The Church as Salt and Light: Rethinking SDA Ecclesial Identity for Community Transformation in Urban West Africa

1. Introduction

While White (1911, p. 9) makes a case that the church is God’s fortress. His city of refuge, which he holds in a revolted world. Jesus did not describe his disciples as a fortress. He described them as salt and light — two substances whose entire value consists in their engagement with the world around them. Salt that remains in the shaker does not season; light that remains behind closed doors does not illuminate. The metaphors of Matthew 5:13–16 presuppose contact, penetration, and transformation as the natural mode of the church's existence in the world. Also, the metaphors of "salt of the earth" and "light of the world" from the Gospel of Matthew (5:13–16) serve as foundational pillars for Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) ecclesiology. These images define the church not as a static institution, but as a dynamic, functional presence within the world.

Yet in many urban SDA congregations in West Africa, the prevailing posture is something closer to a fortress than a seasoning agent. Churches are established in densely populated communities, conduct vigorous internal activities, and maintain high levels of doctrinal clarity — yet remain substantively disengaged from the surrounding communities. The world is near, but the church is not in it in any transformative sense.

This article takes that gap seriously — not as a program failure but as an ecclesiological one.

Ecclesiology is the branch of theology concerned with the nature, constitution, and functions of a church. The question it asks is theological before it is practical: What kind of church does the SDA community in urban West Africa understand itself to be? And how does that self-understanding either enable or obstruct the community transformation that the gospel demands?

The article proceeds in four movements. It first examines the ecclesiological tension between separation and mission as it presents itself empirically in SDA congregations in Abidjan. It then engages the Matthean salt-and-light metaphors as a corrective lens. Third, it explores the theological concept of ekklesia-apostello — the church as simultaneously gathered and sent — as the proper frame for SDA identity in urban contexts. Finally, it draws practical implications for congregational ministry and formation in urban West Africa.

2. Statement of the Problem

In urban West Africa, many Seventh-day Adventist churches face the ecclesiological tension between being called out (ecclesial) and sent forth (apostello), a missional imperative the church holds dear. However, the prevailing ecclesiology in many urban SDA congregations has inadvertently inverted the logic of the very Matthean metaphors of salt and light (Matt 5:13-16), thereby increasing the church’s ecclesiological tension. As a result, producing a church that is often separated from the world it is called to transform, rather than embedded within it as a transformative agent. 

3. Methodology

The article is drawn from an existential-hermeneutical phenomenological study conducted. This qualitative research approach, specifically an existential phenomenological design, explored how Seventh-day Adventist churches in Abidjan interact with their surrounding communities. It seeks to describe phenomena as individuals perceive them, uncovering the meanings people attach to their life events and situations (Lopez & Willis, 2024). Hence, the existential phenomenological approach was particularly appropriate for the study, as it focuses on interpreting the meanings individuals attach to their experiences—in this case, ministry, engagement, and mission in an urban context.

4. Empirical Background: The Abidjan Study

The argument of this research is grounded in a phenomenological study conducted across 4 SDA congregations in the communes of Cocody and Yopougon in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. According to Sloan and Bowe (2014), two major traditions of phenomenology have developed from different philosophical foundations: descriptive (or transcendental) phenomenology and interpretive (or hermeneutic) phenomenology, both rooted in the work of Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), who introduced the descriptive method. Husserl’s approach sought to identify the universal “essence” of an experience, requiring the researcher to “bracket” (or set aside) all personal biases and preconceptions to achieve a state of pure consciousness. However, this study followed the philosophical path developed by Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), a student of Husserl, who laid the foundation for existential-hermeneutic phenomenology (Draucker, 1997, pp. 360-373). This approach was chosen for a critical reason: Heidegger argued that a researcher can never be separated from their world. Instead of “bracketing,” which he saw as impossible, the researcher must be reflexive – openly acknowledging their own pre-understandings as part of the interpretive process. In contrast to approaches that aim to generate abstract theory or measure predefined variables, phenomenology focuses on the subjective human experience as its primary object of study (Käufer & Chemero, 2021). Community disengagement is not a simple object to be described. It is a complex, lived experience involving personal choices, feelings, and the meaning (or lack of meaning) members find in their relationship with the community. This existential approach is ideal for exploring such a phenomenon. Following semi-structured interviews with 15 participants, including pastors, elders, department directors, professionals, youth, and lay members, and 4 weeks of participant observation, the study sought to understand the lived experience of church-community relationships from members’ perspectives.

5. Results

What emerged was a coherent pattern the researcher names 'living in adjacency': a state in which members are physically proximate to their communities yet experientially distant, aware of community needs yet functionally inactive. The pattern was consistent across both communes, though it manifested differently depending on the demographic and socioeconomic context. In affluent Cocody, social distance was reinforced by class difference; in working-class Yopougon, members felt more embedded in community struggles but were equally uncertain about the church's proper role in addressing them.

Several moments from the observational data are instructive. In a church business meeting at one congregation, an elder's proposal to establish a community soup kitchen was acknowledged by the assembly but not pursued — the meeting returned to planning internal events. In another congregation, a nursing professional who had been engaged in a personal ministry to women living on the street pleaded publicly for congregational support and received none. A church building was observed locked and unmarked on a weekday in a busy neighborhood, communicating nothing to the surrounding community but inaccessibility. And this stance throws a dark spell on the church. A study conducted in 2022 concerning accessibility by (Erik W. Carter, Michael Tuttle, Emilee Spann, Charis Ling, & Tiffany B. Jones) point to findings from avilable literature attempting to address this crucial anomaly that, although most church leaders would likely affirm the importance of being an accessible faith community, they may be uncertain about how to enact this commitment within their own congregation (e.g., McNair & Sanchez, 2008; Thompson et al., 2019). This dilemma confronts ecclesiology and theology, implying the illusiveness of church-community engagement.

Theologically, what is most striking is not the absence of goodwill — participants consistently expressed genuine concern for their communities — but the lack of an ecclesiological framework that would make community engagement a constitutive rather than optional dimension of congregational life. The problem, in other words, is not motivational; it is theological. Van Egen (2017, p. 3) describes mission theology as an activity all believers should engage in, not a static set of propositions with which folks may or may not agree, not a bunch of verbal affirmations that one may quickly forget, but an activity of reflection and action, of Praxis. Benson (1993, p. 324-326), on the other hand, insists that Ministry precedes theology and produces theology, not the reverse. Ormerod (2002, p. 3) draws on the classical understanding of theology as faith seeking understanding. On this basis, the ecclesiological tension between the church’s identity as a called-out community (ekklesia) and its mandate as a sent community (apostello) finds a clear answer. The research acknowledges that this tension consistently torments the clergy, members, and leaders, prompting a determination to find a solution. 

6. Discussion

This ecclesiastical tension confronts church-community disengagement from its immediate community daily, weekly, quarterly, and yearly, and torments members of the Seventh-day Adventist church in Cocody and Yopougon, two unique communes of Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, with multifaceted opportunities to be present, be with, be sensitive, and be dependable.

6.1 Salt and Light: A Matthean Ecclesiology of Engagement

Against this backdrop, no better welcoming ecclesiastical answer exists than the Matthean metaphors of salt and light (Matt 5:13–16), which appear immediately after the Beatitudes and before the antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount. Their placement is deliberate. Having described the character of kingdom citizens in the Beatitudes, Jesus immediately addresses their social function: 'You are the salt of the earth... You are the light of the world.' The indicative mood is significant — this is not an exhortation but an ontological declaration. The disciples do not become salt and light by fulfilling certain conditions; they are salt and light by virtue of their identity as kingdom people. The implications of this ontological claim are radical. Salt's function is contact-dependent — it must be in the food to season it. It cannot perform its function from a distance, and excess separation renders it useless: 'But if the salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet' (Matt 5:13). The image is stark: salt that fails to season is not merely neutral but wasteful.

The light metaphor deepens the point. 'A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house' (Matt 5:14–15). The purpose of light is visibility — not the visibility of the lamp itself but the illumination of all that surrounds it. 'Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven' (Matt 5:16). The telos of the church's visible presence is not the church's own glory but the glorification of the Father through the community's transformation. David Bosch similarly points to the sending of the Son by the Father and of the Holy Spirit by the Father and the Son (2011, p. 1) as support for the Godhead in the church’s missional call for community transformation.

Applied to the SDA congregations in the Abidjan study, these metaphors expose a critical ecclesiological inversion. A church that organizes its life primarily around internal activities — however spiritually enriching those activities may be — is, in Matthew's terms, a lamp under a basket. Its light is real but functionally hidden. The community outside cannot see it, and the Father is not glorified by it in the world.

This is not to diminish the importance of internal church life. Worship, fellowship, doctrinal formation, and pastoral care are indispensable. But in Matthew's ecclesiology, they are means rather than ends — they form the people who then go out to season and illuminate the world. When they become ends in themselves, the metaphor breaks down: salt that never reaches the food, light that illuminates only the lamp's interior.

6.2 Ekklesia and Apostello: The Double Vocation of the Church

Keeping the Mathean ecclesiology constant in the reader’s mind, considering its ramifications, and confronting head-on the ecclesiological tension this article addresses is embedded in the very language the New Testament uses to describe the church. The word ekklesia, conventionally translated 'church,' denotes a called-out assembly — a community gathered from the world for a specific purpose. This calling-out has been, for many SDA congregations, the dominant note of ecclesial identity: the church is holy, distinct, separate from the corrupting influences of the world. And this understanding is often misguided and misused by the church, casting the church as a negative fortress. Meanwhile, being called out of the world is first that the ekklesia (church) serves as a fortress, a refuge, and a source of safety. Yes, the church is to provide a sense of security for those who have gathered within her walls—a sanctuary; a shelter in the time of storm; and a place where truth and love dwell, heal, and fill with hope for God’s tomorrow (Park, 2022, p. 27). Hence, this fact should be the guiding principle of the SDA churches’ ecclesiology, as a place for the called-out and for preparation to be sent out, as a simultaneous mandate.

What is frequently underemphasized is the complementary vocation captured in the word apostello— "to send." In John 20:21, the risen Christ declares: 'As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.' The church is not only called out; it is sent back. The gathering is for the sake of the sending; the ekklesia exists in order to fulfill the apostolic mission. These are not sequential movements — gather first, then go — but simultaneous and mutually constitutive dimensions of ecclesial existence.

Paul captures this double vocation in Ephesians 4:12 through the language of equipping: the church and building it up so that it might do the work of ministry in the world. The gathering, the teaching, the formation — these exist to produce a people capable and motivated for engagement, not a people content with the gathering itself. In secular terms, Gula (2007, p. 3) indicates that the purpose of having a vocation in life is to use one’s gift to serve a human need. From a spiritual perspective, he insists that when one is called by God for a special role in the church, the word vocation, derived from the Latin vocare, meaning "to call," helps distinguish it from a job or a career (Gula, 2007, p. 3). Verth critiques and singles out the ways vocation has been seen and treated in recent times.

The SDA tradition has rich resources for recovering this apostolic dimension. Ellen G. White's vision of the church as a healing, educating, liberating community — expressed most fully in The Ministry of Healing (1905, p. 148) — articulates an ecclesiology in which the church's distinctiveness is not an argument for separation but a qualification for engagement. The church is different from the world, not to avoid the world, but to serve the world effectively. This effectiveness is not accidental but intentional, as stipulated in Ephesians 4:12, which equips the body of Christ for ministry. Consequently, every member of the body should be ready to serve (Rodriguez, Bediako, Cosaert, & Klingbeil, 2022, p. 1719).

One participant in the Abidjan study, a pastor, articulated this instinctively when confronted by a resistant member: 'I was sent here to take the church to the community and not to sit here and solve problems, and that is what I will do, period.' This pastoral declaration is, in effect, an apostolic theology: the church's purpose is directional, outward, community-oriented. Its internal challenges are real, but they do not constitute grounds for suspending the mission.

6.3 The Incarnation as Ecclesiological Model

If the salt-and-light metaphors describe the church's social function, the incarnation of Christ provides its theological model. The incarnation is not merely a Christological event; it is an ecclesiological paradigm. As the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14), so the church is called to dwell among — not above, not at a distance from, but within — the communities it is called to transform.

Incarnational presence means, concretely, that the church's engagement with the community is characterized by proximity, continuity, and vulnerability. Proximity: the church positions itself where the community is, not where it is comfortable. Continuity: engagement is sustained and relational, not episodic and programmatic. Vulnerability: the church allows itself to be affected by the community's pain, to take on the community's burden, to risk being changed by the encounter.

The contrast with much of what was observed in the Abidjan study is instructive. Community engagement in the congregations studied was typically episodic — evangelistic campaigns during specific seasons, food distributions at Christmas, outreach workshops organized for a single week. These are not without value, but they fall short of incarnational presence. They resemble diplomatic visits more than dwelling.

The researcher observed one congregation in which a post-service discussion erupted over whether to participate in a community health fair organized by a local Muslim association. Some members were eager to participate; others cautioned against attending 'non-Christian events.' This tension, while theologically understandable, reveals an ecclesiology in which the fear of contamination overrides the mandate for engagement. Salt that fears the food it is meant to season has already lost its usefulness.

Incarnational theology does not require the church to endorse everything it encounters in the community. It requires the church to be present relationally, consistently, and compassionately in the community's life. The church can engage in a community health fair, bringing its distinctive witness, its healing ministry, and its theological vision to a space it enters not as a guest but as a neighbor.

7. Recommendations

8. Practical Implications for Urban West African SDA Ministry

The theological reorientation this article advocates has concrete practical implications for SDA congregations in urban West Africa. These are not exhaustive but are drawn directly from the findings of the Abidjan study.

8.1 Reframing Discipleship as Missional Formation

The most urgent implication is the need to reframe discipleship in terms of missional formation. Current discipleship practices in many congregations studied emphasize doctrinal literacy and spiritual piety — important goods — while neglecting the formation of members as community servants. A discipleship curriculum that integrates service, community engagement, and social responsibility as core theological categories, not peripheral ministries, would begin to close the gap between internal formation and external mission.

8.2 Transforming Church Infrastructure into Community Access Points

Church buildings represent significant community assets that are currently underutilized. The researcher's vision — of church facilities as community centers offering literacy classes, vocational training, health services, and childcare — is not merely programmatic but ecclesiological. A church building that is open to the community during the week communicates, through its architecture of access, the church's self-understanding as a servant community. The building becomes, in effect, an enacted sermon.

8.3 Building Intentional Community Networks

Several participants recognized that the church possesses social capital — professional networks, institutional connections, community relationships — that remains largely unmobilized for missional purposes. Intentional mapping and deployment of this social capital, including partnerships with NGOs, community leaders, women's groups, and government agencies, would create sustained relational bridges between the congregation and its neighborhood. Community ministry is most effective when it is networked rather than isolated.

8.4 Cultivating Missional Leadership

The data consistently identified pastoral leadership as the primary determinant of congregational engagement orientation. Congregations led by pastors who modeled community involvement and articulated a missional vision were measurably more engaged than those led by pastors who emphasized internal maintenance. This finding has direct implications for ministerial formation: seminary programs must prepare pastors not only as preachers and administrators but as missional leaders who understand their role as sending the congregation outward, not merely gathering it inward.

9. Conclusion

The SDA Church in urban West Africa stands at an ecclesiological crossroads. Its theological heritage, its institutional infrastructure, and the genuine compassion of its members constitute remarkable resources for community transformation. What is needed is a theological reorientation that brings these resources into alignment with the church's apostolic vocation.

The Matthean vision of the church as salt and light is not a program; it is an identity. Salt does not decide to season; it seasons by being salt. Light does not choose to illuminate; it illuminates by being light. The question the church in urban West Africa must ask is not whether to engage its community but whether it has the theological self-understanding that makes such engagement the natural expression of who it is.

To be the church is to be in the world as Christ was in the world: present, relational, vulnerable, and transformative. The call to be ekklesia — gathered, distinct, holy — is inseparable from the call to be apostello — sent, engaged, incarnate. These two vocations do not compete; they complete each other. A church that holds them together will not need to be persuaded to engage its community. It will find that it cannot help but do so.