A. Larry Ross, who traveled the world for nearly 34 years as personal media spokesman for evangelist Billy Graham, says the new epicenter for evangelism is the Global South, which includes Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria. He also identifies Nigerian evangelist William Kumuyi as the pastor of “the largest church of which most American Christians have never heard.”
Kumuyi, age 84, is the founding pastor of Deeper Christian Life Ministry based in the Gbagada section of Lagos, Nigeria. He preaches on Sundays to a packed 33,000-seat sanctuary, while 7,500 kids convene downstairs in the children’s ministry. That church has grown into a movement of more than 8,000 congregations across 120 nations, a widely respected university, and a ministry training facility that seats 135,000. His monthly evangelistic crusades have reached more than 10 million people, of which more than 750,000 have responded by making a faith commitment.
Making Disciples
Kumuyi’s upbringing was not unusual. Raised by nominal Christian parents, he fell away from the faith during high school. A group of singers and preachers from a gospel-centered church came to his school, and in 1964 Kumuyi was born again.
“I read John Wesley, Charles Finney, Charles Spurgeon and lots of other books,” he says. “I got involved with Scripture Union, and I grew.”
In 1973 he became a math lecturer at the University of Lagos after graduating from another university with a first-class honors degree in mathematics. He opened his apartment for a Bible study, and about 15 people came when he started.
However, what he did in teaching that Bible study was different.
“What attracted people was not just the exposition of the Scriptures,” he explains, “but making practical application to the life they were living.”
As the Bible study’s attendees were transformed, they began telling others, and the group grew. Within a few years it was drawing 5,000 people.
“We discipled them and also taught them to evangelize,” Kumuyi recalls. “We became known as a disciple-making ministry [Deeper Christian Life Ministry], which really helped us to grow into the thousands.”
That Bible study continues to this day, now meeting in the church’s facility, with thousands more in remote buildings on campus and via a speaker in an overflow area, and even more watching online.
In 1982 the group officially became a church with Sunday worship, eventually being named Deeper Life Bible Church. By 1988, it had grown to an attendance of 50,000 across multiple locations in Lagos.
Multiplying Cell Groups
“There’s a limit to what only one pastor can do,” Kumuyi admits. “When you pastor 50, 100 or 200, you soon get to the point that you cannot touch every life.”
The model of Israel’s discipleship was instructive to Kumuyi, when Moses’ father-in-law Jethro looked over the multitude and told Moses, “This is too heavy for you” (Exod. 18:18). Jethro encouraged Moses to divide the children of Israel into manageable units, workable spans of care, each led by a volunteer or official.