Around 500 church and mission leaders from over 45 countries gathered Sept 25-28 for the Ghana 2013 Global Mission Consultation. The gathering was held at the Pentecost Convention Center through the coordination of the Ghana Evangelism Committee (GEC) and Ghana Evangelical Missions Association (GEMA) in partnership with other national, regional and global mission associations.

Ghana 2013 was a regional follow-up gathering to the Tokyo 2010 Global Mission Consultation held in commemoration of Edinburgh 1910. The theme of the gathering was on the Great Commission mandate to "Disciple all peoples." The Africa consultation kept the same dual emphasis of the Tokyo meeting, focusing on both the breadth and the depth of the Great Commission. The breadth dimension was represented by the Finish the Task network which highlighted the needs of Africa's 383 remaining "unengaged" unreached peoples. The depth dimension was represented by the national transformation tracks which looked at what it means to see nations discipled through transforming business, education, the arts, government and health.

 

Finishing the Task
Evangelicals in Africa are poised to make a significant contribution to finishing the task in their own continent and around the world. Today, the African church has over 180 million evangelical Christians in over 2,500 reached people groups. Just under 700 unreached people groups remain in Africa, or 19% of the total, and 40% of these are already engaged by missionary teams. As in Tokyo 2010, delegates at Ghana 2013 made specific commitments to reach unreached peoples without any known missionary work in Africa and beyond. Over 250 commitments were registered at the consultation with the Finish the Task Network to send church-planting teams to 150 unengaged unreached people groups by the year 2020. (The list of UUPGs remaining in Africa can be viewed at www.ghana2013.org/uupglist).

Ghana 2013 Challenge 

The delegates at Ghana 2013 issued a statement called the Ghana 2013 Challenge, which represented Africa's response to the Tokyo 2010 Declaration. The Challenge included four areas which were of special concern to the African church: Servant-Leadership, Disciple-Making, Social Transformation and the Least-Reached. Under Social Transformation, the Challenge declared:

"We acknowledge that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the light of the world and the salt of the earth. As a person should reflect the life of Christ, so society should reflect God's kingdom. The true gospel will impact every sphere of society from government, to education, to business, to the arts.... We confess that we have secularized our work and have often forgotten that every calling in life is sacred and an act of worship. We covenant before God to be his witnesses in every sphere of society and to represent his kingdom with integrity in everything we do."  The full text of the challenge can be read at www.ghana2013.org/challenge.php. 

We encourage you to check out the Global Great Commission Network initiatives at www.ggcn.org. We are here to serve you and your ministry and we'd love to hear from you.