ANNUAL REFORMATION CONFERENCE

THE OVERVIEW

To commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, Pastor Baron Mbala reached out to Pastor Israel Mbambi of Salem Evangelical Church, his former Pastor in Kinshasa DRC, with a plan to hold a reformation conference in order to revisit the causes and the consequences of the Protestant conference launched on October 31, 1517 in Wittenberg, Germany by Martin Luther.  The ultimate purpose of the conference was to invite church leaders in Kinshasa to consider the legacy of the Reformation in the light of obvious doctrinal distortions of the gospel of Christ that have become commonplace in the life of the church in Africa in general and the church in Congo in particular.  From February 28 to March 2, 2018 we held our first conference on the theme, "The Protestant Reformation, Yesterday and Today."

Other local pastors besides Pastor Baron Mbala served as speakers, namely, Pastors Sita Luemba, Raoul Matadi, Roland Dalo, and Mbambi Israel. The turn out at the conference was quite impressive as many showed interest in the topic. On the last day of the conference, many local church leaders clearly voiced out the need of seeing this sort of gathering becoming an annual conference. This is how our Annual Reformation Conference came to being.

The church in Africa, most people agree, is rapidly growing in number. Referring to this growth, however, someone said, the church in Africa is a mile long and an inch deep. Among others factors that may explain this lack of vertical growth is the issue of false doctrines such as the so-called "prosperity gospel" and "the deliverance gospel," and "prophetism" to name a few, which plague this church. Annual Reformation Conference is one of the venues where we can effectively address these thorny doctrinal issues. It is with great anticipation that we are looking at the upcoming Annual Reformation conference, which will revolve around the theme, "Such a Great Salvation in Christ."