The founder of West Africa Theological Seminary (WATS), Ipaja, Lagos, Professor Gary Maxey, has identified the two greatest needs of the Nigerian Church as leadership development and discipleship.
He made the observation while delivering the opening remarks at a three-day discipleship programme organized by the seminary in Lagos recently.
Prof. Maxey is an American missionary who has been in Nigeria for over four decades, conducting missions and training church leaders. He told the gathering at the opening session that WATS exists to address these two critical problems facing the Nigerian church.
While noting that he was not Dr. Cofield—the guest speaker at the training programme who was well-positioned to address the issues—he emphasized that the strongest parting mandate Jesus gave His disciples was to go into the world and make disciples of all nations.
He lamented, however, that “a significant number of professed Christians consider themselves to be followers of Jesus who simply are not, even though in many ways they look like it. They attend church, they have a profession of faith, they can show you their baptism certificate, they read the Bible (at least occasionally), they pray, they give offerings; but the truth is that they are not the real deal. They may be offended if we suggest that being a Christian is not simply a matter of self-designation. Because saying you are a Christian and actually being one are two very different things.”
According to him, “when Jesus says anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple, he means the same thing as if he had said, ‘Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be a Christian.’ In other words, to be a disciple means to be a Christian, and vice versa.”
He recalled an incident years back at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) in Lagos, during which Lt. General Theophilus Danjuma asked the guest speaker, Father Matthew Kukah, why a majority of the most corrupt governors in Nigeria were Christians. Father Kukah was said to have replied that those governors, in his view, were not Christians; they were simply governors who happened to go to church from time to time.
Maxey went on to explain that to be a disciple of Jesus, one must be committed to Him above everything else.
A disciple, according to him, says: “In my heart of hearts, Jesus must come before everything else, including those dearest to me in my family, my career, my profession or job, my money and possessions, my goals in life, and even my life itself. It’s that serious, and even though as a disciple of Jesus I may at times falter in the application of this commitment, it will remain the deepest desire and deepest reality of my being.”
A disciple, in Prof..Maxey’s words, “has to lay something down—or ‘deny himself.’ This means a lot more than what we sometimes call ‘self-denial,’ as in giving up some of my crazy casual wear when guests are around. He has to lift something up—’take up his cross.’ This means to regard himself as a dead man so far as his own rights go. Then he has to live something out—’let him follow me.’ That includes being willing to go where he doesn’t understand or where things sometimes look uncertain, and even when it’s dark and scary.”
He emphasized that to follow Jesus, one must be totally committed. “We must understand what a Christian is as Jesus defined it. The question we must ask is not, ‘Am I able to follow Jesus completely?’ but rather, ‘Am I willing to follow Jesus completely?’ We are all human. Sometimes we will fail in our commitment, but the thing Jesus confronts is not our ability, but our willingness to follow Him with our whole hearts,” he said.
The discipleship programme which held from October 14 to 16 attracted hundreds of pastors and church workers from across many denominations.