Many baptisms, new congregations fuel church growth in Ethiopia

Church planting and leadership training are the heartbeat of the ministry of Craig and Allison Fowler and the CMF team in Ethiopia, and the past several months have been full of steady growth in both of these areas.

Church planting

This past year Craig and the team have been working with eight church planters who are planting six churches in two general areas of Ethiopia.

“The Metu area is a predominantly Muslim population of the Oromo people,” said Craig. “We have three church plants there. The second area is a mixed population of Muslim and African tribal religionists in the Assosa area among the Berta and Gumuz people groups.

“This past year there have been more than 150 new baptisms among these six churches, and we are making plant to start two churches next year in the Metu area,” he added.

Leadership training

In addition to starting new churches, the team realizes the importance of mentoring, training and encouraging the leaders of existing churches.

“We work primarily with a group of churches called the Kristos Andinet Churches (Unity in Christ Churches),” said Craig. “There are about 120 of these KAC churches in Ethiopia, and I’ve visited more than 30 of them in the past nine months. I also had the opportunity to preach in many of these and taught at eight different church leader trainings.

“2018 was an exciting year of church growth for these churches,” he added. “The KAC recorded a total of 1,939 new baptisms for the year.”