Major Factors Inhibiting the Growth of Seventh-dayAdventist (SDA) Church in Cross River State (1953 -2005), Nigeria IntroductionIn the book, Understanding Church Growth and Decline, issues about growth problems in some Christian denominations in North America were raised in the following sentences: An unprecedented period in the life of the North American Church began in the mid-1960s. For the first time since records allow us to recall, many major denominations actually stopped growing in membership and began to decline, and the growth rate of most others slowed considerably (17).C. Peter Wagner indicates that, from 1965 to 1975, a period of ten years, this declining experience affected many Churches in North America, among whom are, the Episcopal Churches which lost 17 percent of its membership which was a total of 575,000 persons. The United Presbyterian lost a total of 12 percent of its membership, which is an equivalent of 375,000 members. And the United Methodists lost in this same vein 10 percent, that is, 1,100,000 of its membership (31, 32).Robert K. Hudnut, commenting on the reaction of the Church leaders of some of the denominations losing members in North America, says that these church leaders were proclaiming, "People are leaving the church. It could not be a better sign!" (xi).And Wagner, already quoted, commenting on the assertion of Church Growth Movement in North America and its divine acceptance says, "The Church Growth Movement has boldly asserted that not only is Church growth Ok, it is the will of Almighty God"(13).Thus the research on "Major Factors Inhibiting the Growth of Seventh-day Adventist Church in Cross River State" is loaded with a crucial concern, especially, if it is the will of God for any church to grow. It simply means that it should as well be the will of God for Seventh-day Adventist Church to grow in Cross River State.The missionary work of Seventh-day Adventist Church in Cross River State started in 1953 in Calabar. Both Seventh-day Adventist foreign and national evangelists held several evangelistic meetings in Calabar. It was not until November 28, 1959, a period of seven years after the church's missionary work had started, that the first Seventh-day Adventist Church in Cross River State was organized with fourteen (14) baptized members (Calabar Church Record 63).By 1978, few years after the Nigerian Civil War, as churches were reorganized, that is, twenty-five years after the work started in Calabar, and the church membership rose to eighty-six (86). In 1994, a public crusade was conducted in Calabar (in addition to those already conducted) where 70 people were baptized. In the next two or three months, out of those baptized in this Calabar crusade, only one member remained as a member.
The history of Christianity has always been a two-way process of transformation in any given culture. Christianity and paganism are reciprocal; Christianity is necessary for revelation to be fulfilled, but the actual quality of this fulfillment depends upon the quality of the religious man transformed by revelation. Christianity, as a result of this, needs a natural religion, the same way it needs all human realities as the sole mission is to save what has first been created. The link between Gospel and culture is that Gospel whenever its introduced and established in a new culture, is “transposed” in a particular way a sweet melody into a new key. Moreover, the Gospel, when transposed from its biblical world to other cultural worlds, undergoes change itself as well as causing these other worlds to change. Crowther created an astonishing impact and contribution after his consecration in 1864; as he strived to indigenize or Africanize Christianity to make it possible for the Christian faith to be accepted by Africans without having to give up or disown their cultural values. This work seeks to find what part Henry Venn, the dynamic and accomplished secretary of the Church Missionary Society, played to see how Christian faith can go well together or combine with African beliefs and practices to produce Christianity which may become a religion for Africans. This work has shown that Henry Venn's ideas on native Church organization include: the native Church needs the ablest native pastors for its fuller development and that it should be under a native bishop and that a native Church is organized as a national institution. This work adopted a qualitative method that used historical and content analysis. This work concluded that for the Africanization of Christianity to be actualized, African Church must have its liturgy or incorporate what was good of the native religions to develop an authentically African Christianity. And that reducing the various African vernaculars into writing and developing native literature was a first step in the reforming movement toward Africanization of Christianity; just as Venn urged Crowther to undertake the translation of the Bible into Yoruba and to preach in Yoruba even while still at Freetown.
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