At this year s Missionary Hour , Synod turned its attention to the Anglican Church in Nigeria with a special address by Bishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon. It is a mark of the Synod that in the midst of a busy timetable it eagerly spent an hour looking beyond the business of the Diocese to consider God s work around the world. Bishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon informed Synod about the nature and effect of the Anglican Church s ministry in Nigeria. He explained the method currently used in Nigeria to plant churches.
Bishops are missionaries.
They go and stay in an area and run Bible studies on the need for salvation. On Sunday the gospel is preached and an altar call is made. Those who respond become the church and the following week is spent discipling these people who are then left in the care of an evangelist. But while this method has resulted in numerical growth, the Bishop shared his concern about a lack of biblical understanding and depth of theology in the Anglican Church of Nigeria. The Bishop made an appeal to the Sydney Diocese, as a Diocese well endowed in theology, to send people with degrees in theology to Nigeria to build the church.