Congregationalism and Multiplicative Church Planting within the Cameroon Baptist Convention (CBC), 1946-2018: Focus on the Bamenda Urbanity

Abstract

The Cameroon Baptist Convention (CBC) distinguishes itself not only as the pioneering evangelistic mission in Cameroon but also by its Indirect Administrative chain of command known as the Congregational System. By this system of administration, the central administrative unit shifts virtually all responsibilities including infrastructural, personnel, financial and even evangelistic to affiliated local congregations. In spite of the weighty responsibility required from them, the local congregations of the CBC have not compromised the critical duty of evangelism and church planting. As a corollary to this predilection to spread the gospel, many of these congregations have transformed themselves into Church-planting movements. This has invariably reverberated into mind-blogging surge in the number of CBC Churches in Bamenda, Cameroon in recent years. From this background this paper launches an inquest into the mutualism between the Congregational System of Administration and the multiplicative growth of local CBC congregations since 1946 when the first CBC Congregation was planted in Bamenda. The paper employs oral, written and archival materials to succor its thesis.

Keywords: Cameroon Baptist Convention, Church Planting, Evangelism, Bamenda, Congregationalism.