OFM, AIM’s media team based in Nairobi, recently met up with Moses, the youth and missions pastor at AIC Langata, to interview him for their series about Africans on the front lines of this work. Moses says:
A pastor in a local church should be asking himself, “Why am I here? Why has the Lord allowed this congregation to exist in this particular place at this particular time?” That takes us back to Matthew 28, “Go ye into the whole world.” The growth of any local congregation should not be measured by its seating capacity, but by its sending capacity.
We know that the existence of any church all over the world, the existence of any local congregations, is to be able to reach out. Go Ye. That command of ‘go ye’ should be for the obedience of every pastor. If any pastor finds himself not getting involved in the command of going and reaching out to the whole world, he probably needs to ask himself, “Why am I here? Why do I exist?”
The church in Africa is beginning to think about doing mission work. We are coming from an age where mission work was for the white people, and we are entering into a new paradigm shift where Africans are now starting to think about doing mission work. We are beginning to think seriously, critically, and strategically about how a local congregation can actually participate in mission work, whether that is sending a missionary or supporting a missionary somewhere on the field.
It caught my attention that the Swahili Bible translates the word ‘go’ as ‘enendeni’ which in Kiswahili is actually plural. Enendeni means “Go, all of you”. If it was left as ‘go’, or ‘enda’, then probably it would be left to one person. But the Swahili version ‘enendeni’, means all of us, all of the church.
Pray that our churches would share in this vision of mission.
