Introduction
The Churches of Christ are the most well-established strand of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement (SCRM) in Ghana. Two American missionaries, Wendell Broom and Sewell Hall are credited with initiating this work around 1958. Since then, the community has flourished. The Ghanaian congregations are generally self-governing, self-propagating, and somewhat self-supporting. There is still a significant financial connection between Ghanaian congregations and American support sources. Additionally, there seems to be an inordinate attachment to the theological vision bequeathed by missionaries in Ghana. In this paper, I submit that the narrow nature of this theological vision has resulted in poor spiritual formation among the SCRM in Ghana and that this situation can improve if the community responds wisely to the spiritual development needs of its emerging generation of leaders.
Douglas Foster is a respected church historian affiliated with the SCRM. He has had an illustrious academic career. He rose through the ranks to become a professor emeritus in church history at Abilene Christian University (ACU), in Abilene, Texas. For many years Foster directed the Center for Restoration Studies also at ACU. He served as the General Editor for the Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement published in 2004 as well as The Stone-Campbell Movement: A Global History published in 2013. After more than four decades of excellence as a SCRM historian, Foster has a forthcoming article inquiring into the theological vision of the SCRM particularly, spirituality of the Churches of Christ.1 This article is his first exploration into the subject of spirituality. Foster’s burgeoning interest in the subject of spirituality in itself, is instructive.
In this article, Foster recounts two anecdotes; one in his ministry career in the 1970s and 1980s in Nashville, Tennessee and the second, a more recent one during his academic career at ACU. In the first one, he tells the story of the reaction of one of his favourite elders at a recurring elders’ meeting he described as “mind-numbing.” He noted that the winding nature of the meeting and the bickering which characterized the meeting led his “favourite” elder to shout in exasperation: “What we need in this church is more spiritualism.” In the second anecdote, Foster was sharing his current research interest in spirituality of Churches of Christ with a female colleague. This female colleague, with her eyebrow raised, asked, “Do we have any?”
According to Foster, the reactions in both anecdotes are true reflections of the general assumptions about the Churches of Christ in America. This faith tradition has historically emphasized rationality to the neglect of spirituality. Indeed, many in the Churches of Christ are likely to construe or confuse spirituality with reading the Bible, prayer, evangelism, caring for the poor, ethical behaviour, and financially supporting missionary work around the world.2
Theologically, the Churches of Christ in Ghana are not significantly different from their mission source, but Ghana is generally more conservative than their mainline American counterparts. After almost seven decades of existence, the Ghanaian brotherhood appropriates the theological legacy bequeathed by missionaries. This includes a theological vision of “spirituality” such as was concisely articulated by Alexander Campbell in November 1843 in his debate with N. L. Rice when he defended the proposition that “in conversion and sanctification the Spirit works only through the word of truth.”3 This theological vision is predominantly cerebral.
Robert Richardson, a close associate of Alexander Campbell and at one time, an associate editor of Millennial Harbinger, remarked concerning this theological vision, that “it exaggerates the power of facts, endows the words of the Bible with ‘unwonted efficacy,’ and improperly ties faith to material things…it cannot get beyond facts and arguments to an intimate and personal communion with God.”4 In other words, in this theological vision, the “letter” is given pre-eminence over the “Spirit.”
The church in Ghana stresses a “strong view of Scripture’s authority, the centrality of Christ’s death for our sins, and a strong impulse for evangelism and service.”5 Consequently, in relation to the process of spiritual growth, “there is an assumption that the appropriation of biblical knowledge will by itself lead to spiritual maturity.”6 More than a century prior, Richardson anticipated the inherent deficiency in these writings. He indicated that such a theological vision eventuated in “chilled Spiritual vitality, doctrinal formalism, and an arresting of the full restoration of pure Christian faith.”7 Richardson’s thesis seems to have been vindicated within the Churches of Christ in Ghana.
In 1997, at the “Africans Claiming Africa” conference in Zimbabwe, John Franklin Tamakloe, one of the pioneering preachers of the SCRM in Ghana raised an alarm about the spiritual implications of the theological orientation utilized within our movement in Ghana. Speaking on the topic: “The Gospel, Not Issues,” Tamakloe observed among others that:
…Everything has been mechanized; patterns and form have taken the place of spirituality. Greed, envy, pettiness, and lack of Christian courtesy and charity, etc., are things we are now contending with, because our brethren have misplaced their trust and loyalty. Our faith is more in the ‘Institution’ than in the ‘Institutor.’ Those things that may be aptly described as the ‘fruits of the Spirit’ are non-existent in the lives of our members.8
Therefore, as far back as 1997, the effect of the anemic theology of spiritual growth of the community was discernible. Mastery of biblical information was confused for spiritual transformation. Character formation and spiritual transformation were not given their pride of place in the life of the community in Ghana. Doctrinal exactitude has been elevated over a transformed and sanctified Christian life. As expected, this dearth of spirituality has affected the holistic growth of the community in Ghana.
Although the community has recorded significant numerical growth over the years, the same cannot be said for qualitative growth. Even though the movement is called the “Churches of Christ,” the character of Christ is visibly absent in the church’s orientation and habits. Conflict, division, rancour, and even ethnocentrism have characterized the life of the community. As a consequence, the community has not lived up to her potential.
The Birth of a New Generation
Beginning in 1980s, the development of higher education in Ghana led to the challenging of this theological vision. As young persons from the church pursued higher education, they carried their faith along with them to the various public universities. On account of this, campus churches affiliated with the Churches of Christ in Ghana emerged. This new ministry context comprised mostly emerging adults; ages ranging between 20 and 30 years old,9 interspersed by a few older ones. This development has led to a new generation of church members who have realized certain difficulties with the prevailing theological vision. More specifically, this group has noted flaws in the theological vision that often manifest behaviourally within the community in the form of hypocrisy – a palpable discrepancy between identity and character; from top to bottom.
A characteristic of this new generation was and still is a lesser tolerance for spiritual hypocrisy and a yearning openness to more genuine and deeper levels of spirituality. Beyond the general notion that Africans innately possess an enchanted worldview and are incurably religious,10 deepening levels of spirituality for many emerging adults in Ghana has become an existential necessity. Like many African nations, Ghana can be considered a failed state.11 Due to pervasive corruption, economic mismanagement, wanton dissipation of state resources, the state is unable to meet the legitimate needs and aspirations of her citizenry. Consequently, many emerging adults in Ghana look to God through their faith; and not to the state, to succeed in life. Thus, to many emerging adults in Ghana, including those within the Churches of Christ, a robust spirituality offers a better future.
Retreat as a Means of Spiritual Formation
To mitigate against the adverse effects of the SCRM inherited theology of ministry, these emerging adults began seeking avenues and opportunities to drink from the deep spiritual wells in Scripture and Christian history. Beginning in 2011, the Church of Christ campus ministry at the University of Cape Coast where I minister initiated a retreat for leaders. The leadership retreat emerged as a response to the deterioration in spiritual progress among members of the church in Ghana. Through word of mouth, seven other campus churches joined the retreat.
I designed and led the initial retreat, which has become a bi-annual gathering. In the retreats, we focus on the spiritual disciplines of engagement and abstinence. Participants recognize a disparity between belief and practice, often seeing their own lives as prima facie evidence. We started the retreat in recognition of the fact that we could not expect different outcomes from our inherited approach to ministry. We needed to explore other ways of doing ministry which prioritized formation and transformation over biblicism, crucicentrism, conversion, and activism,12 as important they are. As things were, we were not being prepared to participate in God’s life and mission. We were miles away from being like Christ and sharing in the character of God. The content, activities, and processes at the retreat are all based on the belief that the ultimate telos of ministry is human transformation and communal participation in the divine life.
An Evaluative Assessment of the Retreat
After more than a decade of the leadership retreat, an evaluative assessment of the program was carried out between January and February, 2024. The evaluation sought to gather, analyse, and interpret data about the bi-annual program in a systematized manner so that conclusions could be drawn in respect of its spiritual formative function. A qualitative research design was adopted relying on semi-structured interviews for data collection. Interviews were utilized because of its suitability for individualized stories, views, and inclusivity. Additionally, interviews allow for covert constructs like attitudes, personal feelings, and interpretations to be accessed.13
Individuals who had participated in the retreat from 2016 formed the population for the study. Purposive sampling technique was used to select participants because certain peculiar qualities and characteristics were essential to the study. For instance, expressive individuals; those with the ability to articulate their experience was critical. Regarding sample size, given the potential of interviews to generate overwhelming data, a total of 15 retreat participants were selected for the study. They comprised eight females constituting 53%, and seven males who made up the remaining 47%. Participants were drawn from six campus churches. Their ages ranged between 24 to 32 years. The number of years participants had spent in Christ after baptism ranged between 8 to 17 years. Participants had attended the retreat as few as twice and as many as eleven times. One participant had attended all retreats since 2016.
In terms of instrumentation, a semi-structured interview questions were utilized. Retreat participants have created a social media platform on which they frequently interact. Therefore, recruiting participants was easy. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and subsequently analysed using the NVivo 14 software. To increase the richness and robustness of the data, a focus group discussion was conducted via Zoom in addition. The resultant data was analysed using Reflexive thematic analysis (RTA). Reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) is considered “easily accessible and theoretically flexible interpretative approach to qualitative data analysis.”14 RTA allows for the identification, categorization, and analysis of patterns or themes in a given qualitative data set. It is considered flexible because it is amenable to varying approaches. Specifically, RTA is capable of utilizing three main continua within qualitative research approaches: inductive versus deductive or theory-driven data coding and analysis, experiential versus critical orientation, and an essentialist versus constructionist.
When a researcher chooses the inductive or data-driven approach to data coding and analysis, codes produced reflect directly from the content of the data set and are devoid of a preconceived theory or conceptual frame-work. The deductive approach or ‘theory-driven’, on the other hand, produces codes in relation to a pre-advertised conceptual framework. In such a case, both coding and analysis are analyst-driven rather than content-driven. Codes generated and analysis performed reflect more on an undergirding theoretical framework and not necessarily on the data set under consideration.15
In experiential orientation to data analysis, priority is given to the unique ways participants experienced the phenomenon being investigated, including the meanings they assign to these experiences. Even though thoughts, feelings, and experiences are subjectively recounted, the researcher employing this approach would be expected to defer to the meaning and meaningfulness attributed to the experience by the participant. Conversely, in the critical orientation, a researcher approaches and analyzes data “as if it were constitutive, rather than reflective of participants’ personal state.”16 The intent of the critical approach is to question patterns and themes of meaning from a theoretical understanding that language creates and not merely reflect a given social reality.17 In the critical approach, a researcher may attempt to investigate the mechanisms underlying participants’ construction or development of systems of meaning and in so doing interpret or second-guess the meanings engendered by participants.
In essentialism, a researcher uses a unidirectional appreciation of the correlation between language and communicated experience, such that it is assumed language is a natural reflection of expressed meanings and experiences. Consequently, meanings that are attached to systems in developing these meanings are largely uninterrogated. Those of the constructionist perspective prefer a bidirectional appreciation of the language/experience dichotomy, insisting that language is implied in the social construction and reconstruction of both meaning and experience.
This study proceeded on the basis of an inductive, experiential, and essentialist continua. This means that analysis was data-driven and that codes generated and analyses performed were based directly on a reflection on the content of the data. Furthermore, priority was placed on the unique experiences of participants at the leadership retreat and the subjective meanings, feelings, thoughts they attributed to these experiences. Additionally, this study took for granted the relationship between language and communicated experience and that language is a natural expression of unique meanings and experiences. Thus, no attempts were made to second-guess the participants in the study or superimpose any external interpretation on their thoughts, feelings, and experiences expressed in this study.
Coding was done semantically. This means that codes were identified through explicit or plain, unambiguous meanings of the data. The researcher did not have to engage in mirror-reading or reading-in-between the lines. The researcher did not go or look beyond the participants’ statements. The use of semantic codes is defined as descriptive analysis of the data, and the intent is to present the content of the data as expressed by participants.18
The NVivo 14 software was used to process and gather emerging themes, patterns, and commonalities based on the interview questions. A six-phase process was employed to facilitate the analysis, identification, and categorization of codes, themes, patterns, and attending to essential aspects of thematic analysis.19 While the six phases proceed in a logical sequence, the analysis is not a linear process of moving through the phases. “Rather, the analysis is recursive and iterative, requiring the researcher to move back and forth through the phases as necessary.”20 Below is a summary of the six phases of RTA.
Phase One: Familiarization with the Data
This first phase involves the reading and rereading the transcribed data set in its entirety for the express purpose of becoming intimately conversant and familiar with the data. This phase is critical for identifying relevant and appropriate information that correlates with the research questions or whatever the case might be. In the case of audio recordings, familiarization can be done by actively listening to each interview recording. A researcher may take notes as part of the familiarization phase.
Phase Two: Generating Initial Codes
Codes are pithy, shorthand descriptive and sometimes interpretative labels which encapsulate information relevant to the research or interview questions. Codes form the basis of generating themes and are developed when the researcher attends equitably to the entire data set, identifying aspects of data that is germane to the generation of themes. Codes are technically brief, yet sufficient enough to independently inform underlying similarities among constituent data sets in relation to research questions.
Phase Three: Generating Themes
This phase begins after initial codes have been generated, when attention shifts from interpreting individual data items (codes) within the dataset, to interpreting aggregated meaning and meaningfulness across the dataset. Themes and sub-themes are formed when coded data is reviewed and analysed to show how varying codes may be combined based on shared meanings. Themes may be distinctive and even contradictory; however, they should cohere to offer a clear idea and picture of data set.
Phase Four: Reviewing Potential Themes
At this phase, the researcher assesses and evaluates potential themes in relation to coded items and entire dataset. Themes which are deemed irrelevant or redundant in terms of their contribution to meaningful interpretation of data or possession of information which addresses research questions are culled. Two levels of review are carried out at this phase. Level one reviews the relationships within data items and codes that inform each theme and sub-theme. Level two review themes in relation to data set. Themes are assessed for their aptness regarding interpretation of data in relation to research questions.
Phase Five: Defining and Naming Themes
The task in phase five offers an in-depth analysis of the thematic framework. Each of the themes and sub-themes are developed in relation to the dataset and the research question(s). Each theme functions to provide a coherent and internally consistent account of the data. Together, all themes function to paint a lucid picture that is congruent with the content of the dataset and informative in relation to the research question(s). This phase requires deep analysis of underlying data items.
Phase Six: Producing the Report
The final phase of reflexive thematic analysis is the production of the report. Like the other phases, producing the report can be a fluid recursive process. As and/or when codes and themes change and evolve over the course of analysis, so too can the report. Changes along the way are recorded in informal notes and memos. A research journal is kept for this purpose. Thus, phase six is perceived as the completion and final inspection of the report the researcher began at the inception of the research.
Findings and Discussions
The results of the data demonstrate that all participants’ assessment and evaluation of the leadership retreats were positive. Participants described the retreats as educative, transformative, impactful, and a means by which emerging adults learn about Christ and leadership roles in the church. Others described the retreat as a “life changing event because it offered them spiritual perspectives to life and living it.” Beyond the spiritual benefits, participants indicated that the retreats also helped them develop relevant psychosocial skills through their engagement and interaction with peers from other campuses.
They indicated further that the structure, the activities, and the content of the retreats, and, of course, the power of the Holy Spirit interact to instigate and orchestrate the participants’ spiritual growth and maturity. The open, honest, and transparent discussion of relevant issues that thwart the spiritual growth of emerging adults and the insightful responses offered by resource persons play a critical role in the growth and maturation process. Spiritual exercises like fasting and prayers, and the communal spirit engendered at the retreat all contribute to the growth and maturation participants experience. The vulnerability exemplified by the convener of the retreat and promoted at the retreat are essential ingredients in the growth process.
To a question about whether the transformation they were describing could be possible in their local congregations, the overwhelming majority of participants answered in the negative. This suggests that given the ministry orientation of their local congregations, the majority of participants did not believe that the formation and transformation they received through the leadership retreat would be possible in their various local congregations. The reasons they noted in their responses were mainly concerned with the telos or theology of ministry pursued in the various local congregations.
Implications of Findings for Ministry Among Churches of Christ in Ghana
First, the findings from this study indicate that emerging adults, who form a significant majority in many congregations of the Churches of Christ in Ghana, possess a deep yearning for spiritual formation and transformation. Despite the moral lapses and the ravaging effects of the culture in which they are immersed, emerging adults affiliated with the Churches of Christ in Ghana demonstrate a palpable, burning desire for God.
They desperately seek spirituality. Many of their addictions may be desperate attempts at compensating for the void created by the distance which exists between them and God. Consequently, the church in Ghana must begin to revise their notes about emerging adults, begin to see beyond the false appearances that emerging adults often display, and discover their deep yearning and groaning for God in their lives.
Second, findings from this study demand the Churches of Christ in Ghana to interrogate and audit our vision or theology of ministry. It has become abundantly clear that even though the prevailing theology of ministry which resolves around evangelism, edification, and benevolence is valuable, it appears inadequate to meet the spiritual needs of emerging adults. Many of them expressed a sense of bewilderment, disillusionment, and abandonment as a result of the unquestioned dependence and utilization of those mantras even when they do not meet their peculiar spiritual needs.
Third, the Churches of Christ in Ghana must come to terms with the reality that spiritual formation and transformation are legitimate telos of ministry which is consistent with the teachings of Scripture. When all an emerging adult receives from Bible studies is information but not transformation, the Bible becomes nothing more than a newspaper because that is all that a newspaper has to offer–information. The Churches of Christ in Ghana must desist henceforth from measuring ministry success by the number of converts. We must begin to commit ourselves to the higher standard of forming and transforming coverts into the nature of Christ.
Finally, a critical assignment derived from this study for the Churches of Christ in Ghana is to revise the curriculum of the preaching schools affiliated with the community in Ghana. Part of the reason Churches of Christ in Ghana relegate spiritual formation and transformation to the background or discount and discredit its relevance is that the subject of spiritual formation and transformation does not feature in the curriculum of many of the training institutions which train ministers and leaders for the Churches of Christ in Ghana. Consequently, many preachers who serve the various congregations have neither the necessary training nor the tools necessary to equip them for spiritual formation and transformation.
Therefore, one way of reversing or addressing the situation is for the training institutions to begin incorporating the theological discipline of spiritual formation and include more developed theologies of Christian transformation into their curriculum. This assures that from the onset those clothed with the responsibility of ensuring the spiritual growth of the church are neither ignorant nor oblivious of the need for spiritual formation and transformation.
1 Douglas A. Foster, “The Spirituality of Churches of Christ: A Preliminary Inquiry, Teleios Journal 6 No. 2. Winter 2026.
2 Ibid, 1.
3 C. Leonard Allen and Danny G. Swick, Participating in God’s Life: Two Crossroads for Churches of Christ (Orange: New Leaf, 2001), 40.
4 Ibid, 46.
5 Leonard Allen, In the Great Stream: Imagining Churches of Christ in the Christian Tradition (Abilene: ACU Press, 2021), 46.
6 Barna Group, The State of Discipleship: Research Conducted among Christian Adults, Church Leaders, Exemplar Discipleship Ministries and Christian Educators (Ventura: Barna, 2015), 60.
7 These expressions are attributed to Robert Richardson when he published a series of articles entitled “Misrepresentation of Scripture” in 1857 protesting the overreliance of human philosophy instead of the Spirit of God in the interpretation. It was cited by: C. Leonard Allen and Danny G. Swick, Participating in God’s Life, 38.
8 Sam Shewmaker, Africans Claiming Africa: Living the Vision (Fullerton: DRUMBAT Publications, 1999), 112.
9 The ages of college students in Ghana tend to be higher than their counterparts in the West because of issues of affordability and accessibility. Hitherto, the cost of higher education was such that only the rich in the society could afford. Such that, after high school, economically challenged individuals needed to stay at home, so that they and their families could work and accrue enough money to be able to pay their way through tertiary education. In the 1970s and 1980s, the average of college students in Ghana were higher than what pertains today. However, with enhanced investment in Ghana from the late 1980s until now, many more people are able to afford higher education now and so the average has also dropped.
10 In African Religious and Philosophy (Nairobi: EAEP, 1969), 1; John Mbiti, the famous expert on African religion and philosophy, discusses into detail this phenomenon. A more recent reflections on this subject in relation to the dynamic effects of secularization can be found in a collection of essays edited by: Benno van den Toren, Joseph Bosco Bangura, and Richard E. Seed, Is Africa Incurably Religious? Secularization and Discipleship in Africa (Oxford: Regnum Books, 2020).
11 In his book, State Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror (Cambridge: World Peace Foundation, 2003), 3; Robert I. Rotberg provides a framework and rubric for determining a failed state. He indicates that, “Nation-states exist to provide a decentralized method of delivering political (public) goods to persons living in designated parameters (borders)…[they] focus and answer the concerns and demands of citizenries. They organize and channel the interests of their people, often but not exclusively in furtherance of national goals and values. He indicates that it is the responsibility of states to cocoon their citizenry from exogenous forces and factors that impinge on the economic, political, and social wellbeing of their people while promoting the interests of the citizenry. The success or failure of states are determined on this rubric.
12 These terms were used by David Bebbington to characterize the central theological attitude and convictions of Evangelicals. It can be found in: Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London: Unwin Hymn, 1989), pp. 2–17. This was cited by Jeffrey P. Greenman, “Spiritual formation in theological perspective.” Life in the Spirit: Spiritual formation in theological perspective (2010): 23-35.
13 Tim Sensing, Qualitative Research: A Multi-Methods Approach to Projects for Doctor of Ministry Theses. Kindle ed. (Eugene: WIPF&STOCK, 2011), 70.
14 Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke, “Thematic Analysis.” in APA Handbook of Research Methods in Psychology, eds. Harris Cooper, et al. (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2012), 57-71.
15 David Byrne, “A Worked Example of Braun and Clarke’s Approach to Reflexive Thematic Analysis,” Quality and Quantity 56, no. 3 (2021): 1391–1412, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-021-01182-y, 1396.
16 Ibid, 1396.
17 Gareth Terry, et al., “Thematic Analysis.” In: Carla Willig and Wendy Stainton Rogers, The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research in Psychology (London: Sage, 2017), 17-37.
18 David Byrne, “A Worked Example of Braun and Clarke’s Approach to Reflexive Thematic Analysis,” 1397.
19 Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke, “Thematic Analysis,” 60.
20 David Byrne, “A Worked Example of Braun and Clarke’s Approach to Reflexive Thematic Analysis,” 1397.
