The Church in Africa: From Adolescence to Maturity

Gottfried B. Osei-Mensah was appointed executive secretary of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization in 1976. Before that he was the pastor of a Baptist church in Nairobi, Kenya, and served as traveling secretary of the Pan-African Fellowship of Evangelical Students. He also worked for Mobil Oil for five years. He studied at Prempeh College in Kumasi, Ghana, and at Birmingham in England. Mr. Osei-Mensah was interviewed by Editor Harold Lindsell during a recent visit to the United States. Here is a distillation of that exchange:

Question. You are an African, and Africa is obviously now at a major crossroads. How do you see the Church’s role in Africa today?

Answer. The situation in southern Africa is very complex. My own position was expressed clearly in the call issued by the Rhodesian Congress on Evangelism, which took a firm stand for Christ and said that violence is not the way ahead. It is not an option for the Christian, and on a long-term basis it is not a viable option for anyone because violence will breed violence and people will submit only so long as they feel weak. As soon as they feel strong enough to rebel, violence will be countered by violence. But that does not mean we therefore should resign ourselves to the status quo. Any thinking person in southern Africa will realize that a change will have to come. The option, therefore, must be that we pray the Lord will bring it about through reconciliation. The Christians are the ones who can play a healing role and a reconciling role in the present situation, and they should speak prophetically.

Q. To whom?

A. To the government as well as to those who are feeling desperate and saying that the only option is violence. They should boldly proclaim that the way ahead is through Christ and reconciliation.

Q. Is that not talking platitudes?

A. No. We have seen it at work in Kenya. I remember very clearly during the emergency in Kenya that the Revival Brethren whom God had raised up refused to be party to the violence. They said, The Lord has given us weapons of righteousness and we are prepared to fight. That weapon of righteousness which the Lord had given to them was prayer, and the Revival Brethren prayed so that when independence came they rejoiced that the Lord had answered prayer. The Christian has no choice but to encourage dialogue and reconciliation and love as the only viable means of solving the problems in southern Africa.

Q. Is it possible then that black Christians may be persecuted by black non-Christians?

A. Yes, and the white Christians who have this policy are also having to suffer.

Q. Are there places in Africa where Christians are being persecuted for their Christian faith?

A. We hear of a number. This past year we learned, for example, that Christians apparently have been under tremendous fire in Equatorial Guinea. In Uganda, both Christians and non-Christians are suffering. But there, I understand, the openings for the Gospel are tremendous, and Christians, having decided that whether by life or by death they are going to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, are busy taking these opportunities.

Q. Where in Africa is the Church growing most rapidly?

A. I think it is true to say that in east Africa the Church is growing at an alarming rate. I say “alarming” because the increase numerically is not matched, in my judgment, by a comparable increase in depth. I am concerned that unless we find some way of discipling and instructing the new Christians, we might be in danger in a generation or two when we have a large body of interested people who call themselves Christians but who have not been taught …

Q. It would be a superficial kind of Christianity.

A. Well, at the moment, you see, their zeal is not superficial. I think we can take advantage of the fact that their zeal is real and try to match it with understanding. But we have not the resources. It seems to me that to meet these needs now we need help.

Q. What is the kind of help you need from the Western churches?

A. At the moment it is in this area of biblical teaching. In the Theological Commission of the AEAM [Association of Evangelicals of Africa and Madagascar] we are seeking to do something about this, and we have projected three graduate schools in theology where the up-and-coming generation of church leaders may be instructed and they in turn will be able to instruct others. Any help given these will be a very good investment for the Church in the coming generation.

Q. How did you become exposed to Christian teaching?

A. I was brought up in a Presbyterian home in Ghana and I was converted while in high school through the dedicated witness and life of a Christian headmaster. I went off to England to study chemical engineering, and it was when I was there in the fellowship of an InterVarsity group that the Lord laid a burden upon my heart …

Q. You were raised a Presbyterian and then you became a Baptist minister …

A. After working in industry for five years I was called into student work, and then the Lord led me on into the pastoral ministry. Along the way I was convicted that I should testify publicly to my conversion in baptism. So I was baptized.

Q. How did you get involved in Lausanne [the International Congress on World Evangelization, held in 1974 in Lausanne, Switzerland]?

A. I had been active in a number of interdenominational activities in east Africa, as I had been in west Africa. I had gone to Nairobi to be assistant to the pastor of a Baptist church there, and I took over when he resigned. While I was pastor I was invited to be on the planning committee for the meeting at Lausanne. Then I was also invited to submit a paper on the work of the Holy Spirit in world evangelization.

Q. What would you say were the major accomplishments of the congress itself?

A. I think it opened the eyes of the younger churches to see their responsibility to be involved in world evangelization. Hitherto I think many of us have just accepted this idea that there are sending countries and receiving countries and unless you are a European or North American, well, you are just a receiving country. But I think the way in which it was put very clearly at Lausanne is that world evangelization is the task of the whole Church taking the whole Gospel to the whole world. To me this was something which came home strongly.

Q. Do you sense any real need for the so-called Third World countries to be sending missionaries to the West?

A. I will answer this way, that there is a real need for the Church to have a fresh look at mission work. I have said that world evangelization is the task of the whole Church. I think the idea is much more that of a partnership than the traditional view of missionaries. If there are situations in North America which require the participation of Christians from Third World countries, such situations should be faced and the necessary cooperation and partnership should be sought.

Q. Would you say that in your travels you found Third World churches equal in spiritual development—or even superior—to many churches in the West?

A. The Church is virile in many Third World countries today. The churches are alive. They lack very much in the area of teaching, and this is an area where we will still need help for a long time to come from the longer established churches. But as far as a living faith is concerned, and a readiness to share, and a willingness to travel sacrificially for the sake of evangelism, they are ready, and there are vast resources there that could be made available for the task of world evangelization.

Q. What do you see happening in the next two, five, or ten years?

A. I am hoping that the visions and goals of Lausanne will make an impact for world evangelization on three levels of responsibility in the Church around the world. The first level I am concerned about is what I call the grass-roots level, the pastors and Christian workers at the local level who need to be helped to apply the insights of Lausanne at the grass roots. The way this can be achieved is through pastors’ conferences and seminars on evangelism where we can give instruction, help them to evaluate what they have been doing before, teach them new skills, and see them apply these directly on the job. Now that is one area where over the next two or three years I am praying that the Lord will make a real impact. The second area is the area of regional strategy, where workers in a particular region (perhaps an entire continent, or perhaps a smaller area) come together to think strategically and to plan to use the available resources in areas where the work of evangelization is at the moment weakest. For example, in Africa when we come together we may find that the places where the Church is stronger could provide more resources to reach out to some of the areas that are struggling at the moment. The work in French-speaking Africa is still very weak, whereas the work in the English-speaking countries has been established longer and therefore has more resources. We should find a way of sharing our resources that way. The third level at which I would like to see a real impact made is the level of the missionary executives and senior church leaders. We should challenge them to see the world as a whole and to encourage the use of both funds and international resources to reach out to these unreached areas, to plan pioneering missionary activity. I think that if we are able to plan along these three levels, we will find that the resources of Lausanne are being applied.

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