“Our history is our memory. A people without a memory are a lost people. However, history does not have to determine where we will be in the future. We cannot, if we wanted to, escape the past, but we don’t have to be bound by it, either.”
– Clare Fuller, 2001. Missionary and Author, Banfield, Nupe and the UMCA.
When Jesus Christ said in Matthew 16:18 “…and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”, he by that statement determined the origin, builder, owner, travails and ultimate triumph of His Church. After His ministry on earth and following his suffering, death, resurrection and ascension, the Apostles and disciples carried on the task of evangelism under the power of the Holy Spirit, in obedience to the command of Jesus that they go and make disciples of all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. As the Church grew, so did persecution in its most excruciating form. Undeterred, the Apostles laboured on, and soon, Christianity moved from being suppressed, to being tolerated, and then being accepted in the society. The acceptance of Christianity by society came with its challenges. The church became at ease and gradually religious formalities, corruption and heresy fuelled by the neglect of the Holy Scriptures became the norm. It was the dark ages of the Church.

At this time, the Holy Spirit began to stir the hearts of a few people in the Church on the need to go back to the Holy Scriptures as the final authority on all matters of faith and practice. These were the Protestant Reformers, notable among them were John Wycliffe, Martin Luther. One of these Protestant Reformers was the man called Menno Simons, a Dutch, who became a Priest at about age the age of 20 years. Even though he could read Greek, Latin and Hebrew, Menno Simons (1496-1561) did not read any of the bibles until he had been a practicing Priest for about 2 years, because he had been told that if he read the scriptures he would be misled. Influenced, by the writings of one or more of the Reformers (probably Martin Luther), he turned to the Bible for answers. He was a prolific writer and in his teachings emphasised personal faith in Jesus Christ, voluntary obedience to the teachings of the Holy Scriptures, rejected the baptism of infants, opposed wars and religious violence and instead preached the believers spiritual warfare in the New Testament. He became leader of a group known as The Brethren in Switzerland, with whom he shared beliefs, and the Swiss Brethren later became known as the Mennonites after he became their leader.

Out of this movement, the Mennonite Brethren in Christ (MBiC) Church was formed in the early 20th century in North America, and was later to be known as the United Missionary Church. (After series of name changes and mergers, there are two North American denominations the present UMCA related to: The Missionary Church in the United States of America and the Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada). Through it, the United Missionary Society of Africa was planted in Nigeria. The MBiC were one of the groups that were expelled or left, for various reasons, the old German-speaking Mennonite Church in North America in the latter half of the 19th century. They represented those Mennonites that were attracted by the evangelical and Christian life of their English-speaking Methodists and holiness movement or German speaking evangelical neighbours. The Mennonite practices and beliefs, such as observing feet washing, wearing certain plain clothing styles, refusal to fight in war, speaking the truth without the use of oaths in courts, soon became of less concern as they embraced the Evangelicals practices of the need to be regenerated (born again), the experience of sanctification and “praying through” to victory (with weeping) over sin, and evangelistic camp-meetings or campaigns, practices which the majority of Mennonites at that time treated as English, worldly or divisive.

Until 1897, the MBiC had almost no churches in any city in Canada as nearly all its members of this small denomination were rural farming people. The congregation in the town of Berlin, Canada (now called Kitchener), with a population of only about 12,000 people, was perhaps the most urbanised of those in Canada. However, in 1897, the MBiC decided to move into the city of Toronto, at that time populated with about 225,000 people, and they held evangelistic campaigns. Youths from the rural churches were already working in Toronto and some of them, together with those who had become converted from the evangelistic campaigns, became involved in the new urban congregations. In 1900, MBiC had about 3000 adult members in Canada and about the same number in USA. Towards the end of the year 1900, at the age of 22, a young man named Alexander Woods Banfield was converted and filled with the Holy Spirit through the ministry of MBiC on Parliament Street. Alexander later described the change in his life as a “soul-reviving experience” and said he “felt the hand of God laid heavily upon me”, and “felt challenged to give my life to God and to go to Africa as a missionary”.

A.W. Banfield was born in Quebec, Canada on Sunday 3rd of August, 1878 as the third of six children to British settlers parents in Quebec, Williams Henry Banfield and Elizabeth Jane (Johnston) Banfield. His family later moved to Toronto. His father was into engineering business, a profession Alexander was to learn later and which proved valuable in his later life as a missionary in Nigeria. At seventeen years he joined the army as a trumpet player, another skill that was very useful in gathering crowds as a missionary in Nigeria.

Few moths after his conversion, he took up evening classes at the Toronto Bible Training Institute (TBTI) and together with Althea Amanda Priest (also known as Ella), the lady he eventually married in 1905, they began to read about missions, listen to missionaries and prayed for missionaries in home prayer meetings. Alexander Banfield became interested in the Soudan (Sudan), the area between the Sahara desert and the forest regions of the tropics, apparently he read a booklet called “the burden of the Soudan” written by Rowland Bingham, the leader and strategist of the newly formed Sudan Interior Mission (SIM), then known as Africa Industrial Mission (AIM) which had a goal of reaching Muslim Hausas in the newly declared British protectorate of Northern Nigeria. Rowland Bingham had previously visited Nigeria with no much result except the death of two of his fellow young missionaries, Thomas Kent and Walter Gowens. He was however determined to try again and organise a Missions society as a support base. Bingham was Chairman of the board of this mission society, then AIM, and a member of his board, Elmore Harris was leader of TBTI, which Bingham visited frequently. TBTI was noted for sending student to the mission field, and one of the student of the Institute at that time was Oswald J. Smith. It might have been this connection that linked Banfield, a Methodist turned Mennonite, to Bingham, or the influence of another board member who was a Mennonite and leader of the Mennonites in Canada, Reverend Noah Detwiler. Banfield applied to SIM, then AIM, and was accepted as a missionary in 1901, just a year after his conversion and at age 23 years.

A.W. Banfield and Ebenezer A. Anthony left Canada for England to meet Charles H. Robinson, and Albert F. Taylor (Albert F. Taylor had earlier travelled with Rowland Bingham to Lagos in January – April 1900), and they all left for Nigeria by ship from Liverpool, on 30th October, 1901 and arrived in November 1901. By March 1902, they set up a mission in Nupe land. Banfield laboured as the leader of team and he returned to Canada in January 1905, much broken in health from malaria disease.

Banfield’s experiences with SIM deeply stirred him towards the evangelization of the Sudan and despite the deaths, sickness and resignations around him, he was no discouraged. On 1st March, 1905, he married Miss Althea Priest and with the support of a MBiC editor, Henry S. Hallman in Berlin (Kitchener), he printed 5000 copies of a remarkable book called Life Among the Nupe tribe of West Africa, detailing stories about life in Nigeria as he saw it.
Banfield’s home church had been moved by his letters and appeals and several conferences of the MBiC had expressed the desire for the formation of a denominational missions society, although some were reluctant. The MBiC General Conference of 1904 gave permission for any interested Districts to form a cooperative mission society while the motion for a full denominational mission was turned down. With the hope that a church mission society will begin, Banfield resigned from SIM, then Africa Industrial Mission (AIM). He spoke in a number of MBiC conference churches in Canada and USA and was ordained in Stouffville, Ontario, Canada in 1905. The mission society he hoped for was formed by four MBiC Conferences originally : Ontario in Canada, and Michigan, Indiana and Ohio in USA. The society was officially named the Mennonite Brethren in Christ Missionary Society. Ebenezer A. Anthony, the Superintendent of the Michigan Conference was its first chairman. Elder E.A. Anthony was too weak to return to Africa with Banfield, but he kept the missionary calling of his church alive.

The Banfields sailed from North America on 27th August 1905 and reached Shonga on the south side of the Niger river in October of that year. The foresighted Anglican Bishop, Samuel Ajayi Crowther, had visited Shonga 29 year earlier (1876) but there was no sign he established a station there, although the potentials of the place had been noted. At 27 years of age, A.W. Banfield became the Superintendent of his church’s first official mission anywhere in the world, with only his wife as fellow missionary. With his mechanical and electrical skills, he constructed a building for worsip and preaching in Shonga but there was no Christian congregation. The first congregation of the mission was organised in Jebba in 1927. Other missionaries joined the mission and they laboured mainly in the Niger, Kwara, Kebbi axis, although Banfield lived in Lagos at some point in 1919. Banfield and Althea had three children; Althea, Ruth and Frank. The British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) noted Banfield’s dedication, vigour (he survived West Africa’s diseases) and experience in Bible publishing and wanted him. They requested MBiC Mission Society for his release to the bigger task of becoming their agent in the coast of West Africa. In 1915 while on furlough, Banfield and Althea were released by the mission and accepted the call to serve the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) and another era of fruitful service began, not directly related to the UMCA. While with BFBS, he threw his energy into research and representation in a wider area. From Sierra Leone to Angola, in British, Belgian and Portuguese colonies as well as Liberia, he contacted missions concerning bible translation, supplies of bibles and donations. Banfield recorded that he must have travelled 200,000 miles (320,000 km) in his 30 years in Africa, most of it for the BFBS. He visited 64 mission societies and personally met nearly 2000 missionaries. He was appointed BFBS Secretary in 1918. Banfield served in Africa till 1930 and returned to Canada. He was a bible translator and publisher, a resilient and energetic leader and lover of the African culture. He established the first printing press in Northern Nigeria, the Niger Press in 1915, which published several bible portions and missions literatures. While away to serve the BFBS, MBiC mission society became the United Missionary Society (UMS).

Although Banfield had left the Methodist church after his conversion and was ordained a minister in the MBiC church in 1905, when he returned to Canada, the Methodist Church of Canada had united with the Congregational Church of Canada and about 60% of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, to form a new denomination called the United Church of Canada (UCC). This new denomination, formed in 1925, needed ministers and had many churches in Toronto. Banfield applied to the Toronto Conference of the UCC and became a minister, probably in 1930. `He continued strenuous preaching schedules until he suffered a heart attack. He served the UCC congregation as their pastor until his health took another bad turn in 1934. At age 56 years, he resigned from all work but continued his translation work of the Nupe Bible and another literature called 1001 African Proverbs. In 1942, he suffered a stroke, the effect of which lasted till his remaining years as he became helpless and paralysed. On 22nd November, 1949, Reverend A.W. Banfield died and was buried with many other banfield relatives in a large family site in the old Toronto cemetery called Mount Pleasant.

The United Missionary Church of Africa (UMCA) was formed in 1955 during the Golden jubilee celebration of the arrival of Alexander Banfield in Nigeria as the pioneer missionary of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ Missionary Society. The UMCA became a registered corporate on 29th September, 1956. The Nigerian converts of the early missionaries’ effort laboured alongside with them and God blessed their ministry and the church grew. On the 5th of January, 1978, the United Missionary Society (formally the Mennonite Brethren in Christ Missionary Society) turned over the running of the affairs of UMCA to Nigerian. UMCA thus became an independent, indigenous church, with four Districts and a Theological College.

In 1984, a young man by the name Olu Peter returned to Nigeria from Canada and joined the staff of the UMCA Theological College as a National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) member. In 1987, the young Olu Peters was ordained and became the Pastor in Charge of the UMCA Theological College (UMCATC) Chapel in Ilorin. The Holy Spirit prospered his ministry and the dynamism and inspirational ideas the Chapel embraced. There was a revival and move of the Holy Spirit, and the Chapel grew in spiritual depth, numerical strength and influence, and eventually became a one church District of the UMCA, known as the Chapel District, with Reverend Reverend Olu Peters serving as pioneer Church District Superintendent (CDS). The vision of the Chapel District was to advance the frontiers of the gospel and plant UMCA churches in new fields far and near. The vision began to take root and become a reality, howbeit, amidst fierce conflicts between the UMCATC Chapel under his dynamic leadership and some interests within the denomination. In 1994, seven fruitful years after he assumed spiritual leadership of the Chapel and provided the much needed pastoral care, Reverend Peters, although much loved by his congregation, had to return to Canada with his wife Tracy, and their four children, Florence, Esther, Michael and John. He soon embarked on advanced theological training and took up lecturing and training of Pastors at the Emmanuel Bible College in Kitchener, Toronto, Canada.

The Chapel District, under the leadership of Reverend Olu Peter’s successor, Reverend Gbenga Odebiri as Church District Superintendent (CDS) was inspired by the Holy Spirit to push forward the vision of planting a vibrant city church of the UMCA in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria. Reverend Odebiri paid a pastoral visit to Abuja between 18th and 22nd of August, 2003 and held consultations with members of the UMCA Chapel District churches, in particular the UMCA Chapel, Tanke, Ilorin and Chapel of Redemption, Gaa-Akanbi, Ilorin. A weekly prayer meeting soon commenced in the residence of Chief & Chief Mrs Williams A. Adesina at Parakou Crescent, Wuse 2, Abuja by members of the these churches from Ilorin. Mr Laja Abereoran represented the CDS in providing leadership together with a few other brethren, for the budding congregation. On Sunday 2nd November, 2003 a new church was formally commissioned by the Holy Spirit under the supervision of the CDS at a residence of Mr & Dr (Mrs) S.K. Adedoyin in Thames Street, Maitama, Abuja. The congregation got its name, His Grace Assembly on Sunday 21st December, 2003. About two years later, on 1st March 2006, the District appointed Akindeji Falaki as the pastor of the congregation. The story continues. To God alone be all the glory.