Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Big is the word for Africa's Christians
The Washington Times ^ | May 29, 2006 | Brian Murphy

Posted on 05/29/2006 9:04:44 PM PDT by JockoManning

LAGOS, Nigeria -- It's eight hours into the service, and the congregation is still dancing. Shout, they're told. Yell out to the Lord. Their cries melt into a muggy night with the odor of sweating bodies, jasmine and the tropical musk of the Nigerian bush land. "Hallelujah," rumbles the head pastor as the church band kicks into a new number. "Hal-le-luuuuuuu-jah." Even from the heights of the pulpit, he can't see the far edges of the crowd. More than 300,000 people have come for the once-a-month, all-night, Pentecostal-style revival, led by a preacher most simply call "Daddy." Given the standards of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, it's just an average turnout. Think big. Think very big. Then think bigger. This is the face of 21st-century Christianity: big, restless -- and African. There is no better symbol of it than the Redeemed Church and the insatiable ambitions of its guiding hand and pastor, the Rev. Enoch Adejare Adeboye. The savvy one-time mathematician leads the fastest-growing Christian movement from a continent that is rapidly putting its stamp on the faith around the world. The Redeemed Church is a prime lesson in the shifting currents of Christianity. Centuries after the Gospel was brought to sub-Saharan Africa by colonizers and missionaries, the faith is coming back to the West. The forms are passionate and powerful. So potent, in fact, that clergy from Westminster Abbey to the Vatican are fretting about how to keep pace, and the Protestant-dominated World Council of Churches, always wary of Pentecostal and evangelical sects and denominations, is treating these new groups as if they were an invading army. They are called by various names -- Pentecostal, afro-evangelical, charismatic, Christian renewal -- and are attached to a wider trend, as similar movements pressure so-called mainline denominations in Latin America, Asia,

(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...


TOPICS: Charismatic Christian; Current Events; General Discusssion; Ministry/Outreach; Other Christian; Worship
KEYWORDS: africa; african; africanchristians; africanchurch; christian; christianity; church; jesus; lagos; nigeria; redeemedchristian; salvation
Three hundred thousand attendees.

More power to 'em.

jm

1 posted on 05/29/2006 9:04:47 PM PDT by JockoManning
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Quix

Ping.

jm


2 posted on 05/29/2006 9:05:25 PM PDT by JockoManning (Listen Online http://www.klove.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: JockoManning

heh, well, you really can't stop the Spirit from doing His work.

300,000. Simply awesome.


3 posted on 05/29/2006 9:11:23 PM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: JockoManning

Thanks. Sounds sooooooo wonderful!


4 posted on 05/29/2006 10:00:03 PM PDT by Quix (PRAY AND WORK WHILE THERE'S DAY! Many very dark nights are looming. Thankfully, God is still God!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: JockoManning

My paragraphing . . .

LAGOS, Nigeria -- It's eight hours into the service, and the congregation is still dancing.

Shout, they're told. Yell out to the Lord. Their cries melt into a muggy night with the odor of sweating bodies, jasmine and the tropical musk of the Nigerian bush land. "Hallelujah," rumbles the head pastor as the church band kicks into a new number. "Hal-le-luuuuuuu-jah." Even from the heights of the pulpit, he can't see the far edges of the crowd.

More than 300,000 people have come for the once-a-month, all-night, Pentecostal-style revival, led by a preacher most simply call "Daddy." Given the standards of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, it's just an average turnout.

Think big. Think very big. Then think bigger. This is the face of 21st-century Christianity: big, restless -- and African.

There is no better symbol of it than the Redeemed Church and the insatiable ambitions of its guiding hand and pastor, the Rev. Enoch Adejare Adeboye. The savvy one-time mathematician leads the fastest-growing Christian movement from a continent that is rapidly putting its stamp on the faith around the world.

The Redeemed Church is a prime lesson in the shifting currents of Christianity. Centuries after the Gospel was brought to sub-Saharan Africa by colonizers and missionaries, the faith is coming back to the West. The forms are passionate and powerful.

So potent, in fact, that clergy from Westminster Abbey to the Vatican are fretting about how to keep pace, and the Protestant-dominated World Council of Churches, always wary of Pentecostal and evangelical sects and denominations, is treating these new groups as if they were an invading army. They are called by various names -- Pentecostal, afro-evangelical, charismatic, Christian renewal -- and are attached to a wider trend, as similar movements pressure so-called mainline denominations in Latin America, Asia,


5 posted on 05/29/2006 10:04:37 PM PDT by Quix (PRAY AND WORK WHILE THERE'S DAY! Many very dark nights are looming. Thankfully, God is still God!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: JockoManning
the Protestant-dominated World Council of Churches, always wary of Pentecostal and evangelical sects and denominations, is treating these new groups as if they were an invading army ...

Some Christians consider these groups to be too much involved in "charismatic" events, and therefore prone to replicate African tribal religions. There were some odd scandals with Catholic Charismatics in Africa, who seem to have reverted to other beliefs, under cover of Christianity.

6 posted on 05/30/2006 1:03:14 AM PDT by BlackVeil
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Quix; 4CJ
Quix! PTL!!

...and the Protestant-dominated World Council of Churches, always wary of Pentecostal and evangelical sects and denominations, is treating these new groups as if they were an invading army.

Praying and singing in tongues sure scares the wits out of Satan's established churches.

300,00 True Believers praying in the Holy Ghost will sure make 4CJ's "cowinkidinks" [coincidences] open worldly eyes, while droppin' their jaws LOL!

7 posted on 05/30/2006 2:23:57 AM PDT by BikerGold (Reliously Uncoooorrrrect...Reliously UUUUUUncorrect)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: OneWingedShark

Can't stop the Spirit from doing His work.

+* +* +* +* +* +*

Well put, and you're right. Must feel like Heaven to be in such a vast multitude.

jm


8 posted on 05/30/2006 2:57:58 AM PDT by JockoManning (Listen Online http://www.klove.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Quix

Thanks Quix. Good job.

jm


9 posted on 05/30/2006 2:58:39 AM PDT by JockoManning (Listen Online http://www.klove.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: BlackVeil

If the Holy Spirit is there in convicting power, I'd think folks would be more inclined to renounce and abandon anything that would offend the LORD Almighty. I would hope so.

Christian beliefs / worship / rites can be adulterated with pagan beliefs or practices, sometimes it is done in ignorance, other times willfully and knowingly.

But the LORD is not to be trifled with. Two reasons to not mix Christian worship with other stuff:

1. It offends God.

2. It leaves an opening in the soul of the person doing it for Satan and his minions to have legal access into their life to tamper with it, so they can do what they want, which is to steal, to kill, and to destroy.

jm


10 posted on 05/30/2006 3:08:07 AM PDT by JockoManning (Listen Online http://www.klove.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: BikerGold

Amen!

Thanks,
jm


11 posted on 05/30/2006 3:09:03 AM PDT by JockoManning (Listen Online http://www.klove.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: BikerGold
Selah's CD usually include a song or two from recorded in Africa - some spine-tingling, awe-inspiring songs. They can teach a lot of us about Christianity.
12 posted on 05/30/2006 6:39:08 AM PDT by 4CJ (Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito, qua tua te fortuna sinet.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: 4CJ
When Silverwoman1 and I first started sowing series seed, we sowed into the televangelists drawing now hundreds of thousands Nigerians and other Africans to salvation.

Soon, we'll all float Upwards and Silverwoman1 and I will meet each of them and they'll shake my hand and hug her in their gratitude, making all this so humbling!!

13 posted on 05/30/2006 8:30:05 AM PDT by BikerGold (Reliously Uncoooorrrrect...Reliously UUUUUUncorrect)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: JockoManning
"This church has a tremendous strength and credibility with Nigerians at home and abroad," said Allan Anderson, professor of Pentecostal studies at the University of Birmingham in Britain. "Can it translate to non-Nigerians? This is the big test."

The old religious mainstays in Nigeria -- the Roman Catholics and Anglicans -- are overshadowed nearly 2 to 1, and Pentecostals and other evangelicals widen the gap year after year.

Aggressive strategies

Just a few minutes at an Adeboye service at his Redemption Camp campus in Lagos demonstrates why. Packed buses pour in all afternoon.

Eve Akindabe, a 35-year-old seamstress who was raised as an Anglican, does some hemming work as she waits to worship. She's been giving a monthly tithe -- worth about $10 -- for five years.

"Why did I join Daddy's church? Take a look around," she says, waving her hands at the crowds. "Daddy inspires. Daddy tell us Jesus is right here to help improve our lives. The Anglican church was all about, 'Don't do this, don't do that.' Daddy is all about possibilities and making breakthroughs. It deals with heaven, but also the here and now."

That mass popularity is just what unnerves the established pillars of Christianity. No one knows how deeply the Pentecostal-inspired churches will change the faith.

Hmmm, I wonder how 'the faith' can change? Either they are emphasizing elements of the Christian faith that always remained but have been neglected, or it is not 'the faith'.

Yesterday I saw a man on the television urging me to send a donation and receive the book he was reading from and he would pray that I receive the material blessings and wealth that Jesus intends for me to have. He was very intense but I'm not convinced that's 'the faith'.

14 posted on 05/30/2006 11:50:07 AM PDT by siunevada (If we learn nothing from history, what's the point of having one? - Peggy Hill)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: siunevada

The Faith.

Worth a real discussion.

When I have time I will try to get back to you.

On a tight schedule for the next week.

Thanks for writing.

jm


15 posted on 05/31/2006 2:21:46 AM PDT by JockoManning (Listen Online http://www.klove.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson