Recently Nikolaus Satelmajer, editor, and Willie E. Hucks II, associate editor, talked with several church leaders on the African continent: Luka Daniel, president of the West-Central African Division; Geoffrey Mbwana, president of the East-Central Africa Division; Paul Ratsara, president of the Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division; Bertil Wiklander, president of the Trans-European Division; Gabriel Maurer, secretary of the Euro-Africa Division; and Brempong Owusu-Antwi, president of the Adventist University of Africa. Excerpts follow:
Nikolaus Satelmajer (NS): Looking at the future, what kind of Adventist church do you envision in your part of Africa?
Geoffrey Mbwana (GMb):A growing church, both congregationally and continentally. This is inevitable because of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon our believers and their involvement in evangelism. I foresee the establishment of mega churches across Africa, somewhat like the Nairobi Central church with more than four thousand members. Then, across the continent establishment of churches in villages, towns, and cities. With growth, I see many blessings and challenges. While we are blessed to see the church grow, we also experience growth related challenges, such as pastoring. Right now, we have pastors shepherding seven, eight, and even twelve churches. And we are involved in massive stewardship education—training church members to a sense of ownership and stewardship of church, and thus to enhance their giving patterns.
Paul Ratsara (PR): I envision a church in which more and more lay persons will play a vital role. Pastors alone cannot provide the needed ministry, nurture, and leadership. We will also have better trained pastors, with advanced degrees in theology and ministry. The current emphasis in leadership training and responsible stewardship will begin to bear fruit. All in all, I see a church with great strength, hope, and growth emerging throughout Africa.
Luka Daniel (LD):The challenge of pastoring a growing church can be met by an intentional training of laypersons to work as undershepherds. Such training would cover the areas of doctrine, witness, preaching, and nurture. When we have these lay ministers, the problem of one pastor caring for numerous churches or the problem of administrators and departmental directors serving as pastors will disappear. With lay pastors, church planting will take on an added dimension and meaning. I would also like to see the church in Africa on the road to self-support.
Gabriel Maurer (GMa): The challenge in northern Africa is quite different from the one in the central, southern, and western parts of Africa that my colleagues have addressed. In the north, our concern is to move from absence to presence. At the moment, we have very small Adventist communities in the north. Our challenge is: How do we make the Advent message a viable one in the countries that are predominantly Muslim? It’s a challenge, but we already have some very encouraging experiences. For the future, cooperation between the north of Africa and the rest of Africa would be very helpful. Immigrants from Ghana, Kenya, and other countries have proved valuable in establishing new contacts.
Brempong Owusu-Antwi (BO):One critical issue the church will increasingly face in Africa is personnel development. In ten to fifteen years, it is projected that Africa will have fifty percent of the world membership. From where will we get pastors andleaders for such a growing church? We also face another unique problem. The current evangelistic surge has yielded a lot of new Adventists, but they tend to remain the way they came in. There aren’t enough pastors to fully “Adventistize” these new members. Here’s where the new Adventist University of Africa is going to play a crucial role. The university aims to turn out each year leaders who will help in the administration, leadership, and nurturing of the churches. Our course development also involves the training of the laity.
NS: As a follow-up to what you have just said, we see in Africa massive movements in education taking place. How do you see our church being part of this educational surge?
LD:Speaking about conventional education, we have seven Adventist universities in Africa. Together, they may be educating twenty thousandstudents at any one time, graduating perhaps three thousand a year. But a large number of them are non-Adventists, and only a small percentage is trained as church pastors and leaders. So I want to look at ways of augmenting the conventional educational process. I want to see Adventist universities and colleges reaching out into the field, to where the church is, and conducting workshops and seminars to train lay people, the undershepherds.
NS: Even that is only a small step, compared to the membership of the church.
LD:Yes, but the educational process need not be confined to the universities alone. Let’s augment this formal educational resource by tapping other leadership training resources the church has. We have administrators, pastors, and departmental directors who can help in training the lay people where they are. That will augment what is happening on the campus.
NS: In some parts of the world, the church is developing in a responsible way, bivocationalpastors. A conference looks around and sees a good carpenter who also has a sense of ministry. The conference provides pastoral training and recruits that person as a part-time pastor. There are conferences that have systematic training for such persons and the individuals may well turn out to be good pastors. We are waiting to see the results.
PR: Both academic and on-the-job training are important. I would like to see all our resources—the university, the church administration, and the pastoral staff— focus on turning every local church into becoming a training center.
Willie Hucks (WH): What are some of the greatest opportunities you see in your areas?
GMa: Growth itself is one big opportunity. Growth is more than numbers; it means precious people coming into the church. Rightly trained, these new believers can make for a stronger church to play their role as effective witnesses not only within the continent, but beyond.
LD: Opportunities for witness are wide open. More and more, non-Adventists, and even non-Christians are inviting us to come to their communities, their homes, and teach them about Christ. Communities of faith are being established in places where once it seemed impossible. Such opportunities also provide some great challenges. When people come in large numbers, they come with baggage, their varied beliefs and lifestyle. So, we need to not only bring the new believers in, but also hold them. While we take hold of the opportunity, we must not neglect the challenge. Hence the need for nurture and training and the need to help the new believers unpack their baggage and accept what is truly Adventist. Where this is done the new believers are becoming instruments of witness. They have accepted the message and now they are passing it on.
NS: I will turn to Bertil Wiklander for a moment. What are some of the opportunities that you notice in the part of Africa that your division serves?
Bertil Wiklander (BW): Trans-European Division includes Egypt and Sudan. These countries are quite different in that the population is Arab and Muslim. We have about a thousand members in Egypt and less than that in north Sudan. In southern Sudan, we have more Adventists and other Christians with a receptivity to the Adventist message. Khartoum, in the north, is where we have the headquarters for the Sudan field. Peace that is slowly returning to southern Sudan provides us fresh opportunities. During the difficult times of war, an Adventist school system has slowly developed there with close to six thousand children in attendance. We do not have any Adventist colleges in Sudan or Egypt, but the Middle East University in Lebanon serves the field. But we find it difficult to send students there because such students usually do not return.
NS: Maybe that’s why I was asked to go and teach in Sudan for a few weeks.
BW: Yes, that’s so. We have developed an off-campus program where people like you—people with experience—can go and teach the people where they are. So, I think we have great opportunities, especially in the south.
NS: Now you mentioned elementary schools. How did they develop?
BW: Local leaders, driven by the Holy Spirit and by the need for education, just started developing elementary schools on their own. We had no idea of their existence, but now that we know, we are visiting them and helping them with whatever is necessary. It’s amazing what initiatives and drive people have.
GMb: Adventist education is in demand everywhere. I have received numerous letters inviting the church to open schools. One such request came from Zanzibar, an island component of Tanzania, with a population that is ninety-nine percent Muslim. We have a small clinic in Zanzibar. Because of the impact it has had on the community, the government leaders invited us to start a secondary school there, even though they were fully aware of the philosophy and mission of our educational system.
BO: Education has also made it possible for us to reach the higher strata of society. Years ago when I was a student at the University of Ghana, there were only twelve Adventist students there. Now we have more than four hundred students. Likewise in other universities throughout Africa. With such a large presence of Adventist students in secular universities, we not only have an influence on campuses now, but we also have a large potential of well-educated African Adventists becoming thought leaders in the country. That will indeed be a new opportunity for the church.
GMa: The north of Africa is different. We do not have any Adventist universities there. But we bring people from these countries, train them outside, and send them back to their homes where they serve effectively. Health and development work are two areas that provide opportunities for service in countries like Tunisia and Morocco. Even governments in these countries are interested in Adventists making a contribution by means of health expos and similar ventures.
NS: It’s encouraging to see that historically we as a church have interpreted mission not as a venture for profit, but rather as an outreach for service. That makes the church radically different from a business undertaking. An industry or a business invests where they can make the most profit and make it immediately. But the church invests in ministry for the betterment of the community, for the glory of God. As a result, we see explosive growth in countries where there was hardly a ripple years ago.
GMa: Another opportunity we have is the Internet. It’s a good way to reach people one never would have met. So we’re focusing on Internet access in Arabic, French, and different dialects. Through this new media, we can send to thousands of people programs on health, education, child training, and Bible studies.
PR:The church in Africa has another great opportunity: to turn a present tragedy that is afflicting the continent into an opportunity to affirm the care and compassion of Jesus. I am referring to the tragedy of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Is this not a time for the church to express the compassion of Christ, to live the love of Jesus, to bring hope to the hopeless, and to change even the way people see those who are carrying the virus? As a church, we have a center that deals with HIV/AIDS issues, and it is making a lot of progress, and it is serving to make a difference. ADRA (Adventist Development and Relief Agency) is also carrying a message of compassion, care, and development to the entire continent. People are very appreciative of what we are doing in these areas.
LD: Talking about the media again, in most parts of Africa, people have no easy access to the Internet. Some have not even seen a computer. But there’s one traditional media that the church must continue to use—the radio.
NS: So that works well in your area.
LD: Ah, yes. Radio has no boundaries. Often, the new members coming from non-Christian backgrounds found their first contact with Adventists through what they have heard on radio programs.
NS: Do you use radio a lot in the northern part of the continent?
All: Yes.
WH: Changing directions a little, what can the worldwide Adventist Church learn from the church in Africa?
BO:What an empowered laity can do! When I visited a western country the first time, I remarked to a church pastor, “If the laity is actually involved, I think the church will grow even faster.” He queried, “In what sense?” I told him, “Well, if the lay members get involved in preaching and in evangelism, imagine what can be accomplished.” The pastor remarked, “Well, you do that in Africa because you don’t have pastors.” The pastor’s last remark may be true. But the real point is that the New Testament model of a church is a lay-empowered church. Where there is a strong laity and lay involvement in evangelism and church planting and nurture, there is a strong growth of the church. We can see this in Asia, Africa, and South America. Anyway, lay empowerment is something the world church can least afford to ignore.
BW:Another lesson we can all learn from the church in Africa is the simple trust and reverence people exhibit toward God. Wherever I go in Africa, I note a widespread respect for God. People take spiritual things seriously, and this seems to be missing in places where there is an excessive concentration on material aspects of life: careers and salaries, houses and cars, and power andparties. This trend is likely to come to Africa as well, andmay have hit the large cities already but has not yet touched the vast hinterland. Along with respect for God, there is respect for people, and the two are powerful ingredients for making life less self-centered. Can the church in more affl uent parts of the world learn something from the church in Africa and return to priorities of God-centered and other-oriented faith and mission?
GMb: Let me go back for a minute and stress another great opportunity the church finds in Africa: As the church continues to grow, its influence with the government and the society at large also grows. In Kenya, for example, Adventists with a membership of close to six hundred thousand are one of the largest influential churches. They are involved with every aspect of the government and the country, including the critical opportunity of working on the development of the country’s constitution. Adventists can impact in a positive way.
WH: What personal spiritual experiences have you gained as a result of your ministry in Africa?
NS: We’re all involved in ministry and we’re wondering how has that impacted you? As you see challenges and opportunities and as you face different issues, they must surely impact your spiritual life.
PR:One impact is a sense of God’s presence. How can one serve in Congo, Rwanda, west and central Africa, and other places during the tumultuous days of recent history and not feel impacted by the powerful presence of God and His personal intervention in life? In every movement of history, we feel His touch and sense His everabiding assurance.
GMa:I have had moving experiences in northern Africa, in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and was encouraged by the spirit of service. In one place I visited a man who hardly had anything of this world. His house was just a room, and there he stayed with his wife andtwo daughters for sixteen years. In the midst of that poverty, he discovered Jesus. He read the Bible. He eventually found Seventh-day Adventists. He worked, he struggled, got his Sabbaths off in a country where such a request would normally end in either loss of job or a place in prison. But his faith rewarded him. His God carried him through, and now he lives in an apartment where he shares his faith and studies the Bible with friends that come to him. Such experiences increase our confidence in God who is faithful to His promises.
LD:I would like to thank God for the ministry in Africa because it has taught me to share. In Africa, the neighbor’s problem is your problem and your problem is your neighbor’s. As a minister, I am on duty twenty-four hours a day. People knock at my door at any time. If they are looking for a place to sleep, you better give them a place to sleep. If they look for some counsel, don’t look at your watch. These personal one-on-one sharing encounters are what makes ministry so fulfilling, so challenging.
GMb:Often when church members thank me for the ministry I have done, I find myself humbled. It is I who should thank them for their ministry to me. In the most sophisticated of churches as well as in the most humble ones, in the midst of a variety of congregations from affluent to struggling, from the most educated to the barely literate, I find the power of Jesus working in various ways in shaping the saints to be great citizens for the kingdom. As I visit these churches across my division, I see God at work, and I often ask myself: Am I worthy of this ministry?
BW: I am not an African, but I love Africa and African people. What blessed me the most in my ministry in Africa is the great faith of the people and their search for the truth as found in God’s Word. Things have happened in south Sudan and in other areas where I work that we could only dream about where I come from. For example, a priest becomes an Adventist and then tells his congregation that what he has found is the Truth. The congregation examines the priest’s discovery and decides to follow the Word. Similar discoveries of truth take place over and over again. Simply astounding and incredible.
NS: What you just said reminds me of the New Testament church. People came together, and somebody brought them a message and then they said, well, this is what we need to do. It’s that simple.
BW: They take the study of God’s Word and its consequences seriously.
WH: Pastor Daniel, I remember when I first met you five years ago. I was conducting an evangelism series in Abidjan for about three weeks. My daughter, ten years old at the time, was sick back home. I was so worried. One night when I was preaching, a prayer group was meeting for intercession. They said to me, “Pastor, you’re here doing God’s work. God will bless you and your family back home because you’re doing God’s work here.” I was strengthened by that support, and later in talking to my wife, I found out that my daughter was beginning to feel better pretty much right about the time the prayer group was interceding for her. So I learned a lot about faith that night—the faith I did not have, and the faith that others had. It strengthened me.
GMb: Talking of faith and prayer reminds me of an experience I had with the Masai people. It was camp meeting time. A pastor and I were staying with the Masai, sleeping in their huts. To the Masai, that means a lot. If you can accept them, live among them, with their cows around, sit and talk, to them, that is love; that is acceptance. One night a lion came in the neighborhood and set off an alarm. The young people in the meeting rushed out, picked up their spears, and dashed off after the lion. About the same time, a message came from one of the cattle keepers that he lost all the cattle. He was out in the woods, and then somehow something happened, and all the cows were gone. Panic gripped the entire village and those in the camp meeting. “Can we pray together?” suggested someone. And we prayed together, earnestly and trustingly. After the prayer, one of the elders said, “Let’s continue with the meeting. The Lord will work out our problem.” The next morning when the cow-hands went out, they found all the cows under a tree not far away. Not one was lost. The Masai knew the power of prayer. I came away tremendously impressed.
NS: A little over a hundred years ago the Adventist Church sent its first missionaries to Africa. Many of those early missionaries worked hard andlong, often wondering what would happen to all their toils. I just wonder what their reaction will be at the second coming of Jesus when they will arise and see the vast throngs of believers rise to greet the Savior. What would their reaction be to see what God has accomplished? Many of them worked for many, many years without seeing great things happen. Is that not foundational to Adventist missiology? We go, not because we know the results are guaranteed, but because we know the Lord who has sent us.
