Spontaneous Church Planting inGhana By John Upton

The following are excerpts from the report presented by BWA

President John Upton at the BWA Executive Committee meeting I was visiting with the Baptists in Ghana. Steven Asante,

president of the Ghana Baptist Convention, took off a week to travel with me across the country. The majority of our trip was in the Northeastern part of Ghana, in the Yendi region. It is an area that is 87 per cent Muslim. It is also the poorest region of Ghana and an area burdened heavily with malaria. We traveled each day deep into the bush. Steven said he had never traveled such difficult roads in his life. We were distributing treated mosquito nets to some of the villages in the bush. These were just mud huts with no electricity, no running water, no sanitation, and people with no jobs other than farming yams, and abject poverty. Before we could enter a village we had to visit with the village

chief to receive permission to enter his village. All the chiefs are Muslim. We entered one village and visited the chief. We told him what we wanted to do. He gave his permission but he also had a request of us. He asked if we would start a church in his village. When asked about his interest to start a church he said he wanted a church for two reasons. First, Christians, more than any other people he knew, are people full of hope. His people needed hope. Second, Christians are good people and good people have

with other agencies and institutions that share the objectives of CCBS. The leadership of the Caribbean

Baptist Fellowship (CBF) is committed to effective engagement of God’s mission. However,

the level of effectiveness of

the mission is reflected in the practice of faith and the level of mission engagement within the local churches of member countries. There is concern that many local

a better future. His people need a future. Would we start a church while we were there? I was very reluctant. I will never forget: Steven and I standing under a tree singing

while people from all over the village came. More than 150 people gathered under the tree with us. He and I, through a translator, shared the basic Gospel in no more than 15 minutes. It was a presentation without all the flare and fluff I normally add. When asked if anyone wanted to accept this Jesus, more than 100 persons raised their hands. We gathered them and from among their midst they identified five who would become their church leaders, three men and two women. We gave each leader a Bible in the local language. Those five

have been connected since to a training program where a trainer will travel once a week out to the bush to train the leadership. Steve and I started a church that afternoon and it is doing very well to this day. There is one other thing I want to tell you about that experience

though. After the service a young man pulled on my arm and asked, “How long has this good news of Jesus been known?” I told him about 2,000 years. He said, “Then what took you so long to get here? What of my father and my grandfather, why did you take such a long time to come?” Good question.

The Future of IBTS

The following are excerpts of a report submitted at the March Executive

Committee of the BWA by Tony Peck, BWA regional secretary for Europe and general secretary of the European Baptist Federation

We took the important decision to move churches, especially in some

territories, may not have ready access to resources that would facilitate a deeper understanding of the church’s faith. There are challenges in living out one’s faith in today’s world – social, economic, spiritual, etc. There is also the concern that some pastors and other church leaders could benefit from additional theological training and development to assist them in their service to God and their fellow human beings. It is in response to these and other concerns that the CBF decided to offer a Ministry Development Program (MDP) to member countries of the CBF. The aims of MDP are to broaden and

deepen understanding of the church’s faith, encourage bold and confident witness, facilitate leadership development in service to God and fellow human beings and explore opportunities for more effective engagement in mission.

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the International Baptist Theological Seminary (IBTS) from Prague to Amsterdam. This followed a crisis in the finances of IBTS, mainly caused by the

downturn in the global economy, which led to three years of careful discussion and evaluation about the best way forward for IBTS. Several possible locations for IBTS were looked at in detail, with Amsterdam emerging as the most viable option. Having the decision, a group has been set up to implement it, with the hope that the move will be complete by the start of the 2014-15 academic year in September 2014. The EBF will also move its office to Amsterdam.

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