Leadership Training

This is written by Kevin:

One of the apprehensions that I had about moving from our former ministry in Chongwe to our present ministry in Lusaka was finding ways to serve the Lord outside of the office. Before, I was more of a frontline missionary involved in evangelism, discipleship, church planting and leadership training. Now, my role is more administrative, and while I don’t like to call it a desk job, I do more supervision and mentoring of other missionaries than I do directly engaging Zambian nationals. I constantly tell myself that in the big scheme of things I am having a greater impact than ever, but I still sometimes miss the kind of ministry that we used to do. In addition, there aren’t a lot of missionaries who are serving here in Lusaka and it is a city of about 2 million people. This has caused me to seek areas where we can have a regular ministry with Zambian nationals, outside of the work I am doing as the Associate Cluster Strategy Leader for Zambia. Witnessing opportunities are everywhere, but I have been wanting some consistent type of discipleship or training ministry as well. A few months ago I met with the associational leader for Lusaka and asked him to identify some needs that they might have, or some areas where new churches need to be started. He directed me to a group of churches in the Chipata, Kabanana, Chazanga and Independence compounds. We have started visiting these churches on Sundays and have also offered our help in any way that might be needed. This has evolved into several things over the last few months. First, I am getting to preach in different churches every Sunday which keeps me fresh spiritually and also helps me keep up with my language skills. Also, I am meeting people, making friends and developing a vision for other kinds of ministries and new churches in these areas. However, what has really excited me is that I am getting the chance to do leadership training with all of the church leaders in this area. The Lord has worked things out so that on the 1^st Saturday of every month, about 50 of these men and women (Pastors and Deacons as well as secretaries, treasurers, Women’s leaders and Youth Workers) are gathering together and I am leading a series of leadership seminars for them. It has been wonderful to be able to engage in “real” ministry in addition to my leadership role in the mission. My job is important and I like it, but being able to be involved in one on one ministry with Zambians is more like a gift the Lord has given me on top of the other things I do. Yesterday was the first time of the actual training and 33 people were in attendance.  These 33 people represented 9 different churches from these 4 different compounds.   Please pray that this will evolve into further training, more effective churches, more people reached for Christ and more new churches planted in Lusaka.

This is just a very small view of Chipata Compound where Kevin is holding his leadership training.  Just imagine, there are 3 other compounds just like this one(total 4) that are represented during this time.  I would say it is pretty important that these church leaders get some good biblical training.