The Global Church Era · 1960s-present · UK, Germany, Netherlands, Ukraine
African Diaspora & Reverse-Mission Churches in Europe
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About This Movement
Within a single lifetime the mission map turned over. Churches that European missionaries had planted in Africa began planting congregations in Europe, first among migrant communities and then well beyond them. Aladura and Kimbanguist congregations were meeting in European cities from the 1960s. The Redeemed Christian Church of God, founded in Nigeria in 1952, opened British parishes from the 1980s and Jesus House in London in 1994. Matthew Ashimolowo founded Kingsway International Christian Centre in London in 1992. Sunday Adelaja founded the Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations in Kyiv in 1994. The phrase that has attached to them, reverse mission, describes a real inversion: churches once planted by European missionaries now planting congregations back among Europeans.
Sources
- The churches' own records: KICC (London, 1992, Ashimolowo); RCCG European parish-planting records; Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations (Kyiv, 1994, Adelaja); Aladura and Kimbanguist congregations in Europe from the 1960s (primary) — This includes the Ukraine church founded by Sunday Adelaja. The 1960s start date is anchored by the earliest Aladura and Kimbanguist congregations in Europe, each with its own documented record.
- Afe Adogame, The African Christian Diaspora (Bloomsbury, 2013); Gerrie ter Haar, Halfway to Paradise: African Christians in Europe (1998) (secondary) — These are the field's standard works; ter Haar's is the pioneering study.
- Claims that a particular church is the 'largest congregation in Europe/UK' (reference) — These claims come from the churches' own self-reports and from journalism, not independent verification. Sociological studies such as the London Church Census are the nearest independent counts available.
- CHC vol. 9 (reference) — The scholarly literature on this movement is still young, so the source base here is kept deliberately compact rather than padded out.