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This ministry was officially re-launched in May 2004 with a new
President, Board and focus. It was formed in November 1995,
became inactive in 1999, and was then given to Michael
Spence to help start a new ministry.
When a Communist government came
to power in Mozambique, Michael began at boarding school in
South Africa. During this time he witnessed a thriving economy become one of the world’s poorest
and saw some of the devastating effects of a
'Christian' nation’s Apartheid policies.
He learnt early on that a nation built on a faulty philosophy or ideology
can cause untold injury, pain and loss. Martin Luther
King was right when he said, "Jesus is eternally right.
History is replete with the bleached bones of nations that
refused to listen to Him.”
At 19 Michael became a Christian and realized that God loved
all nations, that He wanted to positively heal and transform
them. William Wilberforce, Lord Shaftsbury, George Muller,
DL Moody, Reese Howell, Isobel Kuhn, John Wesley, Hudson
Taylor, Brother Andrew and other men/women inspired him.
Their brazen faith, their willingness to trust God in the
face of overwhelming obstacles, stills positively effects
the lives of millions of people
around the world.
Michael worked for several years for a multinational corporation
in Europe and South Africa where he learnt the critical importance of good governance,
cross-cultural understanding and just organizational
structures when working on projects seeking to benefit all
employee levels.
In April 1994 Michael left the corporate world to go and study at
Fuller
Seminary in Pasadena, California. He wanted to
learn how the Body of Christ could become powerful
agents of positive change in the lives of individuals, communities
and nations. Immediately prior
to leaving South Africa he participated in a large prayer
gathering organized by African Enterprise
(AE) and local churches. This rally, the Jesus Prayer
Rally, was the culmination of a series of Christian
activities that moved God to directly intervene
in South African political affairs. So much so, that
Time magazine declared "History has thrown up an authentic
miracle!"
In late 1998 Michael joined African Enterprise in their USA office
and a year later the opportunity arose
for him to launch the AE Transformation project. The
timely launching of the first Transformation
video by George Otis, Jr. gave a clear visual representation
for the goals of the project: to bring lasting Godly
transformation to any city by exercising biblical
principles. Principles, methodology and theology from
other ministries and parts of the world were to
cross-pollinate with AE's existing citywide missions to help
achieve this.
All senior AE
leaders were sent a copy of this video and as well as other
pertinent books on the subject. Many from AE's leadership
then received training
from a ministry called Harvest Evangelism (HE) in Argentina,
the USA and Africa. For many years HE has pioneered a
successful reproducible model, called Prayer-Evangelism,
which helps mobilize city churches so that the 'spiritual
atmosphere' within a city becomes positively changed and many
receive Jesus.
To date at least two AE teams
have gone a long way toward incorporating HE's strategy into their city outreaches.
One is AE's Team in
Port Elizabeth, South Africa and the
other in
Rwanda.
Furthermore, the Founder and
International Team Leader of AE, Michael Cassidy, is now also co-patron of
the Transformation Africa initiative, which involved
millions of Christians from all 56 African nations crying
out to the Lord for the healing of their lands in over 1,100
stadiums across Africa on
May 2, 2004.
In November 2002 it became clear that the
only way for the vision and
goals of the AE Transformation project to continue was to
form a separate ministry. Within 24hrs of the Lord
making this clear to Michael, The Kings Court Foundation,
was given to him. Finally, two years later, the ministry
is preparing to move into its activity stage. It is
our prayer and desire that this
ministry will encourage and equip many in the Body of Christ
so that the Kingdom of God literally comes 'on earth as it
is in heaven" in many areas.
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