Lausanne World Pulse – Nigerian Church Takes the Gospel Back to Jerusalem with Vision 50:15
By Timothy Olonade
The period between 2006 and 2020 has been divided into five three-year phases. The first phase will focus on ownership development, spread of information and vision education within and outside of Nigeria. Both the Church and missions agencies are developing comprehensive, well-articulated plans to ensure the entire body unites to give the target nations the opportunity to hear the gospel. These plans will serve as resources for mobilizing and training missionaries to enhance the effective utilization of ministry opportunities available to the Nigerian Church.
|
|
Vision 50:15 and the 10/40 WindowVision 50:15 provides the Church a focal point for its effort to reach the 10/40 Window. As a local initiative it enables every person to do his or her part within the vineyard and also work together to realize the goal of fifty thousand mobilized Nigerians by 2020. With this vision the multi-level efforts in mobilization, research and training may now find a specific target. Currently, Nigerian missionaries are serving in fourteen of the thirty-eight countries covered by this vision!This vision implies that the Nigerian Church is seeking to face the hard part of the remaining harvest field with total and unreserved commitment. We cannot get back to Jerusalem without:
- Facing the enemy eye to eye. This vision calls for holy confrontation. The nations between Nigeria and Jerusalem are known to have overtly set themselves against the Lord and his anointed.
- Overrunning the enemy territory. We must look into this vision “like a lamb in the midst of wolves.”
- Having a readiness to die. This requires a reappraisal of our theology of suffering. This vision will query and question the laid-back theology of ease that has characterized the Nigerian Church over the last few years.
NEMA helps member agencies, organizations and churches to be more effective and efficient in their missions enterprise both in their pioneering efforts and toward a fruitful outcome of current work in difficult terrains within and outside of Nigeria. NEMA offers important opportunities for strategic partnerships and alliances across denominational divides.With the adoption of the vision by NEMA members and other participants, there is a wider platform to mobilize all facets of the Church and missions community in Nigeria. At the arrowhead of this vision is the critical need to sensitize, inform and motivate the Church nationwide to embrace the new phase of missionary enterprise. At the moment, high-level collaborative meetings between leaders of various networks have commenced to carefully examine the core element of the vision.
Pages: ALL Prev 1 2 3 Next
|
|
Timothy Olonade is executive secretary for the Nigerian Evangelical Missions Association (NEMA). He can be reached at [email protected]. He is also a missions mobilizer and publisher. Olonade has authored and co-authored over a dozen books on discipleship, missions, evangelism, human resources and missions strategy. |
