30.7.14

African Ministries; An In-Depth Analysis

By Sharron Cantu


Africa as a continent has currently 54 nations and is acknowledged as the most densely inhabited continent. Its status also includes a couple of countries at war, massive unemployment, poverty including problems linked with low development elsewhere in this world. However its inhabitants being very religious due to years of evangelism activity reflected in the large number of Clerical African Ministries in the continent that play huge roles in solving some of the said problems.

There exists two comprehensive types of ministries, governmental and church based ministry for instance Anglican Mission Agency as well as other church based agencies. The two have the chief duty of providing service to people. They both base their work in the community thus work concurrently and in so doing complement each other.

The two key ministerial bodies vary slightly in some areas. These areas of drift include for starters leadership structure indifference such that church agencies normally really on the clergy to serve as leaders whereas administrative ones are managed by democratically elected ones. Likewise when it comes to which structures each chooses, religious ministries prefer direct engagement with society while on the other hand government ministries have structures that are seemingly distant from the community. Individually however, the two types perform their own unique roles.

These organizations in government play legally defined and very public roles normally formed through legislation. The roles they play comprise of redistribution of resources justly, management of development projects, providing citizens with security in addition to quality medical services. It is important that they ensure service provision is free and fair.

Church oriented evangelism have diverse roles they assign themselves depending chiefly on what aim the church and its congregation agree on. Commonly this includes acting as the voice of the community by airing their views, linking with external donors, management of aid accorded to locals as well as assisting in development projects in areas they are based. The activities undertaken however must in accordance with the law.

The types of church ministries in operation differ geographically. The majority of the northern part of the continent being predominantly Islamic has very few Christian holy organizations but operate on Islamic law, eastern and western Africa have protestant holy orders and the catholic church as well as in the southern regions of the continent. The different ministry perform different work where they are based.

They are based along religious ties do work that can be either based on religious reasons or development reasons. Religiously this can be spreading of Christianity and preparation of local religious clergies. Development wise it involves building academic institutions, hospitals, provision of professionals such as teachers and providing sponsorship for needy children to universities. Ministry therefore complement government initiatives.

A couple of challenges hinder activities of both kinds of holy orders in service to locals. Problems present include persistent warfare and conflicts in some regions creating constant fear, traditions and cultures intolerant to change and outsiders, language barriers, inaccessibility of regions due to poor infrastructure and misuse of funds by corrupt leaders. However, with a will there is always a way and evangelism will always find a way of providing services to people in need.




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