Kampala has a population of three million and is the capital city of Uganda. Agaba Baptist Church is a Baptist suburban congregation with 260 worshippers where Michael Okwakol is the pastor.
This church has a host of young people, which represents the future. The Baptist work that they do at Agaba is a template most of the Baptist churches throughout the nation.
In his responsibilities as the President of the Baptist Union of Uganda, even as a young man, Michael Okwakol witnessed the 1980s revival of Christianity in his country. At that time there were 150 Baptist churches, now there are 1700.
The administration of all these churches is made manageable, as they are arranged into eight regions, each with 5-6 different Associations of Baptist churches. Each region has an Overseer (something akin to a Superintendent or a Bishop) and these regional overseers are responsible to the national office of Uganda Baptist work in Kampala.
The current situation in the Ugandan Baptist Union of churches is that many churches have so quickly developed, that what is imperative right now, is specialised instruction to the leaders within each congregation on the nature of 'Christian leadership' and strengthening 'Discipleship'.
Michael Okwakol explained that it is really important now that the courage that these congregations have shown in establishing Christian commitment to Jesus Chrst, is to match this initial passion and enthusiasm with consolidation and in-house development for future expansion.
This Michael Okwakol interview on the Australian Missionary News IPTV can be viewed either at tv.bushorchestra.com/BWC/videopages/michael_okwakol.html or www.safeworlds.net