HOW DOES A CHURCH START?

Sabon Layi-Sarkin Kudu is a preaching point. A preaching point is a new church start up. Sabon Layi-Sarkin Kudu was started by Masu-Sarkin Kudu, which is also a preaching point. A preaching point must have 100 members before it can be recognized as an autonomous congregation. Here we have one preaching point starting another preaching point. To me that is real evangelism.

This is the round hut where the Sabon Layi-Sarkin Kudu preaching point was started.

Sabon Layi-Sarkin started in a round hut with a thatched roof. Today that round hut is abandoned and located next to the present "church" building. To keep terminology clear, a preaching point is called a LCB (Local Church Branch), while an autonomous recognized congregation is called a LCC (Local Church Council).

On September 21, 2002, I (John) traveled about 300 kilometers southeast from Jos with Rev. Jabani Adzibiya and Mr. Daniel G. Balami to visit the two preaching points. The preaching points, located within a few miles of one another, are in Taraba State. The Jos LCC started Masu-Sarkin Kudu, and Rev. Jabani is the pastor there, thus the pastor in charge of both preaching points. Daniel Balami is the church secretary of the Jos LCC. The purpose of our visit to the two LCBs was for baptism, Holy Communion, installation of a church leader at Sabon Layi-Sarkin Kudu and to encourage both LCBs.

Rev. Jabani Adzibiya, left, and Mr. Michael Silas, right.

We had a worship service with the Sabon Layi-Sarkin Kudu preaching point around 5 p.m. on the 21st. It was a combination worship service and the installation of the new church leader, Mr. Michael Silas. I was sitting next to Rev. Jabani and he noticed that I was looking at a passage of scripture. He asked me if I was prepared to preach. God had just given me a sermon of encouragement so I told him yes. The scripture passage I was looking at was Mark 14:3-9. (This is the story of the woman who broke an alabaster box of precious ointment and poured it on the head of Jesus, amid murmurings by those present.) If you have ever heard me preach, then you know that I preach my sermons from a simple outline that everyone can remember. Most of the time those who hear my sermons can go out and preach them. I focused in on verse 8 where it says; "She had done what she could." Point 1: Do what you can. Point 2: Do all that you can and, Point 3: Do it now. I commended them on doing a lot in bringing their church to this point. I told them that they had done what they could. I went on to encourage them to do all that they can and to do it now. It was a sermon of encouragement preached in English. Daniel Balami interpreted it into Hausa. I was really proud of these people for all the work they had accomplished up to this point. After the service, we traveled the approximately 5 kilometers to Masu-Sarkin Kudu where we spent the night. At the Masu LCB we had a lot of visitors, and later that night we had a worship service with them.

John Tubbs preached to the Sabon Layi-Sarkin Kudu.

Sunday, September 22, was a very busy day. The plan was to start the worship service early. [I should stop here and tell you that just because you think you have a plan doesn't mean it is going to happen that way. And I think that is one thing I like about Nigeria—we're not locked into a lot of molds, etc...] Then after the worship service everyone would walk to the river for baptism. After the baptismal service, everyone would walk back to the church for Holy Communion. To start off, the service didn't begin early and so the plan changed. Plan #2 was for everyone to walk to the river for baptism and then come back to the church building for worship and communion. Everyone started ahead of us as they walked to the river. We had gone to the river the day before and had taken a boat ride (not a powerboat ride) down the river to the place where we would have the baptism. I was ready to start walking with everyone to the river when Rev. Jabani told me to come into the pastor's house and we'd have tea and bread before going to the river. He said that we could take the car to within 200 yards of the river as we had done the day before and that we would get in the boat. Then we could be at the baptismal site by the time the church members walked there. Well..... when we got to where the boat was located, everyone was there, and not where we thought they would be. So the next change of plans was that we would baptize right there—and we did. As each person was baptized, the people would sing in Hausa, "Oh Happy Day." I sang along in English and pretty loudly, "Happy day, happy day when Jesus washed my sins away." What a glorious blessed time!

After baptism, we headed back to the church for the worship/communion service. Rev. Jabani asked me to preach the same sermon of encouragement to Masu. After preaching, we observed Holy Communion. The blessings of serving in Nigeria are many. One thing that troubles me is that a lot of people I know and love will never experience these things. You'd better come see us sometime. I'll share my experiences and blessings with you. There are certainly enough to go around.

So how does a church start? Some would say in an abandoned round hut, others might say under a tamarind tree, still others would say under a neem tree and some would even say in a rented schoolroom. I think I would have to say that a church starts after God puts it in someone's heart. God has touched the hearts of many Nigerians who respond by eagerly showing their faith. These two preaching points, soon to become autonomous congregations, are the result of their faithful response.

John and Janet Tubbs