The reality of spiritual warfare and the need to combat it in prayer is an integral part of their church planting strategies. Prayer is not a ministry they incorporate into their church plants—it is the very currency through which their churches are birthed and sustained. This integrated “strategic spirituality” is profoundly convicting for those of us who, if we’re not careful, can lean so hard into strategic planning that we cease to partner in the leading of the Holy Spirit in the work he has called us to do.
Should Westerners copy and paste African Pentecostal church planting strategies and models? Absolutely not. We have to be sensitive to the leading of the Lord and discerning of what he is doing uniquely in our respective contexts. However, I believe we also have much to learn from our sisters and brothers in the majority world whose passion for the gospel is driving one of the greatest expansions of Christianity in its 2,000-year history.
In a time when Western Christianity is struggling to reignite the gospel fire it once held, African Pentecostalism is on fire with fervor and drive to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth. As we sit closer to those African missional fires, may we too be set ablaze with renewed passion for the gospel.
