolic fatherhood of Ravi Paul Darsi and many others who have become part of the CAC’s India Apostolic Campaign with the result that today I have many, many spiritual sons and daughters who call to me from throughout India, which would certainly be considered the East.
The Lord also has worked in and through my spiritual fatherhood of Adam Rangnamei and Mike Daub to open doors for apostolic ministry in Myanmar and Nepal in Southeast Asia. Apostle Adam related to me for apostolic fatherhood for more than 10 years, before he went to be with the Lord this last year. He was based in Northeast India, but because he was originally from Myanmar he continued to have significant apostolic influence in Myanmar and also Nepal. Apostle Daub is also one of my spiritual sons in the Lord, a special ambassador at large for the CAC, and a member of the CAC’s General Apostolic Council. Mike worked closely with Adam over the last several years to help strengthen the foundations of Adam’s apostolic work in Northeast India and also Myanmar and Nepal. As a result of the apostolic labors of my spiritual sons, today I have spiritual sons calling to me and to the CAC from Myanmar and Nepal in Southeast Asia—also considered the East.
And while it is true that I don’t have any spiritual sons calling to me from the Far-East at this present time, I believe that this will happen just the Lord has said it would happen in Mark Chirona’s prophecy. In fact in recent years I have had several dreams about ministering apostolically and prophetically in China. Truly, just as He spoke to me audibly in the little Baptist parsonage in Costa Mesa, California many, many years ago, so the Lord Jesus has been patiently and faithfully working over many, many years of ministry to make me like Abraham, a spiritual father to many nations through the Word or Seed of the Kingdom that He has entrusted to me and to those with whom I labor.
"Back To Jerusalem and the Beginnings" an Apostolic Vision and Strategy for Modern Jerusalem and the Nations
In 1996 Richard Hogue, my son Mark, and I visited Jerusalem. The Nation of Israel was celebrating “Jerusalem 3000,” that is 3000 years since King David established the City. We went to Jerusalem for the express purpose of seeking the Lord for a specific word from Him concerning His direction for Jerusalem and the Middle East. Early in the morning on Pentecost Sunday, I was in my hotel room in prayer and the Lord spoke to me by His Spirit and said, “Now you are in the East.” Strange words indeed, but I knew Immediately He was referring specifically to the prophetic word He had spoken to me through Mark Chirona in Tulsa, Oklahoma a couple of years before, saying. “You are an apostolic father and your sons will call to you from the East and even from the Far East.”
At the time the Lord spoke these words to me, I thought to myself, “Yes Lord, this is an accurate prophetic word.” I thought this because at the time I had a number of apostolic, prophetic, and pastoral leaders on the East Coast of the USA who were reaching to me for spiritual fatherhood and apostolic oversight. So I just assumed that this was what the Lord was referring to in Mark’s prophecy. But in 1996 I was actually in Jerusalem and the Middle East, and I knew the Lord Jesus was correcting my misunderstanding of the prophetic word Mark Chirona had given me by telling me, “Now that you are in the City of Jerusalem, you are truly in the East.” But what He said next stunned me. Because the Lord added, “And your destiny is here.”
That afternoon Richard, Mark, and I went to the Mount of Olives to look at the City of Jerusalem from that particular vantage point. Looking down upon the Dome of the Rock, we remembered that the Mount of Olives is the historic mount from which our Lord rode a donkey into the City of David amidst shouts of “Hosanna to the Son of David.” We also remembered that after His crucifixion, regeneration, and resurrection, and also after having given His commandment to the first apostles to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, the Mount of Olives is the very place from which Jesus ascended into heaven, where He sat down on the throne of David and received His promised Messianic Kingdom.
That day, as we looked down from the Mt. of Olives at the City of Jerusalem below us, the Lord began to speak to me in a fresh way about modern Jerusalem. King Jesus began to give me an “apostolic vision” and an "apostolic strategy" of how the present apostolic and prophetic movement can impact, not only the modern Church, but all the nations of the earth today from the modern City of Jerusalem. I personally believe this is the Lord’s vision.
As we looked at the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock, standing where the temple once stood, the Lord began to remind me that if the nations are ever going to be discipled and the whole earth filled with the glory of God, then today’s churches must first “go back to Jerusalem”—I am talking about spiritually. In other words, the modern denominationally-divided Church needs to go back to the authentic beginnings of Apostolic Christianity and rediscover once again the foundations that Jesus and His original apostles established in the beginning, foundations that have been preserved for us in the Canon of the New Testament. We must go back to the upper room and the New Covenant meal and the day of Pentecost 50 days later and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon His apostles and saints on the day of Pentecost. In other words, we must go back to Jerusalem and rediscover the foundations of apostolic Christianity, i.e. the Christianity established by Jesus and His apostles. Then on the basis of the authentic foundations, we must re-form (i.e. re-organize and re-structure) ourselves so we can function as a Holy Nation, the Israel of the New Covenant, One Holy Apostolic and Prophetic Church—One Church made up of many churches, connected or joined together throughout the earth in the fellowship or communion of the apostles that Jesus Himself established in the beginning.
As Richard, Mark, and I stood on the Mount of Olives overlooking the Dome of the Rock on Pentecost Sunday 1996, the Lord Jesus began to put it in my heart that the Communion of Apostolic Churches (the CAC) together with other apostolic and prophetic streams should begin to convene World Congresses of apostles and elders (ruling pastors) in the City of Jerusalem periodically to confront the global problems facing our world today. I am talking about, "A World Congress on The Kingdom of God and World Peace,” "A World Congress on The Kingdom of God and Justice," “A World Congress on The Kingdom of God and Human Sexuality,” “A World Congress on The Kingdom of God and the Global Environment,” “A World Congress on The Kingdom of God and Economics,” and World Congresses on the Kingdom of God and all the other global problems facing the nations of the world today.
The reality of Christ’s Kingdom is that the cities and nations of the world belong to King Jesus and His Holy Apostolic Church. Therefore, the Lord’s Church should have answers or solutions to the world’s problems. Therefore, the purpose of these World Congresses would be to convene the Lord’s true apostles and elders (i.e. the spiritual fathers, shepherds or overseers) in a general apostolic council (say every other year or every 3 years) in the City of Jerusalem, like the general apostolic council we read about in Acts 15, in order to seek the Lord together for His answers to the world’s global problems, and also in order to proclaim His answers and reveal His Kingship to the nations of the world.
Of course, what I am envisioning is a big vision—much too big for one apostle and his network of ministers and churches. In fact for the natural or carnal man, what I am proposing is absolutely impossible. But I believe that what I am proposing is God’s vision for Jerusalem, the Church, and the nations today, and nothing is too big or impossible for God. Therefore, I believe the Jerusalem vision and strategy that the Lord began to put in my heart as I stood on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem on that Pentecost Sunday is actually the Lord’s vision. It is His apostolic strategy to facilitate and accelerate an authentic apostolic reformation of His Church and advance His Kingdom and the fulfillment of the Church’s apostolic mandate to disciple the nations.
Because of my heartfelt conviction in this regard, I am personally seeking the Lord about how He would have me proceed as the Presiding Apostle or Bishop of the CAC, and whether or not I should propose that our Executive Council convene the CAC’s General Apostolic Council to seek the Lord together in a general council about hosting a "World Congress on Christ’s Kingdom and an Authentic Apostolic Reformation” in Jerusalem three years from now, i.e. in January of 2023. If the Lord confirms that what I am considering is indeed His will and our General Council agrees that the CAC should do this, I believe that it will be the first of many World Congresses to come. Please join me in praying about such a vast undertaking. Your feedback in this matter would also be appreciated.
This concludes my personal testimony. I hope that you have found my testimony about the Lord’s call and His preparation in my life interesting, encouraging, and challenging, My purpose in sharing with you has been to give praise and glory to the Lord for all that He has done in my life and ministry, and also all that He has done and is doing today to revive His work in the earth, restore the foundations of His House and reform His Church, and bring forth a new creation and fill the whole earth with His glory. If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the things I have shared, please do not hesitate to communicate with me at gekouri@mac.com.
Also, if you know of anyone that you believe you should share my testimony with, please feel free to do so. In the meantime, it would be wonderful to hear from you regarding your feedback or responses to the things I have shared.
Also, please be aware that Sandra and I need your prayers and partnership to enable us to fulfill our calling, finish our course, and accomplish the things that the Lord has called and prepared us to accomplish. Your offerings and financial gifts are tax deductible.
You are always in my hearts and prayers,
George Kouri , Prophet to the Nations and Apostle of Jesus Christ
