Nigeria puts faith in Sunday Schools for revival: CEN 1.23.09

From the Church of England Newspaper’s Religious Intelligence section. The House of Bishops of the Church of Nigeria has issued a call for an invigoration of the Sunday school movement to combat atheism and secularism. Meeting at the Ibru Centre in Agbarha-Otor in the southern Delta State from Jan 5-10 the church’s 140 bishops and 13 newly elected bishops, focused their attentions on church revival. The bishops noted the “the alarming growth of secularism, new age movements and militant atheism in Western Society,” and lamented its pernicious effect on young people. The antidote was Sunday school. “The Sunday school movement has lost its place in many Western Churches with the result that the youth are defenceless against the false gospels propagated by the media. We believe that there is an urgent need to equip Sunday school teachers and youth workers with creative, well designed programmes if we are to avoid a similar fate with our own young people who will be ‘sheep without a shepherd’ if we fail to respond,” the bishops said. Sunday school must also be coupled with “Bible-centred discipleship.” The bishops called upon all “clergy and congregations” to renew their commitment to the study of Scripture and also called upon all congregations “to establish a healing ministry as a central element of their common life and ministry to the community.” In other business, the bishops reaffirmed their support of their primate, Archbishop Peter Akinola (pictured), and the Gafcon movement within the Anglican Communion. Archbishop Akinola shared with the bishops the results of his December meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. The bishops responded that while they supported his efforts to “build bridges”, there could be “no compromise on the need for genuine repentance” by the Episcopal Church.