Plunder Hell, Populate Heaven: An Invitation to Go With Us

There is a phrase the German evangelist Reinhard Bonnke carried across Africa for decades: plunder hell, populate heaven. It sounds like a slogan. It is actually one of the most biblical sentences you will ever hear — and it is the whole reason Daniel and Katie Ziedins do what they do.

Jesus called it a robbery

When Jesus was accused of casting out demons by the power of the devil, He answered with a picture so bold it is easy to read straight past it:

Or how can one enter into the house of the strong man, and plunder his goods, unless he first bind the strong man? Then he will plunder his house.

Matthew 12:29 (WEB)

Jesus did not describe His mission as a debate to win or a program to run. He described a break-in. The strong man has been bound — at the cross, in the empty tomb — and what he held is being carried out, one life at a time. John says it without metaphor: "To this end the Son of God was revealed: that he might destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8).

Every person who meets Jesus is a rescue. Paul says the Father "delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love" (Colossians 1:13). Jude says some are saved by "snatching them out of the fire" (Jude 23). That is what plundering hell means. It is not bravado. It is people.

The gates are on defence

We tend to read Jesus' promise in Matthew 16 as though the church were under siege, holding out behind its walls:

On this rock I will build my assembly, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

Matthew 16:18 (WEB)

But gates do not attack anyone. Gates are what a city hides behind. In Jesus' picture it is hell that is on defence and the church that is advancing — and the gates will not hold. That changes how you walk down a street, into a hospital, onto a campus or across your own kitchen. You are not visiting enemy territory. You are carrying out what was already won.

What it looks like on a street in Hamilton

In 2014, Daniel and Katie started Love on Hamilton: weekly street evangelism in downtown Hamilton, Ontario, sharing the Gospel with everyone they met and caring practically for the city's homeless community. No stage, no budget — just a conviction that the people everyone walks past are the people Jesus walks toward.

In the twelve years since, they have watched God do what nobody could manufacture: lives healed, chains of addiction broken, people delivered, and baptisms and salvations as regular testimony rather than rare events. To God be all the glory.

The small outreach became a movement. More than fifty people now go out weekly in Hamilton, and it has multiplied into twenty-plus weekly outreach teams. Love on The World carried the same heart into other cities. Overflow launched in 2022 — a Sunday evening service where the Holy Spirit was given full permission to move. Love Overflow trainings now equip churches to make evangelism a lifestyle: equip with practical, biblical tools, activate on the streets, multiply as disciples make disciples.

And every year the Jesus Festival fills a Hamilton park with thousands of people worshipping and hearing about Jesus, free of charge. This September 4–5 it was Gage Park. They are still writing down the stories.

Why it has to be bigger than one city

Here is the scale of what is still in the strong man's house. Around 2.3 billion people have no meaningful access to the Gospel — no nearby church, no Scripture in a language they understand, no believing friend. Of the world's 10,423 people groups, 4,490 are unreached, and 3,214 are frontier groups where fewer than one in a thousand follow Jesus. (Every figure is sourced on our data page, and answered directly in how many people have never heard the Gospel.)

That is why the Hamilton story does not stop in Hamilton. Daniel and Katie partner with e3 Canada — whose whole focus is equipping believers to evangelise and establish multiplying, life-changing churches — in collaboration with I Am Second. Their latest mission is to help establish 100 multiplying outreach groups anywhere and everywhere in the world: ordinary believers, equipped and sent, mapped together at Evangelize.World.

The ending is already written:

After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude, which no man could count, out of every nation and of all tribes, peoples, and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.

Revelation 7:9 (WEB)

Populating heaven is not wishful thinking. It is joining the side of history that has already won.

Senders are not spectators

Paul asks four questions in a row that end in a surprising place:

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in him whom they have not heard? How will they hear without a preacher? And how will they preach unless they are sent?

Romans 10:14–15 (WEB)

The chain does not start with the preacher. It starts with the sending. In Scripture, those who send are not a support act — they are named as partners in the work itself. Paul thanks the Philippians for their "partnership in furtherance of the Good News from the first day until now" (Philippians 1:5), and says of their giving, "Not that I seek for the gift, but I seek for the fruit that increases to your account" (Philippians 4:17). John says we ought to support those who go out for the Name, "that we may be fellow workers for the truth" (3 John 8).

Fellow workers. Not donors watching from the stands — people whose prayer and giving is counted in the fruit. Every testimony Daniel and Katie tell came through a body of people who prayed, gave and said yes. Not one of them happened alone.

Three ways to go with them

• Pray. Genuinely the most valuable thing anyone gives. Pray for protection over their family, for boldness on the streets, for open hearts in the people they meet, and for a fresh move of God across Canada — which they believe is on the edge of its greatest revival.
• Come. Outreach happens every week and newcomers are welcome. You do not need training or a script — only a willingness to show up and love people. Start at Love on Hamilton, or find a group near you on Evangelize.World.
• Partner monthly. Monthly partners are what let them plan ahead, go further and say yes quickly when a door opens. They run their ministry and lives as lean as possible so that every gift goes as far as it can, pray for their monthly partners daily, and send partners a monthly newsletter of what God is doing.

How partnership works

Giving goes through e3 Ministry Canada, an established Canadian mission organisation, on Daniel and Katie's staff page. You can give once or monthly through e3's own secure system. As e3 explains on that page, gifts are made to e3 Ministry Canada and used under its direction for its charitable purposes, in accordance with CRA regulations — the accountability that comes with giving through an established ministry rather than to individuals directly.

Some fell into good soil, and grew up and produced one hundred times as much fruit.

Luke 8:8 (WEB)

The strong man is bound. The gates will not hold. There are people in his house tonight — on a street in Hamilton, in a village in the 10/40 Window, at your own kitchen table — who were made for the Kingdom of the Son of His love. Let's go and get them. All for God's glory.

Read Daniel and Katie's full story and partnership page →

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