November 16 1998

ARTICLE TOOLS

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"Africa is a land of great potential, a sleeping spiritual giant."

The church in Africa has been compared to a lake that is a mile long and an inch deep. Because of the political and social turmoil that Africa is going through, the church has become like a hospital where people come to get hope. As a result, many people are coming to the Lord. But the teaching and the knowledge of the Bible are often superficial, and Christianity is not transforming people's lives.

This is graphically illustrated by looking at the powerful revival that started in Rwanda in the 1930s—the East African Revival. It had such a big impact that by 1994 about 80 percent of the population of Rwanda was Christian, either Protestant or Catholic. But sadly, Rwanda was the site of the 1994 genocide in which a half-million people were murdered. Christians were slaughtering Christians. How could this happen?

I am grateful for the missionaries who came to Africa. My father was converted by one from America. Only now is the African church waking up to the fact that we might not only be a receiving church but a sending one like the American church. But there are some things we should learn to do differently.

There is a saying among my people that missionaries don't cry. This perception grew out of the early missionaries' method of ministry. Typically, they would build their homes on the top of a hill and the health clinic or church down the hill. They would come down to minister to the people, then retreat to the hilltop to live in the security of their homes. This was not discipleship; this was not modeling, identifying, and living with others as Jesus did. To this day, Africa is in desperate need of open, transparent leadership that not only preaches ...