25/02/2026
I will tell you a story
Some years ago (probably nine years or so), someone I respect told me that I had a global ministry; that I was going to minister to white people and people of different nationalities so I should learn how to speak phonetics more, that my tribal accent was going to be a barrier.
Good idea; I saw lots of sense in it.
I started practicing my phonetics each time I spoke the English language. It was hard but I told myself that the road to success is hard so I kept pushing. I guess you're laughing at me already. I laugh at myself too whenever I remember that fruitless labour
But here is the real deal:
What the person didn't tell was that even if my phonetics was finer than that of oyibo (white man) I will still not bless them, neither will they listen to me if I had no license in the spirit - call it power, authority or divine approval.
Not long I saw a video of minister Tope Alabi(a typical Yoruba gospel singer) ministering in the white mans country and singing in Yoruba
Aahhh!!! I exclaimed. I thought she was going to sing like Hillsong or Tasha Cobbs and the likes, but naah, she sang in Yoruba
Daddy E. A Adeboye preaches with Yoruba accent, yet white people gather to listen to him
Pastor Poju Oyemade still preaches with his Yoruba follow-come accent, yet the world gathers to listen to him. How about Apostle Femi Lazarus and our most recent star preacher Apostle Dolapo Lawal. You already know some of our big Igbo preachers and music ministers in this category.
There are too many examples around thus subject matter
What I realized immediately was that men listen to your POWER, not your SPEECH.
By reason of the fall of man, man's new design became "rebellion". It will take the backing of something supernatural for a men to want to sit down in their multitudes to listen to another man or even follow him.
For Jesus, when He was baptized, the Father declared from heaven, "this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased, HEAR YE HIM."
Shortly after that I recorded a music album that had seven songs on it, the seventh song was the only song I did in my dialect but it became the biggest song on the entire album. People listening to it in different nations and sharing testimonies of how much the song had blessed them.
The first person that gave me money because of the song is not from my tribe
The moral of this story is that ministry or impact is not first about aesthetics but about divine approval - power and authority.
Don't get me wrong, learning phonetics isn't bad, but while it is important to package your content for global acceptance, it is more important to be sure you truly have CONTENT.
Don't assume you already have something to give to your generation, be sure you have been given something spiritually tangible
When you step out, it will no longer be about packaging, it will be about "...such as I have..."
I hope the Spirit gives you understanding.
-Your brother Michael Tse