Pastors Training Program: Western Kenya

By God's grace, we've just launched the Pastors Training Program in western Kenya 12 kilometers outside of Kitale. It went incredibly well. There were approximately 24 pastors attending along with six women who are leaders of women's ministries in their churches. It is common that a pastor has several churches that he has helped to plant and thus oversees. They told me that among the pastors present they had over 50 churches, or congregations, represented and over 1,000 members in total. I hadn't even considered those possibilities when we first agreed to invite 24 pastors to take part in the training. God is blessing us above and beyond what I could have imagined.

We arrived Wednesday at noon to the training site (a compound named "California" which previously had been a school and now is the location of one of the churches) and started right away with introductions and lessons. We had expected to start Thursday morning, but were encouraged by the enthusiasm of all present and couldn't pass up the opportunity to get started. Saturday, 3 1/2 days later, we concluded our first course in the training program on "How to Study the Bible". This was the first formal training that most of the pastors had ever had on how to study the Bible. For three of the pastors, this was their first ever opportunity to receive training for ministry.

The four of us (Ken Onywoki - Kenya, Eremias Bekele - Ethiopia, Johnathan Todd - USA, and I) worked as a team in our training time. We marveled at how the Lord put this team together and how we were able to complement each other in the various aspects of training.

Johnathan began each day teaching a portion of Philippians chapter 1. Philippians was the textbook for learning the skills of observation, interpretation, and application. Johnathan not only fed the pastors from God's Word, but also gave them an example of how the fruits of their study would prepare them to preach God's Word.

While we agreed to teach in English, because most of them had been through a high school equivalent education, yet Ken would still often summarize sessions in Swahili. Ken is also very discerning as to the incorrect or unhealthy influences on pastors and their congregations here in Kenya and thus often addressed those issues and practices in connection with what we were learning from Philippians.

Eremias's strengths are in the area of encouraging people one-on-one and also keeping us on track with providing clear assignments and goals for the pastors to be working on during our training time. Eremias would spend time getting feedback from pastors during the break times and also made sure we provided very clear assignments for the pastors to work on before meeting again in February.

My primary role was teaching the steps of how to study the Bible. This is a course I have taught numerous times in the past and was able to modify for these rural pastors. Because the aim is to train these pastors, we formed study groups in which to practice these skills after receiving instruction. So, I would cover one or two aspects of how to observe, interpret, or apply a text and then they would break into their groups and work together on these skills. Then they would report back to the main group on their progress and we would confirm or correct them as needed. The pastors responded very well to this format and worked exceptionally hard at studying Philippians.

PLEASE PRAY that these pastors and six women would continue to work through their assignments during the next months to become competent in studying God's Word. They formed five regional groups at the end of our time that would enable them to  meet every other week for accountability and prayer. Each group appointed a leader that will maintain weekly contact with the members. Ken Onywoki will maintain weekly contact with each leader.

Their assignments are: 1) to study the entire book of Philippians using the methods we taught, 2) to preach what they learn from Philippians to their congregations, and 3) to begin reading through the entire Bible as a year-long assignment.

PLEASE PRAY that the time in God's Word would transform not only their own lives but also the lives of those in their congregations.