Page 140 - LD215 History of the Church in Africa A4 final

A History of the Church in Africa

Mass Baptisms
At times, the Portuguese were in a hurry to “make Christians,” and
therefore they performed mass baptisms without proper teaching about
salvation and discipleship. This practice produced nominal Christians.

Compound Mentality

The “military fort” strategy led missionaries to adopt a “compound
mentality.” Thus, missionaries believed that their task was to build a
church in a specific location as the center of all activity rather than to
go to the people, learn their culture and language, and educate them
where they lived.

Training
There is very little evidence the Portuguese missionaries concentrated
on training leadership for the indigenous African church.

In the 1970s, I was driving with my family along the East African
coast, south of Mombasa, Kenya, on a small one lane road. I saw a
small village sign that read Waa. It was intriguing to observe a village
scene of a few dukas (shops), a mosque, a small school, and people,
mostly dressed in local Muslim attire. Later, I learned there was not a
single Christian church in the area. I wondered, why has Christianity
failed along the East African coast? Over the next few years, we passed
through the village at least once or twice every year. I decided to pray
that God would give the people in the area an opportunity to accept
Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and that He would help me leave a
personal witness as often as possible.

Imagine my delight when during the 1980s a young man from Waa
named Mohammad applied for enrollment at the East Africa School
of Theology (EAST) in Nairobi, Kenya. When I heard his testimony, I
was excited. By comparing notes, we learned that he was a student
at Waa during the days when we were praying for the village. Some
faithful missionaries working with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) had
led him to Christ. Now he wanted to learn more about the Word of God.
Mohammad graduated from EAST and today is a minister and teacher
of the Word along the coast of East Africa.

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