Africa – Building a Legacy for the Future

One of the most important investments we can make as a global ministry is in the next generation.

Across nations and cultures, connecting generations is essential to building a strong and lasting future. Last month I had the privilege and blessing to join the Aglow Africa Regional Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, where I met some incredible (young) Aglow leaders who are building up disciples amongst their peers in a profound way! (Shout out to Teen Aglow in Zambia!) These Aglow leaders are charting the way forward for the younger generations in their nations.

During my preparation for my message to the African Region of Aglow, I was amazed to find some of the most incredible evidence of God’s hand on the younger generations, particularly in the continent of Africa.

I shared during a session at the conference, and now with our Aglow e-news readers, that African nations are experiencing a massive and rapid spiritual shift in their younger populations. Nearly 70% of global Christian growth now occurs on the continent of Africa. Seventy Percent! While Christianity saw a decline between 9% and 11% in Europe and North America between 2010 and 2020, Africa grew by 31%!

The continent of Africa has the youngest demographic profile in the world, and shows an extraordinary, urgent hunger for Jesus among youth and children. One headline in the research I read said, “Children are becoming ambassadors for Christ.”

As I said to the leaders and attendees at the conference, “Aglow Africa, you are uniquely, divinely positioned and mantled to share the good with the youth of your nations…and in doing so, the evidence shows that the Gospel will spread from one child to another, from one family to another, and from one community to another. We need you, the world needs you!”

God is purposing and positioning these younger generations on the continent of Africa to have a worldwide impact for the Kingdom of Heaven! These are the young people that God is preparing to change lives (and eternities) in their communities, in their nations, and in the nations and continents of the world!

As global believers, aligned in the work of the Holy Spirit around the earth, the Lord has equipped us- Aglow- as prayer warriors, as prayer intercessors, and is calling each of us to not only be praying for the children in our communities and nations but the younger generations in nations outside of our own as well. For there is coming a day when salvation will come to our children, and their children, and their children’s children through the prayers that were prayed over children in nations we have never even set foot in.

And, as Aglow’s Director of Generations…and International Field Director, I am sending out a call to my fellow sisters and brothers in Aglow, and in the body of Christ, to begin praying over the younger generations in the nations of Africa. Leading studies show that in 10 years, the vast majority of Christian’s will live in the Global South (to include other nations and regions such as Latin America), with sub-Saharan Africa as the clear majority region. This region is growing in faith at a rapid 2.6% to 2.7% annually. By the late 2030s, current research suggests that over 40% of all Christians on Earth are projected to live in sub-Saharan Africa.

The global Christian modern missionary movements have already begun to see what they are calling ‘reverse missions’ in which the dynamic of spreading the gospel has flipped on a global scale. For centuries, Christians came from Europe and North America to spread the gospel, but as the West declines, it is already evident that the Lord is equipping and leading Christian’s (especially Africa’s Christians), deploying them to Europe and North America to revitalize the faith in those nations.

God is raising up an army of African missionaries to bring the Gospel back to the nations who once sent out their own missionaries to declare the gospel to the world. Let us pray for the African church, for these torchbearers of global faith.

How can we pray?

1. Pray for the younger generations around the world. While this e-news article focuses on the continent of Africa, the Lord is working mightily in all the regions of the world, with increase being seen in Latin America and Asia, as well as other parts of the world.
2. Look at a map of the continent of Africa, and ask the Lord to lead you to one nation that you can be in intercessory prayer over.
3. Go online or to your local library and learn about that nation, its history, its culture, its people. Learn about the nation so that the Lord may lead you in targeted prayers for that nation as you come to know it.
4. Pray for the physical protection, endurance, and courage of believers living in high-conflict, high-persecution nations that their faith would remain a beacon of hope.
5. Pray for resources and structure. While Christianity is spreading rapidly in the nations of Africa, they are also seeing a shortage of pastors, theological resources, and other needs required to do the pastoral work in their nations and communities.
6. Pray that the explosive growth of Christians in these nations is matched by deep, lasting spiritual maturity and discipleship.

Continue to pray for the end of famine, disease, war, and poverty across the African nations- a church cannot effectively send out global missionary movements if their communities are facing these hardships.