December 24, 2025 / CLC Kenya / 0 Comments

Seating Arrangements: How God Trains Us Before He Trusts Us (Dr. Muthoni Omukhango’s Jesus Killed My Business, Kenya)

I was young. Earnest. Thoroughly naïve—and freshly finding my feet in ministry.

This was over twenty years ago, at the very beginning of my journey, when enthusiasm often arrived long before wisdom did.

Welcome to Humour Meets Storytelling Season 2

I call this one: Seating Arrangements: How God Trains Us Before He Trusts Us.

I had just gotten a job as an administrator in the Church office. The title sounded impressive enough to my young ears, so I wore it with quiet confidence. One Sunday, my pastor and his wife were invited to preach in another Church, and I accompanied them. The three of us walked in together and were ushered—quite naturally—to the front row. Important people sit at the front row, right? I was with important people.

My young ministry mind did the mathematics very quickly. So I sat. Worship session was ongoing. The host pastor’s wife was on stage, leading worship with grace and authority.

Then came that gentle tap on my shoulder—the kind that already carries bad news wrapped in politeness. “Please… come for a minute?”

I stood. Everyone noticed. The walk felt ceremonial. Then the sentence landed, soft but surgical: “Please sit on the second row.” I had been sitting in the pastor’s wife’s seat.

Embarrassment didn’t just visit—it camped. Folded me into slices. I smiled, nodded, and relocated, while my dignity quietly repented. I was not that important. Not protocol-important. Not pastor’s-wife-seat important.

Ministry humility 101 had just been taught without notes. Fast forward twenty-plus years.

Today, in most of the places I go, I do get front-row seating. Not because I chased it. Not because I demanded it. But because time, faithfulness, obedience, and grace have a way of repositioning people.

The irony is not lost on me. The same God who once used a second row to teach me humility now allows me to sit at tables I never auditioned for.

And yet—here is the Christmas truth that still humbles me.

This Christmas, you don’t have to worry about protocols. No one will tap you on the shoulder. No one will quietly move you because “this seat is reserved.” No hierarchy will decide how close you’re allowed to sit. Jesus Himself is calling you to the front row.

Not because of how long you’ve served. Not because of your title, visibility, or ministry résumé. Not because you’ve finally “earned” your place.

Simply because you are important—to Him. He stands at the door and knocks, not as a distant King enforcing order, but as a gracious Guest eager to dine. No ushers. No embarrassment. Just an invitation. Open-hearted and unforced. All you need to do is open the door. He is already eager to come in.

 

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These are My Three Gentle Lessons from a Front Row and a Second Row

1. God may use a second row season to prepare you for first-row stewardship. What feels like correction is often formation. Heaven trains before it entrusts.

2. Recognition follows obedience, not ambition. I did not grow into front rows by insisting on them. I grew into them by learning when to move, when to sit, and when to listen.

3. Christmas reminds us that our greatest seat is not before people, but with Christ. Long before platforms, He invites us to the table. Not as performers—but as family.

So this Christmas, Child of God, take your seat.
The front row is open.
The door is unlocked.
And the invitation is personal.

Conclusion: God is far more interested in who we are becoming than in where we are seated. From second-row lessons that bruised my ego to front-row assignments I never imagined, every step has been part of His careful schooling—sometimes gentle, sometimes hilariously humbling.

If you would like to journey deeper into these ministry escapades, the missteps, the growth, the divine interruptions, and the holy realignments, I invite you to read my book, Jesus Killed My Business, But Gave Me His. It is an honest account of how God dismantles what we build for ourselves and replaces it with something far more eternal—His agenda, His rhythm, His work.

You can also get the YouVersion plan.

And… you may discover, as I did, that losing your own plan is often the doorway to finding His.

Read With Me at Mama Africa Book Box by CLC Kenya

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Humour Meets Storytelling
with Dr. Muthoni Omukhango

Season 2: 52 Episodes

Hilarously Empowering

Meet Dr. MO

Dr. Muthoni Omukhango is a Christian publisher, author, and marketplace minister with a storyteller’s eye and a theologian’s backbone. She serves as the National Director of CLC Kenya, part of a global mission dedicated to making Christian literature accessible so that lives may be shaped, families strengthened, and faith rooted deeply in everyday living.

Through Humour Meets Storytelling, Dr. Omukhango writes from lived experience—ministry missteps, family moments, awkward holy encounters, and quiet victories…

—serving them with clean humour, African colour, and gentle spiritual insight. Her stories do not shout doctrine; they invite reflection. They do not scold; they smile, then linger. Each piece is anchored in Scripture, even when the verse is not announced, drawing readers to recognise God at work in ordinary, sometimes ridiculous, moments.

As the convener of the African Christian Authors Book Award (ACABA) and the founder of Mama Africa Book Box, she is deeply invested in raising readers, writers, and thinking believers across generations. When she is not publishing or mentoring authors, you will likely find her in a garden or library, plus-size and unbothered, sisterlocks in place, telling stories that remind us that God is both holy and wonderfully humorous.

Humour Meets Storytelling is her way of saying: faith is serious—but it does not have to be stiff.

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Humour Meets Storytelling
with Dr. Muthoni Omukhango

Season 1: 52 Episodes

Hilarously Empowering

Marriage, as God Intended, is a Sacred Union Between Two People (Dr. Muthoni Omukhango)

𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐠𝐞, 𝐚𝐬 𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝, 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐬𝐚𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞. Adam (male) and Eve (female). And before anyone starts a theological debate about how Eve messed things up for Adam and, by extension, all of us—another discussion for another day, please. The principle remains: 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐧, 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧.

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Humour Meets Storytelling with Dr. Muthoni Omukhango

Whether you’re here to laugh, reflect, or discover a deeper truth, this space promises to leave you with a smile and maybe even a fresh perspective in your faith journey. Let’s scroll together through words that entertain, inspire, draw us to God and celebrate the joy of storytelling with a...

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"Impacting lives with Christian literature!"

Read With Me

At Mama Africa Book Box by CLC Kenya

One book, Many countries, Many families… Join our community library today at Kes 1,000 Annual Fee and Kes 230 Per Book Borrowed

Click here
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