Africa Church Evangelism Institute
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The Africa Church Evangelism Institute exists to mobilize and empower the church to develop an Evangelistic and Disciple-Making culture for greater gospel impact across the continent.
The African population is expected to grow from 1.4 in 2020 to 2.5 billion in 2050. In 2018, Africa became the continent with the most Christians in the World. By 2050, half of evangelicals in the world are expected to be Africans. Thus, at the same time, other religions are growing very fast in Africa.
Africa is projected to have the highest youth growth spurt, having 42 percent of the world’s population by 2030. This presents a great opportunity for the African Continent to play a significant role in the future of Christianity in the world. However, this also presents a great challenge for Churches in Africa to be Evangelistic Disciple-Making Churches that send African missionaries from Africa to Africa and from Africa to the rest of the world.
Launch of ACEI
The first cohort of the Africa Church Evangelism Institute was launched in July 2024 in Nairobi, Kenya. Twelve pastors from Kenya, Rwanda, and Ghana were enrolled for two years. The African Church Evangelism Institute (ACEI) launch training was facilitated by Dr. Rick Richardson, the Director of the Church Evangelism and Research Institutes for the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center, and Pastor John K. Jenkins, Sr., the Senior Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Glenarden, and Emmanuel Kwizera, the African Church Evangelism Director.
"Whenever leaders want a culture change, they have to start by modeling the change they want to see in their church or people."
Four Challenges of Evangelism
ACEI African Pastors have identified the following four challenges as the significant challenges of evangelism:
1
Evangelism has been a task for only those who are called to be evangelists. These are individuals or groups of 20-30 people in our local churches, generally known as Evangelists or the Evangelism Team. There is a need for senior pastors to model evangelism that anyone can imitate. Every follower of Jesus Christ is ‘a fisher of men’ (Mathew 4:19).
3
Evangelism is no longer among the 5 top priorities in some local churches, and we have lost hope for the gospel’s power. We are driven by the myths of church decline instead of the gospel’s transformative power and obedience to the great commission (Romans 1:16). There is a need to redefine evangelism and the gospel for a more significant Kingdom impact.
3
Evangelism has become seasonal and accidental, a calling of specialized people and ministries, something we do by accident. Mass Evangelism has taken the limelight on how we do evangelism. Credential evangelists and mass public Proclamation Evangelists are the image of how we do Evangelism. Because of that, the standard of How we do Evangelism is something that ordinary believers cannot imitate. We have lost Personal and friendship evangelism in our local churches. There is need to re-think and revive all the biblical methods of evangelism. Evangelism should be ‘a culture’, ‘a lifestyle’ of every believer in the local church (Mathew 28:19).
4
Evangelism, Discipleship, church planting, and Bible-based community transformation have been dissociated. Churches are growing through transfers, and this is also has been considered evangelism. Churches are producing ‘ministry experts’ or professionals rather than disciple-makers. The ‘ministry experts’ in the local church keep producing consumers rather than disciples who make disciples. There is a need to define evangelism as a process of making disciples. This should be understood as the process of the great commission Mathew 28:19: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”
Meet Our Director
Emmanuel Kwizera is our Director for the Africa Church Evangelism Institute.
Emmanuel KWIZERA was born and grew up in Rwanda. He holds a Master’s Degree in Evangelism and Leadership from Wheaton College as a Billy Graham Scholar, and he is currently pursuing his PhD in Evangelism and Missions at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS). He has served as the International Missions Director with African Enterprise in Nairobi since 2015. Before then, he served as the National Missions Director for African Enterprise Rwanda for nine years and as the Chairman of Groupe Biblique Universitaire du Rwanda (GBU). He is also the Proclamation Evangelism Global Catalyst for the Lausanne Movement, a global network started by Billy Graham. He is married to Coco Kaligirwa, and they have three children: Ella, Kefa, and Tessa.
Emmanuel joined the ACEI cohort in 2021 and became ACEI African Director in 2024. Emmanuel is an evangelist, a global leader in evangelism, and a pioneer of the church evangelism model in Africa and the USA.
Testimony from Rwanda
Pastor Liliose Kaligirwa, a founding pastor of Omega Ministries Church in Rwanda, is one of Africa Church Evangelism Institute. She was notably influenced by Rick Richardson’s teaching on the significance of sharing personal story every week. Despite leading individuals to faith, she recognized that she had not conveyed these experiences to her congregation.
She expressed in her own words, ” With the church’s growth, I was asking God what I should do to see fewer consumers and more ministers. Now I understand that cultivating a culture of evangelism will facilitate this transformation.”
Recently Pastor Liliose has decided to share the gospel with her plumber, who has provided services to her family for over a decade. Upon learning about the efficacy of personal evangelism, she approached the individual, who was receptive to her message, ultimately leading him to accept Christ at that moment. It is not uncommon for pastors to focus on organizing large-scale crusades for mass evangelism, often overlooking the daily opportunities to share their faith with those in their immediate vicinity. This model advocates for church leaders to foster an evangelistic culture as they guide their congregations actively.
Testimony from Kenya
Bishop Katutu is the Founding Bishop of Destiny Life Church in Nairobi. He is married to Jacinta, and between them are three daughters: Nicole, Cindy, and Daisy. For over twenty years, Bishop Katutu has distinguished himself as a passionate teacher of God’s word and a true shepherd of God’s people.
The Evangelism Institute has already begun stirring up missional zeal in Katutu’s heart as a leader of a congregation of over 1000 members. Moreover, he has benefited from the Institute’s resources and monthly coaching sessions and has embraced the missional focus of establishing evangelistic culture in his church.
He asserts that through ACEI, he sees evangelism becoming the ministry culture of the church as they target to increase their reach by planting more church branches across the nation. One of their goals is to grow the mother church from 1200 to 5000 congregants between 2025 and 2030 through conversion growth.
With the BLESS your FRANCES approach, they seek to win over 1000 new converts, with 40% of those being disciplined. The personal evangelism model will be integrated into every sphere of the ministry by holding every ministry leader accountable for modeling evangelism.
In March 2025, the church held a mission’s conference to create missional awareness, awaken passion, and focus on the biblical mandate of Mathew 28:19-202. Additionally, they have four leadership cohorts training on discipleship. Each cohort will embark on an outreach before graduation later in the year.
