Given how COVID-19 has affected our friend and partner in Nigeria, Sunday Agang, Co has felt led to gather individuals who would like to regularly support Sunday in finances and prayer above and beyond what the church has been able to give. Please email Co by Sunday, August 2, if you are interested in joining the team who will be supporting Sunday either in prayer, finances, or both. The most recent prayer items for Sunday Agang can be found below. To support Sunday financially this quarter, send a separate check from regular tithes/offerings to Ed McKelpin at 4124 Folsom St. SF, 94110 or use the online donation button on the Congregation Page by Sun, Aug 2. Be sure to note in your check memo or the online memo that the money is for Sunday Agang.
I am deeply grateful to have a church like yours, which is standing with me in prayer. This is the greatest need I have than anything else. Prayer aligns us with God’s eternal purposes and help us to serve God’s purposes in our generation. Here are some of my prayer items:
A. Praise Items
1. Thank God for granting me the privilege to be supported by GFCC and RCC during my doctoral studies at Fuller, 2003-2007. Since my returned to Nigeria as Christ’s ambassador and yours, have had the rare privilege of been used at different levels of leadership in my denomination. For example, I have and I am serving as Provost twice in my denomination, it has never happened to any other person in the history of the denomination.Thank God for that special grace, thanks to your prayers and continuing financial support.
2. Thank God for granting Sarah and all our four children a successful completion of their various bachelor studies. Everybody is now a graduate.
3. Praise God for the successful publication of the textbook on African Public Theology on April 30th, 2020
B. Prayer items
1. Pray that all I do will be done to the praise of God’s glory (Ephesians 1:4, 6, 14b).
2. Pray that my family, my colleagues at the ECWA theological seminary Jos, and I will “do God’s work in God’s way, for God’s glory.” (James Hudson Taylor)
3. Since March 23, 2020, all institutions in Nigeria have remain indefinitely closed to contain the spread of COVID-19, which is on the increase in Nigeria. Unlike in the West and North America where theological institutions do not only rely on students’ tuition fees, but also on help from significant donors (e.g,, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School seeks and receives support form affluent christians not only in Chicago and Lost Angeles, but also in Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea), in Nigeria we solely depend on students' tuition fees to pay salaries and run other administrative costs. With the closure of schools across the country such fees are no longer coming in. Kindly pray that God will raise support for us to enable us to continue to pay the salaries of our 27 faculty members and 92 administrative assistants and security staff as well as other overhead costs.
4. Besides my positions as a husband, a father, brother, a friend, a neighbour, and the Provost (President) of ECWA Theological Seminary, Jos, I have other several administrative responsibilities, which include among other things, Director of African Research Consultancy Center, The Regional Coordinator of Network for African Congregational Theology, and the Editor-in-Chief of the African Theological Journal for Church and Society. None of these is a paying position, except the Provostship, which is just an allowance that I am paid. Please join me in praying that God will grant me all it takes to faithfully discharge all my duties.
5. I have many writing projects, requests for endorsement of books writing by other authors, and request to review articles across the continent. Please pray that God will grant me all the energy I need for all those projects and requests. Between April and June 2020, I have submitted two manuscripts to Langham Publishers for publication. Please pray that they will be published soon.
6. Pray that God will provide all the finances my family needs to continue to support the indigent members of our Christian community and the society.
7. Pray that God will grant us good health and protection from Boko Haram, Coronavirus and Fulani herdsmen kidnaping and attacks.
8. Pray that God will grant the Nigerian government success in fighting corruption and the coronavirus pandemic and be able to reopen schools and the economy.
9. Pray that God will give us hope in the midst of the incredible economic uncertainty that Nigeria faces, which has not only increase the dire situation of unemployment and criminality in the nation, causes despair, rape and suicide.
Warmly,
Rev. Sunday Bobai Agang, PhD (Fuller 2007)
Professor of Christian Ethics, Theology and Public Policy,
Provost, ECWA Theological Seminary, Jos (JETS)
Research Fellow in the Department of Theology and Ecclesiology, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa
Love, Justice and Peace Advocate