By Oyeniyi Esan
The President of the Nigerian Baptist Convention, Rev. Isreal Akanji, has unveiled plans to hand over the church’s activities, structures and programs to the youths as needed to prepare for the future’s demands.
This was disclosed on Monday during a press conference organized ahead of ARISE Youths Congress, that the church expects over 20,000 youths to grace the 3-day event. We
According to him, “We have come to observe the reality of the shift in global Christianity from the Northern Hemisphere (Europe and America) to the South (Africa, Asian and Latin America). This has put a burden on our hearts to begin to prepare our young people for global Christian response and impact. Our Nigerian Baptist convention is the second largest Baptist denomination in the world and so much is expected of us even by the Baptist World Alliance in responding to a global shift in the Christian faith.
“In order to respond to this situation, details of which I have no space to provide in this release, our Convention decided to call for a 3-day gathering of our young people for a revival programme tagged ARISE, to be held at the Baptist International Convention Center (BICC), Lufewape Village, Kil. 53, Lagos-Ibadan. This gathering is to have heart-to-heart interphase with our young people, some of them are already looking at Christianity as a thing of the past generation.
“Their global mates are fast deviating from the teaching of the Bible and advertising a similar response behaviour to our young generation. The instrumentality of technology has assisted in heightening the magnitude of the distraction to our youths, which is calling for a quick fix and redress. As parents, it is our duty to guide our children in the path of righteousness.
He also noted, “This is the calling of parents, according to the Bible (Prov. 22:6). We are not ready to subscribe to the campaign that children and young people should be free to choose whatever they like. While we are not out to suppress their freedom, we believe it is our duty to show them what we know is right, from the written word of God and our own experience of God.
“We are to have a symbolic handing over of our Church to the Youths – for them to own it while we are still alive and not see themselves as strangers in or to it. To get it embedded in their hearts that our structures, institutions and ancillaries are part of our legacy to them. We have educational institutions of great reputation from the nursery to the primary to secondary and tertiary levels. We have medical institutions from the clinic level to general Hospitals and to a Teaching Hospital in Nigeria.
We have financial institutions which we expect to grow through our youths. We are reviving our agricultural programmes so that our youths can join to feed the nation in the near future. We are expanding our skill acquisition centres to equip and empower our youths for survival and contribution to the economy of our nation. We have the publication and printing industries where they can work and expand until they cover all parts of the country and beyond. We have a television station where their skills are required and through which they can expand their businesses.
“We have vocational centres to which they are to express their interest and which must be expanded. We want them to begin to serve as members of the committees of our structures, namely, Churches, Associations, Conferences and the Nigerian Baptist Convention. We want them to get ready to take over our denomination’s ministries – as Pastors and Deacons of our Churches and leaders of the future.
“We want to train them towards responsible leadership and institute programmes of mentoring. We want them to ask us questions. We want them to express their own hearts and feelings on what we are doing and what we can possibly do even better. We want to be close to them. Because the programme is exploratory, we expect to get much more from our interaction with the youths.
He equally noted “We are calling the youths to know that we are not going to dominate forever. I believe that the government needs to interface with the youth. The government listens to the youths, and we are recommending the model to governments across the world to emulate and embrace this ideal idea. The government should be ready to make sacrifices for the young people in this country. The government must deliberately and intentionally come up with plans and programmes to help the youths.
