Menu.
Menu.
July 18, 2017
No Comments
By admin
- General
- ICOC Nigeria News
- MTA
- Port-Harcourt
- Resources
- Youth and Family
Missionary Teaching Trip to West and Central Africa – Dr John Oakes
Missionary Teaching Trip to West and Central Africa – Dr John Oakes
One of the obvious needs among our various Churches is that of deeper Bible teaching and understanding – the need for each disciple to be deeply rooted in God’s Word.
For many of our congregations, we must dig deeper in order to sustain our desire to grow spiritually and otherwise.
That is one of the goals Dr. John Oakes set out to meet for the past three weeks in West and Central Africa.
Dr John Oakes is a Professor of Physics and Chemistry in San Diego and was appointed a Teacher in the San Diego Church. He has written a good number of Christian books and spends most of his vacations travelling to the most unlikely places around the world serving disciples as he teaches in-depth from God’s Word.
This particular teaching trip began on Wednesday, June 28 when he arrived Lagos from San Diego, California to share the riches of God’s Word with disciples in Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville and Congo-Kinshasa. It was amazing that he taught from the book of Daniel that same evening in the Ikeja Region of the Lagos Church, coming directly from the airport after a 14-hour flight from Atlanta. His book on the biblical book of Daniel throws incredible light on the faith of Daniel and his three friends as well as the meaning of the prophecies and revelations contained in the book.
The faith of the disciples on the Island Region was also deeply strengthened the next day when he taught from the book of Hebrews on Living by faith. We learned about the fact that the book of Hebrews was written to second generation disciples who were tempted to lose heart in the light of the coming persecutions during the first century and its major theme focuses on how to remain faithful: by focusing on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
The full-time staff of the Lagos Church, the West Africa School of Missions and the Lagos elders also benefited from his visit and teaching on Friday, June 30. Later that evening, it was the turn of the Somolu-Mushin Region of the Lagos Church to receive deep teachings from God Word as he also spent personal time with Fred and Titi George, the leaders of that Region.
Saturday saw the gathering of close to 300 leaders in Lagos around a teaching on the book of Acts and Church History and another on the Grace of Being In Christ. Later that evening John Oakes and Fred George joined Gilbert Kimeng who had gone ahead to teach on Friday night and for most of Saturday from the Book of Romans in Port Harcourt– leaders and other disciples had come from the Churches in Calabar, Uyo, Yenegoa and Owerri for a weekend of Bible lessons.
John Oakes taught two lessons on Sunday – Discipleship in the Old Testament during the Church service and later taught Jesus in the Old Testament. It was humbling to hear the leaders of the Church that they had never experienced such a weekend of deep teaching in the close 18 years of existence of the Port Harcourt Church!
Other lessons were taught on Monday before John Oakes and Fred George returned to Lagos on Tuesday prior to the next teaching stop which was in Douala and Bamenda, Cameroon.
God blessed an amazing teaching weekend as disciples gathered from the Churches in Douala, Yaounde, Limbe and Bamenda for what was also the first of its kind with John Oakes, Michael Burns and Gilbert teaching classes around the theme: “To Live is Christ”.
The fellowship was deep, especially between the French and English speaking disciples in an atmosphere of political, racial and cultural division in the country as a whole mainly fueled by language differences. Among the many lessons taught, Culture and the Kingdom and the Book of Daniel truly stood out in meeting deep needs.
These lessons are all available on: http://evidenceforchristianity.org/teaching-trip-to-west-and-central-africa-notes-audio-and-ppt/
John Oakes’ next stop was then the Church in Congo Brazzaville.