Search: “africa”

Islam is the major external challenge for Christianity today — both the 230 million Muslims north of the Sahara and the 325 million in sub-Saharan Africa. The “race” to win peoples to Christ from the traditional religions in West Africa and across the Sahel has largely been lost; most have been Islamized, even if only […]

The Arabs of North Africa. Arriving from the Arabian peninsula in the early years of Islam, the Arabs conquered the Maghreb and imposed Islam upon the population. There has been little by way of outreach to them until recent years – and even less by way of response. They number nearly 210 million from Mauritania […]

The development of a missions vision in the Church is an essential step to African Christianity reaching its full stature as a global leader. Africa is on the way to becoming a formidable missionary-sending region, but much more progress is still necessary. Praise God for the rapid growth and spread of African missions, essential for […]

Cross-cultural missions. The missionary force is increasingly African and multi-continental, and less Western. Much sensitivity and humility is required for effective ministry that reaches the unevangelized and defers to the maturity and vision of the growing African Church. The need for missionaries continues to be greater than the supply of those with the gifting and […]

Leadership training is recognized as the critical bottleneck. Leaders are in short supply at every level – for village congregations, for the urban educated, for theological training, for missionary endeavour and for national-level leadership. Pray for: The serious consideration of what kind of training is most appropriate for Africans. This includes teaching and communication methods, […]

Africa’s role in the global Church is more important than ever. Its contribution to revitalizing the flagging churches in Europe is crucial. Even more crucial is its role in defending biblical faith and traditional reading of the Scriptures against the creeping relativism and liberalism that besets much of the Church in the West. This is […]

Pray for unity in such great diversity. There are over 15,000 denominations, church clusters and networks in Africa. Countless independent congregations exist with no overarching accountability or relationships. Pray: That leaders might place their agendas at the foot of the cross. The desire for influence and power, the ethnocentric bias that lies behind many splits, […]

Discipleship is rightly being addressed as Africa’s greatest challenge. The growth of Christianity has been sensational, but the follow-up has traditionally been lacking. Non-Christian customs and worldviews permeate the Church. Syncretism is a major problem in many areas. Thorough repentance and renunciation of sin and the works of darkness are often lacking, and many Christians […]

The Muslim-Christian fault line stretches from Senegal across the Sahel to Ethiopia and along Africa’s Indian Ocean seaboard. The potential for widened conflagrations and confrontations is high because of increasingly aggressive Islamist movements and because of African Christian evangelism gaining converts from within Muslim communities. This has been a major factor contributing to war or […]

The continued power of African traditional religions. The low percentage of followers of pre-Christian ethnic religions is not a true reflection of reality. Underlying both Muslim and Christian religious profession is a value system steeped in the old ways – fetishism, ancestor worship, idolatry and others. Personal, tribal and national crises reveal this. The terrible […]