Mission in an African Way

Abstract

The African Instituted Churches have always been notoriously difficult to research, mainly because of their inaccessibility from a cultural and theological perspective. Yet their presence in the African community continues to be felt because of their sheer numbers and their obvious appeal to those who still have an African worldview. Audiences of treatises on the AICs are usually the academic community (which inevitably means more sociological analysis) or mainline church leadership, which is trying to decipher what they are all about. This book attempts to get into the skin of the AIC mission in order to sympathetically present its essential message to the "ordinary" believer in the church. It is more than a book in the sense that it is presented in the form of a manual. The entire approach attempts not only to remain faithful to what the authors understand to be the message of the AlCs but to present this message in a way that the AlCs themselves would sympathize with. It is written in simple, non-academic English accessible to anyone. Each chapter starts with a story, or case study, which describes how a particular AIC approaches a certain issue, followed by a paragraph entitled "think about this" which raises key questions coming out of the case study that are relevant for the wider church. This is followed by commentary on the AIC contribution to the wider church around the issue that the ease study raises, then a relevant bible study and some questions for a class or group discussion.