Page 209 - LD215 History of the Church in Africa A4 final

Evangelical Missions and African Initiatives

Unable to return to Africa, Bingham sent out a third team. They [the
team members] successfully established a base 500 miles inland at
Patigi in 1902. From there, the work of SIM [Sudan Interior Mission]
began in Africa. (www.sim.org/index.php/content/sim-history)

Paas quotes Fielder who discusses the overall impact and success of
the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM):

The SIM was successful in regions like Northern Nigeria, Niger,
Southern Ethiopia, Sudan, Liberia, Somalia and Ghana. The
work led to the foundation of Evangelical Churches of West Africa
(ECWA). (173)

The SIM website indicates that today it is partnering with churches in
more than 20 African countries with millions of church members and
many African missionaries. In the 1980s, the mission joined with two
other faith missions to become the Society for International Ministries.
Today, their official name worldwide is simply SIM.

Africans and the Advance of the Gospel

I have tried to follow the development of Christianity in Africa
with a balanced perspective. While European missionaries are to be
commended for their vision and personal involvement in bringing the
gospel to many places in Africa, I have provided evidence that many
Africans were also active in spreading the good news about Christ in
Africa. It would be an understatement to say that Africans were more
than capable of evangelizing and planting churches. What Henry Venn
proposed in the 1800s about training African leadership did not develop
quickly. As a result, there were separatist movements and splinter
groups from existing churches. There was also the rise of the African
Independent Church movement. As Sanneh indicates: “The era of the
‘Scramble for Africa’ was to create a wide circle of disaffected Africans,
many of them Christians” (1983, 175).

Although some divisions resulted because of cultural issues such as
forms of music and worship, other problems involved questions of
doctrine. In any case, much literature has been written on this subject.
For example, many documents exist which indicate that there have

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