Mission must impact, mission must transform and mission must reform. This was what made skills training become an integral part of Basel Mission (BM) education. Missionaries helped to train their congregants in agriculture, craftsmanship, trade and commerce. The church exists for others, not for itself.
Congregations in the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG) today depend on offerings, tithes, Voluntary Thanks Offering (VTO), other types of offerings, such as revival, seed sowing, projects morning and evening services, harvest (harvest launch, mini harvest and main harvest) and cash donations. This situation has created difficulties for congregations in remote areas of Ghana that have few people with jobs that fetch much money. Consequently, I considered how the church lost the “chapel, manse, trade post” approach introduced by the BM. The PCG that was trained by the BM to work with their hands, heads and hearts – which is in line with the long Presbyterian ethic to work, trade and commerce – appears to be at risk of losing this heritage.
The missionaries from the BM (which also included members of the Moravian Church in Jamaica), the Scottish mission, and the local population of the colonial Gold Coast are to be thanked for the establishment of the PCG. Having dispatched a first cohort of missionaries to the Gold Coast in 1828, the BM faced numerous obstacles, but finally persisted in its efforts until they made progress, especially following the arrival of Moravian missionaries in 1843. According to William Danker:
In Africa, the task [of the Mission] was to work for the moral, religious, and cultural development of a nonindustrial people and to bridge the wide gap between Europeans and Africans. After sacrificial efforts with shoemaking, pottery, straw plaiting, and cattle raising, the only lasting results were achieved with a combined wood-working and metal-working shop in Christiansborg. It never became a large-scale enterprise, but it solved a number of difficult problems. It assisted the mission in its many operations, lifted the housing standard for the Africans, and accustomed many of them to regular work. It created a class of respected artisans. Everywhere on the west coast, the former apprentices of the mission shops were in demand.[1]
Over the course of its years of operation in Africa, the BM has been credited with creating a large and efficient economic organisation. Innovation and experimentation in agriculture existed in addition to craft industries like blacksmithing, book binding, watch repairing, printing, woodwork, masonry, and furniture manufacture. The aim of the BM became two-fold, engaging in commerce in order to raise money for its missionary endeavours and instructing converts on how to make an honest living. The mission did not neglect its responsibility to train young men to become skilled tradesmen. Tetteh Quarshie, who introduced cocoa on a commercial scale to Gold Coast in 1879, had been trained at the BM crafts school at Osu. Many of these craftsmen like Tetteh Quarshie found jobs easily both at home and all over the West African coast.[2]


The Moravian missionaries who came to Akropong brought in mangoes, the edible cocoyam, breadfruit, coffee, sugar-cane, and the avocado pear and taught local farmers how to cultivate them. John Rochester, one of the missionaries from the West Indies, was a skilled and enterprising farmer. He taught and encouraged teachers and catechists of the church to cultivate their own coffee and palm trees. He introduced the cutlass or machete to Akuapem farmers. Mrs Rochester taught the local women how to make groundnut oil. The BM builder Joseph Mohr planted oranges, bananas, beans, yams and arrow roots for sale and export.[3]
The majority of the European missionaries came from Wurttemberg in southern Germany, thus originating from settlements in which people cultivated the majority of their own food and were aware that they would go hungry if the harvest was poor. The village community was forced to rely on its own production for most of their needs, including food. Innovation in agriculture was also made possible by their traditional craftsmen.[4] These missionaries sought to build Christian villages of artisans and farmers, and they praised God together.
This BM heritage seems to be losing its grip on the PCG, and the church needs Sankofa – a return to the past to retrieve important cultural values.[5] This heritage is important because it trained congregants to have jobs that kept them busy, and it also filled their pockets with money since they were in high demand. These jobs were entrepreneurial in nature, which helped them to be independent. On the side of the mission, trade and commerce brought money that helped the advancement of the mission.
Given the rise of unemployment in Ghana, the church must take steps to help the youth pursue training that is entrepreneurship and agriculture, which is the backbone of the Ghanaian economy. It does not take much, and in some instances, people need only to be encouraged to pursue some of these avenues, not capital. When members of the church are employed and have money, the church too will have money because they will give. The church may also have farms or businesses of its own to generate income for the church as well as employment for members.
In light of the above, I dare to say that if every congregation in the PCG has a farm and/or a business venture that will bring money to them and employment to its members, and also helps train its members to have jobs, the impact of the BM will continue.