South Africa (MNN)–One of OMS International’s main projects in Africa is “Into Africa.”
The program establishes and encourages Christ-centered churches throughout the continent. OMS’s Ray Airosa (a-rohz-a) oversees the church planting ministries of the project.
It’s not the evangelism that presents the test of their work, it’s what comes after the decision to follow Christ. “Somebody said that your Christianity can be six miles wide, but only an inch deep. Our greatest challenge,” explains Airosa, “is for true discipleship, for us to be challenging people with the truth, so that their lives become deeply rooted in Jesus Christ, and so that it’s not superficial Christianity.”
Their mission, he adds, is to train church leaders to understand what it means to ‘reach Africa for Christ.’ “Essentially it boils down to true discipleship. If God entrusts five people to me, it’s my job to disciple those five people and lead them to maturity in Christ. That’s essentially what it means.”
The team teaches people about evangelism, door to door, in the market places and other opportunities God gives. From that, they work on planting national churches.
That provides a natural outgrowth of training national leadership through the establishment of Bible Colleges and Seminaries on the mission field.
As a result of this strategy, there are more than 7,800 co-workers on the mission fields. That’s 5,240 churches planted.
There are more than 6,800 students studying in 29 institutions, plus 346 evangelism teams working in 33 counties worldwide.
Those church leaders have their hands full with the discipleship of over 100,000 new believers. Please pray for their wisdom and stregnth as they deal with the unique opportunities presented.
