Ghanaian Pentecostal Churches’ Mission Approaches

Abstract

Mission is first and foremost about God and God’s historical redemptive initiative on

behalf of creation. In this regard, the Third Lausanne Congress affirms that the Church

is called to witness to Christ today by sharing in God’s mission of love through the

transforming power of the Holy Spirit. The World Council of Churches states that ‘all

Christians, churches and congregations are called to be vibrant messengers of the gos- pel of Jesus Christ’. How the Church participates in the mission of God is a question on

which one should reflect. This article therefore discusses the mission approaches of

Ghanaian Pentecostal churches. The article begins with a description of the Ghanaian

mission strategic plan, their spiritual approach to mission, and then proceeds with

other approaches in the light of Walls’ ‘five marks of mission’ (i.e. evangelism, disciple- ship, responding to the social needs of people through love, transforming the unjust

structures of society, and safe-guarding the integrity of creation) and Krintzinger’s

(and others’) holistic mission approach (i.e. kerygmatic, diaconal, fellowship, and litur- gical). This article argues that mission should be approached with a careful strategy.