West Africa Theological Seminary

2006 Founders Day Speech

AN ADDRESS BY THE FOUNDER, REVD. DR. GARY S. MAXEY, ON THE OCCASION OF THE FIRST FOUNDERS DAY CELEBRATION OF WEST AFRICA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, FRIDAY, 8 DECEMBER 2006

WATS: The Journey Thus Far

The Provost, Rev. Lawrence Ettu, and the Deputy Provost, Rev. David Njoku,

Members of the Administrative Council of West Africa Theological Seminary,

Staff and Students of WATS,

Distinguished Visitors,

I am very pleased to welcome all of you to our first Founders Day celebration. I must confess at the outset that I do not have a very good idea of what Founders Day is all about. This is obviously our first time to initiate this type of idea, and frankly no one has told me exactly what we are doing. I hope it is mostly about taking time to thank God for the journey he has taken us through thus far, then having some good refreshments, dancing a few dances, and going out with smiles on our faces. I do know there are other institutions with such celebrations, and my general understanding is that those occasions are used to celebrate the founding vision of the institution and also to thank God for the pioneers who made the institution possible.

One thing I would not want us to miss today is that there were quite a good number of pioneers who made the vision of WATS possible. Any institution such as WATS is quite clearly the product of the labors of many, many people, and while eventually one person may have the label of “founder” pinned on him it is quite clear that this institution came into existence through the efforts of many divinely-called instruments.

For example, I would like to single out two American couples who preceded our own coming to Nigeria without whose influence none of us would be here today: Earl and Mabel Hunter, and Parker and Edith Maxey. Interestingly enough, these two couples first knew each other seventy years ago, in the 1930s, when Earl Hunter and Parker Maxey were Bible college classmates at Northwest Nazarene College in Idaho, USA. Earl Hunter was born in a sod shanty, was nurtured in the American Great Depression, and served in combat as a US Army chaplain in Italy during World War II. After that he pioneered a mission in Guatemala, and superintended a pioneer mission field for three terms and founded a seminary in Bolivia. Eventually, in 1960, the Hunters arrived in Nigeria sent by Dr. Basil Miller, head of an organization called World-Wide Missions. Then, in 1963, Earl Hunter was introduced in Port Harcourt to a Kalabari man by the name of A. A. Alalibo. Rev. Hunter baptized Alalibo—a convert from the Anglican Church—and eventually when Alalibo asked Hunter to recommend someone to link up with in the US Hunter remembered his old Bible college classmate, who was none other than my own father, Rev. Parker Maxey.

In 1978, by which time A. A. Alalibo had over 100 churches under his care, Parker and Edith Maxey flew to Port Harcourt to spend five weeks laying the foundation for a Bible college which Alalibo believed was very necessary for the training of his pastors. Little did my own wife and I know that within less than four years we would not only fly into Port Harcourt ourselves, but that we would be starting the most important ministry phase of our lives. We were there to establish Calvary College of Theology, and it was during our seven years at CCT that God gave us the vision for what is now West Africa Theological Seminary. So, as you can see, to write the history of WATS without remembering Earl and Mabel Hunter and Parker and Edith Maxey is to miss important foundations. Those people have long since come to the end of their productive ministries. Parker Maxey went to be with the Lord at 82 years of age, in 1998, and the other three—Earl and Mabel Hunter and Edith Maxey—are serving the Lord now well into their 90s.

We have chronicled elsewhere the Eneka Revival of 1983 – 1984 out of which the specific vision for WATS was birthed. As important as that was, I will not discuss it here today. Our coming to Nigeria was in response to the need of one indigenous Nigerian church—the Bible Missionary Church of Nigeria. Yet within the space of not less than two years it was clear to us that the need for theological training in Nigeria was dramatically shared by hundreds of similar churches. And the coming of the Eneka Revival convinced us that the Holy Spirit was hovering over this nation with a yearning and a promise to bring a truly national spiritual awakening. What we needed to do was to move in harmony with that holy yearning. And that eventually would mean the need to establish a much more broadly interdenominational, or nondenominational, seminary.

The vision for WATS, then was three-fold in nature: it would have to be a center for holiness and revival, it would have to be very broadly nondenominational, and it would have to be academically superior. Humanly speaking I am sure it was the IMPOSSIBLE DREAM, but when we realized that the vision was not our own bright idea but rather the making of the Lord Himself we knew that it had to happen and that if we continued to obey God it would finally succeed.

West Africa Theological Seminary was eventually established, in Owerri, Imo State, and opened its doors in September 1989. Early pioneers who followed us through that period included Rev. Kofi Obiako and (at least to a certain degree) Rev. David Njoku. David Akaji, Leroy Adams and Pilipo Miriye of Papua New Guinea were other key players. Our two sons, Andrew and Oni, were part of the action, as was our daughter Rachel at a later stage as a WATS student and even for a time as the teacher of a very popular class in Children’s Evangelism. Students such as Oumar Coulibaly joined us at the outset, as well as Pius Usenu, and before long people such as Eugene Ukaoha, Emmanuel Ogunyemi, and William Udotong (the latter two coming on as part of the teaching staff)—people who are still with us today after seventeen years.

It has been a great journey thus far, filled with ups and downs, but with a very clear generally upward trajectory. In the short space that we have this morning we obviously cannot take time to reflect on all of the milestones. As I have reflected over it I have realized that the broad sweep of our history could be outlined in at least four different ways:

• Our transition from Wesley International Bible College to Wesley International Theological Seminary to West Africa Theological Seminary . The use of the Wesley name was very deliberate, and had to do centrally with the clear vision of what the institution was called out co accomplish. We adopted the Wesley name at the outset because it was our conviction that God wanted to change modern-day Nigeria just as dramatically as He had changed the English nation under John Wesley’s influence in the Eighteenth Century. We believed that what Nigeria needs today is basically the same prescription of a return to Bible center, a focus on holiness as the centrality of that biblical center, and a widespread grassroots movement fueled by a spiritual awakening. Yet after about ten years we finally admitted the fact that the use of the Wesley name was always going to create the false impression that we were a denominational institution, and a part of the Methodist Church. That is why today—even though we still have the same hope for national transformation—we have “West Africa” rather than “Wesley” at the beginning of our name. On the other hand, the move from calling ourselves a Bible college to calling ourselves a seminary was because of our advancement from a largely secondary-level institution to a university-level institution. When first-degree students began to represent our core academic focus we realized we were no longer basically a secondary-level institution and therefore were more a seminary than a college.

• Our academic transition from the offering of theological certificates and diplomas to the offering of an accredited first degree, and eventually to the offering of Masters degrees and plans for a doctoral program . We have come a long way from the time when most of our students were not secondary school graduates. Perhaps we can simply note that we have gradually moved upward as the Church itself in this nation has advanced. We eventually completely phased out our certificate programs, and we have now all but completed the phasing out of our diploma program—not because Nigeria has no need for these types of programs but because at least 100 other theological schools have arisen to provide competent help at these levels. We believe that we must progressively meet the training needs of the Church in Africa at its highest levels. The accreditation of our programs through our affiliation with the University of Nigeria Nsukka, beginning in 1992, was a significant impetus in moving us in this direction. And eventually, as we moved into our Masters programs about ten years ago, we began to enjoy the very dynamic impact of bringing scores of highly-qualified adjunct faculty onto our campus, literally from around the world. Let me also mention that under this rubric we must talk about our very significant liaising with Dr. Phillip Walker and International Christian Ministries over the last eight years to provide academic vetting and certification for largely rural in-service theological programs in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Nigeria.

My conviction is that WATS is still very far from the completion of its journey, or even from saying that it has hit its full and proper stride. We have in a real sense only BEGUN to move in the direction of fulfilling our original vision. Certainly some great strides have been made. At least 2,000 students have enrolled in this institution at one time or the other, and at least 1,000 have graduated from our various programs. That by itself is a remarkable achievement, especially in view of the fact that we have at the same time continually striven to keep our original mission before us and have reasonably succeeded in doing so.

Early in our history we honed our mission statement until it said what was on our hearts: “To train men and women for holy living, for carrying the Gospel to the unreached, and for catalyzing national spiritual awakening.” In our earliest years we never tired of noting that “spiritual life is just as important as academics,” yet ten years ago we became more deeply convinced that spiritual formation must be the very core of what we do at WATS and not just something that was “just as important” as something else. As important as the goal of good academics is we came to believe that spiritual mentoring is our primary reason for existence. As we know, the academic model for pastoral or church leadership training is a fairly modern idea, and must never obscure the fact that the original and primary focus for preparing men and women for leadership in the Church must be on spiritual life-transfer and not on the obtaining of academic degrees.

Frankly, the national spiritual awakening that we envisioned as far back as 1984 has yet to materialize in Nigeria. Surely the spiritual tide is generally rising in Nigeria, even though we are still greatly weighed down across the nation with the very heavy baggage of prosperity teaching and even though we are still witnessing heavy doses of syncretism in most of our churches. The Holy Spirit is brooding over Nigeria, and there is still reason to hope and pray for a national spiritual awakening. WATS must be a part of that revival. WATS must be sensitive enough to detect where and how the Holy Spirit is moving to bring about such a revival. And if possible WATS must either be the matrix of such a national awakening or must quickly move to make itself a part of such an awakening when it comes.

Having said all of that, however, what specifically are our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats as an institution? This would obviously be most appropriately answered by the WATS administration, including the Governing Council and the Administrative Council. But please allow me to give some of my own thoughts.

After seventeen years of history I believe the strengths of WATS include at least the following:

• A seventeen-year track record of delivering quality theological education with proper accreditation.
• A clear mission statement focusing on the primacy of our call to spiritual formation, our passion for cross-cultural missions, and our conviction that we are to catalyze national and continental spiritual awakening.
• A broadly interdenominational evangelical seminary, with students across the years from well over 200 denominations.
• A strong Governing Council, including several prominent church leaders, WATS alumni, attorneys, business people, and international representatives, led by a renowned retired Anglican bishop.
• A successful transition to Nigerian administrative leadership over the past three years.
• Qualified teaching faculty representing a broad spectrum of indigenous and international evangelical denominations, as well as a vigorous program of faculty training, in which we have sent more than twenty-five teachers for advanced degrees both inside and outside Nigeria.
• Strong national and international partnerships and relationships with other seminaries, colleges and universities.
• A unique position as the only accredited seminary in the largest and fastest-growing city in sub-Sahara Africa—currently with about 15 million people—as well as the largest accredited interdenominational seminary in Africa.
• Successful transition from eastern Nigeria to Lagos, and within Lagos from our temporary campus on International Airport Road to our permanent campus in Ipaja.
• Growing relationships with key overseas organizations and institutions such as OMS International, International Christian Ministries, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wesley Biblical Seminary, Trinity International University, Southern Evangelical Seminary, and others.
• A good support base in the USA, and a growing support base within Nigeria.
• A generally strongly improved financial picture in 2006.
• A generally well computerized institution, with over 25 computers on campus.
• Relevant programs which have been well received within the Nigerian and international African Church.
• Reasonable scholarship funding base, with approximately 100 scholarships in place.
• We have the largest evangelical library in Nigeria, with over 60,000 well-selected volumes.
• Good impact especially on the largest Protestant church in Nigeria—the Anglican Communion—as well as good impact on the chaplaincy services of the armed forces of Nigeria.
• We have a student body living up to the aspirations of WATS being a multi-denominational, multi-cultural, international body as we have eleven nationalities and over seventy denominations represented.
• Initial successful efforts to rise to the challenge of the overwhelming needs represented by the HIV/AIDS crisis in Nigeria, including efforts to catalyze the Church into wholistic action in this area.
• We are experiencing a growing focus on prayer at WATS, especially centered around our daily group prayer time from 9:00 to 10:00 AM.

On the other hand, after seventeen years WATS is still an institution with significant weaknesses. Among them I would list the following:

• Inadequacies in our library, including non-computerized cataloging system, woefully inadequate periodical holdings and need for many more recent publications to support our growing curriculum.
• The pioneer and overly-crowded situation of our new permanent campus, which is just taking off, and which depends strongly on vigorous capital fundraising.
• Inadequate housing accommodation for both staff and students, including our lack of provision for international married students.
• Inadequate development of our local and national financial base, including the need to greatly strengthen our emerging Department of Communication and Fundraising.
• Our generally very inadequate funding of the recurrent expenditures of the seminary, and particularly the inadequate funding of our staff salaries.
• Over-dependence on funding from outside Nigeria and relative under-development of funding from within the country.
• Need for doctoral training for more of our teaching staff, as well as continuing short-term support from adjunct staff.
• Need for viable plans to further training for our non-teaching staff.
• Need for more effective student recruitment, including the recruitment of more international students.
• Our need to pursue full accreditation through the Accrediting Council for Theological Education in Africa (ACTEA).
• Our failure to make adequate impact on the Aladura, or so-called white garment, movement in Nigeria—one of the largest segments of Nigerian Christianity most urgently needing theological, biblical and management training for their leaders. We have made a few advances in this direction, but I believe we must do much more.

After seventeen years, what are the significant opportunities that WATS has been endowed with? Let me suggest the following:

• The opportunity to capitalize on our standing as the only broadly interdenominational seminary of our kind in West Africa and to become a premier training school for the West African region, if not for the entire continent.
• To build on our earlier efforts toward the establishment of the Congress on Christian Ethics to provide a national forum for the dissemination of the Nigeria Covenant (an instrument for rallying Nigeria Christians to stand for Christian ethics and against endemic corruption in the country) to all nooks and corners of Nigeria.
• To work especially with International Christian Ministries to provide a growing regional and continental base for the dissemination of in-service training programs both inside and outside Nigeria.
• To develop a much more truly international school by doing more systematic recruitment of international students, not just in West Africa but beyond.
• To become the primary training seminary for at least twenty major Nigerian denominations.
• To become a missions training school for international students, and the recognized continental graduate training school for at least forty major African denominations.
• To continue to develop and expand the Africa Center for Urban and Wholistic Ministries so that it becomes a primary continental resource center, and effectively catalyzes the Church in Africa to become the savor that is needed in African society.
• To establish an African center for world missions, revolving around the best missions research library in Africa (our dream of the Akanu Ibiam Memorial Research Library) and a primary training center for missionaries reaching out especially to the Muslim world.
• To become the most ethnically balanced seminary in Nigeria.

We cannot ignore the fact that there are also significant threats that face WATS at this juncture, and they would include at least the following:

• WATS still has a relatively weak financial base, and until we can solve that problem all of our great opportunities will continue to be threatened.
• Because spiritual formation is at the core of our institution we face the danger of growing too fast numerically and not establishing and sustaining spiritual formation depth.
• We are constantly threatened with the temptation to lose our primary focus and to try to be all things to all people by taking on programs and projects and goals that are not consistent with our original calling.

In summary, I believe the ministry of WATS is more needed today that at any other time in the past. Last year the Disciple Nations Alliance published a significant booklet entitled Against All Hope: Hope for Africa. In it, they noted that Africa is the second largest continent on earth—second only to Asia. It has 874 million people—around 14% of the world’s population. In terms of natural resources it is the richest continent in the world. Africa, along with the Middle East, was the womb of the Judeo-Christian faith. Yet in spite of her incredible blessings Africa is still the most poverty-stricken and destitute and broken continent on planet Earth. Far Eastern countries that once were at the bottom of the global economic scale—such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand and Singapore—are now fast moving to become global economic success stories. Yet African continues to lag behind, and even to move further behind in many cases. Even in a place such as Nigeria, which has earned over $200 billion in oil wealth over the past forty years, poverty still reigns. Clearly, Africa is not poor because of lack of resources—she is poor in spite of possessing the greatest base of natural resources in the world. Africa has attracted more foreign aid per capita than any region in the world, yet living standards have continued to fall rather than rise.

I am convinced that neither outside money nor more technical know-how will solve the problems of this continent. Nor do I believe that the solution is the changing of leadership at the top of our societies. Rather, just as in Eighteenth-Century England, the secret is a grassroots movement, and that is precisely where WATS is seeking to make change. We want to influence Africa by training one pastor at a time, and one church leader at a time, to go throughout the entire society and begin to change our whole way of thinking, acting and living on this continent. It is a vision that must be fulfilled. Anthropologist Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that has ever happened.” Transformation comes as one individual, one church, and one community is changed. And I believe that such transformation is exactly what is happening at WATS.

The bottom line, as we celebrate this first Founders Day, is that WATS is still here, WATS has made a great journey thus far, and WATS still has a great future before it. Let us thank God today that we are all a part of this journey—staff, students, and even international visitors who are with us today. And I want to predict that if we continue in the direction and with the conviction I now see in WATS we will see in another seventeen years a significantly deeper fulfillment of our founding vision. I hope I can be around to celebrate it with you. May God bless you!