Plunder Hell, Populate Heaven: Your Part in Sending the Gospel
Your Oikos Map is your front line — but the Great Commission also needs people who send. A biblical call to go, pray and give, and an invitation to partner with Daniel and Katie Ziedins through e3 Canada.
Somewhere tonight, a man will lie awake in a city you have never visited, wondering whether anyone is out there. He has never heard the name of Jesus said with love. Nobody in his oikos knows it to tell him.
Your Oikos Map is about the people within reach of you. This article is about the people who are not — and the remarkable truth that you can still play a real part in reaching them.
Quick answers
- What does "plunder hell and populate heaven" mean?
- It is the motto of the evangelist Reinhard Bonnke, drawn from Jesus' words in Matthew 12:29 about binding the strong man and plundering his house. It describes evangelism as a rescue: people are brought out of darkness and into the kingdom of God, filling heaven with those Jesus died for.
- How can I support the Great Commission if I cannot go overseas?
- Scripture names three ways to take part: go to the people already around you, pray for workers to be sent (Luke 10:2), and send others through financial partnership (Romans 10:15, 3 John 1:8). Paul told the Philippians, who partnered with him financially, that what he desired was more credited to their account (Philippians 4:17).
- How can I partner with Daniel and Katie Ziedins?
- Pray for them by name, follow their ministry updates at KD-Ziedins.com, and give once or monthly through their e3 Canada staff page at e3ministry.ca/staff/katie-daniel-ziedins. Their current mission is to help establish 100 multiplying outreach groups around the world.
The war is real, and so is the rescue
Scripture does not describe evangelism as a marketing exercise. It describes a rescue. God "has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves" (Colossians 1:13). Every person who comes to faith is someone carried out of one kingdom and into another.
Jesus put it in even sharper terms. Explaining how He drove out darkness, He asked how anyone could enter a strong man's house and carry off his possessions "unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can plunder his house" (Matthew 12:29). Christ has already bound the strong man. The Church is sent in after Him to bring people home.
That is where the phrase "plunder hell and populate heaven" comes from — the motto the evangelist Reinhard Bonnke carried around the world. It is not bravado. It is simply what the Great Commission is: taking back what was never the enemy's to keep, and filling heaven with people Jesus died for. And Jesus promised the gates of Hades would not hold out against it (Matthew 16:18).
Nobody does this alone — and nobody is left out
Here is the part most of us miss. The New Testament never imagines a mission carried by heroes while everyone else watches. It imagines a body, where every part is necessary, and it names at least three ways to stand in the fight:
- Go. The people on your own Oikos Map are your front line. You are already sent to them.
- Pray. Jesus told us to ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers (Luke 10:2). Prayer is not the consolation prize for people who cannot go — it is front-line work.
- Send. Paul asked the obvious question: "How can anyone preach unless they are sent?" (Romans 10:15). Someone has to make it possible for those who go to keep going.
The apostle John goes further. Writing to a believer who looked after travelling missionaries, he urges him to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God (3 John 1:6), and explains why: "We ought therefore to show hospitality to such people so that we may work together for the truth" (3 John 1:8). The one who sends is not a spectator. They are a co-worker in the very same work.
The reward is shared
Paul wrote to the church in Philippi to thank them for their "partnership in the gospel from the first day until now" (Philippians 1:5). They had sent him support again and again. And he told them something astonishing about it: he did not desire their gifts; what he desired was "that more be credited to your account" (Philippians 4:17).
In other words, when the Philippians gave, the fruit of Paul's ministry was counted to them too. Every person who came to faith through his preaching was, in God's accounting, partly theirs.
That is still true. When you help send someone, the salvations, the baptisms and the churches planted through their work are not only their story. They are yours.
A ministry you can stand alongside
This tool exists because of Daniel and Katie Ziedins, and their story is a living picture of everything above.
As they tell it on KD-Ziedins.com, it began in 2014 with Love on Hamilton: weekly street evangelism and practical care for their city's homeless community. More than twelve years on, they describe salvations, healings, chains of addiction broken, and baptisms as regular testimonies — and a small outreach that grew into a weekly movement and then into Love on The World, taking the same work to other cities.
In 2022 they launched Overflow, a Sunday evening service where, in their words, the Holy Spirit was given full permission to move. They now serve with e3 Canada, which they describe as dedicated to equipping believers to evangelise and establish multiplying, life-changing churches. And each year they help gather their city at Jesus Festival in Hamilton — most recently this September at Gage Park.
Their current call is bold: to help establish 100 multiplying outreach groups around the world — ordinary believers, equipped and sent to bring the Gospel and practical love into their own communities. It is the Oikos Map vision, multiplied across nations.
How to stand with them
If something in you is stirring as you read this, here is what that can look like in practice:
- Pray for them by name. Put Daniel and Katie on your own Oikos Map, and pray for the 100 outreach groups to be raised up.
- Partner financially. Their ministry is supported through e3 Canada. You can give once or monthly at their e3 Canada staff page.
- Follow the story. KD-Ziedins.com carries their ministry updates, evangelism training and what God is doing — so your prayers can be specific.
- Start a group where you are. If you want to be one of the hundred, Love on The World exists to help a few friends start reaching their city together.
- Pass it on. Send this to one person who has a heart for the nations.
Monthly partnership matters most, because it lets a ministry plan rather than survive. But no gift is too small, and no prayer is wasted.
Your part is not small
One day the full harvest will be gathered in. People from every nation, tribe and language will stand before the throne (Revelation 7:9). Some of them will be there because someone went. Some, because someone prayed. Some, because someone sent.
One plants, another waters, God gives the growth — and the planter and the waterer, Paul says, "have one purpose" (1 Corinthians 3:8). Plunder hell. Populate heaven. You have a place in it, starting today.
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?
Romans 10:14–15
Written by Daniel Ziedins.
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