BEEKAY GLOBAL Resources
Biblical formation, discipleship, Pentecostal spirituality, mission, pastoral practice and faithful Christian living.
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Spiritual mothers, fathers and mentors serve the gospel when they transmit faith, wisdom and belonging without owning another believer’s conscience, future or calling.
Churches shape cities through land, buildings, worship, education, commerce and public partnerships; faithful renewal must make neighbours more secure, not less visible.
When a disclosure threatens reputation, relationships or revenue, the church must protect the person before it protects the institution—and govern the response beyond the influence of powerful leaders.
When stroke or another medical emergency is suspected, prayer should mobilise immediate care—not consume the treatment window—while churches accompany survivors through recovery, disability and hope.
A prophetic word may encourage, warn or clarify, but it must never bypass Scripture, communal discernment, evidence, consent or accountable decision-making.
A livestream is not yet an archive: Pentecostal churches must preserve sermons, worship, testimony and oral history with consent, context, local ownership and long-term care.
Intersex people should encounter churches that protect privacy, bodily integrity, family belonging and access to qualified care—not suspicion, spectacle or coerced spiritual explanations.
Pentecostal formation is credible when biblical depth, life in the Spirit and disciplined learning equip believers to serve the church while addressing the real wounds and possibilities of their communities.
Pentecostals can love their countries, serve the common good and speak prophetically without baptising a party, leader, ethnicity or national destiny as the kingdom of God.
A Spirit-filled public witness is credible when churches make truth, reconciliation, accountable power and patient listening visible in their own common life.
A voice that pauses, repeats or blocks is not spiritually deficient. Spirit-filled community gives people time to speak, protects dignity and opens worship, leadership and digital ministry to different forms of communication.
Pentecostal ethics becomes credible when holiness is visible in how churches govern authority, protect dignity, handle money, test prophecy and correct harm.
The centre of Christianity has moved south, but mission finance still too often travels through old channels. Pentecostal mission needs voluntary giving, shared power, transparent stewardship and durable care for people.
The Shakahola conviction calls churches to distinguish obedience to Christ from submission to a leader and to make fasting, prophecy, discipleship and governance answerable to life, freedom and truth.
Churches can turn trusted relationships into protection when they verify job claims, refuse recruiter endorsements and accompany survivors without spectacle or stigma.
A church cannot call people family in worship while treating unsafe housing, insecure tenure, eviction and exclusion as private failures beyond its spiritual responsibility.
World Food Day meets a sobering Kenyan reality: prayer, relief and testimony become credible public witness when churches also practise nutrition, accountable distribution, climate readiness and economic justice.
Rural women should not be praised as faithful workers while decisions about ministry, land, water, climate, finance and community development remain elsewhere. Honour becomes credible when contribution carries voice, authority, resources and remedy.
Digital ministry is not weightless. Every livestream, learning platform and church device enters a material chain of extraction, energy, repair, reuse, labour and eventual waste that Christian stewardship must make visible.
Prayer, prophecy and relief are not enough when avoidable risk remains unaddressed. Spirit-filled mission should help households and communities understand hazards, act on warnings, protect vulnerable neighbours and recover with dignity.
Expectant prayer and honest chronic-pain care belong together. The Church should seek healing without blaming, silencing or spiritually suspending people whose pain remains.
The Spirit poured upon daughters does not wait for adulthood or marriage. Churches should reject child marriage, protect girls’ education and safety, and give girls consequential voice now.
A testimony should never turn a person’s pain, diagnosis or recovery into institutional evidence while leaving that person without consent, privacy, influence, support or the right to remain unfinished.
Artificial intelligence can answer quickly, organise resources and extend access, but Pentecostal ministry must not confuse fluent response with spiritual presence, accountable discernment or human care.
Pentecostal faith should welcome the desire for work, shelter, healing and a better future while refusing to convert aspiration, prophecy, testimony or giving into a guaranteed transaction with God.
Calling, sacrifice and spiritual gifts must never become excuses for insecure, unpaid or unsafe labour. Pentecostal churches should honour workers through clear roles, fair treatment, protected voice, rest and accountable stewardship.
Healing prayer should never place people with cerebral palsy or other disabilities in a spiritual waiting room. Belonging, formation, leadership, access and dignity belong to the body of Christ now.
Anointed teaching should not make believers permanently dependent on one voice; it should form a Spirit-led people able to read Scripture, test claims, ask faithful questions, recognise limits and practise truth together.
The bread and cup should do more than complete a worship service: they should form a Spirit-filled people who remember Christ truthfully, discern his body, share across difference, protect the vulnerable and carry reconciliation and material care beyond the table.
Displaced and migrant believers are not empty vessels waiting for ministry; they are Spirit-gifted witnesses whose leadership, theology and local knowledge should shape Pentecostal mission, protection and public witness.
Spiritual warfare can name evil and sustain courage, but it becomes dangerous when political, ethnic, religious, family or ecclesial opponents are treated as demons. Pentecostal power must resist evil without manufacturing human enemies.
The Spirit does not retire older believers or confine younger ones to waiting rooms. Intergenerational renewal requires accessible worship, reciprocal discipleship, protected care, shared authority and accountable succession.
Translation serves Pentecostal mission when language communities remain interpreters, decision-makers and owners of the meaning—not unpaid sources for a machine or an afterthought beneath an English platform.
Pentecostal faith in divine healing becomes more credible when prayer is joined to prevention, early detection, treatment, long-term accompaniment and institutional practices that protect health before crisis arrives.
Testimony is a gift to the Church, but spiritual sincerity does not turn an unverified claim into public evidence. Truthful witness requires consent, verification, proportionate language, correction, referral and care that continues after the applause.
Prayer journeys, conferences and camps become credible Christian pilgrimage when encounter with God also produces truthful stewardship, traveller safety, host-community dignity and accountable discipleship.
The return of Christ does not make the earth disposable or nuclear catastrophe spiritually acceptable. Pentecostal hope should form churches that resist fatalism, test security claims, protect life and practise accountable peacemaking.
A growing digital audience may extend Pentecostal witness, but views, reactions and follower counts cannot show whether people are becoming disciples, receiving safe pastoral care, joining accountable community or serving their neighbours.
Seafarers keep global trade moving while carrying isolation, danger, wage abuse and long separation from home. Pentecostal mission should meet them with multilingual welcome, practical welfare, protected pastoral care, rights-respecting advocacy and durable port partnerships.
An interpreted sermon may improve access, but Pentecostal inclusion becomes credible when Deaf believers can worship, interpret Scripture, exercise gifts, shape decisions and lead in their own sign languages.
Pentecostal hope should strengthen work, enterprise, generosity and mutual care without turning debt into a test of faith, giving into a guaranteed return or hardship into personal spiritual failure.
Pentecostal churches become credible peacemakers when prayer and public declarations grow into everyday systems for truthful speech, early warning, protected dialogue, trauma-aware care, accountable leadership and sustained repair.
Spirit-filled hospitality should feed people generously without confusing abundance with excess. Pentecostal churches need food stewardship that prevents waste, protects dignity and follows every shared meal from procurement to safe redistribution.
A call to ministry begins formation; it does not complete it. Pentecostal churches need Spirit-filled, biblically serious, supervised and accountable pathways from calling to lifelong competence.
Pentecostal churches honour women truthfully when spiritual praise is joined to visible work, fair support, protected participation, leadership pathways and real influence over consequential decisions.
African Pentecostalism can honour Indigenous knowledge without sacralising every inherited practice, and test health claims without treating evidence as unbelief or African culture as superstition.
Spirit-empowered mission becomes credible across cultures when churches receive local people as interpreters and partners, form intercultural leaders, share authority and allow encounter to correct the missionary as well as the host.
Pentecostal healing witness becomes public service when prayer, pastoral presence, prevention, referral, professional care, financial protection and accountable health partnerships belong to one truthful ministry of life.
Spiritual trust is a gift to be stewarded, not an exemption from scrutiny. Pentecostal authority becomes credible when prayer, Scripture and charisms operate through truthful, participatory and correctable institutions.
The river of revival cannot remain a worship metaphor. Spirit-filled churches should connect prayer and proclamation with truthful stewardship of water, land, livelihoods and the neighbours most exposed to ecological harm.
Migrants carry faith across borders, but mission becomes credible when churches protect their dignity, receive their gifts and build belonging within both diaspora and host communities.
Young people are not the Church's future audience. They are present members whose gifts, judgement and accountability must shape worship, mission and governance now.
Churches proclaim hope credibly when people can disclose suicidal distress without shame and receive prayer, protection, skilled referral and continuing care.
Children do not need a smaller version of platform Christianity. They need a Spirit-filled community whose worship, teaching, digital ministry and pastoral care are designed around dignity, participation and protection.
When Pentecostal evangelism invites public response, every name, number and testimony becomes a pastoral trust. Truthful categories, informed consent, secure local handoff and sustained care must govern the response list.
When ordinary believers preserve hymns, funeral cooperation and quiet bonds after leaders divide, their hope is not proof of reconciliation. It is a summons to truthful, just and accountable repair.
Pentecostal churches can pray with expectancy while ensuring that pregnant women and new mothers receive listening, protection, practical support and timely access to qualified mental-health and maternal-care services.
Youth prayer, worship and mission can become durable Pentecostal formation when young people receive theological depth, trusted relationships, meaningful agency, digital wisdom and accountable pathways into everyday faithfulness.
Pentecostal churches should welcome the Spirit's gifts while testing prophetic ministry through Scripture, Christ-centred edification, communal discernment, accountable leadership and protection of vulnerable people.
Crossing borders and screens does not make mission intercultural; Pentecostal witness becomes credible when churches receive correction, share authority and form communities in which the gospel can take faithful local shape.
Religious freedom is weakened by state overreach and by churches that use spiritual authority to place leaders, money, healing, prophecy or complaints beyond review.
A creation-care conference becomes consequential when Pentecostal worship, discipleship, mission, institutions and households learn to protect life together after the platform closes.
Pentecostal education fulfils its public witness when Spirit-filled teaching forms biblically grounded people who can learn, serve, work, lead and seek the good of neighbours beyond the church gathering.
Pentecostal churches can pray expectantly for healing while ensuring that persons with disabilities belong, lead, learn, worship and serve without coercion, blame or dependence upon a miracle claim.
African Pentecostalism becomes locally intelligible through language, worship, testimony, prayer, healing expectation and lay agency, but contextual resonance must be tested by Scripture, Christlike formation, safeguarding and accountable institutions.
Pentecostal heritage serves the Church when testimonies and archives form Christlike disciples, preserve African voices, expose failure to correction and send a new generation into Spirit-empowered mission.
Prayer for peace is authentic Pentecostal action, but its public credibility grows when intercession leads to truth, nonviolence, bridge-building, trauma-aware care, restitution, accountable institutions and evidence that relationships and practices have changed.
Pentecostal hope becomes credible when it forms households and congregations in work, skill, stewardship, enterprise, mutual care and public justice—not when blessing is reduced to visible wealth or giving promises.
Pentecostal confession becomes institutionally credible when women who pray, prophesy, teach and serve also receive formation, consequential voice, fair pathways to leadership and accountable authority.
Pentecostal evangelism becomes durable mission when proclamation, compassionate service and spiritual response lead into local relationships, biblical formation, accountable care and evidence of continuing discipleship.
A Pentecostal anniversary is faithful when memory becomes testimony, repentance, intergenerational formation and Spirit-empowered responsibility for the world believers inhabit now.
The Spirit gives courage to confess Christ, but Pentecostal boldness becomes credible public witness only when truth, restraint, human dignity, religious freedom and peacemaking remain together.
Pentecostal youth ministry becomes mature when encounter with the Holy Spirit grows into a faith young people can carry through home, school, work, relationships, digital life and public service.
Pentecost does not create a congregation of spectators around a gifted few; it forms a discerning body in which every believer is equipped for service and every gift remains accountable to Christ's common good.
The Spirit does not require pastors to perform invulnerability; healthy Pentecostal churches make truthful distress safe to name and answer it with prayer, shared ministry, humane governance and competent care.
A church that sings of living water must also notice unsafe water, failed sanitation and the systems that leave neighbours carrying preventable suffering.
Crowds, offerings, buildings and online reach may show activity, but Pentecostal health is revealed through scriptural depth, Spirit-formed character, accountable relationships, protected people, shared ministry and faithful public witness.
Pentecostal prophecy is trustworthy when it brings Scripture and present reality under Spirit-led discernment, forms a holy and courageous people, protects the vulnerable and leads to accountable obedience.
Pentecostal youth ministry is faithful when worship, Scripture and spiritual encounter create room for honest identity, mental-health literacy, peer belonging, safeguarding and competent care.
Pentecostal mission is faithful when Spirit-empowered urgency honours the language, agency, freedom, leadership and long-term flourishing of the people to whom we are sent.
Age-specific gatherings can awaken faith, but Pentecostal discipleship becomes durable when children, young people, adults and elders share Scripture, testimony, gifts, service, discernment and accountable care.
Pentecostal faith can expect prophecy, healing, worship and spiritual breakthrough while testing every claim through Scripture, Christ, communal discernment, truthful evidence, ethical fruit and accountable care.
The Spirit calls some believers to church office and sends the whole people of God into faithful work, public service, enterprise, education, family life and mission.
Age-specific ministry can honour children and teenagers, but Pentecostal formation becomes durable when every generation also worships, learns, serves and exercises Spirit-given gifts within one accountable community.
Digital mission matures when Spirit-filled believers do more than distribute religious content: they build technologies, institutions and practices that make people safer, wiser, more connected and more capable of serving the common good.
Pentecostal consecration becomes sustainable when churches join prayer and sacrifice with shared ministry, truthful limits, family care, mental-health literacy, professional referral and accountable institutional support.
Revival gatherings become Pentecostal formation when encounter travels into Scripture, accountable relationships, disciplined practice, public service and the ordinary life of the local church.
A powerful worship gathering becomes faithful formation when encounter is joined to Scripture, participation, accountable leadership, local voice, pastoral follow-up and public fruit.
African Pentecostal mission is not a journey from one new centre to an old margin; it is a reciprocal, multidirectional movement tested by local discipleship, belonging and public service.
Prayer, public declarations and generous offerings become credible anti-trafficking witness when they lead to survivor-centred protection, healing, livelihood and accountable long-term care.
Religious freedom and the protection of followers are not rival causes. Spirit-led authority earns trust when it welcomes discernment, transparent governance and effective remedy.
The Spirit does not sanctify Pentecostals into defensive isolation but into truthful conviction, reconciled relationships and shared service across Christian and social boundaries.
Healing, prophecy and evangelistic encounter become mature Pentecostal witness when they lead people into Scripture, accountable fellowship, truthful testimony, safeguarding and responsible service.
Pentecostal churches need not choose between Spirit-led freedom and accountable governance: authority becomes credible when discernment, procedure, safeguarding and transparent stewardship remain joined.
Pentecostal expansion becomes mature witness when the Spirit’s power forms believers who know Scripture, practise discernment, grow across generations and obey Christ in public life.
The Spirit who distributes gifts also forms a people capable of collaboration, disciplined scholarship and public responsibility.
Pentecostal churches do not have to choose between divine guidance and credible elections; prayer, character, participation and transparent procedure belong together.
Pentecostal public theology can help divided societies pursue a common good, but unity remains Christian only when it protects truth, difference, justice and the freedom to challenge power.
Pentecostal openness to the Holy Spirit remains credible when congregations learn to test doctrine, prophecy, leadership, digital influence and public claims together without extinguishing spiritual expectancy.
Pentecostals should defend religious freedom by building transparent, participatory and theologically competent systems that protect spiritual calling while making accountability visible to the Church and the public.
Pentecostal worship is credible when encounter with God forms holy people whose songs become embodied witness through justice, reconciliation, creation care, mission and accountable service.
Pentecostal authority remains credible when spiritual gifts are accountable to Scripture, Christlike character, shared governance and the protection of people who may be harmed by religious power.
Pentecostal digital reach becomes Christian mission only when online attention is connected to biblical formation, embodied community, accountable pastoral care and stewardship that serves people rather than platforms.
Pentecostal spirituality becomes a credible public witness when prayer, prophecy and spiritual power form people who can cross divisions, strengthen institutions and pursue the common good without becoming instruments of party politics.
African Pentecostalism speaks powerfully to people living with economic pressure. Its witness is strongest when hope in God is joined to truthful teaching, practical formation, productive work, justice and accountable stewardship.
Africa’s Pentecostal future will not be secured by youthful crowds alone. Churches must form young people, share meaningful responsibility and build relationships through which spiritual wisdom can travel across generations.
Pentecostal growth is a reason for gratitude, but its future credibility will depend on whether churches turn spiritual vitality into trained leaders, trustworthy institutions and durable service to society.
A confident Pentecostal future requires more than celebrating growth; it requires historical honesty, theological depth and institutions that turn spiritual vitality into faithful public service.
A growing Pentecostal public witness must be measured not only by its spiritual language and reach, but also by whether it protects young people, forms mature disciples and produces accountable institutions.
The growth of Pentecostal influence makes evidence, accountability and the protection of the vulnerable part of our public witness—not enemies of spiritual conviction.
Pentecostal churches are entering the age of e-megachurches, artificial intelligence and algorithmic ministry. The urgent question is whether technology will serve Spirit-led mission, embodied discipleship and human dignity.
Explore the history, beliefs, spirituality and global development of Pentecostal Christianity, with particular attention to Africa and the Global South.
You may have picked up this book in the middle of a hard season. Perhaps you have been running on skill for so long that you have forgotten what it felt like to run on the Spirit. Perhaps something broke in your ministry that you did not expect to break, and like David after Uzzah you have been partly angry and partly afraid. Perhaps you hold an office and have quietly begun to wonder whether the power ever came with it. Whatever it is, hear this: the God who holds all power has not changed His mind about giving it to stewards. He is already able. He has been able all along. The only question these eighteen chapters ask, in eighteen different ways, is whether there is anything in you yet for Him to work according to. Know your rank. Honour the order. Carry the weight.
Where is your faith when the wind contradicts the word? Where is your faith when Christ appears silent? Where is your faith when the vessel fills faster than you can empty it? Extraordinary faith is settled confidence in the character and revealed Word of God, governing thought, confession, conduct and surrender even when reason, resources and restrictions stand in the way.
You can never win over what you do not know. This book analyses the 32 Battles of Life and Destiny from a Biblical Perspective.
This guide is designed to help you seek God deliberately over one hundred days of prayer and fasting. The twelve dimensions bring the concerns of daily life into the place of prayer: the battles we face, the systems in which we serve, our health and provision, our inner lives, our history, and the assignments before us. Each dimension invites us to trust God for intervention and receive wisdom for our response. We will ask for healing, resist the works of darkness, seek freedom from sin, and pray for grace to fulfil our calling.
This is a book about victory. You may have picked up this book in the middle of a battle. Perhaps a promise has delayed so long that you doubt you ever heard God. Perhaps you are in a cave with four hundred discontented people and no sign of a throne. Perhaps you have climbed higher than you dreamed and found that the summit has its own serpents. Perhaps someone you trusted has turned against you. Perhaps you are standing at your own Jabbok tonight, and will not cross until the matter between you and God is settled. Whatever it is, hear this. The One who contested for you in the womb will not abandon you at the river. Your delay is not your denial. Your limp is not your defeat. Your Laban is not your lord. The oil on your head is still speaking, and the God who anointed you has already seen the day of your crowning. Rise, then, and fight. Not in your own strength, for that failed Jacob at the Jabbok, but in the strength of the Lord and in the power of His might. Fight with the Word in your mouth, the Spirit in your heart and your hands lifted in praise. Fight until the sun rises on you as it rose on Jacob at Penuel. Fight until, like David, you can say that God has done all that He promised. The battles of life and destiny are real. So is the victory, and in Christ you are more than a conqueror. Let us begin.
Pray your way into 12 dimensions of breakthrough in life.
This paper responds to the charge that Christianity is a Western religion — too white, too foreign, and a religious expression of colonialism — and therefore not an authentic faith for Africans. While acknowledging the aggressive, superior and imperialistic attitudes that have accompanied much of historic Western Christianity, it argues that Christianity is not and never was a Western religion, nor was it imposed on Africans by Westerners. Nine lines of argument are advanced: Africans freely chose to believe the gospel; the gospel was received and transmitted by indigenous Africans; Christianity is distinct from colonialism; the faith did not originate in the West but was shaped in Africa by the early church fathers; the biblical account links Africa with early Christianity; the colour of the messenger does not colour the message; Christianity is universal and cannot be encapsulated in race or colour; the charge of foreignness rests on neo-colonial presuppositions; and Africa's own religious heritage was never the blank slate the missionaries assumed. The paper closes with implications for contextualisation, incarnational missiology and a presuppositional apologetics in African Christianity.
Music is a significant setting in which Christian young adults negotiate faith, identity, belonging, and moral responsibility. A June 2010 study explored attitudes toward Christian and secular music in Nairobi through a literature review and exploratory interviews with thirteen participants, comprising eight adults aged 20–30 and five aged 40 or above. The interviews examined listening preferences, definitions of Christian music, the significance of artists’ conduct, the use of secular tunes in worship, and participation in church and secular venues. Participants frequently distinguished music by its lyrical message, although views differed over genre, context, and the moral authority of performers. Their responses also exposed tensions between personal conviction, church expectations, and explicitly articulated biblical reasoning. The central argument is that musical discernment requires attention to message, purpose, context, character, and the formation of Christian community. The small convenience sample supports contextual insight rather than generalisation about Nairobi’s churches. Reflections developed in 2026 explore implications for theological education, intergenerational dialogue, pastoral leadership, and responsible artistic participation, distinct from the historical evidence.
In Jesus and the Spirit, James D. G. Dunn describes the earliest Christian congregations as charismatic communities: bodies in which the gracious activity of the Spirit was experienced, not merely believed, and found expression in a diversity of gifts exercised for the good of all. This paper summarises Dunn’s account of the Spirit, grace and charisma, evaluates the vision of the church that emerges from it, and offers a critical analysis of his views on speaking in tongues, on the relationship between charisma and sanctification, and on the charismatic standing of every member. It then compares Dunn’s vision with the author’s experience of pastoral ministry, in which spiritual gifts have too often been personalised and have become occasions of division rather than unity. Seven implications follow for the contemporary African church: the need to balance faith and reason, charisma and character, and spontaneity and order; to encourage every believer to exercise his or her gifts; to integrate natural talent with spiritual gifting; to bridge the divide between the sacred and the secular; and to restore genuine fellowship in an age of virtual church.
The kingdom of God is the central theme of Jesus’ teaching and a thread that runs through the whole of Scripture. This paper traces the theme from God’s purpose in Eden and his dealings with Israel to its fullest expression in the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus. It explores the tension between the kingdom that has already broken into the present age and the kingdom that is not yet consummated, and it sets out the relationship between the church and the kingdom: the church is not the kingdom, but it is the community, the agent, the fruit and the showpiece of the kingdom. It then identifies ways in which God’s dynamic reign is manifested today. In its reflections and applications the paper argues that a vision of the kingdom can give direction to the church in Africa by grounding congregations in kingdom values, renewing the proclamation of the gospel, holding together the present and future dimensions of the kingdom, modelling servant leadership and good governance, and overcoming ethnic division through a multi-ethnic, cross-cultural witness
These lectures introduce Pentecostal faith and its meaning for Christian ministry. The chapters move from definitions and biblical foundations to historical origins, global and African expressions, doctrine, worship, interpretation, preaching and public witness. They conclude by considering everyday discipleship and leadership.
Christian organizations carry responsibilities that demand both spiritual maturity and practical competence. These lectures explore how those responsibilities belong together. They begin with stewardship and systems thinking, move through mission, vision, organization design and church health, and then examine participation, change, strategic planning, budgeting and assessment. The central concern is how leadership can help people serve faithfully within organisations they serve.
This paper gathers nine review essays on readings in African traditional religion that were first written as a connected series in 2010. Each essay states the thesis of the work reviewed,reflects on it critically from an evangelical African standpoint, and draws an application for the church. The readings span the foundational claim of John S. Mbiti that religion permeates the whole of African life; Jacob K. Olupona’s agenda for the academic study of the religion; Emefie Ikenga-Metuh’s argument that African names and concepts of God are indigenous; a newspaper account of a cabinet minister’s initiation at a Kaya shrine; Mbiti’s study of women in African religion; O. Samuel Nichols on the ancestors in African Christian theology; Laurent Magesa on the moral traditions of abundant life; Martin Nkafu Nkemnkia’s proposal for studying the religion on its own terms; and Lois Fuller’s handbook for missionaries. Read together, the essays argue that African traditional religion cannot be wished away, that Africans knew God before the missionary arrived, that the ancestors remain the point of sharpest disagreement, and that the gospel is best communicated by those who first understand what they are addressing. The paper closes by drawing out the implications of these reflections for the church and for theological education today.
Premarital sex raises questions about Christian discipleship, personal responsibility, sexual knowledge, and the church’s pastoral response to young people. This paper presents an evangelical argument for reserving sexual intercourse for marriage while challenging the silence that often surrounds sexuality in families and churches. Drawing on biblical passages,Christian counselling and ethical literature, and Kenyan public discussion from 2007, it examines misconceptions concerning desire, maturity, love, and peer acceptance. It also considers cultural influences and situations that may shape sexual decisions, distinguishing moral responsibility from coercion and avoiding claims that any single influence inevitably determines behaviour. The central argument is that sexual abstinence before marriage should be taught through a positive theology of sexuality, informed dialogue, self-control, and respect for others, rather than prohibition without explanation. The discussion is theological and pastoral, not an empirical study of the prevalence or consequences of premarital sex. Reflections developed in 2026 consider how churches, families, and theological educators can communicate conviction with compassion, support responsible decisions, and offer care without treating a person’s sexual history as the measure of their worth.
Christian apologetics is as necessary in Africa today as it was in the early church, but the questions it must answer have changed. This paper reflects on three readings in apologetics:the opening essays of the New Dictionary of Christian Apologetics, Richard L. Pratt’s Every Thought Captive, and Alister McGrath’s Bridge-Building. From the first it draws the importance of the apologist’s starting point and spiritual disposition in a postmodern age; from Pratt, a return to Scripture as the framework for defending the faith, expressed in the twin methods of argument by truth and argument from folly; and from Kevin J. Vanhoozer’s essay in the Dictionary, the conviction that theology, not detached evidence, must be the platform for apologetics. Turning to Africa, the paper argues that the African apologist must engage imported ideologies, African traditional religion, the critique of Christianity in African literature, religious pluralism, globalisation and pressing ethical questions, that a new generation of apologists must be trained for the task, and that the gospel must never lose its place at the centre of it.
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