By Festus Ndukwe
“It does not seem many know the core call of CAPRO as a Mission. Many know CAPRO for many things but not so much for the major thing that CAPRO is called to do. The core call of CAPRO is to plant churches among unreached people groups. Where the Ministry is seen doing Training, Research, Mobilization, Media, Community Development, etc., – all these are directed towards this primary goal of planting churches.”
Core Mandate
The call of CAPRO is to plant churches in the context of the people’s unique culture. The churches planted are not denominational churches or CAPRO-owned churches – they are churches owned by the people! These churches are Indigenous, ‘Self-Governing’, ‘Self-Propagating’ and ‘Self-Supporting.’ As there is the church in Antioch or the church in Ephesus in the New Testament, so we have the church among the Mumuye in Taraba State and the church among the Gbagyi in Kaduna State or the church among the Mwani in Mozambiqueor the church among the Ilchamus in Kenya. It is the New Testament type of Church Planting. Each church planted is expected to multiply other churches in their lands.
This model of church planting is drawn from the concept of ‘People Group Thinking,’ which came as a result of Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization held in 1974.It is a legitimate method for advancing evangelistic strategy. People group refers to a group concept over individuals. This same concept applies to our diaspora church planting, though the churches are composed of mixed cultures of different peoples.
What Defines Our Strategy?
In 1986, CAPRO came to understand this people group concept, and since then, it has helped define our Church Planting Strategy which is geared towards speeding up the evangelization of the world.
In God’s mind, the soul of a Hausa or Fulani may be equal to that of a Yoruba or Igbo. But the soul of a Hausa or Fulani is more strategic than that of a Yoruba or Igbo. Many Yoruba and Igbo have believed. The Yoruba and Igbo are reached with the Gospel. Not so with the Hausa or Fulani or Somali. It is therefore more strategic to focus church planting work among the Hausa, Fulani or Somali people. These people have the language, culture, and they know their people and their terrain. If they catch the gospel message, they can spread the message faster and orchestrate church planting movements among their own people than any person from any other ethnic group. This is the wisdom behind cross cultural church planting.
Over the years, it has been difficult for the body of Christ to understand this, but the Church is getting it gradually. More churches have been partnering with CAPRO in this vision in praying and in releasing both their human and material resources. As CAPRO seeks to engage 56 new Unreached People Groups (UPGs) and plant 341 new churches by the year 2025, it is hoped that more churches will come on board and partner with us to get this work done.
Festus Ndukwe may be reached at
mms@capromissions.org
