The first task of the Church in Nigeria is not to advocate for human rights, cry out against corruption, or jostle for audience in the media. Our principal task is to develop and articulate  a Christian worldview.

For the past several decades we have done all the above and are still doing them. For instance, my church still prays every week for the release of the Chibok girls who were abducted over a year ago in the Northern state of Borno. These are all necessary. However, if we do not self-consciously craft a Christian outlook on life, we would be furthering Satan’s kingdom by living within a humanist worldview. Worldliness does not primarily mean listening to godless music or wearing skimpy dresses or enjoying sinful pleasures; it basically means thinking and living like the godless world.

In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in what the Bible teaches concerning different areas of life such as Business or the Family. Thus we have so many ‘Biblical principles’ for this and for that. However, what we have largely done is to graft biblical ideas and concepts unto a fundamentally secular  perspective or orientation about that area.  We seldom question the basic assumptions controlling that aspect of life or knowledge. So we end up grafting the stems of Scripture unto a secular-humanist tree. We need to go further. We need to plant a different tree.

A worldview is a basic understanding of reality which guides how a person and community see the world and live in it. It is basic because it controls everything else. A secular worldview never glorifies God, for it looks at life as though God isn’t involved and His word doesn’t exist. Working within such a framework is itself rebellion against God (Genesis 1:1; Exodus 20: 1-3).

Therefore, as we commence the new year, the Church needs to get clear on what the story of the world (the worldview) is according to the Bible. And we would derive it by asking the following essential questions:

1. 1. What does the Bible teach about the origin of the universe?
   2. What does it teach about Man?
   3. What is really wrong with the world (not what the UN, WHO, the American, or the Nigerian media claim)?
   4. And what is the true solution?

The answers to these questions would give us a coherent understanding of reality as provided by God himself. Then we would work within this framework to challenge the alternative story provided by our society, and proclaim the true answers to the true problems that our nation and the world face.