The African church is a community of conviction, participation, personal relationships, and discipline — a place where men and women can reorient themselves to the world through the rediscovery of its center in the gracious activity of God. “Heavens have confirmed today the end of your sufferings, sorrow and pains because He that sits on the throne has remembered you like he remembered Jonah.”
Poverty, hunger, and underdevelopment issues are glaring among church congregations in Africa. By discussing these issues and devoting time to resolving them, the church can effectively:
- Bring church leaders’ attention to the local congregation as a significant context for addressing social issues such as education, hunger and poverty.
- Underscore the importance of education in cultivating social responsibility.
- Structure social issues and social actions organically into the life of the congregation.
- Communicate to its members that poverty and hunger reduction is of central importance for Christians.
- Work together with other churches to create social capital to serve the community as a whole.
- Create critical connections for the efficiency of the agricultural national system and related implications for agricultural and rural transformation, and for poverty and hunger reduction.
- Adopt grass-roots decision-making in church affairs to provide a resource base for the management of community-based programs.
- Function as moral educator of the community, bringing members to regard social responsibility as a crucial dimension of Christian life and unity.
