Returning to Abuja: Learning from the Global Church
This year I hope to return to Abuja, Nigeria, for the final stage of a three-year cycle of biblical training, friendship and partnership with clergy and lay leaders from the Anglican Church in Nigeria.
Support Andrew's Trip to Abuja Donations will help Andrew towards the cost of travelling to Abuja and taking part in this final year of training.
Three Years of Learning Together
Three years ago this began as a training trip, but it has become something much more than that. In 2024, I had the privilege of travelling with Rev Richard Balmer, Director of Crosslinks Ireland, and David Gibbs from Grace Church Wanstead to Abuja, Nigeria, where we helped establish a Crosslinks School of Biblical Training in partnership with the Diocese of Kubwa and the Diocese of Zaria. The aim was straightforward but important: to spend time alongside clergy and lay leaders, opening the Scriptures together and thinking seriously about the task of faithfully preaching and teaching God's Word.
That first visit began with a fairly memorable introduction to Nigeria. We touched down in Abuja at around 4am and somehow found ourselves preaching in three churches at 8am. It was a rather effective cure for jet lag. From there we spent the week with around 30 clergy and lay leaders, learning together, talking about ministry and sharing something of our different experiences of serving Christ in very different parts of the Anglican Communion.
When we returned in 2025, something had changed. We were no longer simply arriving to meet a room full of strangers. We were going back to people whose faces we knew, whose stories we had heard and whose ministries we had begun to understand. Friendships had formed, conversations could continue where they had left off, and the sense of partnership became much stronger. This year, God willing, we will return for the final stage of that three-year journey.
“I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong, that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.”
Romans 1:11–12
Going Back in 2025
Last year's visit was an extraordinary experience. We spent our days opening Scripture together, worshipping together, eating together, sharing stories and hearing more about the realities of ministry across Kubwa and Zaria. We worked through Philippians and Titus, thinking about the shape of Christian ministry, the character of Christian leadership and the confidence the Church can have in Christ even when circumstances are difficult.
What struck me most was the confidence and expectation with which so many Nigerian Anglicans approach the mission of the Church. They believe the gospel is genuinely good news. They believe people need to hear it. They expect churches to grow, disciples to be made, leaders to be raised up and communities to be served. There is an assumption that the Church should be outward-looking, evangelistic and confident in the promises of God.
That confidence is particularly striking because it is not built upon limitless resources. In many situations the opposite is true. Yet there is a willingness to step forward before every answer is known, to begin before every pound is raised and to trust that God is capable of providing what is needed. That continues to challenge me, because in our own setting we can sometimes become so focused on the difficulties in front of us that we lose sight of the God who stands behind us and goes before us.
The growth of the Anglican Church in Nigeria is not simply about large congregations or impressive statistics. What stayed with me was the seriousness with which people approached Scripture, prayer, evangelism and discipleship. Christ mattered. Scripture mattered. Prayer mattered. Mission mattered. There was a sense that the Church exists for something more than its own survival.
A Church Serving the Whole Community
One of the things which had already impressed me on our first visit was the breadth of ministry taking place in the Diocese of Kubwa. Alongside the ordinary life of parish churches, the Diocese was operating schools and developing an enormous 400-bed hospital beside St Andrew's Church in Kubwa. The scale of the vision was remarkable, but so too was the theology behind it.
There was no assumption that proclaiming the gospel and serving the practical needs of a community somehow compete with one another. The Church was seeking to do both. The gospel was proclaimed in words and demonstrated in lives of service. Children were being educated, the sick were being cared for, congregations were being planted and the Scriptures were being preached.
For me, ministering in inner-city Belfast, that is a deeply important reminder. The local church is called to be rooted in the particular community where God has placed it. We proclaim Christ, but we also pay attention to the real lives of the people around us. Mission must have both confidence in the gospel and compassion for the city.
A Church That Knows the Cost
There was another side to our conversations in Nigeria, and it would be wrong to speak about the vitality and growth of the Church without also acknowledging it. We met and heard from Christians and church leaders serving in places marked by violence, insecurity, displacement and very real suffering. For some, the cost of following Christ is not an abstract theological idea. It is something which touches communities, congregations and families.
It is difficult for those of us living and ministering in Britain or Ireland fully to understand what that means. We can talk about cultural opposition to Christianity, institutional decline or the pressures facing the Western Church, and those things matter. But they are not the same as hearing from brothers and sisters who know communities affected by violence or who minister in circumstances where faithfulness can carry a much greater personal cost.
Yet what stayed with me was not simply the suffering. What stayed with me was the faithfulness. Again and again we encountered Christians who continued to worship, continued to pray, continued to preach Christ, continued to plant churches and continued to make disciples. Their suffering had not convinced them that God had abandoned His Church.
There is something deeply humbling about being encouraged in your own ministry by Christians who have endured far more than you have and yet speak about the goodness and faithfulness of God with extraordinary confidence. They are not strong because their circumstances are easy. They are strong because their hope is in Christ.
“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned.”
2 Corinthians 4:8–9A Challenge to the Western Church
All of that matters because it challenges some of the assumptions we can carry about the future of Christianity. In the West it is very easy to speak as though decline is inevitable, retreat is permanent and the best the Church can hope for is to manage the process gracefully. We can become so familiar with declining attendance, financial pressure, ageing buildings and institutional anxiety that we begin to mistake our present experience for the whole story of Christianity.
But it is not the whole story. Across the global Church, and very visibly in Nigeria, churches are growing, people are coming to faith, new congregations are being established, leaders are being trained and Christians are persevering in places where following Jesus demands extraordinary courage. Jesus Christ is still building His Church.
That does not mean everything happening elsewhere can simply be copied and brought home. Cultures are different, histories are different and the challenges facing Belfast are not the same as the challenges facing Abuja. But sometimes we need to step outside our own context in order to see it more clearly. The global Church helps remind us that our difficulties are real, but they are not greater than God.
And Then There Were the Bags...
Of course, international ministry also contains its less theological moments. Last year's journey included the small adventure of our luggage deciding that, although we had arrived in Abuja, it would prefer to remain somewhere else. After the long journey out, discovering that the bags had not travelled with us was not quite the welcome we had expected.
Eventually we had to make our way back to Abuja airport to try to recover them, which provided another opportunity to experience the city, navigate an unfamiliar airport and discover just how attached one becomes to clean clothes when they are no longer immediately available. Thankfully, bags and travellers were eventually reunited.
It is one of those stories which becomes considerably funnier with a little distance. But it is also part of what makes trips like this memorable. Travel has a way of reminding you that you are not entirely in control. Things go wrong, plans change, people help you and you learn to take the next thing as it comes. In its own small way, perhaps there was a bit of formation going on there too.
Could You Help Andrew Return to Abuja?
This year's visit will complete the three-year training cycle. Andrew is raising support towards the cost of travelling to Abuja and participating in this final stage of the programme. Any contribution, large or small, will help make the journey possible.
Support Andrew's TripWhy the Global Church Matters to the Local Church
I am passionate about the renewal and growth of the local church. I believe deeply in the parish, in rooted ministry and in the calling of Christians to proclaim Christ faithfully in the particular communities where God has placed them. Much of my own ministry, study and thinking in recent years has centred on how local churches recover confidence in the gospel, rediscover mission and begin again to believe that God can bring renewal.
But precisely because I care about the local church, I believe we need the global Church. We need voices from beyond ourselves. We need to listen to Christians who are evangelising in different cultures, planting churches in difficult places, discipling new believers, raising up leaders, serving communities and remaining faithful under enormous pressure.
The Church in the West does not have all the answers. For generations there was sometimes an assumption that mission flowed in one direction, from Britain and Ireland out towards the rest of the world. But the shape of global Christianity has changed dramatically. Today some of the most vibrant, confident and rapidly growing parts of the Anglican Communion are found in places from which we now have much to learn.
That is not something to fear. It is something to celebrate. The body of Christ was never intended to consist of one part speaking while everyone else listened. The New Testament picture is one of mutual dependence, mutual encouragement and mutual service. We have much to give, but we also have much to receive.
That has become one of the most important lessons of these visits for me. I do not want to travel to Nigeria merely thinking about what I can teach. I want to arrive ready to listen, ready to be challenged and ready to notice what God might want to teach me through brothers and sisters whose experience of the Church is very different from my own.
“If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it.”
1 Corinthians 12:26Learning There, Serving Here
For me, none of this is learning for learning's sake. I want what I learn through these relationships, conversations and experiences to strengthen ministry here at St Paul's & St Barnabas and to contribute to the wider conversation about renewal, leadership and mission within the Church.
North Belfast and Abuja are very different places. We should not pretend that a method which works in one setting can simply be lifted out and dropped into another. But we can learn from the faith, courage, priorities and expectations of Christians serving elsewhere. We can ask why they expect churches to grow. We can ask what gives them confidence to evangelise. We can learn from the seriousness with which they approach prayer, Scripture, discipleship and the raising up of new leaders.
In our own context, churches can easily find themselves asking questions such as, “How do we keep this going?”, “How do we pay for everything?” or “How long can we survive?” Those are understandable questions, and responsible stewardship matters. But they cannot be the only questions the Church asks. Mission begins with a different question: what might God do here?
That is one of the things I keep bringing home from Nigeria. Where we can become cautious, the Church there often appears willing to act. Where we can become anxious about scarcity, they frequently speak about provision. Where we can become overwhelmed by decline, they continue to expect growth. None of that should be romanticised, but neither should it be ignored.
My hope is that this final visit will continue shaping my own preaching, leadership and ministry and will strengthen our work here as we seek to be a church that is for Christ and for the city. The goal is not to recreate Abuja in Belfast. It is to return with a renewed confidence in the same Lord Jesus Christ who is at work in both.
Completing the Journey
This final year feels significant because what began as a single training visit has become a three-year relationship. We will once again sit down with many of the same clergy and leaders, open the Scriptures together and hear about another year of ministry in their churches and communities. That continuity matters. Christian partnership is always deeper when it moves beyond a single event and becomes a relationship in which people return, listen and walk together.
I am grateful for the opportunity to have shared in these three years and conscious that it is a privilege to be invited into the life of another part of Christ's Church. I hope that what we have offered has been useful and encouraging to those taking part in the School of Biblical Training. I know that their faith and example have already been useful and encouraging to me.
So as I prepare to return, my prayer is that this final week would not simply mark the end of a programme. I hope it will deepen friendships, strengthen leaders, encourage faithful preaching and leave all of us with a greater confidence in the gospel we share. And I hope the lessons of those three years will continue long after the flights home.
Support Andrew's Final Trip to Abuja
As Andrew prepares to return to Abuja for the final stage of this three-year cycle, we would be grateful for your prayers and, if you are able, your financial support.
Every gift will help towards making the journey possible. We also hope that the fruit of this investment will come home with Andrew and continue to feed into preaching, leadership, local mission, church renewal and the work of making Christ known here in Belfast.
Support Andrew's Abuja Trip Thank you for your prayers, encouragement and generosity.
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