From WWES.
Worldwide Evangelical Seminary has, over its thirteen years of operation, trained church leaders from across Africa — and across the world. Many of those leaders have gone back to their communities and planted churches. Some have planted dozens. Some have initiated national church movements. And many of those movements, when you look at their theology and their ecclesiology, are unmistakably free evangelical in character: voluntary membership, personal faith as the basis of belonging, congregational governance, a commitment to Scripture as the final word, a wide charity on secondary questions.
They are, in the language of a recent WWES whitepaper, "long-lost spiritual cousins" of the global free evangelical family — shaped by the same theological convictions through a different historical path, in many cases without knowing that a family exists or that it has a name.
The initiative
WWES is now working intentionally to address this. The African Free Evangelical Initiative — still in its early stages — is a three-phase effort. The first phase is mapping: identifying, country by country, the WWES-graduate movements and their current shape, size, and leadership. The second phase is continental: helping these movements find one another, build peer relationships, and develop a shared voice as an African expression of the free evangelical family. The third phase is international: when the time is right, connecting these movements to bodies like the International Federation of Free Evangelical Churches (IFFEC) — not as mission fields to be received, but as peers to be welcomed.
The pace is intentional. Stages one and two must be done well before stage three becomes meaningful. A movement that presents itself internationally before it has done its own internal homework is not in a position to engage as a genuine peer. WWES is committed to the slower, more careful path.
What the Connexion contributes
The Evangelical Free Connexion contributes to this initiative indirectly: by creating a visible information hub for the global free evangelical family, it gives African pastors and movement leaders a place to discover that they have cousins, and gives those cousins a place to discover one another. The Connexion does not itself do the mapping or the organisational work — that happens through WWES's direct relationships with alumni. But it provides the public face of a living global family — and sometimes, seeing that face is the first step toward wanting to join it.
If you lead a church or movement in Africa that you think might be part of this family, we would love to hear from you. Write to editor@wwevangelical.ca.
More about WWES: wwes.ca
