ACCRA, Ghana – “Mu, mu, mu!” they sang—“Well done, well done, well done!”
The Baptist World Alliance Annual Gathering got off to a rousing start July 2 as more than 500 participants joined a choir from Calvary Baptist Church in Accra to celebrate God's work through a fast-paced chorus in the twi (pronounced “tree”) dialect.
Steve Asante, pastor of the Asukwa Baptist Church in Kumasi and president of the Ghana Baptist Convention, called for participants to work for oneness in Christ. “The testimony of unity is powerful,” he said.
Asante noted that government leaders from all over Africa were meeting in the same city to work toward greater unity and cooperation among African nations. The conjunction of the meetings was prophetic, Asante said: “May God give us grace to show unity. When Baptists work together, we show what we can do. If we have a voice, it will only come through our unity, through our oneness.”
Asante said Christian unity echoes the community/unity of the Trinity. Many believers belong to one community despite differences in gender, race, tribe, and other distinctions.
“In every kingdom the words of the king become the law,” Asante said, and in God's kingdom, “God has called us to be one.”
Asante called for Baptists to offer a holistic ministry and spoke of ministries, such as providing mosquito nets, through which Christian volunteers can impact people in developing nations.
Asante was greeted with applause when he said, “Let's support BWA financially because BWA means a lot to those of us in Africa.”
Retiring executive director Denton Lotz noted that the location of the meeting is significant. The BWA had never met in western Africa, he said. And Ghana is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its independence.
Lotz said unity is a major theological issue for Baptists. “Some Baptists seem concerned only about doctrine,” he said, “but Jesus talked about unity as a great doctrine of the faith.”
Lotz reported that about 110 million Baptists are affiliated with the BWA. Counting others who have withdrawn from BWA and other similar groups who don't use the name “Baptist,” there are about 200 million “Baptistic worshipers” around the world, he said.
Lotz recognized representatives from the Asia Pacific Baptist Federation, the Caribbean Baptist Fellowship, the European Baptist Federation, the Union of Baptists in Latin America, and the North American Baptist Fellowship. The largest contingent, as expected, was from the All Africa Baptist Union.