Window on the World
From Randal DickBetween April 11 and May 2, I have been with members and leaders on three continents. I’d like to share some of the high points of the few days I spent with a group of leaders representing Worldwide Church of God congregations in West Africa.
On April 12 I arrived in Accra, Ghana, where James Henderson, superintendent of missions for Africa met me, along with Gabriel Ojih, regional pastor for Ghana and Nigeria. It was Easter weekend, and about 80 leaders from Ghana, Nigeria, Togo and Benin were able to gather because of the long holiday weekend.
I had last been to a leaders conference in Ghana in 1997. It was gratifying to see that now, just four years later, nearly twice as many leaders were present.
James has focused a great deal of energy on training pastoral teams who are capable of leading congregations and developing additional congregational leaders. He has done this primarily by means of conferences, because that has been the only means available. This conference, which began Friday, April 13, and ended with a communion service Sunday, April 15, was focused on the subjects of preaching as well as how leaders develop leadership in others.
By the way, in the WN about six months ago, James asked people to pray that God would open up means for the leaders in Africa to be able to communicate. I seem to remember that he specifically mentioned praying for Internet access. James reported to me that within the last few months the Internet has become available in many areas where it was not accessible last year. Now, almost all the pastoral leaders in Africa either have Internet access themselves, or have access to someone who does.
James was delighted and expressed his gratitude for the many prayers that have been offered on behalf of the African leaders. This new accessibility of Internet communication will only accelerate the development in this part of the world.
David Adelana with Randal Dick
Speaking of prayers, you may remember a prayer request for a Nigerian member who was thrown in prison and was being held without trial. I met this man at the conference. His name is David Adelana. As he related his experience, I couldn’t help thinking of the similar feelings David Adelana must have had in common with Joseph of the Bible. Once in a great while the Bible repeats itself in modern context.
Before his imprisonment, David had a good job in banking. He and his family were devoted to God and were active members of the Lagos area congregation. As you can imagine, when David was arrested and taken to the prison he was confused, especially since there were only vague charges, and no follow- up—no hearings and certainly no trial. He was simply put in prison and left there.
At first a number of other co-workers were arrested and imprisoned as well. But within 30 days or so they were all released except David, who is a Christian, and one other man, who also happened to be a Christian. The men who were released all happened to be Muslims.
I can’t even imagine how I would deal with a situation like David’s. The conditions would make most of us sick just hearing them described, let alone experiencing them. Yet days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months, and David remained in prison.
David’s story is a testament to God’s grace. He doesn’t prevent us from walking through the valley of the shadow of death, but he always protects us from being overcome by the evil thereof if we trust him. David described to me how once he recovered from the shock of being unjustly imprisoned, he began to see how Christ was using this experience to strengthen him spiritually.
He told me how the prison experience caused him to rethink many beliefs. For instance, he started out in isolation from the other prisoners. Yet, as time went along, he was drawn into fellowship with the other Christian prisoners, who would conduct services daily. With a chuckle, David told me that he now knew just about every hymn you could name, whereas before, he really only knew the rather limited repertoire of the Worldwide Church of God.
He came to appreciate the Christians of other fellowships. They also came to respect David, and when he was finally let out of prison, he was serving as the pastor of the Christians in that prison.
David now serves in a pastoral role in our fellowship as well. He feels that God prepared him and his family for this responsibility and that he was willing to use a miscarriage of justice to accomplish his perfect will in David.
I asked David if he was still in the banking field. Again he laughed and said no. He now keeps bees and produces honey. I was struck by the contrast between a banking executive and a beekeeper, so I asked how it was he came to be a beekeeper. He said that when he was imprisoned, his wife would bring him some honey when possible to help supplement the meager diet of the prison.
He said that fellow prisoners developed a real taste for the honey and would offer to buy or barter some from him. David said he figured that if honey were that much in demand, then he would try to become a producer and seller of honey.
Now, many of the men who were inmates with him, but are now free as well, are his best customers. It was a special opportunity for me to meet David face to face and to be in fellowship with him. His experience has gone beyond benefiting just him—he is a blessing to the entire congregation.
We had the pleasure of worshiping together in a service in which the Accra members were hosts. It was a sizeable group, around 300 in number. I still remember the worship service I attended in 1997, and this one was even more inspiring, probably because the brethren seemed even more joyful. I could clearly see the faces of everyone in the audience.
On most faces, there was a natural smile that remained throughout the service. The people were not even really aware that they were smiling. I had to laugh inwardly as I thought of how often the song leader in the United States or Europe feels it necessary to cajole the congregation, who engineer a brief smile for his benefit. It’s not that we are not happy to be singing to God, it’s just that it is serious business and we must not be distracted by having to think about smiling all the time. These folks were every bit as serious—they were seriously joyful!
Another aspect of the worship service that intrigued me was the way in which they were able to make the worship a genuine response of the congregation to God. They had a songleader at the front behind a lectern, just like in most of our congregations around the world.
When they would sing songs in English from the hymnal, he would lead the hymns in the traditional arm-waving manner. But when the African hymns were sung, someone in the congregation had a remote microphone and began singing, thus setting the pitch and pace for all. I never could see who was leading the singing. There was also a set of conga drums among the seats.
The female ushers, wearing blue patterned sashes diagonally from shoulder to waist, were packing tambourines. The song leader was still up on stage, but the worship was truly coming from the congregation.
I found myself drawn into this worship, even though I can’t dance and didn’t know the words or the tune. It was a real contrast to our traditional Western style of worship where we tend to fix our attention on a person or group on stage. The congregation seems to be the audience for the "professionals"—the worship leaders or the praise band. Sometimes we stare at the words on the screen, trying to sing coherently a song with three million words per verse that we heard only once before.
Sally Morgenthaller, in her book, Worship Evangelism, gave what I consider to be a profound definition of congregational worship. She said that worship happens when a congregation, led by the Holy Spirit and guided by scripture, finds its voice.
This is what made the worship in Accra special for me. The whole congregation had found its voice in a dignified, joy-filled way. While those people were worshiping Christ, he probably put the smiles on their faces himself.
This conference was the first in a series of three that James has planned for West Africa. Each component will involve another aspect of pastoral development to help equip our leaders to be able to nurture the brethren. I know that James would appreciate our prayers for these conferences in West Africa, as well as the similar conferences he is conducting in Eastern and Southern Africa.
MEMBERS IN GHANA
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