Among the most astonishing religious phenomena of the 20th century has been the growth of Christianity in Africa. Muslims in 1900 outnumbered Christians by a ratio of nearly 4:1. In 1962 when Africa had largely slipped out of colonial control, there were about 60 million Christians, with Muslims at about 145 million. Fifty years later, the number of Christians in Africa had multiplied by six to more than 423 million, to become the religion of a majority of Africans south of the Sahara.

Yet the story of the Church in Africa continues to be told as though it were simply a footnote to the story of European Christianity. Information on indigenous evangelists, teachers and Christian leaders most vitally involved cannot be found in standard reference works or textbooks, and the ‘Acts of African Apostles’ is in danger of being lost to historical memory. This motivated the Overseas Ministries Study Center in 1997 to launch a challenging project: the Dictionary of African Christian Biography (DACB), sometimes referred to as ‘Project Luke’. An international team of scholars and church leaders, primarily Africans, engaged in chronicling the story of God in Africa for future generations.

Broadly inter-confessional, historically descriptive, and exploiting the full range of oral and written records, the DACB covers the whole field of African Christianity from the earliest times to the present, over the entire continent. The electronic database holds an amazing collection of biographies and is available online in English, French, Portuguese, Swahili and Arabic. Many of these stories of Christian pioneers who laid the foundations and advanced the growth of Christianity in Africa, could have come straight out of the Book of Acts.

Source:Joel News International; DACB

BIBLE STUDY: 1 Peter 2:1-10

PRAISE: God for the people of faith who sowed the seed of the Gospel in Africa. Pray that those who continue the work may live in the presence of Jesus.