#About Us

At Church Growth Institute, we discovered that there are many wrong approaches to church growth. We saw the need to bring sanity to the way churches are being run and led. Most church leaders believe that the growth of the church rests only on providence and that they have no part to really play. Others believe in breakthrough - God will one day give them a breakthrough and that we only need to be faithful and growth will come. Furthermore, many others believe in model approach - this is copying the growth of a super church, which in most cases do not usually work. Lastly, many started the management approach too - this is using business methods to cause growth in the church. While there are some measures of truth in these approaches, however, they are so imbalanced that they have led to problems of great proportions.

It is the desire to bring principled approach to church growth that led us to starting Church Growth Institute formerly, the International Center for Church Renewal initially African Institute of Church Growth (AICG) in March 1999 with 35 students. AICG was later registered as International Institute of Church Growth (IICG) when there was need for extension of the institute beyond African continent. And presently CGI is recognized as International Centre for Church Renewal (ICCR) and it is the training arm of International Church Growth Ministries (ICGM), which started in 1994 as Church Growth Services. CGI is much more than a Bible college nor a theological seminary. It is a practical institute wholly committed to church growth, church health, leadership and research. It focuses on bringing practical growth, health and dynamism to the Body of Christ, the Church. It is the first indigenous institute wholly committed to church growth in balanced context.

We strongly believed that churches and ministries need to be built on Biblical, relevant, proven, essential and individualized principles that would lead to sustainable growth. Our first set of students - pastors were highly elated with this balanced approach to church growth and health.

From the mustard seed beginning in 1994, God has helped us to train Pastors in Ibadan, Abeokuta, Benin, Port-Harcourt and Kenya. And presently ICCR has training centres in Lagos, Ibadan, Akure (Ondo State), Ado-Ekiti (Ekiti State) all in Nigeria; and in South Africa and Swaziland.

We also have correspondence courses for those outside Lagos and Nigeria. Today, more than 10,000 students have passed through the Institute. Bishops, Senior Pastors, Overseers, Superintendents, Pastors, Reverends, Evangelist, Prophets and every category of Church Leaders are our targeted audience. The only major qualification required to be enrolled is being a church leader.

The responses, testimonies of changed lives, growing churches, and turn around of otherwise stagnant churches have been tremendous and overwhelming. Many new churches have been planted and much more church quality has been experienced. Indeed, the mustard seed is growing.

While thanking God for how He has helped us so far, we refuse to be tied down by the past. We strongly believe that we are just warming up for what God wants to use this institute for in the church worldwide. Today, Church Growth Institute is Limited By Guarantee to offer training with divers awards and qualifications to our students worldwide.