West Africa Report, December 2009

Three church plants in the last three months

From City of God Church in Accra, Ghana

Emmanuel Okafor, our evangelist, has been making waves. Earlier this year he pioneered a church plant in Dodowa on the northern outskirts of Accra. More recently, the Lord opened a door for him into Amanokrom, a town in the Akwapim mountains about 35 minutes from Accra. A young man phoned Emmanuel to ask for prayer for his mother who was very ill. Emmanuel asked the young man to give his phone to his mother so that she could hear him as he prayed for her and as Emmanuel prayed she was healed. Her overjoyed family then asked to meet Emmanuel personally and when he arrived he found around 30 people waiting to meet him. Many of those gathered believed the gospel message and went and called their friends to come to a follow-up meeting. So began this church plant, which is now meeting regularly in a classroom on Sunday evenings with an average attendance of 50. God is great!

From Grace Christian Church in Freetown, Sierra Leone

Momoh Sessay has pioneered a new church into the eastern part of Freetown called Calaba Town. Their first public meeting was held on the 1st November 2009. We are very encouraged to see the Freetown church not only surviving the intense persecution they have been under but actually going beyond that to give birth to a new work.

From City of Grace Church in Ho, Ghana

Michael Akotia has opened a new church in Hohoe in the Volta Region of Ghana in response to many calls coming in from his weekly radio broadcast to the region. Michael and his team make regular weekly visits to Hohoe to help establish this new work, which is now being led by Benedictus.

TV Work in Ghana

Rebuilding the Nations TV Programme. Every Friday at 6 a.m. on TV3

A little over a year ago the Lord opened a door for us to do a thirty minute weekly broadcast on TV3 - the most popular TV station in Ghana. It has been a very exciting journey - from acquiring our own equipment and training and developing a Media Team (King’s Media) for the recording and production of our programmes, to liaising with national broadcasters etc.

I have drawn up a curriculum for our nation, which I am slowly working my way through, covering key foundational truths, such as the Gospel of God, Grace, Jesus Christ, the Church, and Tribalism & Racism. I hope to move on to Marriage & Family life and Work & Business God’s Way. In all these key areas I am seeking to bring a Biblical revelation to our nation in contrast to the huge amount of error and unbiblical teaching which currently surrounds us. We are using a combination of straightforward preaching and one-to-one discussion programmes.

The Rebuilding the Nations TV programme is really opening up our nation to us. We have had much encouraging feedback leading to the development of some new and exciting relationships. A number of church planting doors have now opened for us and we are eager to go through some of these. More recently a satellite TV station approached us and asked to broadcast our programmes. The result is that we can now be picked up not only in Ghana but also in many other African countries, certainly by our churches in Lome in Togo, Cotonou in Benin and Lagos in Nigeria. Some videos of our TV programmes can be seen under ‘Resources’ on our website: www.cityofgodchurch.net

Terry & Wendy Virgo in West Africa

On December 4-6 Terry & Wendy Virgo came to lift our sights and our heads with superb teaching from God’s word and great times of fellowship. Our people unanimously agreed that they ought to come back again! Whilst Terry was with us we arranged for Vanessa, who hosts our one-to-one discussion programmes, to talk to Terry about laying foundations for local churches. We will be broadcasting this early in the new year.