Origins & Calling
I was born and raised in Ghana, in a family that taught me to take Scripture seriously and to take other people more seriously still. The double calling of pastor and theologian was, in many ways, settled before I had words for it: I wanted to know God truly, and I wanted to help others know Him truly too. That instinct has never left me.
Between 2002 and 2006 I trained in theology at Valley View University, the Adventist university in Ghana. There I learned the disciplines of biblical exegesis, doctrinal study, and pastoral preaching. Soon after graduation I was ordained a district pastor in the Pru-District (Brong Ahafo), where I served local congregations and walked alongside families through baptisms, weddings, illness, and bereavement.
Graduate Studies in Switzerland
In 2010 I moved to Switzerland to pursue graduate studies. I read for an M.Th. at the University of Lausanne (2010–2014), focused on systematic and biblical theology, and then completed a Ph.D. at the University of Geneva (2014–2019).
My doctoral research developed what I have come to call Sunsumatology — a careful theological reading of the Akan concept of sunsum (commonly translated “spirit”) across pneumatological, anthropological, and cosmological frames.
Pastoral Ministry in Geneva
Since 2019 I have served as senior pastor of the Adventist English Church in Geneva, within the Swiss Romand–Ticino Federation. Our congregation is small, international, and refreshingly varied: students at the international organisations, families from a dozen countries, retirees, diplomats, refugees. Each Sabbath the front pews carry four continents.
Writing & Public Theology
I write regularly for the Adventist Review, Adventist World, and Ministry Magazine, and occasionally for Spectrum and the Journal of Adventist Education. My published books to date include the daily devotional Step by Step with Jesus, the academic monograph What is this Thing Called “Sunsum”?, and the contextual pneumatology The Spirit With Us.
Research Interests
- Pneumatology — the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, with particular attention to African and Akan context.
- Christocentric worldview — how the person and work of Christ reorder all of life, not just “religious” life.
- Adventist theology — biblical eschatology, sanctuary theology, and the pastoral application of doctrine.
- Akan thought & the Gospel — translating Christian doctrine in dialogue with West African idioms.
- Hermeneutics & preaching — rightly dividing the Word of truth from pulpit to small group.
A Closing Word
If anything written on this site is useful to your faith, your study, or your ministry — to God be the glory. If anything is unclear, please write. The labour of theology is never solitary; it belongs to the whole church.
In the service of the Word,
Clifford Owusu-Gyamfi, Ph.D.
Pastor, Adventist English Church · Geneva
Ph.D.
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