10 Things You Should Know about the African Church

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1. The African church is growing.

It is said that the number of Christians in Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century was about 9 million and that by the end of the twentieth century it was about 380 million. Church structures cannot cope with this kind of growth. So, churches are simply meeting in classrooms, in grass-thatched makeshift structures, and under trees—and yet they are still growing! It is also refreshing to see in attendance young parents with their toddlers, teenagers and young adults, all the way to octogenarians. It speaks well for the future of the church in Africa.

2. Where there is zeal, there is some lack of knowledge.

The church in Africa is full of zeal, though sometimes this zeal lacks knowledge (Rom. 10:2). This zeal is seen in evangelistic fervor. Anyone with eyes to see cannot miss this, and it is the explanation behind the quantum leap in growth. African society, generally, is very open to the Christian message, though openness to listening is not the same thing as openness to responding to the message. If they know that you are a pastor who has come to visit their home, most parents will call everyone in the home to come and listen to you. The door of opportunity is still wide open. Individuals whose knowledge of the Bible is still at a kindergarten level will soon be found leading a church in a village. Some of them do not even have a full Bible. Yet, they are preaching wherever they find ears that are willing to listen. You will find lay preachers in streets and on buses and trains. Personal witnessing takes place in schools, colleges, and universities.

There is a desperate need for more training in order to reduce the wildfires being produced by this zeal where knowledge is lacking. The normal “Bible College” structures used in the Western world to train future leaders and pastors cannot cope with this zeal and growth. Other forms need to be brought in that would function more like the combine harvester does on huge commercial farms. All such “problems” aside, however, the church in Africa is refreshingly zealous. Read More

Conrad Mbewe draws attention to how the African chieftain mentality has affected how the African church views leadership and how that view of leadership has led to abuses. The African chieftain mentality is one of two factors to which I drew attention myself in my earlier writing about the influences upon leadership in the African church and in turn leadership in the Anglican Church in North America. The other factor was the Roman Catholic Church's view of leadership. Both factors have had a profound influence upon leadership in the African church. But as Conrad Mbewe observes, it is not a Biblical view of leadership. Other writers have warned that in the African Anglican provinces it can lead to episcopal abuse of authority. Synods of clergy and lay delegates can act as a counterbalance to bishops and as a check on their abuse of authority. What we have seen in the Anglican Church in North America is the College of Bishops arrogating to itself decision-making powers that under the province's constitution and canons belong to other bodies. These abuses can be traced to the African view of church leadership and an Anglo-Catholic/Roman Catholic view of bishops and their authority, which has shaped the prevailing view of the role of the episcopate in the College of Bishops. It is not a Bible view of leadership. Neither is it an Anglican one. Since the English Reformation the bishops in the Church of England have been subordinate to the King or Queen and Parliament. They  have been subject to the laws of the realm as have any other minister. They have not been a law unto themselves--an unfortunate development in the Anglican Church in North America promoted by its first Archbishop Robert "Bob" Duncan.