As part of a continued emphasis by missions in the Africa West Area to implement a church-planting approach colloquially called "The Sunyani Model," the Ghana Kumasi Mission has recently organized its third and fourth branches in the medium-sized city of Techiman, Brong Ahafo Region. The Church orchestrated the opening of Techiman to missionary activity in mid-2013 and simultaneously established multiple member groups to hasten outreach expansion and maximize the saturation of LDS proselytism efforts. These efforts have yielded good results just a year later, asare now four branches that are each led by a local branch president. If the Church were to have followed a more traditional approach to opening Techiman to proselytism that advocates for splitting branches once they become too large to effectively administer, it would have likely taken many years or even a decade or more for four branches to operate in the city.
See below for a map of the four Techiman branches.
View Wards and Branches in the Ghana Kumasi Mission in a larger map
12 comments:
Hasten away!
The Lehi YSA 5th Ward, Lehi Utah YSA Stake, was created on 27 July. There are now 11 wards in the stake:
American Fork YSA 1st Ward
American Fork YSA 2nd Ward
Hillcrest YSA Ward
Lehi YSA 1st Ward
Lehi YSA 2nd Ward
Lehi YSA 3rd Ward
Lehi YSA 4th Ward
Lehi YSA 5th Ward
Meadowbrook YSA Ward
Saratoga Springs YSA Ward
The Ranches YSA Ward
The Usung Inyang Ward and the Okat Branch, Eket Nigeria Stake, were created on 13 and 20 July, respectively. There are now 10 wards and 3 branches in the stake:
Afaha Eket Ward
Edo Ward
Idua Ward
Idung Offiong Ward
Ikot Akpatek Ward
Ikot Anang Ward
Ikot Ebidang Ward
Ikot Usekong Ward
Ikwe Ward
Usung Inyang Ward
Ibeno Branch
Okat Branch
Okon Branch
I am excited about the growth of the Church in Techiman and Sunyani and all of the Brong-Ahafo Region.
One thing should be noted about growth in both Sunyani and Techiman. This is that both cities are growing rapidly in population and economically. Techiman has nearly doubled (86% increase) in population from 56,000 to 104,000 since 2000. Both Sunyani and Techiman have been growing rapidly, drawing population from the more settled regions to the south. A railroad is being built to Techiman to better connect it to the rest of Ghana. It is very likely that members are moving into the area as part of this migration, creating opportunities from rapid branch creation in the area.
A year or two ago, we compared Sunyani with Ho. Today, Sunyani is a district with 4 branches. Ho has 3 branches (including the adjacent Tsito Branch, but not including the Senchi Branch which extends all the way to Ho, but meets near Kpong) in the 7-branch Kpong district. At the time, it appeared that Ho and Sunyani were similar in size. Since then, it has been reported that the 2012 census counted 248,496 in Sunyani and 96,213 in Ho. Ho is ethnically different from the areas with stronger LDS presence and hasn't been growing anywhere near as dramatically in population as Sunyani.
Has this church planting technique been tried in any, for lack of a better term, first world countries recently?
What do you think will happen to the growth of the church with continued increase of plagues and disease outbreaks occurring in nations. Ebola made me think about the travel advisories to West Africa and how that would effect foreign missionaries coming into preach the gospel. I can't think of time in the last century where diseases caused disruption tot he work in a way that missionaries could not preach the gospel. I guess GC was cancelled for a major flu outbreak in the early 1900s. Anyone else have any other insights into this. I am sure it will only increase as taught in the scriptures.
It all depends on how we respond.
Rodney Stark in his excellent book 'The Rise of Christianity' has a whole chapter on how growth of the early church was positively impacted by a couple of serious plagues.
Dr. Stark is one of the premier sociologists of Religion and has a number of fascinating books.
http://www.rodneystark.com/books/
Sadly his book 'the Rise of Mormonism' is not available in the PPLD.
Well this answers my question for the short term.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865607954/Ebola-outbreak-prompts-evacuation-of-LDS-missionaries-from-two-African-nations-2-Mormons-dead.html
All missionaries are being pulled out and being reassigned.
My nephew from CA has one transfer left; I think Ghana or maybe Nigeria would be a nice way to leave the continent. English and krio, plus former comps from there would be cool follow up. But he might return early and re- start college earlier.
Rodney Stark had some interesting research and predictions about the Church, but like Arthur C. Clarke predicting the optimistic future of space exploration, many of the predictions are not as fast coming as hoped.
Both very impressively smart guys, though.
I think it was Stark showed the LDS Restoration had grown twice as fast as the original advent of Christianity, like two centuries to do what the apostles primitively took 4 to do...
Two new branches were created in the Brisbane centenary stake in queensland Australia last sunday. Tomorrow a new branch will be created in the ipswich stake which neighbours Centenary stake. These units are langauge units, two samoan and a togan branch. The interesting thing is that they only just go rid of the langauge units in the brisbane are 4, 5 years ago. So these units are different, they are just for members who speak these langauges who are older and have poor english and will not offer primary, ym or yw or ysa programs. So just older members.
I understand that there will be two new wards in another stake in brisbane area in next 2 months which will take us over 300 units. And adding the ward created in coomera stake in last 6 weeks makes a nice little period of growth in the brisbane multi stake area
maybe another new stake in tbe area in the next year or so.
Growth in the Brisbane area and Queensland has been wonderful. I look forward to future growth there.
These are the units in or covered by the Australian Brisbane Mission:
Brisbane Australia Centenary Stake
Bellbird Park Ward
Camira Ward
Collingwood Park Ward
Forest Lake Ward
Goodna Ward
Redbank Plains Ward
Richlands Ward
Springfield Ward
Centenary 1st Branch (Tongan)
Centenary 2nd Branch (Samoan)
Brisbane Australia Cleveland Stake
Camp Hill Ward
Capalaba Ward
Cleveland Ward
Holland Park Ward
Manly Ward
Brisbane Australia Logan Stake
Heritage Park Ward
Karawatha Ward
Logan Ward
Marsden Ward
Park Ridge Ward
Brisbane Australia North Stake
Bracken Ridge Ward
Burpengary Ward
Centenary Lakes Ward
North Pine Ward
Redcliffe Ward
Brisbane Australia Stake
Brisbane Ward
Bunya Forest Ward
Chermside Ward
Enoggera Ward
Kenmore Ward
River Terrace YSA Ward
Coomera Australia Stake
Beenleigh Ward
Coomera Ward
Helensvale Ward
Nerang Ward
Pacific Pines Ward
Pimpama Ward
Windaroo Ward
Eight Mile Plains Australia Stake
Eight Mile Plains Ward
Kuraby Ward
Loganholme Ward
Rochedale Ward
Springwood Ward
Waterford Ward
Gold Coast Australia Stake
Burleigh Ward
Isle of Capri Ward
Lismore Ward
Mudgeeraba Ward
Tallai Ward
Tweed Heads Ward
Ipswich Australia Stake
Brassall Ward
Darling Heights Ward
Karana Downs Ward
Raceview Ward
Somerset Ward
Toowoomba Ward
Warwick Ward
Yamanto Ward
Dalby Branch
Sunshine Coast Australia Stake
Buderim Ward
Bundaberg Ward
Forest Glen Ward
Gympie Ward
Hervey Bay Ward
Kawana Waters Ward
Nambour Ward
Kingaroy Branch
Australia Brisbane Mission
Cairns Australia District
Atherton Branch
Cairns 1st Branch
Cairns 2nd Branch
Innisfail Branch
Thursday Island Branch
Rockhampton Australia District
Emerald Branch
Gladstone Branch
Mackay Branch
Moranbah Branch
Rockhampton Branch
Townsville Australia District
Ayr Branch
Charters Towers Branch
Townsville Branch
Whitsunday Branch
Australia Brisbane Mission Branch
Mount Isa Branch
I count
1 Mission
1 Temple
10 Stakes
3 Districts
63 Wards
20 Branches
I have strong suspicions that the 1918 influenza epidemic severly curtailed missionary efforts. We don't hear much of this, in part because they were also being hampered by WWI at the same time.
Post a Comment