Introduction:

And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.- Acts 14:23

Right from the time Jesus gave the great commission, planting of viable Churches have always been the hope of the sustenance of any meaningful Missions foray into any area. The fruit of Missions work are sustained by the Church while the Church became the seed bed where fresh Missions outreaches were launched.

Click to read 7 roles of global church missions

Jesus commissioned the Apostles and as the church grew, the Church in Antioch sent out Paul and Barnabas for Missions and as they got fruit from their labours ,churches were organized and leaders appointed.

From the foregoing, it is clear that Missions, Church and Pastoral ministry have always been an interwoven kingdom expression to fulfil the great Commission.

In this paper, efforts are being made to look at the relationship between Missions and Pastoral Ministry and by extension Pastoral training in the Nigerian context examining the issues involved and the challenges.

Missions and the development of the Church in Nigeria:

The first contact of Christianity in Nigeria was in the 15th century through the Augustinian and Capuchin monks from Portugal. Their major interest of engagement then was trade and economy as such there was no meaningful Gospel engagement and acceptance. However, In September 1842, Rev. Birch Freeman of the Methodist Church of England arrived the shores of Nigeria at Badagry and  preached the first Gospel message on Nigerian soil, ever since then, the gospel has spread from the coastal region into the hinterland. Soon after that, other missionaries arrived the shores of Nigeria to complement their effort.Notable among them were the Baptist Missions, the Anglican Missions (CMS) and the brave young men of the Sudan Interior Missions who had a vision to take the Gospel into the dangerous hinterland of the Sudan.

From that small beginning, the Church in Nigeria has grown in leaps and bounds.Today, it is on record that Nigeria has the highest Christian population in Africa with an estimated population of  80 million Christians and about 40 million of them being Evangelicals.The World Christian Encyclopedia (Johnson and Zurlo 2020).

Missions advance and Church growth and development:

God blessed the different Missions and with time came an increasing number of converts and followers which led to the establishment of Churches and congregations. The growth of the Church raised the need for Pastoral trainings for indigenous believers who will provide leadership in the local congregations. It is worthy of note here that the need for Pastoral training was a direct implication of concerted Missionary efforts that has borne fruits. Therefore, it can be deduced that there is a direct relationship between Missions efforts and need for Pastors among the fruits that came out of the efforts. As we saw during the Apostolic era so it was in the development of the Church in Nigeria.

The beginning of Pastoral training in Nigeria

What started as a  “Preachers’ Training Class” in Ogbomoso, Nigeria for Baptist Mission Station workers on May 3, 1898 soon  became the first theological Seminary in Nigeria now known as Nigeria Baptist Theological Seminary,Ogbomoso. Others soon follow as the work of the different Missions grew and the need for indigenous Pastoral training for leaders arose for their growing congregations. It should be noted that these Churches and the Seminaries grew out of the pioneering Missionary work of European and Americans. Today we have several Seminaries across the length and breath of Nigeria, notable among them are Anglican Seminary at Abeokuta, ECWA Theological Seminaries at Igbaja,Jos and other places, UMCA Seminary at Ilorin, TCNN in Jos, mainline denominational Seminaries started as a result of Missionary efforts among others.

We cannot talk about Church growth in Nigeria without the mention of the contribution of the Pentecostal Churches in Nigeria. According to Lindhart and  Martin (2014-12-01) in their paper ” Pentecostalism in Africa: presence and impact of pneumatic Christianity in postcolonial societies” , they wrote that “Pentecostalism began in Nigeria during the early twentieth century as a renewal movement to the prominent mission churches in Africa. At first, the growth of Pentecostalism was due to the efforts to break free from Western missionary control. This resulted in the popularity of many AICs (African-initiated churches), which focused on prophecy and healing. The second wave of Pentecostalism arose as a result of the Nigerian Civil War among students and young people who belonged to Pentecostal churches, mainline churches, and the Scripture Union”. Also as part of efforts to respond to the challenge of growing membership, there was need to establish Bible schools to train Pastors with Pentecostal/ Charismatic Theology. Notable among the Bible Schools are All Nations for Christ Bible Institute of Church of God Missions,  Word Of Faith Bible Institute of Living Faith Church, Redeemed Bible college among others.

It is worthy of note also to mention that the Missionaries that came with the Gospel to Nigeria are products of the church in their homeland who were groomed and sent by the Church. It is clear that the task of Missions advance and church Ministry are interwoven and cannot be separated from each other and very vital in this relationship are well trained Pastors.

After setting the relationship between Missions and Pastoral training in perspective, it is proper we examine the issues these have raised for us as Nigerian Christians of the 21st century that desire to carry on with the baton handed to us by our forebears.

1. Importance and Centrality of Pastors and Pastoral training in the Church life: The vitality and viability of the Church as a whole is predicated on the health, competence and capacity of the Pastor. If the Nigerian Church will be healthy, we must have well trained and healthy Pastors on our pulpilts. As a Nigerian Church leader did say,”There is no dead Church but dead pulpits!”.
2. Church growth means more pastors as such more training institutions but there must be quality control . The explosion in membership in the Church has thrown up the need to commission more Pastors to take care of the growing number of congregations. This also goes with the challenge of availability of equipped training schools, competent trainers for the Pastors and the issue of quality control for the training schools. Unfortunately today, there is a degree awarding seminary in almost every street corner in Nigeria! Everybody and anybody opens theological schools and Bible colleges today without accreditation.
3. Gospel advance to the unreached in the North is predicated on a sound Pastoral training: The local Church Pastors are  vital to Missions resource development both human ,material and financial. A well trained local Church Pastor is the best catalyst for Missions advance on the frontline. The strength of a Church is not in her sitting capacity but in her sending capacity. Today we have about 50 Unreached People Groups in Nigeria in dire need of the Gospel, missionaries are needed from the Church to reach them. Also, the Missionaries working among some of these unreached People Groups need to be supported. The advance of this missions efforts are predicated on the effectiveness of the local Church Pastors.

 

4. The need for training of indigenous leaders(Second generation leaders): This is more relevant among Missions Churches in the North and rural areas. As missionaries plant churches in the north/rural communities, indigenous leaders emerge who in turn are charged with leading their congregations. In most cases, the best training they had was basic discipleship training and perhaps on-the-job training as they observe the Missionaries. There is need for effective training for these leaders too to strengthen the Missions advance of the Church.
5. The need to give transferable and practical training to Pastors: Most Pastoral training have the trainees housed in the seminary,stuffed with a lot of information and when they leave the seminary there is a total disconnect  between what they learnt and the reality of ministry in the local Church . Pastoral training should be practical and relevant to the needs of their congregant and the needs of the world at large. ( Curriculum should be developed to be need based and not as was dictated by Church dogma, western Curriculum imposition etc. )
6. The need for wholistic and relevant training: Interacting with some Church Pastors ,it was discovered that training was heavily bent towards their church and denominational doctrine. However, a training package that empowers the head,heart and hand of the Pastors (Know, be ,do approach) would be very helpful for their task and calling. Pastoral training should also equip Pastors to minister in  a Post modern world of relativism and in a Post- COVID world riddled with economic challenges, climate change and insecurity.
7. The need for a movement focused Pastoral training: Pastoral training should engender Kingdom movement. The training should equip Pastors to groom members for outreach and frontline ministry while also building a strong congregation base.
8. The need for training for bivocational Pastors: Churches have come up with creative ideas to respond to the need for Pastors by ordaining Pastors involved in other vocations. These bivocational Pastors combine Pastoral services with their daily job. While in some cases it reliefs the Church of the burden of remuneration for the Pastors, it has also raised the issue of a growing number of local  congregations with untrained Pastors. The financial advantage of that is paid for by a congregation Pastored by an untrained clergy.
9. The need for retraining for trained Pastors: Even as we focus on the importance of training untrained Pastors for effective Missions advance, there is also the critical need to pay attention to trained Pastors for retraining  and refreshing. The dynamics and reality of the 21st century Church calls for a well rounded Pastor continuously evolving to respond to the challenges the members are facing.
10. The need to incorporate missional content into Pastoral training: Since the local Church is the nursery where global Missions visions are nurtured, there is need to incorporate missional content in the curriculum of Pastoral training. This will help local church Pastors be equipped for their strategic role as catalyst for world Missions.

 

Challenges

1. Funding for quality training: In as much as effective Pastoral training is very important, a major challenge in getting quality Pastoral training is the cost of such trainings in credible Theological schools in Nigeria. Except those that are sponsored by their local churches, very few with Pastoral calling can afford the cost of training.
2. Some Pastors do not see the need for a formal training: There is a believe in some quarters that there is no need for a formal training if you can read and study the Bible by yourself to understand enough to teach others. Some others also believe that the grooming they have in their Church or in their campus fellowship while in school is just enough to Pastor a Church. This is a dangerous trend and it is not healthy for the kingdom.
3. The challenge of having resources and materials in indigenous languages: Most training resources are in English and as such non-literate and oral learners have been disenfranchised from receiving training.However, in some cases,some of the training materials are now being translated to indigenous languages. In spite of this, there is still a large gap in the need for Pastoral Training materials in several indigenous languages.
4. The challenge for oral learners: This is similar to the point above but for the fact that there is need to develop oral resources especially for rural Pastors who could not read or write.

5.The challenge of wholistic curiculum development : It takes a well rounded Pastor to raised a healthy congregation. As has been mentioned earlier Pastoral training curriculum should be such that target the Head, the Heart and hands of the Pastors. ( Know, be,do approach to training)

6. The challenge of contextualization: Most Pastoral training resources were developed in the west and with western audience in mind. There is an urgent need to develop more culturally relevant curriculum and materials that will speak to the training needs of local Pastors.

 

Conclusion

Unlike the dichotomy and parallel relationship between the Missions Movement and the Church in Nigeria, the Gospel was set up to have a robust and complementary relationship between the Missions movement and the Church. This was clearly demonstrated in the Bible by the early Church. The hope of the Nigerian Church in playing her role in God’s global agenda lies in the robust,wholistic and effective training and equipping of local Church Pastors.

(This paper was presented at the Re-forma Global Quality Assurance Institute,Lagos Nigeria.)

About the presenter

Pastor Adegbite Olanihun is a follower of Jesus Christ with over 2 decades in Missionary service. He is the Executive Director of Omega Centre for World Missions, an apostolic Centre committed to catalyzing the Church and Missions community until there is a worshipping community among all the tribes and people of the world. He has been involved in Missions mobilization, research, teaching/Training, Disciple Making and Missions administration after working on a cross cultural Missions field . He is a Network Catalyst and Missions Consultant. He is passionate about the followers of Jesus Christ living their lives daily in obedience to the word of God and to see nations of the world reached with the Gospel of Jesus Christ until Christ is worshipped by the nations. He served as the Director of Finance and Administration of Nigeria Evangelical Missions Association (NEMA), the Nigeria Missions network body with over 15000 Missionaries in 196 countries . He is married with children. He can be reached at +2348068120447. adegbiteolanihun@gmail.com. www.omegamissions.org.

 

The Rula people(not real name) live by the bank of the Niger river. For centuries they have lived off the blessings of the river but have despised and rejected the eternal God who created the river . Up until 2017 there was no known believer among the Rula people though there are churches that are populated by non-Rula people who are economic sojourners among them. There is no Bible in their language and outreach to them was also next to nothing!

John and Rebecca (not real name) have been working among the Rula people for about a decade. In spite of their Theological training they found it very challenging engaging the Rula people because of their hatred for the Gospel. They were vehement against the Gospel and venerate Islam and their ancestral spirits. The Rula would not allow their children to respond neither would they touch the Gospel with a long stick.

After working among the Rula for years without a fruit, John and Rebecca were exposed to Disciple Making Movement  approach to multiplication. They realized the strategic place of access ministry in disciple making and how it can bring a people into the kingdom. Rebecca is a seamstress and she realized how much she can use her skill to engage the young girls of the community. So she started inviting them to learn sewing.

Rebecca’s sewing classes soon became a platform for scripture engagement with the young girls. The girls got so close to her that they are open to learn more than sewing. The sewing class soon became what every one in the community wants their daughter to attend even the influential members of the community.

The engagement of the ladies have also opened the community to John as the men have also become more friendly and open. Though they are still resistant to the Gospel, there are currently about thirty (30) secret disciples among them! The Gospel is having in road among the Rula and we live in anticipation of the first Rula church!

The work among the Rula is expanding and new engagements have started across the river Niger. Please pray for the anticipated birthing of the first Rula church. Pray for John and Rebecca.

Have you ever wondered what is the Missions mandate of the Church? What is the motivation for obedience and what is our Missions message?

This episode of Ancient WORD examines our Missions mandate from the scriptures. This is the second of a two part series. Be blessed as you watch and kindly share.

Click the link below to watch on YouTube and kindly subscribe to our channel. Thanks.

https://youtu.be/NTd6_jHRrK8

#Missions
#Missionsmandate
#AncientWORD

The Gospel has always been the solution to the chaos among men. It is the provision of God to save and redeem men from eternal damnation and restoration of the world. The Gospel is the power of God unto Salvation both to the Jews and the Gentiles! Romans 1: 16.

With about 7.9 billion people on earth and over 2.3 billion of them who have not heard about Jesus, met a believer or understood the Gospel enough to make decision for Jesus, our world is desperately in need of the Gospel! Unfortunately, most of these people are not only deprived of the Gospel, they are also shielded from accessing the Gospel either by Government restrictions, physical inaccessibility, violence or outright resistance.

However, during Jesus’ time on earth, he used different means to preach the Gospel. Most of these means were relevant to his audience and easily understood by his listeners. Likewise, during the Apostles’ time, the Gospel was given to all men and bore much fruits irrespective of location, religion, bias or affiliation. When Jesus was going up to heaven, he commanded his Disciples to “…make Disciples of all Nations” (Matthew 28:19,20) and just after a few decades, the testimony was that the Gospel was bringing forth fruit in all the world! (Colossians 1:5,6). In fact, the people of the world did acknowledge that they were everywhere with the Gospel (Acts 21:27,28).

So how did they do it?

In 1Corinthians 9:18-23 Paul gave an insight. He said he took advantage of every available means to present the Gospel to everyone in every place in the context and form they would understand. To the Jews, he preached the Gospel from the Torah and the Prophets (Acts 13:15- 41), to the Greeks in Athens, he preached to them from their poetic writings and the objects of their worship (Acts 17: 23 -28). Evidently, the early Christians reached their world in spite of the resistance and oppositions because they took advantage of all creative means available!

If Paul were to be alive, would he have used the internet to preach?

I think the answer is yes. With the enormous opportunity available to engage our dying world through the internet, Paul would be the first to take advantage of the internet. Let us see the world of the social media and the unfettered access available to preach the Gospel.

With more than 2.85 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most popular social media worldwide. According to https://www.statista.com,

• India: 340 million users,
• USA : 200 million users,
• Indonesia: 140 million users,
• Brazil: 130 million users,
• Mexico 98 million users,
• Philippines: 88 million users,
• Vietnam: 71million users,
• Thailand: 54 million users,
• Egypt: 47 million users,
• Bangladesh: 46 million users
• Pakistan 45 million users

are the t10 countries with the highest users of Facebook. In the same vein, as of the second quarter of 2021, Twitter had 206 million monetizable daily active users worldwide.

Thanks to modern technology and the social media, our ability to share, influence, and serve online has multiplied exponentially. We can now share the Gospel and spread the message of His love and maximize the use of platforms like YouTube, blogging sites and social media sites to increase our online missionary work. We can now spread the gospel message, and build up the kingdom-all without leaving our home!

Today through virtual means, the Gospel has advance into areas and cultures that were hitherto impenetrable by conventional Missionary deployment. Arab youths are coming to faith daily through online Gospel engagements, several Muslims are being discipled across continents through discipleship apps and online interactions. Prayers and resources are being mobilized for Missions today through social media platforms like Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook and others. With the enormous internet users especially in unreached countries with good internet penetration, engaging virtually are very strategic options for communicating the Gospel in the twenty-first century. There are obviously enough reasons to explore virtual means of spreading the Gospel. The vast population of internet users who literally live on the internet, unfettered access to the target audience and the fact that engaging virtually is far cheaper than sending Missionaries across the sea to reach the unreached are very valid reasons to deploy virtual means to spread the Gospel.

However, it should be noted that as much as it is very strategic to engage and share the Gospel virtually, the physical contact components are still very important in making Disciples of all Nations. While God is working through the internet among Muslims to bring them to faith, the roles of resident Disciplers and Missionaries in those countries are still very strategic in building the faith of the Disciples.  With all forms of junks and philosophies on the internet, it is also very important that our engagement online should be biblically sound. If there is anything needed on the internet now, it is sound biblical contents!

So, who is the Virtual Missionary?

Are you a follower of Jesus Christ with an Android phone? Are you on any social media platform like Facebook, twitter, Telegram etc? Do you have access to the internet? Then you are a virtual Missionary! You never know how much you can turn our world around with the Gospel of the Kingdom as you engage the unlimited access to the world on your fingertips.

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Adegbite Olanihun

He is a follower of Jesus Christ with over 2 decades in Missionary service. He has been involved in Missions mobilization, research, teaching/Training, Disciple Making and Missions administration after working on a cross cultural Missions field . He is a Network Catalyst and Missions Consultant. He is passionate about the followers of Jesus Christ living their lives daily in obedience to the word of God and to see nations of the world reached with the Gospel of Jesus Christ until Christ is worshipped by the nations. He currently serves as the Head of Finance and Administration at the Nigeria Evangelical Missions Association (NEMA), a Missions network Association of over 150 Missions organization and Missional Churches with over 15,000 Nigerian Missionaries scattered all over the world. Adegbite is married with children.

THE NEW TESTAMENT AT CHRISTMAS

It is a celebration of the eternal gift of the scriptures and particularly the dispensation of the new covenant as expressed on the pages of the New Testament scriptures. And what a time to celebrate that than the season when we celebrate the birth of the mediator of the new covenant Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ!

The NEW TESTAMENT AT CHRISTMAS is an invitation to as many that would be willing to join in reading the New Testament for TWO week (fourteen days)! There are 260 chapters in the New Testament, participating in THE NEW TESTAMENT AT CHRISTMAS means participants shall read 20 chapters of the Bible per day and a celebration of the Gift of His Word in Bodily form – Our Lord Jesus Christ on the fourteenth day! There shall be a sequential guide to daily reading and a daily encouragement and motivation to read. It is a journey with like minded Christians who love and want to know Jesus better. It is a rediscovery of the joy of diving into the ocean of wisdom and blessing contained in the scriptures. Join others across the globe as we celebrate Jesus by reading the scriptures at Christmas.

OBJECTIVES

1. To celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ
2. To encourage the reading of the Bible
3. A call to Revival through focused engagement of the scriptures through reading
4. To participate in a mutual encouragement of global Bible reading

How It Will Run

1. Sign up by clicking on the WhatsApp link of the two weeks you want to participate in December.
2. There shall be a guide on what portion of scripture to read each day.
3. After reading the portion of scriptures for the day, you shall post “READ FOR TODAY” in the WhatsApp group to signify you have read the portion for that day.
4. Anyone who does not indicate that he/she has read the Bible portion for the day in 4 consecutive days would be assumed as not keeping up, as such would be removed from the WhatsApp group after encouragement.
5. After the two-week completion of reading, participants are encouraged to share their joy and experience of reading through the New Testament in two weeks to encourage others.

Join 1st Batch (1st – 14th December):

• 1st Batch on WhatsApp
• 1st Batch on Telegram

Join 2nd Batch (16th – 3oth):

• 2nd Batch on WhatApp
• 2nd Batch on Telegram

Download the Daily Guide

READING-THROUGH-THE-NEW-TESTAMENT-IN-14-DAYS.pdf

NOTE: You are free to start a team within your church or community of Christians who want to read through the New Testament in 14 days. Inform us by sending a mail to Ancientwordpublications@gmail.com so we can record progress and send you additional materials.