Over these eighty years the church has steadily grown with that growth actually accelerating in the decade 1980-90. Among the ministries established by Nazarenes in Swaziland have been several institutions. In the past several years some church growth experts and missiologists have criticized such institutions as being a brake on church growth. I have, however, seen with my own eyes how instrumental institutions like a Bible college, teacher training college, hospital and clinics, nursing college, elementary schools, high schools and an orphanage have been in the salvation of souls and the verifiable growth of the church. Let me highlight some universally accepted church growth principles I have seen at work in Nazarene institutions in Swaziland.
Churches grow as priority is given to effective evangelism.
The early converts in Swaziland were mainly illiterate. So, literacy programs were started right away to enable them to read the Bible. Grace church grew because the first twenty students of the school were among the first won to Christ. They witnessed to their families and brought them and others to church. Then, the students and converts of Grace Church under Miss Etta Innes helped clear the grounds for a church building at Pigg's Peak in 1914.