The Fourth Nigeria Multi-Ministry and Inter-Campus Students & Youth Discipleship & Missions Festival
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Gofest 88
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The Fourth Nigeria Multi-Ministry and Inter-Campus Students & Youth Discipleship & Missions Festival
[Home | Registration | Contents | Past Gofest | Gofest 08 Overview | Participating Bodies | Download ] Gofest 88 |
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Speakers | Plenary Sessions | Seminar | Exhibitions | Testimonies | Outreach Opportunity | Participating Ministries | Statistics | Photo Gallery This is the first Go Festival organised in Nigeria.
It was the first of its kind and a unique event involving different Churches and Student Bodies:
These all gathered together, forgetting their differences and their respective backgrounds to focus on missions the unfinished task of the church in a six day programme, attended by well over two thousand participants from within and outside Nigeria. It was indeed a time spent considering the unique privileges bestowed upon the church in Nigeria, the challenges, and responsibilities we have in taking the gospel to all the nations of Africa. Rev Yemi Ayodele, Austin Uchachi and Peter Ozodo provided leadership for the event and NIFES provided the platform for its execution. NIFES sacrificed its annual national conference to make this event a reality.As Brother Femi Adeleye, the NIFES General Secretary, rightly said during his exposition on the book of Jonah, “It is the first time that we all are coming together in spite of our different ministries, backgrounds, and mode of operations, to acknowledge and recognize the task the Lord had committed into our hands – that of fulfilling the Great Commission.” This was corroborated by Dr. Olofin, Chairman NIFES, who in a brief address stressed that “we need to work hand in hand, combining our resources to effectively carry out the unfinished task of the church. We need to harness our resource distinct components of the same body of Christ, realizing that we do not constitute the entirety of the body of Christ, but a part which is vital and requires the support of other parts in order to function effectively. We should emphasize more on the things that unite us that the things that divide us. He prayed that this new concept of unity will diffuse through the conference to the wider church. Brother Peter Ozodo, Chairman, Planning Committee of the GO-FESTIVAL, commended the spirit of unity that was so pervasive ministries, and blessed God that the programme went on hitch free in the entire duration of the conference. The conference was in three phases. The first phase was the talks and expositions given by experienced and seasoned speakers in the field of missions and evangelism. The plenary session speakers included
The second phase was the training programmes,workshops and seminars on wide range to topics on
The various seminar topics were handled by
The workshop speakers included
This phase afforded the conference participants the opportunity to know more about the areas of their interests and callings in missions. An interesting aspect of this phase was the exhibitions mounted by the different missionary organizations at the conference. The stands at the exhibition included those of
The third phase was a practical session on the field for one week. Participants availed themselves of the opportunity of experiencing the mission fields in various parts of the country, seeing the different local cultures in which missionaries work, their travails and sacrifices. They also had the opportunity of interacting and witnessing to villagers and rural dwellers. Many came back with testimonies of encouraging response to the gospel. Over a hundred (100) conferees registered and were sponsored for this practical aspect of the conference. This response to this practical session on mission underscored what Bro. Reuben Ezemadu, the Director, Christian Missionary Foundation stressed on during the conference that emphases should shift now from taking missions into doing mission. As the short term missionary volunteers marched out at the end of the conference, some to selected rural locations in and around the country, and others to neighboring country of Niger Republic (which is reminded one of Christ and His disciples how they moved from city to city, and through villages perching the gospel. Rev. (Dr.) S.O. Odunaike, the Vice-president for Africa world Vision, was the conference Guest Speaker. In his message that spanned over four sessions, he dwelt on recent events and challenges all over the world, which point to the imminent return of our Lord Jesus Christ. He stresses therefore, that the need for every Christian to arise with the gospel and go all over the world has never been great an urgent as it is now in our generation. While speaking on ‘Discerning the Times’, he noted that the church had failed to set the pace in the society because she had failed to discern the times we are living in order to adopt new ways and methods of evangelizing the society without compromising our faith. One way we could positively do this he said, is to exhibit the qualities and properties of ‘salt’ as we are rightly described in Matthew 6. These properties include sweetening the society, being preservatives and infiltrating into every facet of the society without compromising our facet of the society without compromising our God-given standards. The other ways are through interaction, unity through which we make an impact on the world, and finally by saturation – filling every part with the gospel of Christ. The conference was attended by over Five Thousand people with participants also from other African countries such as Tanzania, Ghana, Uganda, Zambia and the Cameroon, with a YWAM team member from London. There was no doubt that at the end of the conference, every participant was truly mobilized towards reaching the unreached and evangelizing the nations for Christ. Testimonies Touched by NEMA collaborative Efforts. (Clip from John & Aneta Godson missionary in Poland)
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