The much anticipated Pastors Training organized by Charitos Transformation Africa took place in Witu, at Free Pentecostal Fellowship in Kenya Church after being postponed twice due to COVID-19 restrictions. The training was to take place in August 2020, pushed forward to April 2021 and then pushed to July 2021. The trainers stayed in a Guest House at Mpeketoni and commuted daily to Witu, some 30 km away.

The 50 participants were Pastors and Church leaders of Evangelical Churches from  Witu town, Kona Njema, Kipini, Chakamba, Sendemke, Soroko, Maisha Masha and Katzaka Kairu. The pastors who came from far flung areas like Kipini, Chakamba and Katsaka Kairu were facilitated with transport. The training took 4 days, that is, 6^th to 9^th July and then on Saturday 10^th July, the Pastors and the Church leaders came with their spouses for a couples seminar. 56 couples were in attendance making a total of 112 participants.

The facilitators covered the following lessons

 Dr. Silas Waweru

The biblical basis of leadership

1. What is Spiritual Leadership?
2. Preparation for Leadership
3. Why Spiritual Leadership

Three points were emphasised:

1. Discover—–individuals’ giftings and talents
2. Develop—–those gifts/talents
3. Deploy ——them to serve

Principles of church growth and planting

• How Churches grow
• Church Growth in the New Testament
• Characteristics of today’s Growing Churches
• Reasons for Growth
• Reasons for Lack of Growth
• The Four Fields Mark 4: 26-29;
  • The Empty Field (Entry Plan)
  • The seeded Field (Gospel Plan)
  • The Growing Field (Discipleship Plan)
  • The Harvested Field (Church Formation Plan)

REV. FREDRICK GATERU

The Preacher [2 Tim. 2:15]

Work hard so you can present yourself to God and receive his approval. Be a good worker, one who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly explains the word of truth.

• The Preacher’s Call
• The Preacher Must Be Devoted to the Scriptures
• The Preacher and His Inner Life
• The Anointing of the Man of God [Unction]
• The Preachers Theme

The Preachers Technique

• The Art of Illustration
• The Planning of Sermons
• The Art of Discovery

Preparing The Preacher

Special Types of Sermons

The Office of The Pastor

The Character and Spiritual Growth of The Pastor

• Personal Growth
• Character Formation
• Biblical Core Values

The Responsibilities of The Office of The Pastor

• Pastor as an Administrator
• Pastor as a Teacher
• Pastor as a trainer

The Pastor and His Family Priority  [Prov. 11:29]

Those who bring trouble on their families inherit the wind. The fool will be a servant to the wise.

Persona Wellbeing

• Emotional
• Physical
• Spiritual
• Social
• Economic

Michael Mbugua

Introduction to Church Administration and Management

Deuteronomy 31:9-13; Nehemiah 1-13; 1 Cor.12:28.

The Key Words that were explained:

• ‘At the place that He will Choose’
• ‘Assemble the People’
• ‘Men, Women, Little ones, the Sojourner’
• Read….before their hearing…
• ‘That they may Hear and Learn to Fear .
• Church administration as a gift of the Holy Spirit [1 Cor.12:28]

Nehemiah: A Model in Church Administration

• Valued Teamwork and Synergy (Nehemiah 2:7-18; 3:1-4; 6:12-31.)
• Knew how to organize a project (Nehemiah 3:1-32)
• He was Goal oriented and focussed (5:16; 6:3)
• Knew how to Delegate Responsibilities (13:1-13)

Keeping proper Church records was also taught and demonstrated. The Pastors were urged to Discover, Develop and Deploy Church Administrators to assist them in the day-to-day running of their Churches. Most of the participants acknowledged that they did almost everything in terms of Church Admin.

Michael also presented a model of a Job Description of a Church Administrator.

Making Disciples Who Make Disciples

• Who is a Disciple of Jesus Christ?
• Basic Elements of Discipleship

The Six Marks of A Disciple

• A Heart for Christ alone
• A Mind Transformed by the Word
• Arms of Love
•  Knees for Prayer
• A Voice to Speak the Good News
• A Spirit of Servanthood and Stewardship

After the four days training, each Pastors received a resource package that consisted of:

1. A Bible Concordance
2. Africa Bible Commentary (either in English or Kiswahili, depending on language preference)
3. Preach the Word (either in English or Kiswahili)
4. Preachers of a Different Gospel
5. Neno Biblia Takatifu – a Study Bible in Kiswahili)
6. Preparing Biblical Messages [Kuandaa Jumbe za Biblia]
7. Maisha Yanayoongozwa na Malengo (The Swahili translation of Rick Warren’s book, ‘The Purpose-Driven Life’.
8. How to Preach (By Rev. Dewey Huston).
9. 1 Solar Lantern

The Couples Seminar

Areas Covered:

• Godly Parenting – by Rev. Rahab Kinyua
• Biblical Marriage – by Alice Chege
• Ministering together as a Couple and Family Priority – by Rev. Nancy Gateru

Facilitators’ Observations:

1. The training and the seminar attendance was very good
2. Many Pastors couldn’t understand English because of low levels of Education. The education levels in this region are far much lower than those of Hindi and Mpeketoni regions where similar trainings have been held.
3. The class participation was good and very exciting.
4. The trainers felt that the training material need to be translated into Kiswahili in order to meet the felt needs of these pastors. This will help them be able to use the same materials to teach their congregations.
5. A follow-up pastors training was highly recommended, as soon as possible.
6. There was no adequate time to cover the materials or hold group discussions
7. A session for ‘’How to use the Recourse Materials’’ should be planned as many Pastors have never interacted with Commentaries and Bible Concordances. Many saw them for the first time during this training.
8. The integrity issues and morality of Pastors was adequately discussed. There seems to be a big problem on this area. The same concern was raised by the youths during Youth Leaders Training in April.
9. The establishment of a Bible School and Training Centre cannot be over-emphasized. We were faced by several challenges in Witu especially with COVID 19 precautions.
10. Lack of water. The taps kept running dry and we had to organize for water to be transported from elsewhere, thus compromising on the health of the participant and facilitators.
11. Poor sanitation within the Church
12. An unkempt church compound
13. Loitering dogs in the church compound
14. Church generator repeatedly malfunctioning in the middle of sessions
15. Churches in Witu cannot handle a large number of participants.

The Impact of The Training

• Many Pastors testified of transformation in their lives at the end of the training.

• Several confessed that their preaching will never be the same again.
• None of them had previously owned a Study Bible, a Commentary or a Bible Concordance. Many were seeing such for the very first time! It was all joy as they were being helped on how to use them by the trainers. They all looked overwhelmed!

• Pastor Kahidi from Kipini expressed the need for the establishment of a Bible School by Charitos saying a week is not enough to adequately cover all the lessons. This was very true for the teachers had to rash through the lessons. This too has been the prayer for Charitos to establish a Bible College in the region.

Prayer Points:

1. Pray for the establishment of a Bible College in Lamu County. Pray that God in His own miraculous ways will provide funds that Charitos Transformation Africa is trusting Him for, to undertake this noble work.
2. Pray for these pastors that they will make good use of the material given and that they will purpose to live in holiness.
3. Pray that God may lay burdens on evangelists. Many people in this region are yet to have a relationship with Jesus. The largest Evangelical Church represented had only 80 members.
4. The second session of the Youth Leaders Training takes place in Witu on 19^th to 23^rd July, a week from today. (The first session took place in April ) Pray for the Facilitators and the Participants.

We at Charitos Transformation Africa continue to thank God for our partnership with The Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) for providing the funds and the Pastors packages to make these trainings a reality. We are also grateful for Dr. Silas Waweru and his wife Rev. Rahab Kinyua for availing their time to join us in training the Pastors. We are also very grateful to Rev. Fredrick Gateru and his wife Rev. Nancy Gateru for their time to join us in teaching the Pastors. They are busy people as Overseers of many Churches in Machakos County and we thank God for their passion for God’s work in Lamu County.

We thank all of you who prayed, called, sent your support, and thought about us as we conducted the trainings.

May God bless you all.