The State of the Great Commission in Francophone Africa: Major Challenges and Opportunities

Key Global Trends Shaping the Great Commission

The Rise of Africa

If we observe the average annual rate of change (2.76), by 2050 Africa should have the highest percentage of Christians in the world and occupy a prominent place on the global Christian scene. The latest edition of the World Christian Encyclopaedia attests to the rapid growth of Christianity in Africa. According to this study, 26 percent of all Christians live in Africa, while Africa accounts for around 18 percent of the world’s total population. Today, this figure may well be revised upwards. And the mission continues, no longer by foreign European or American agents, but essentially by African actors themselves, at a time when the world of former actors is becoming de-Christianized, and new religious recompositions and state religious policies (secularism, prohibition of proselytizing, etc.) seem to be undermining the missionary dimension of the church.

In the context of the Great Commission, we need to maintain the growth of Christianity in Africa and make the gains we have made profitable by emphasizing evangelization, youth discipleship at all stages, and cultivating an integrated theological vision that will consolidate the benefits of all missionary evangelization efforts.¹

Regional youth populations

According to the United Nations, there are over 1.8 billion young people in the world today, or 16 percent of the global population, 90 percent of whom live in developing countries. The number of adolescents and young people is now at a record high, although it is expected to fall considerably, from 17.6 percent in 2010 to 13.5 percent in 2050 if global fertility continues to decline.²

Africa is the world’s youngest continent in 2022, with 60 percent of its population aged 25 or under, compared with a global average of 25 percent and a median age of 19.7 years old. Furthermore, Africa is set to experience the strongest growth in youth, with 42 percent of its population aged between 15 and 24 by 2030. The youthfulness of Africa’s population is perhaps its most strategic potential for the global Christian movement.³

One Hope’s ‘Global Youth Culture’ report showed that Africa has the highest number of committed Christian teenagers at 28 percent, compared to 17 percent for all other continents combined. This means that anyone thinking about mission must not only ask how Africa is involved, but also that Africans themselves must be ready to be at the forefront of missionary strength, ready to offer the world the greatest missionary force.

Like any other cross-cultural missionary, anyone interested in mission to young people in Africa must be ready to study youth culture and the influences it exerts on them. This is essential to understanding their worldview, in order to communicate the gospel to them and adopt them into the family of faith.

The youthfulness of Africa’s population is perhaps its most strategic potential for the global Christian movement.³

To win over young people, we must first go into their world to establish trust, attention, and relationships. Young people aren’t interested in programs, but rather need meaningful relationships with caring adults. Second, they need an incarnational model, a preaching of the gospel accompanied by examples of authentic Christian living, the application of biblical principles in daily life, a model of adults living in faith, within the framework of authentic and meaningful relationships. Finally, it’s our engagement with the Scriptures that will help young people connect with God’s Word, finding God’s Word relevant to their situation. As parents and older adults, we need to set an example in the way we interact with God’s Word and accompany our young people in reading, meditating on and applying these words of life.

Young people face multiple challenges in their life:

Challenges of social media

The Internet represents the dominant cultural metaphor for the world of the 21st century—decentralized, highly participatory, fluid, self-organizing, geographically dispersed.

Mental health challenges

Isolation and lack of human contact prove that community is the key to human flourishing. It’s true, then, that the pursuit of relationships kills several birds with one stone (the 24/7 Internet connection is one of the major factors in the social isolation that worsens the mental health of young people).

General challenges

These challenges include extreme poverty, global climate change, sexual abuse, unemployment and, political corruption. The church is called upon to address global challenges at the level of youth.

Visual and oral affect as validation of truth

Digital technologies are giving rise to what many call the ‘new orality’. Bible applications enable people all over the world to hear, rather than read, the Bible in the language of their hearts. To this end, organizations, church leaders and partners involved in the Great Commission of our Lord should seize the new opportunities that oral Bible translation represents for African communities in their ministries of evangelism and appropriation of the Word of God in the communities. There is an urgent need to make the field of Oral Bible Translation (OBT) known to the churches. First, to show its importance for the Great Commission in French-speaking Africa and second, the need for churches to be involved in the development of OBT projects in languages that do not yet have a Bible, and even in those where projects are underway.

Integrity and the fight against corruption

The promotion of integrity, accountability, and the fight against corruption is an important aspect of the implementation of the Great Commission in Africa. The church’s mission is to support all those involved in preventing corruption by developing a culture of integrity. The focus is on the younger generation to act in a forward-looking way and break established patterns of corruption. Young people are a pillar of African society. They are the creators of the country’s future, but also the ones most affected by the weaknesses of the governance system. In order to contribute to an effective culture of integrity in Africa, the following components will be required:

Developing a culture of integrity among young Africans by setting up innovative dialogue groups, implementing awareness-raising and corruption-prevention measures with young people to reinforce integrity, creating spaces for reflection, and encouraging debate and innovation.
Developing a life of integrity, or coherence, between our whole life and the teachings of Jesus: Non-Christians often justify their refusal to take the Christian faith seriously by pointing to the lack of coherence between our whole life and the teachings of Jesus in the church. The failure of believers to demonstrate integrity, or coherence, between their whole lives and Jesus’ teachings makes the gospel less credible; it suggests that giving our lives to Christ doesn’t have the transformative impact we claim.

Men and women in partnership

Worldwide, more women than men say that Christianity is ‘very important’ to them. This is especially true in the Americas, Asia, and Africa. In some cases, the gap varies from 15 to 20 percent.

One of the fronts of joint commitment expected for the success of the Great Commission is the partnership between men and women. The presence of women should contribute to a different style of exercising responsibility and power. This means making the most of women’s leadership style, which is more dynamic because it is more relational, transformational, and emotional; more interactive, encouraging participation and stimulating motivation; task and results-oriented by linking people and objectives; leadership that is sensitive to problem-solving and overcoming conflict; and an integrated approach among women to the different components of the person: body and mind, affectivity and intellect.

Challenges for the Great Commission

Digital communities and the ethical use of digital devices/media in pastoral ministry.

In Christian circles, pastoral leaders worry that things like ChatGPT could become a major platform for knowledge consumption. However, as Jason Watson rightly states, ‘spiritual formation involves going beyond simply consuming content about the gospel to intentionally allowing the truth of the gospel to change the way we live.’⁴ While many see AI advances as a threat to humanity, we perceive that trusting in God’s providence in every Christian life will be more important than ever, because God’s guidance cannot simply be replaced by information generation. In this respect, as followers of Christ, we have a responsibility, between now and 2050, to educate everyone in the ethical use of technology.

Immigration

More than in the past, Africa is on the move. This movement is physical (migrations chosen or imposed by various socio-political situations) or cultural, with phenomena of deculturation, cultural hybridization or displacement of values (moral and family values in this case). It is also religious, with religious and denominational recompositions and the referential conflicts they can generate, sometimes with ancestral religious structures, sometimes with those of Christianity and Islam. The Great Commission must necessarily position itself within this sometimes opportune, sometimes unbridled globalization. Missionary work should consider the effects of globalization on African Christianity (positioning of traditional churches, confessional recompositions, effects of the media and social networks, shifting values, accompaniment of people in migration, etc.).

‘More than in the past, Africa is on the move. . . .it is urgent to redefine mission practice in this complex context, where people are constantly on the move and find themselves in new socio-religious situations with their own specific questions and challenges.’

In these conditions, it is urgent to redefine mission practice in this complex context, where people are constantly on the move and find themselves in new socio-religious situations with their own specific questions and challenges. We also need to consider the fact that traditionally non-Christian regions such as North Africa find themselves with Christian migrant populations, even though the countries in this region have Islam as their official religion.

Theological challenge, including the Kemite movement

This movement values pre-colonial African cultural and spiritual roots, and challenges Christianity in Africa at several points of ideological and historical divergence. It formulates several criticisms of Christianity on the African continent.

First, for this movement, Christianity is a colonial imposition in Africa. Christianity is presented as an instrument of European colonialism, used to subjugate African peoples and erase their indigenous cultures and spiritualities. According to the Kemites, the introduction of Christianity into Africa was often accompanied by the destruction of local religious and cultural traditions. As a result, Kemites believe that Christianity has contributed to the cultural alienation of Africans, by imposing foreign values and beliefs on them, to the detriment of ancestral African traditions.

Second, the Kemite movement calls for the valorization of ancestral African spiritualities. It encourages the rediscovery and reappropriation of ancestral African spiritualities, such as the beliefs and practices of ancient Egypt (Kemet), seen as authentically African, and the rejection of the presumed universality and superiority of Christianity, asserting that every culture has its own valid belief systems and that African spiritualities deserve equal recognition.

Third, the Kemite movement challenges Biblical and historical narratives, especially those that portray Africa and Africans in a negative light. They propose a rereading of Africa’s religious and spiritual history, highlighting figures and events that have been marginalized or distorted. They also reclaim the heritage of the ancient Egyptians, whom they consider to be black Africans, and criticize attempts to whitewash this history through Western narratives.

Fourth, the Kemite movement blames historical missionary practices, which often denigrated local beliefs and imposed a Western worldview, and questions the hierarchical structures of the Christian church, seen as undemocratic and externally imposed, in contrast to the more horizontal community structures of traditional African societies.

Fifth, the Kemites promote an Afrocentric consciousness by encouraging Africans to redefine their identity outside the frameworks imposed by the Abrahamic religions, including Christianity, and to regain cultural and spiritual autonomy and, to promote an education that highlights African history and contributions, and challenges dominant Eurocentric historical narratives.

Every intercultural missionary, every person interested in mission to Africans, needs to be sensitive to these cultural and theological critiques of the Kemite movement.

The transformation of Africa’s raw materials—the cause of conflict and non-development

The church in Africa will have a real impact on African societies if it reflects on finding sustainable solutions to the over-reliance on African resources that has led to volatile economies, weak industrialization, governance problems, and an inability to adapt to global changes such as the energy transition. Furthermore, it is crucial to stress that future wealth lies more in the development of human, technological and institutional capacities than in the raw exploitation of natural resources. The Great Commission could work on these major points:

Volatility of commodity prices

Market instability: The prices of raw materials such as oil, precious metals and minerals are extremely volatile. This instability makes long-term economic planning and stable wealth creation difficult.
Dependence on an unstable world market: African economies heavily dependent on commodity exports are vulnerable to external shocks, such as fluctuations in world prices, which can rapidly reduce income.

Low value-added and limited industrialization

Lack of local processing: A large proportion of Africa’s raw materials are exported unprocessed, meaning that most of the added value is generated elsewhere. This limits opportunities for industrial development and job creation in the country.
Low industrial development: The lack of infrastructure and technological capacity to process raw materials locally prevents a greater share of the value chain from being captured.

Resource rent and curse

Economic rent and corruption: Wealth in natural resources has often led to rent-based forms of governance, where elites capture revenues without equitably redistributing the benefits, leading to corruption and inequality.
Resource Curse: This phenomenon describes the tendency of resource-rich countries to have slower economic growth, internal conflict and weak political institutions, compared with less resource-rich countries.

Ecological transition and knowledge-based economies

Global Energy Transition: As the world transitions to renewable energy sources, demand for certain fossil fuels and minerals could decline, affecting African oil and gas exporters.
Growing importance of Knowledge Economies: In the 21st century, the most dynamic economies are increasingly focused on innovation, technology, and services. Raw materials alone are not enough to generate sustainable economic growth.

Environmental and social issues

Environmental degradation: The extraction of raw materials often results in significant environmental damage, which can affect agriculture, public health, and biodiversity.
Conflict and population displacement: The exploitation of natural resources is sometimes linked to violent conflict and forced population displacement, exacerbating social tensions and hampering sustainable development.

Poverty and unequal access to wealth

About 700 million people still live in extreme poverty (including one child in five). The major indicators of poverty, covering health, education and standard of living, reveal that a poor person in one part of the world is not deprived in the same way as a poor person in another region. This income inequality remains a challenge for missionary work, and many people continue to live in poverty.

To reduce poverty and inequality of access to wealth, we propose a number of solutions:

Understand the complexity of poverty to find solutions. We can’t solve a problem we can’t see or understand. We need to invest our time and resources in better understanding the dynamics of poverty, both globally and in our own communities, and we need to equip our members with this understanding through micro and macro business education.
Create measures of success based on analytical models.
Analyze climate issues and respond to the expectations they raise, rather than politicizing them: One of Lausanne’s contributions in this area is the provision of its Creation Care Issue Network, which brings together Christians from all over the world.
Collaborating to reduce redundancies and conflicting objectives: With the rapid development of new technologies, the church can develop relevant and timely information to support decision-making. This enables us not only to understand the crisis, but also to assess the best approach and identify potential partners.

The Great Commission and Contextual Theology

The future vigour of Christianity in Africa in general, and in Francophone Africa in particular, will depend enormously on the type of theology in relation to the church’s mission in the world. Faced with the challenges of traditional African religions, secularism, global geopolitics, and religious pluralism, an African theology that is neither missional nor contextual in essence cannot guarantee a bright future for African Christianity. The enduring question remains that of knowing the reaction of African theologians themselves, as well as the meaning and degree of their personal involvement in the process of developing related theoretical and conceptual frameworks.

The key idea is that our faith should impact the community or the society. The result of our faith should also lead to the transformation of our community. It shouldn’t be only about ‘me’, but also about ‘my community’. One cannot understand that a country with 60 or more percent of the population being Christians is a place where injustice, corruption, tribalism, violence, genocide, etc. become a reality. We should therefore stress more on the fact that:

The God of our faith should transform our community;
Our Bible should transform our community;
Our salvation should be an evidence of the transformation of our community;
Our Christian life and responsibility should lead to the transformation of our community.

Therefore, the critical question is: What is the impact of the gospel on our relationship with God, with ourselves, with others, and with the rest of the creation? When you travel to many places in Africa, you will notice that in many cases, people are expecting the church to be the solution, but the reality is sometimes a different scenario.

The need for Christian faith in Africa is not only a theoretical one, but also a practical faith. In the statement of the Great Commission, Jesus talks about ‘teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you’ (Matt 28:19).

In many places, the gospel has the purpose of preparing people for heaven, for God’s kingdom to come. The focus is more on prayer than on work. Therefore, theology, be it evangelical or non-evangelical, becomes an instrument of alienation instead of leading to the solution to the felt needs. If God cannot care about believers, it becomes easier to look for another one who would care.