Africa’s Evangelical Surge Spurs Massive Pastor Training Effort
Evangelical Christianity is enjoying explosive growth in Africa. The number of evangelicals has grown form 112 million in 1970 to 386 million in 2020. If this surge continues, Africans will make up more than half of evangelicals globally by 2050, according to researchers.
“The gospel as preached by evangelicals provides hope to the poor, suffering, struggling and hopeful growing population of Africa,” the Rev. Nelson Makanda said. “As people are transitioning from the African traditional religion and that context, and beginning to experience Christian faith and modern life, but yet still trapped in sickness, trapped in poverty, trapped in illiteracy and trapped with issues of life. The gospel as preached by evangelicals provides great hope.”
The challenge is to train and equip enough pastors to meet the demand. Makanda, a former pastor and current chancellor of Africa International University, is partnering with the Church Transformation Network to train 200,000 pastors in Africa over the next five years. The network is a nonprofit dedicated to training strategic leaders and pastors in biblical knowledge, led by Jerry Rueb, the lead pastor of Cornerstone Church in Long Beach, Calif.
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Some reports suggest that as much as 95 percent of the world’s pastors have no formal training, and Makanda said the statistic holds true in Africa. The lack of professional credentials in some countries on the continent, such as Rwanda, has hampered the ability of pastors to preach. In 2018, the Rwandan government made it a requirement that leaders of faith-based organizations in that country have at least a bachelor’s degree in theology or face the shuttering of their churches. Last year alone, thousands of churches were closed after failing to meet that requirement.
The partners already have reached 25 percent of their goal.
“It’s the most unusual, unwritten, unknown story because already what God is doing is a movement, and it’s not the typical, ‘Oh, here goes another missionary or a mission organization,” Rueb said. “We already have 65,000 right now in training in Africa, and also in Thailand and India.”
He said he recently returned from a five-week trip in Africa, where his organization visited five different major cities and met with leaders from 21 countries on the continent.
“We have a memorandum of understanding with the Africa Evangelical Alliance, which is the largest umbrella of evangelicals on the continent — they oversee 51 nations,” Rueb said. “So, what Makanda actually, in Kenya, has experienced, is we started, first of all in Ethiopia, with 10,000 pastors. It ended up being over 13,000 that we graduated a year and a half ago.
“When Makanda says 200,000 pastors in five years, it’s no joke. It’s for real, and we’re actually seeing in the next decade, it could be as high as a million. It’s possible if we have the proper resourcing, because the need is there and a desire.”
–Dwight Widaman
